Why you can’t watch Man City or Liverpool this week but rest of the world can
Luton Town fans must make a 360-mile round trip or miss out on their team’s clash with Liverpool due to the Saturday 3pm blackout being enforced on Wednesday night.
That is because they – and Brentford supporters – find themselves at the heart of a bizarre wrinkle in the increasingly crowded football schedule: both Manchester City vs Brentford and Liverpool vs Luton Town will not be shown on TV in the UK this week.
Why aren’t they showing the games on TV?
Neither game will be shown on TV in the UK having not initially been selected by broadcasters as part of their live package, which cannot be expanded mid-season.
Liverpool vs Luton was originally scheduled for Saturday 24 February at 3pm but has had to move to Wednesday night due to a clash with the Carabao Cup final.
Brentford’s trip to Man City meanwhile was supposed to take place on Saturday 23 December, but had to be pushed back due to the champions’ participation in the Club World Cup.
Both games, having not been picked up, had remained 3pm kick-offs, so even when they were rearranged, they were subject to the Saturday rule.
“But it’s not a Saturday fixture. It’s a Wednesday,” says Dave Gregory, a Luton Town season ticket holder and presenter of the Oh When The Town Podcast.
“I just don’t get it. I literally don’t get it. The TV rights in this country are weird.”
Couldn’t they have done a deal last minute?
Conrad Wiacek, head of sport analysis and consulting at GlobalData, explains that there is a further complication because there are Champions League matches on the same nights.
“Bluntly, from TNT’s point of view, they pay more for the Champions League than they do the Premier League,” he says.
“So they want people to watch the Champions League. They’re going to prioritise their key asset.
“And that also helps, for the next rights cycle, so when they’re going back to negotiate the Champions League, they’re talking to Uefa and say ‘Look at the priorities we give, we don’t even show Premier League on the same nights’.”
Are there highlights, at least?
Yes. Sky Sports will show highlights of both Man City vs Brentford and Liverpool vs Luton Town “shortly after full-time” on their digital platforms and a 30-minute extended highlights package will be aired on Sky Sports Premier League at 10.30pm.
Will they ever get rid of the 3pm blackout?
The blackout nominally exists to protect attendances, particularly for clubs in the lower leagues who rely on gate revenues.
“I think it’s really there to ensure that we’re not showing EFL games, for example, at 3pm on a Saturday, so you’re still maintaining attendance at lower league level, which you could argue is more essential,” Wiacek adds.
“But [in the Premier League] we’ve now got a Saturday 8pm kick-off. We’re moving into Sunday night kick-off, you’ve got Monday Night Football. We’ve toyed around with Friday Night Football at one point.
“You’re seeing that we’re working around the 3pm blackout by stealth, basically.”
But that doesn’t help Luton and Brentford fans who want to watch their team this week.
What will fans do instead?
Of course, some will make the trip, even though it means getting back in the early hours on a week night.
“We leave to go to Liverpool for a 7.30pm kick-off at 12.20pm,” says Gregory.
“So we’re not gonna get back much before 1.30 in the morning.
“When you see when you think about Luton Town in particular, it’s an 11,000-seater stadium and obviously everybody wants to go now we’re in this division so why can’t they sell the rights to someone to go ‘Right, here you go, you can watch it here and pay 30 quid.’
“It’s not going to stop the hardcore people going, is it?”
There is also a danger that fans will resort to online streaming, which is illegal.
What happens in other countries?
Well for starters, they will be able to watch both matches through the local Premier League broadcasters.
But while the blackout law may seem old-fashioned and distinctly British, other major markets have similar regulations.
“In the US, if games aren’t sold out, you can’t watch that game in the local market,” says Wiacek.
“If there’s a certain amount of tickets not sold for an NFL game, that game is blacked out.
“If you look at things like the NBA League Pass again [American basketball’s in-house streaming app], local markets are blacked out. So if you’re in Memphis, you’re gonna watch every other game apart from the Grizzlies.
“So even in sort of sophisticated media rights markets, there are restrictions in place to ensure attendance because ticket sales are a great driver of revenue, in venue there are sales of additional stuff, merchandise, drinks, food etc. These generates significant amounts of revenue over the course of the season.”
