Accy Chairman’s letter to EFL about ifollow

[ChapSmurf]

8 minutes ago, Leaping Lannys Perm said:

I'm sure there is something in the rules about having to sell a certain number of streams before you get a penny.

 

Some League 2 club tweeted about it during the pandemic. They weren't hitting the number so they weren't getting anything whilst Bolton, a very big club in the division was hitting the number and therefore was.

 

That's probably part of the issue.

 

It was Colchester. At the time (it may still be the case) a club could keep all the revenue generated through it's own web site, plus the first 500 bought by the away team. So if Bolton fans went on to Colchester's site and bought their match passes, Colchester made revenue. But of course it doesn't work like that; Bolton fans would have bought through their own club site.

 

The argument from Colchester was that they sold 492 passes, plus they got the revenue from the first 500 from Bolton (952 in total). Bolton sold 2252 (1752 in total (minus the first 500)) so Bolton made more money. I think this is Accrington's argument too, i.e. why isn't the revenue split 50/50 or given purely to the home team.

 

If Accrington want to sell their own I.P. then they should be allowed to do that in my opinion, as I mentioned in my post above. However, it's not just them that are playing and that's something I didn't mention in my other post, somewhat deliberately.

 

Accrington have no right to sell any other clubs I.P. as the other club owns that. So if they are playing us for instance, we have the right to refuse Accrington profit from our I.P. via streams, and this is essentially where imbalance of the iFollow revenue comes in to play.

 

Accrington's away capacity is c. 1800 and the likelihood is we would sell that out. Therefore that is the maximum that they can profit from physical ticket sales. If the first 500 away passes bought for iFollow still go to the home team, that's like getting an extra 200 people in at £25.00 a ticket. If Wednesday sold 1000 passes, why shouldn't we benefit from that? After all, it's not our fans fault that Accrington's away capacity is smaller than our average away attendance and they've already generated an extra £5000.00 in iFollow passes from us in the first place. If that happened for all of their 23 home games, that's an extra £115,000 a season from away fans alone.

 

Yet if they want to try and sell their I.P. on their own, good luck to them. It's their right to do so.

 

[thewookieisdown]

Generally better to get someone else to read these things through before sending....

 

I wonder how sensible it is for them. He favours a collective deal, and surely it must be the case that Accrington would expect to do better in a collective than in a world of individual club deals. (Just as EPL rights, although favouring Chelsea etc, actually favour Chelsea less than demand patterns suggest, and do redistribute towards the Brentfords). He seems to be saying too much leaks to third parties, which seems highly plausible. But you wonder if he isn't taking a stand on principle which is going to lose them money.

 

You can't know without the numbers, but then again he probably doesn't know the numbers for going solo.

 

Accrington's position aside, it would be interesting to see what the evidence is on how, if at all, ifollow transmission reduces attendances. 

[@owlstalk]

6 minutes ago, Swfcsi said:

Last time I phoned them the knocked 12 pounds off so for internet phone and two multi rooms and all channels I should be paying about £75 ??

 

 

I'm cancelling sky but the last contract I have had is:

Sky  
Sky Q box
Sky box for the bedroom (multiroom)
All Sky Channels
Sky Cinema
Sky Sports

£48 per month

I don't have Sky broadband as I found it was way too slow compared to Plusnet (who are the fastest providers to our building by miles even though it's on the same exact phone line)
I have a phone line with either plusnet or BT (can't remember) but dont' have a phone plugged into it

So yeah

Anything over £50 is crackers

Anything over £75 is TOTALLY Crackers

£160 is just utter madness and you need to half that at least.

[@owlstalk]

 

 

Another thing to consider is that if clubs did it on their own you're then at the mercy of the club's chairman on what it charges YOU to watch the streams

 

[Teddy Nickelarse]

9 minutes ago, @owlstalk said:

WHAT THE ACTUAL

I am seriously considering starting a business where I get people like you to give me their personal details and sky account details so I can call Sky and get your bill down from that much (which is absolutely RIDICULOUS by the way) to around £50 per month for the exact same package (and maybe even more like more boxes for other rooms etc), and charging just one month's difference

So if I got your bill from £160 to £50 per month you pay me £110 for my time and service

Would be like printing money

Easiest thing in the world is calling Sky and getting them to drop their price

 

Anyone paying more than £75 (and that's a lot) needs to be seriously thinking about calling Sky and getting that right down immediately as you're literally just giving money away 

Know where youre coming from but I pay £90.60 pm though that includes the Sky Glass TV purchase and two mobile SIMs with plenty of data and unlimited  calls. Ultra fast BB ( obviously you can get cheaper/slower but not really the answer for streamed TV. Glass includes Netflix.  I re-negotiate every year.

You're right though, if you don't  negotiate you do pay more.

PS with Glass you can add Sports or BT etc without long term contract - 31 day cancellation. 

 

[@owlstalk]

1 minute ago, Teddy Nickelarse said:

Know where youre coming from but I pay £90.60 pm though that includes the Sky Glass TV purchase and two mobile SIMs with plenty of data and unlimited  calls. Ultra fast BB ( obviously you can get cheaper/slower but not really the answer for streamed TV. Glass includes Netflix.  I re-negotiate every year.

You're right though, if you don't  negotiate you do pay more.

PS with Glass you can add Sports or BT etc without long term contract - 31 day cancellation. 

 

 

 

Problem with Sky Glass TV's is that it's not like looking through glass but steamed up foggy misty windows

 

 

[Teddy Nickelarse]

1 minute ago, @owlstalk said:

 

 

Problem with Sky Glass TV's is that it's not like looking through glass but steamed up foggy misty windows

 

 

To be fair mine isn't. Really pleased.

[ChapSmurf]

12 minutes ago, @owlstalk said:

Yeah I get that

What I'm saying is that he's spouted out this pretty immature letter and ranted without giving any specifics that anyone else could support.

If he'd have laid out the real problems saying 'Look - when we play a game we get 90 people streaming so we only get £9000 and out of that £4000 goes to I-Follow leaving us £5000 before tax which I just dont' think is fair or worth it' etc

 

 

Ah, I get you now. Yes it was a very vague and ill written rant, with zero substance. Perhaps the EFL know the figures and they didn't need to be quoted.

[apswfcowl]

All this because the Boxing Day game between Accrington Stanley and Barnsley will be available on ifollow. Not even sure they have the internet in Barnsley yet so he has nothing to worry about! Needs to chill out and get back to the pool.

[Rotherham Owl]

14 minutes ago, ChapSmurf said:

 

It was Colchester. At the time (it may still be the case) a club could keep all the revenue generated through it's own web site, plus the first 500 bought by the away team. So if Bolton fans went on to Colchester's site and bought their match passes, Colchester made revenue. But of course it doesn't work like that; Bolton fans would have bought through their own club site.

 

The argument from Colchester was that they sold 492 passes, plus they got the revenue from the first 500 from Bolton (952 in total). Bolton sold 2252 (1752 in total (minus the first 500)) so Bolton made more money. I think this is Accrington's argument too, i.e. why isn't the revenue split 50/50 or given purely to the home team.

 

If Accrington want to sell their own I.P. then they should be allowed to do that in my opinion, as I mentioned in my post above. However, it's not just them that are playing and that's something I didn't mention in my other post, somewhat deliberately.

 

Accrington have no right to sell any other clubs I.P. as the other club owns that. So if they are playing us for instance, we have the right to refuse Accrington profit from our I.P. via streams, and this is essentially where imbalance of the iFollow revenue comes in to play.

 

Accrington's away capacity is c. 1800 and the likelihood is we would sell that out. Therefore that is the maximum that they can profit from physical ticket sales. If the first 500 away passes bought for iFollow still go to the home team, that's like getting an extra 200 people in at £25.00 a ticket. If Wednesday sold 1000 passes, why shouldn't we benefit from that? After all, it's not our fans fault that Accrington's away capacity is smaller than our average away attendance and they've already generated an extra £5000.00 in iFollow passes from us in the first place. If that happened for all of their 23 home games, that's an extra £115,000 a season from away fans alone.

 

Yet if they want to try and sell their I.P. on their own, good luck to them. It's their right to do so.

 

 

Not sure I agree with you with the "our IP" the IP is the filming and distribution, we are contractually obliged to play by the EFL and cannot refuse. If the IP is us playing then we already give that a way for free as we don't get any of the away ticket sales.

 

Accrington are correct that there needs to a more equitable way of splitting this new income or at least a discussion by the EFL on how to do it.

[GermanBird]

34 minutes ago, Rotherham Owl said:

 

That isnt true, most clubs would and do give us as many tickets as they can, why would they restrict their income.

 

As a small home team, you probably lose money on it, by a cost of putting it on, loss of actual ticket sales, only income maybe a handful of out of area home fans watching it.

 

Accrington moved their home fans to other stands to make more space for us available. Which other team in the league did make any effort to give us more tickets? As far as I understand, there are usually empty at the home end. Please correct me, if I'm wrong.

 

I don't get the point, how small home teams lose money on it? (genuine question)

We will sell out the away games anyway - with or without ifollow. 

 

(I am aware that my view is based on supporting a "big fish in league one" and that my opinion might change as soon as we are a "small fish in a big pond" again)

[seat172]

Are I sur this is pukka?

The Englander isnt gud for a chair man.

[daleblue]

58 minutes ago, @owlstalk said:

Yeah I get that

What I'm saying is that he's spouted out this pretty immature letter and ranted without giving any specifics that anyone else could support.

If he'd have laid out the real problems saying 'Look - when we play a game we get 90 people streaming so we only get £9000 and out of that £4000 goes to I-Follow leaving us £5000 before tax which I just dont' think is fair or worth it' etc

 

 

Reading between the lines, what he's saying my ship is not at anchor but sailing in the prevailing wind.

Once you understand that concept then everything is quite clear.

[Mister Soul]

2 hours ago, @owlstalk said:

If he wanted to gain support he needs to publish the financials of the deal for his club

Show us what the other companies make from selling his streams and then show us what his club gets etc

Without figures nobody can either agree or disagree with his stance because he's not made it clear what he's against at all financially.

Nobody on this site can read that letter and say 'Yeah!! i agree with that' because there's simply no detail at all

I’m not entirely certain he’s bothered whether people agree or disagree. Ultimately he’s doing what he feels is best for his club. 

[Rotherham Owl]

7 minutes ago, GermanBird said:

 

Accrington moved their home fans to other stands to make more space for us available. Which other team in the league did make any effort to give us more tickets? As far as I understand, there are usually empty at the home end. Please correct me, if I'm wrong.

 

I don't get the point, how small home teams lose money on it? (genuine question)

We will sell out the away games anyway - with or without ifollow. 

 

(I am aware that my view is based on supporting a "big fish in league one" and that my opinion might change as soon as we are a "small fish in a big pond" again)

 

It isnt good for business to move your loyal season ticket holders out of their seats just to make a few extra quid. Can you imagine the uproar on here if that happened. There is also policing and security issues.

 

This is about ASFC not us. If say they were to play Ipswich on a Wednesday night. Ipswich have a descent away following but it is a long way. Some for many reasons, may think as it is on ifollow I will watch it on there rather than take the afternoon off work and travel all the way to Accrington and spend £25 on the ticket. Thus meaning ASFC are out by £25 plus any sundry spends.

 

Now some may not have gone anyway and watch it on Ifollow generating additional viewers. Loss on income is on the home side increased income is on the away side.

[HOOTIE AND THE SHIT TU]

1 hour ago, Swfcsi said:

It's all about money and greed and I myself take my hat off to him it's about time people stood up against it ,I mean £10 a game is a rip off ,I pay £160 a month for sky plus internet phone ect then Bt want £25 extra for there football plus the £10 a game with ifollow is a rip off ..(rant over ) 

Mate, call them

 

Ours recently went up from £84 to £117

 

We called Sky and went straight for the cancellation (option 2)

 

We now have a deal £70 for the first 5 months, £75 for the  remainder of the 18 month contract

 

We don't have broadband with them, they don't do Fibre to the premises

 

We have 4 x Q boxes, all the channels, box sets, disney, F1, everything

[fpowl]

Im Not sure how it’s split down 

 

does each club get a percentage of the I follows they sell?

 

what happens to match by match subscriptions?

 

personally I think there’s too many ways to pirate the streams 

 

there’s households all over the country that just pay £30-£60 a year and basically have all I follows, pay per view events, movies, box sets, sky sports, Bt sports etc…,

 

not saying it’s right but it’s easily accessible than paying the ridiculous fees the official channels charge. In the event of this, that’s surely lost revenue for everyone?

 

my guess is the club gets the seasonal subscriptions but match by match goes to the team hosting the game or that’s how it should be 

 

but it doesn’t cover the vast amount of Accessible pirating that goes off.

 

you can see why Accrington is aggrieved by this if 8,000 people are tuning in across streaming platforms to watch some of their biggest grossing games ( like when we play them ) they want compensating accordingly 

 

by pulling themselves out of the deal it might reduce the chances of them being streamed illegally and it weakens the I follow package. If more teams did this I’m sure someone will find a loophole around streaming it but it would certainly make people think twice if they can’t access 10-15 games a year because it’s unavailable.

 

it sounds like all they want is a bigger piece of the pie which is understandable it’s games like Accrington where ticket allocations are low that our fans turn to I follow 

 

plus with the cost of living as it is more and more people will no doubt be choosing to watch games online than attend that cold winter night fixture and spend £30 plus for the game in costs when they can watch it on their sofa in the warmth for £10 

 

 

[HOOTIE AND THE SHIT TU]

16 minutes ago, Swfcsi said:

Been on hold for 45 mins but I never realised I was paying to much ..

Chose option 2, they send you straight to cancellations, they can offer better deals

[HOOTIE AND THE SHIT TU]

1 minute ago, Swfcsi said:

What number did you ring I've been on over a hour

Don't know mate, my son called them, I'll ask him when he gets home

[GermanBird]

57 minutes ago, fpowl said:

Im Not sure how it’s split down 

 

does each club get a percentage of the I follows they sell?

 

what happens to match by match subscriptions?

 

personally I think there’s too many ways to pirate the streams 

 

there’s households all over the country that just pay £30-£60 a year and basically have all I follows, pay per view events, movies, box sets, sky sports, Bt sports etc…,

 

not saying it’s right but it’s easily accessible than paying the ridiculous fees the official channels charge. In the event of this, that’s surely lost revenue for everyone?

 

my guess is the club gets the seasonal subscriptions but match by match goes to the team hosting the game or that’s how it should be 

 

but it doesn’t cover the vast amount of Accessible pirating that goes off.

 

you can see why Accrington is aggrieved by this if 8,000 people are tuning in across streaming platforms to watch some of their biggest grossing games ( like when we play them ) they want compensating accordingly 

 

by pulling themselves out of the deal it might reduce the chances of them being streamed illegally and it weakens the I follow package. If more teams did this I’m sure someone will find a loophole around streaming it but it would certainly make people think twice if they can’t access 10-15 games a year because it’s unavailable.

 

it sounds like all they want is a bigger piece of the pie which is understandable it’s games like Accrington where ticket allocations are low that our fans turn to I follow 

 

plus with the cost of living as it is more and more people will no doubt be choosing to watch games online than attend that cold winter night fixture and spend £30 plus for the game in costs when they can watch it on their sofa in the warmth for £10 

 

 

 

Here's some info from during the pandemic. The rules might have changed in the meantime.

 

https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/efl-ifollow-streaming-revenue-explained-18975658

 

As far as I understand 70 % of the revenue goes to the clubs,  30 % to ifollow.

 

Out of this 70 %:

The home club keeps their own subscriber's money + the money of the first 500 guest supporters 

the guest team gets the money for all subscribers, which exceed the 500 people mark .