Not broadcasting house
Darragh loves progress.
First of all I’d like to welcome Millwall this week into the exclusive club as an official rival of Leeds. Although a couple of months late with this induction if you could call it that, I thought it was worth a mention that through pure persistence and generally outplaying us in the last couple of meetings, Leeds fans have finally started to care about the opposition more so than when we started playing consistently again in the 07/08 Season.
Back then our biggest worries were the 15 points and I think our 4-2 win that day sort of summed that up. That was the day with the smashed buses and I think the last 3 o clock kickoff between the two teams in Elland Road which has gone with our claim to not caring at all about the game. More recently though Millwall have become somewhat of a bogey team for us or probably more so a team that knows how to turn us over. Putting aside our poor results in the Den, we haven’t won the last 2 outings in Elland Road and I think this and especially the playoffs the Season before last has finally pushed Millwall into the rivals category. Of course there was the hooliganism in the 80′s but that was more or less forgot about after 20 years or so of a void. Now in the build up to this game though as well as the games last Season there seems to be an ever increasing amount abuse/banter (depending on what you personally might call it) in the online world. The Millwall fixture is now one that’s up there with most of our Yorkshire derby’s this Season and as much as some fans might hate to admit it, I do think it signals (or signaled last Season) the induction of Millwall as one of our current day rivals. As long as we are still in the same division anyway.
Keeping with the theme of Saturdays game we saw a glimpse of the future this week with the LUTV box-office service being used for an actual league game for the first time ever. Perhaps someone can correct me on this but this is the first time in English Football history that this has been done, all be it only in certain countries abroad but still groundbreaking enough. I’m fairly sure there are similar services in America for Baseball and NFL and I think most people presume that this is the future for Football as well as the clubs slowly become bigger than Sky. What it means though is that those selected few who are not living in England or Ireland but have LUTV and are willing to pay an extra 5 pounds to watch the game can now do so as Bates potentially revolutionises the industry.
Hopefully for those of us l abroad who aren’t from Spain, Germany and South Africa or those who just can’t make the game this stream makes its way to another website where it is possible to view without the help of LUTV. For now until licenses are granted for all countries worldwide, or at least especially the main Leeds following of GB, Ireland and Scandinavia then it is never going to work in Bates’ favour as people look for possible illegal methods of viewing the game. If in 5 years time though licenses have been granted for supporters abroad (and especially Ireland) then it’s quite obvious that there’s a huge market there for 23 home games in a Season. I think most fans would be willing to pay 100-150 quid for such a privilege and Bates gets exactly what he wants from investing in LUTV and Yorkshire Radio in the past couple of years. I’ll leave valuing that sort of thing to the experts although I hope it’s not the same people who logically decide the ticket prices. Until then it’s actually a very exciting thought, the possibility of such an option but God only knows what Sky and other broadcasters will do to stop this from developing. I suppose it’s just a case of watching this space though as it will be very interesting to see the battle develop between the clubs and broadcasters over the next few months/years. I must say though in a phrase I hate both saying and hearing that Irish eyes will indeed be smiling if such a service became available for a club that is in the media far too little for our liking!
Darragh Mullen.
