By Jason McKeown

The Notts County fans were not holding back. Barely a minute into last Saturday’s lunchtime bore draw against Crewe, a chant of “Sky TV is f**king s**t” echoed around Meadow Lane and into the homes of armchair viewers watching the game live on Sky Sports.

And maybe it was in protest at the day’s TV coverage forcing fans to turn up two and half hours earlier than they would normally have to on a Saturday afternoon. But given it was less than 48 hours since it had been announced County’s crucial-looking Good Friday trip to Bradford City had been switched to a Thursday night, so it can be televised by Sky, there seemed to be a clear motive behind the swear-ridden chanting.

Because across both Bradford and Nottingham, last week’s news that a tasty late season six-pointer is moving dates prompted groans, misery and anger. Lots and lots of anger. Notts County supporter hotel bookings in Bradford would need to rearranged or cancelled, train tickets to travel to the match on the Friday suddenly useless. The pubs, shops and other businesses in Bradford that rely on matchday trade are suddenly facing a very different, much quieter bank holiday weekend. What could easily have been another 20,000+ crowd will now be lower.

So little notice and little choice. EFL clubs have signed up for a lucrative TV deal, and with it signed away their right to stage games when they want. Sky calls the shots and make the decisions. And they have decided that Bradford City vs Notts County on a Thursday night is what will gain them TV viewers and advertisers. Deal with it.

The fun won’t stop there. We still await news on whether City’s penultimate game of the season at Doncaster will be moved for TV. A decision will be announced on Thursday 3 April.

This has become a frustrating habit. We’re in the first year of this new Sky EFL deal and there’s bits of it to like. City have played 48 league and cup games so far this season. Sky Sports has provided live coverage of 30 of those matches (it will be at least 35 out of 56 by the end of the season, or maybe even more if City finish in the play offs). That’s included midweek league and cup games that are not always easy to attend, especially away matches. A pair of League Two games a weekend are chosen to be streamed live on their Sky Sports Plus platform at an earlier kick off time of 12.30pm. And if you carry a wider interest in the rest of the division, it’s nice to be able to pick a game to watch on a Saturday lunchtime.

But of course, it’s not so great when your own plans are changed and even wrecked for TV. Sky Sports’ deal works where they pick the first half of the season’s 12.30pm games in the summer, before the season begins. Then in early November they schedule the early TV kick offs for January and February. It gave us all a bit of notice. And though it was a bit annoying that home games against Walsall and Harrogate were switched to lunchtime, most of us could just about live with it. As long as it remained a rarity rather than regular occurrence.

The problem has come in recent weeks. Not unreasonably, Sky Sports want to be able to screen the key games of the League Two run-in. It’s obviously very difficult to predict what those fixtures will be months ahead. So on a rolling basis, they’re now making weekly announcements over which games they will screen (and move), with a four-week notice (or in the case of the fate of Doncaster-City, it will be three weeks’ notice). The Salford game was one recent example of this relatively late kick off change. Though with the Ammies tiny away capacity meaning that demand for away tickets hopelessly outstripped supply, at least a lot more of us were able to (legally) watch the dramatic victory. Accrington this weekend has been moved too. A bit more annoying, but at least it’s a localish fixture.

But then patience began to wear thin. Moving Swindon Town away on March 12 to a 12.30pm kick off is just plain rude on travelling fans. It’s a four-hour journey from Bradford to Swindon, meaning fans will have to set off annoyingly early on a Saturday morning. And then came along the news of the Notts County switch.

The Notts County one matters for several reasons. It comes with four games to go, which means it could conceivably be the fixture in which the Bantams seal promotion. Only by moving the game to Thursday, the odds of this happening have considerably dropped. No matter what the state of play is between now and then, to be promoted on that Thursday night against Notts County, the Bantams would need to end the evening 13 points clear of every team outside the top three. Anything less, and with the rest of the division having 12 points still to play for, other teams could still overtake them.

It is a dream for any club and any fanbase to achieve promotion on their own ground. And maybe that will still happen for City, but there’s every chance instead that promotion could be sealed on the Good Friday when everyone else plays. All massive if, buts and maybes – and of course, getting promoted is what matters rather than when and how – but what could have a momentous home occasion for the Bantams is likely to be watered down.

It is the price of success, and there are upsides for sure. But for City and supporters, this seems to be a TV deal that comes with problems. Ryan Sparks has already revealed that it is less financially lucrative to the Bantams, who were making more money streaming games on iFollow. It’s also clear there is a growing trend of supporters missing midweek matches as they can watch it from the warmth of their home. Mustering the energy to get to Valley Parade on a freezing January Tuesday night was tough enough before, without the easier option of staying warm, sitting in your armchair and lifting up the remote.

We no longer get attendances announced on a Tuesday night and the swatches of extra seats suggests matchday revenue is lost by midweek matches being readily available through the red button.

But there is also the longer-term problem of the greater disparity in the carving up of TV revenue that, right now, City are on the wrong side of. The last TV deal saw the overall distributive revenue split 70% Championship, 18% League One and 12% League Two. Now, the divide is 80% Championship, 12% League One and only 8% League Two. It is true that everyone is getting more money, with the overall five-year deal worth £935 million – a 50% increase. But if everyone is making more but others are getting a bigger overall cut of that windfall, it ultimately leaves clubs in the bottom leagues in a worse relative financial position.

It’s a reason why City badly need to get promoted this season, and ultimately keep striving to return to the Championship – a level they’ve not played at for 21 years now. With each year of this TV deal, gaps are only going to grow between each of the three divisions. Newly promoted clubs are going to find their new landscapes more difficult to survive in. An increase in teams going straight back down seems inevitable. A bit like what is becoming common parlance between the Premier League and EFL.

So it’s catch 22 for the Bantams. They need to go up, which means they need to be successful. But being successful means more media interest, more TV commitments, and more messing about with kick offs. Who knows what kind of true matchday crowd City will now attract for that Thursday night game, but it won’t be as packed out with Notts County or City fans. It won’t be quite the occasion that, ironically, Sky Sports are trying to cover.       

But it might well prove to be a rare occurrence of every single supporter – City and County – coming together as one voice, collectively singing the same song. Are your microphones picking this up, TV gods? “Sky TV is f**king s**t!”

Categories: Opinion

Tags: BCAFC, Supporting