PL UK Television rights tender 2019/22

I’d add more :slight_smile:

Fair enough. I do find it a strange as a Dutchman I can see Man Utd - Brighton on television (if I have the right subscription obviously), but Mancunians or Brighton fans can’t and have to wait 'till MotD (apart from the illegal ways).

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So its not every game then its 200 out of the 380. Still an increase from what it is currently though.

Me and my mate will go and watch whatever football games we can and that has included Bristol City (several times), Charlton Atheltic and AEK Athens, and I’ve done that at the expense of watching the Arsenal play.

The reason I’ve done that is because the atmosphere of a real life football game with a mate of mine and a pint in hand is way better than watching Arsenal lose to Crystal Palace on some shit Russian stream on my laptop sat at home with my hands down my pants.

And if by chance Arsenal do win, then I can watch the highlights as much as I want to on reddit and match of the day afterwards.

Fair enough my limit is professional football, so I’ll usually only go as low as league 2 but I’ll happily sacrifice watching Arsenal play if it means going to an actual game with mates with atmosphere and having that fun social interaction which I imagine is the actual pull of most fans that go to lower league games.

Don’t get me wrong I’ll watch any Arsenal game I can even if means risking my laptop getting viruses from all sorts of shit streams but I don’t mind sacrificing watching games to go and watch an actual irl game of football because that’s just different and fun.

@Phoebica @JakeyBoy @Calum @GunnerGirl

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Good. Hopefully they won’t ever show live PL games at 3pm on a Saturday anyway, then people won’t have a choice to make.

I know what you mean, though. As I said before, going to a lower league game is great craic. Sometimes being at the Emirates etc, it can feel like you’re at the theatre or something.

At Colchester, a few of the players even come in the pub afterwards. I remember once having a long conversation with Sanchez Watt about Arsenal :grin:

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Absolute madness imo. What if you missed a great arsenal game because you went and watched Bristol City have a boring game against some championship team?

An Arsenal fan always should put his team over any other. Can’t believe this is even a debate lol

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And what if you missed a great game and a good time to watch a boring Arsenal game? If being an Arsenal fan means sitting on a sofa watching a TV then why can’t you just record it and watch it when you get home or download it later?

I really don’t mean to cause offence but it sounds like you’re so used to consuming football as a service that you can’t really relate to what it means to other people. It’s absolutely nothing to do with putting another team above your own. When Cristo says he’d rather go and see Bristol City, I’d imagine the subtext of that is he’d rather have a day out at an event with a mate doing something they wouldn’t do all the time and having a few drinks and a laugh rather than sit at home alone trying to find a stream for a 3pm game.

Unless you’ve literally never missed an Arsenal game to do something else, I can’t see what’s so surprising.

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I’ve had a few days out watching other teams in Scotland and the national team. It’s a good day out but you don’t really give a fuck about the result. I would only miss an arsenal game if one of my mates had no one to go to their teams game with. Done it last year and missed the Stoke home game and doing it tomorrow aswell but thats not me choosing to go see another team over Arsenal that’s helping a mate.

I can see where cristo comes with the social aspects tho.

Also I would never record an arsenal match. Defeats the whole purpose of live football. Either watch it live or watch the highlights

Tbh now its easy to catch up on a game if your doing something else.Games are played at so many varied times and days now its too hard to watch all the games anyway.

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Exactly. When I watch a 3pm game on a stream, more often than not it’ll stop working and you’ll spend a lot of time finding new streams. Would rather catch up with the match later on, you can find full matches online nowadays.

Going to watch a local team isn’t choosing them over Arsenal at all. Being glued to an armchair doesn’t mean someone is a better fan. And actually I do care about the result - particularly Colchester, because I have grown up with them and follow them quite intently.

Now this bit I agree with. Once tried to record an Arsenal match and then watch it later, couldn’t do it, just felt totally wrong lol

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Anyway, i’m going to watch boring Colchester in a boring League Two game tomorrow :sunglasses:

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When George Graham was manager you could talk to players like Merson, Adams, Groves etc in the pub, before a match :grinning:

@Craigie nailed it. When I’m on my death bed I’m not gonna say “oh I wish I had more memories of watching Arsenal convincingly beat Swansea in that season where we finished fourth again on a dodgy Russian stream” I’m gonna say “I wish I had more memories with my best mate like that one time we went to see QPR vs Charlton when we were really hungover and I shouted really shit abuse at Harry Redknapp because I was sat by the dug our such as “yeah mate you’re not a wheeler dealer you’re a shit wheeler dealer HAH TAKE THAT” and you think he might have heard but you’re not really sure and don’t really care because you’re hungover and feeling edgy but having a good time with your pal oh and Charlton scord an injury time winner that saved them from relegation and everyone went insane”.

But yeah craigie really made my point for me. I’d obviously never sacrifice an Arsenal quarter/semi/final or genuinely important game against the big 6 or whatever, but games against Palace and Stoke etc. have pretty low priority if it means doing something fun with my mates instead and often I’ll incorprate the game itself or even just work around it as well.

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I was actually going to go to the Colchester game tomorrow with a friend too but decided against it haha. It’s not too bad seeing them play to be honest, definitely can’t beat live football on a Saturday afternoon.

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Ha yeah. And there was The Tuesday Club. The good ol’ days.

I was actually listening to a podcast the other day with David Bentley on. He was saying, by the end of his career he had fallen out of love with the game as it had changed so much (though, him being shit might also have had something to do with it, lol). He had a point though, he said it is now a “James Milner culture” when having a personality is a crime.

When he started at Arsenal there were lots of characters and they’d all play pranks on each other and hang out in the pub. They were not mollycoddled, when they went down they were told to just get up - even Wenger had a backbone in those days. There were proper fights on the training ground too - he mentioned one between Cygan and Toure, and people just let them get on with it.

It’s nice to see some of that culture still alive in the lower leagues.

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Yeah that’s why I don’t like that whole snapchat and instagram culture surrounding footballers now. They and their personalities are so managed, and cultivated, and manicured to suit branding and image needs rather than actually being footballers and human beings.

So boring.

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Ya Cristo Ya

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Aha!

Interesting viewpoint here. I pretty much agree with him.

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