You know what I mean- UEFA CL games, or EPL games will be predominantly at the same time give or take a couple. How come they don't spread them out a bit more for more viewership?
Seriously? Because if they're too early, people won't come. And if they're too late, people won't come. If empty stands aren't a problem, then by all means schedule games at 7:30 in the morning and 11:15 at night. I'm sure that'll work out great.
Please don't be a jackass. You're not smarter than anyone. In fact, judging by your answer, you're probably dumber than most. Game kickoff for the CL was the same time in Belarus as it was in England even though it is 2 hours ahead. They could start games at the same time locally but 2 hours ahead in the Eastern timezones. Or this saturday 5 EPL games start at the same time and on Sunday there are only 2 games which will overlap for about a hour. Obviously moving a game by a hour isn't going to horrible effect attendance.
I think that 3 pm local in England is the standard kickoff time. Not only for EPL, but for the lower leagues as well. The games at other times are nationally televised there on Sky Sports, while any 3 pm match is not. This is to encourage people to attend their local team's game, whether this is an EPL or League 2 team. With the debut of televising soccer the lower leagues were worrie that televising EPL matches would dramatically decrease their attendance so that rule was put into effect. As far as the champions league, i'm not exactly sure. MY guess, is that they like to have one standard match time that can be planned far in advance into any broadcaster's schedule, and they can show whatever game they choose. I would equate this to the NFL having all games at either 1 or 4 pm. CBS or FOX can plan to have those slots open every sunday, but dont have to choose which game their going to show on each particular station until a few days before.
BTW, IMO, the EPL should add Sat and Sun night matches, maybe 8 pm kickoff. I'm not sure what prevents them from doing this, I can only see this producing increased ratings since thats an extra match that would not have been televised there. If they're worried about oversaturating the market, look at the US with Football. We have 5 weekly slots of football and every single one draws high ratings, no matter who is playing.
group matches in tournaments, and league matches in the last two days of the season have simultaneous (and i mean simultaneous) kickoffs because the results of one match could affect the strategy in another. voilà!
Don't worry, you had a valid question. Domestic leagues should stay the way they are...but I saw what you were saying in regards to the Champions League. To which guignol answered
Wow great answers. Thanks everyone! Its nice to see everything not thrown out the window in favor of advertising revenue.
funnily enough, the domestic tv market, for sky & setanta at least (which still easily makes up the bulk of the total tv rights) isn't driven by ratings. They care far more about subscription rates. As they'd have to pay more for those extra games, it's not certain whether it'd be worthwhile
It's also unclear whether the local police services would regularly sanction late games on weekends either. As the BBC often noted on their blog about choices for FA Cup games in the past, Greater Manchester police will allow starts after 5:00 pm (Saturdays) while the Metropolitan Police (London) typically does not. Timezone-based starts for the Champions League aren't really used aside from Russia because most of Europe is in one time zone (UK/Ireland/Portugal/Iceland to the west and Turkey/Russia to the east being the main exceptions). It's a little different from how our timezones are formed in North America (among other places). So they standardize the start at 8:45 CET / 7:45 UK/WET (with the adjustment for DST).
Since I've been following European soccer for a while now, I've always wondered why there's not much of a tradition nighttime weekend matches in England. Like 7 or 8 pm local time (which would equate to 2 or 3 pm my time, US EST). Germany, Spain and Italy all have night (locally) matches, but England seems to generally only have them on weeknights. But then for today sunset in England is listed as 3:53 pm, while here in Indiana it's 5:20 pm (via Weather Channel), so is starting a game 4 hours after sunset not something England would particularly want to do on a Friday or Saturday, or is it down to the tradtional 3pm kickoff and possibly police availability that late weekend matches don't take place?
i've also wondered why england and germany have primarily daytime matches; i've assumed it's down to climate, since it can get nippy in blighty.
There's one point that noone mentioned yet: the live conference. Contrary to the big American sports, soccer is a low scoring sport, a conference of 8 matches pretty much guarantees to show a goal at least every 10 minutes or so, usually even more frequently. With League matches all over the weekend and UEFA Cup on Thursday there's loads of football coverage as it is, it seems unlikely that so many people would watch more than 2 CL matches in a week anyway. With 2 fixed times and the option to show a live conference on each of them, the UEFA probably doesn't lose much, and gets additional viewers that wouldn't tune in for a single match, but watch the conference. Apart from that, I believe it has a lot to do with tradition and stadium audiences, as was already mentioned. The Friday night fixtures in the Bundesliga tend to get less spectators than the favoured Saturday afternoon. In this regard, it should also be mentioned that England and Germany tend to have much more away fans than Spain or Italy, night matches would almost always mean to force these fans to stay overnight or not come at all, while they usually can get home before midnight after afternoon fixtures.
Friday and saturday nights are the most popular nights for going out, Football would struggle to compete with that.
What I've always wondered is why the EPL doesn't have a terrestrial broadcast agreement. With the cost of living in England it seems at worst insulting and at best thoughtless to make supporters pay to watch their club on television. Wouldn't BBC, ITV, et al be interested or are they just happy televising highlights?
Maybe its because there is not enough advertising time to make it worth it for broadcasters to pay big money to show it? American sports have built in time outs for TV advertisements, most of which become more constant when the games are closer to the end. In soccer, it is too easy to know how to skip the commercials.
this is excellent as hypotheses go, but only applies to the marginal US market. european viewers want the whole match (there's more than just goals to the sport) of a team from their own country if one is playing. conferences (we call them multiplexes) are only shown on days 37 and 38 of the season. they are made possible by, but are in no way the reason for, the simultaneous kickoffs on those matchdays. the REAL and ONLY reason for these is not to advantage teams kicking off after other results are known. in france we tend to bitch and moan about kickoffs other than 20:45 or 21:00, and i'm sure the only reason is that man, french or otherwise, is a creature of habit. i especially find your point about away fans compelling and a real study about it would be interesting. lyon fans do go to bordeaux or le mans in their hundreds, but they don't get home until 5-6 am. going to the stadium can be part of a night out; establishments near the stadium do a roaring business after the match, and painting old lyon red after a victory is SOP for many. here the night is still young at 11, even those continental revellers who disdain football don't get started until about then... but then we have a lot less beer to get down the neck than you do!