Bias on the Box

Well, it's been another interminably long break since my last post, but a combination of illness and disillusionment with the modern game prompted that decision, so my schedule will be very ad-hoc from this point onwards.

Moving onto the topic in question and it's yet again another situation where the 'big' clubs are given preferential treatment over the rest of the league, what am I referring to? Live SKY games of course.

We've all heard about the massive amount of money that's going to be given to clubs based on TV rights, yet some teams are given virtually no coverage by SKY – at least in comparison to the 'big boys'.

This season alone (and discounting ESPN covered games), there is a huge difference between the teams with the table looking like this:

Team Live Games Shown

Liverpool 16

Man City 14

Spurs 14

Arsenal 13

Man Utd 13

Chelsea 10

Everton 10

Newcastle 10

Aston Villa 9

Sunderland 9

West Ham 9

West Brom 7

Fulham 6

QPR 6

Southampton 6

Swansea 6

Norwich 5

Wigan 5

Reading 4

Stoke 4

So great news if you're a Liverpool supporter, (or any of the clubs pushing for a top six finish), not so great news if you're a Reading or Stoke fan (or a side nearer the bottom end of the table).

What's somewhat interesting about this list is that in many ways it's very similar to the stature that most fans hold towards the clubs, and although Man Utd would normally be at the top, they're only 3 games away from Liverpool in pole position.

Now the truly frustrating part about this situation is that fans of ALL premier league clubs pay the same price to view SKY Sports as each other, yet some fans get triple the amount of their teams games shown for their money than others do (4 times more in a Reading/Stoke vs Liverpool comparison).

I can accept that many neutral fans would rather watch Man Utd vs Arsenal than they would Wigan vs Swansea, but the gap between the amount of games shown is just ridiculous in some cases and in my honest opinion – needs changing.

In a more even distribution, each team would have had 8 or 9 games shown so far and this certainly doesn't stop the 'big' games from being shown either. It's simply a case of looking at the fixture list, selecting the key 'big' games first of all (schedule changes accepted), and then working out what's left and how best to give the teams a fair and interesting TV run.

And whilst I'm on the subject, some of the selections need attention in the process. It's all well and good showing Chelsea vs Man City and QPR vs Reading as the Sunday games, but this is also somewhat unfair on the 'smaller' clubs as you only get to watch them against similarly placed teams and not the 'big' clubs.

I'm going to stop there because I'm in danger of making this come across as nothing more than a petulant whine from a Norwich fan dissatisfied with the live games offered this season, but the truth is that I AM dissatisfied with the situation (to the point where I cancelled my SKY Sports subscription some months ago), and it's just one more example of how the league panders to the top teams whilst the rest of us seem to be there to simply 'make up the numbers'....