I’m a sports fan, in particular motor sports, and more definitively sports car racing. I’m addicted to it. I can’t get enough of it. However, as a general sports fan, I don’t particularly like being limited to what I have access to watch on television. My opinion has always been that sporting events should be on free to air TV. We are in fact, having advertisements pushed down our throats every time we watch something on FTATV. If I were to pay to have access to TV, I would expect to get it commercial free. Apparently, that is not the case. It’s like having to pay an admission fee just to get in the door, to one of those camping or homemaker exhibitions that come to town, and then having over zealous marketing people trying to ream you out by selling their products to you.
The payTV debate in Australia continues to rage on, with the take up ratio sitting at about 30% of Australian households. The general standard of free to air television in Australia is absolutely pathetic, so I guess in one way, that in itself is frustrating people enough, to sign up to payTV. I honestly can’t see the value in signing up to a network when I would probably only watch about an hour or so of TV per day during the working week, and if I was suckered into getting access to more sports on TV, I’d expect to pick and choose the channels I want, without the repeats of sitcoms, news, lifestyle and other rubbish channels of their choice being thrust upon me.
Now, it’s been pointed out to me that I can miss out on watching the events that I like, because payTV are monopolizing many sporting codes and events. I’m fine with that. I only have so much time to watch the multitude of motorsport, cricket and football events that are telecast across the many mediums that are freely available anyway. If a particular sports series chooses to make it harder for fans to get live access to their code by selling their souls to a payTV network, I won’t get to watch it any more. It’s as simple as that. I’ll be mildly disappointed, but will generally catch up with it on a no charge, commercial free replay later, if I feel like it. It amuses me when marketers tell us how easy their products are available and then make it extremely difficult for the consumer to gain access to them. Motor sport is a very expensive pastime for the participants and sponsors. I would have thought that they would be lobbying promoters to make their coverage more easily accessible to fans. The Big Bash League (20/20 cricket), here in Australia is a prime example. In it’s first couple of seasons, it was shown on payTV. I wasn’t interested in paying and in not being able to get access, I wasn’t interested. Two years ago, they shifted over to FTA, and it’s been one of the big success stories in Australian sport, with fantastic TV ratings and sellout attendances at matches. I became a fan of this big hit version of cricket, with its brilliant entertainment value, however, if it disappears off FTA and goes back to payTV, they lose me and a lot of others.
photo theherald.com.au
There’s no doubt that live access to an event is the preferred way to watch, but if they are going to charge me for something that I can see later, for free, they’ve lost me. I haven’t seen a movie at the cinema for years, for that same reason.
I did however, sign up to the WEC (World Endurance Championship) for their 20 euro streaming service last year. Initially, I wasn’t happy with doing this, for the aforementioned reasons, however it turned out quite well, with only the events I wanted to see being available and being shown in good quality, advertising free. I considered the service they provided, with the excellent Radio Le Mans commentary and first class live timing to be exceptional, value for money. Hopefully they will continue with it this year.
The DTM (German Touring cars) series, Tudor United Sports Cars (U.S.), ADAC GTmasters, Blancpain GT, Pirelli World Challenge, Japanese Super GT, Bathurst 12 Hr and other motorsports series and events from around the world all make their racing available via live streaming, with most also making instant complete race replays immediately available. So, to put it simply….. If sports series choose to take the payTV money, and enjoy the short term financial benefits, they will face the consequences of losing fans and sponsors, which will ultimately prove very hard to win back.
photo autosport.com
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