The Verdict: Premier League, Bundesliga, LaLiga, Serie A - football every day of the week, is it for the good of the game?
With Europe's biggest leagues set to join the Bundesliga in returning to action, we will be able to watch football every day of the week. But is that a good thing?
Paul Higham (@SportsPaulH)
Full-time football the new norm?
We’ve had the famine, now comes the feast. To everyone who’s been complaining about no football being on, you’re about to be able to gorge yourself on an absolute landslide of games coming thick and fast - day after day after day.
The Bundesliga have kept relatively similar to a normal schedule with most games on Saturday and Sunday with the odd midweek round thrown in there, but LaLiga and Serie A have adopted a different approach – the ‘always on’ approach.
Spain will indeed have football every day until July while clubs in Italy will have to play twice a week until August, and we’ve not even mentioned the Premier League showing every game individually to ensure it’s on TV, but is this the future?
Amazon Prime Video showed us a glimpse of every game being available to watch last year, but could they take it that one stop further and have every game in a different slot in the future? Will that be our new normal in years to come?
It could well be what happens next season if fans aren’t allowed into the stadium to watch their teams. There’s serious football revenue to be recouped after all.
I’m a traditionalist at heart - that Saturday 3pm feeling won’t ever be beaten, but it may be a thing of the past in the Premier League. I can certainly see more streaming coming in and further down the line could see a Premier League TV where fans pay to simply watch their team’s games each week.
That’s where we’re heading, and I’m a bit more OK with that than with this scattergun approach to kick-off times and days – which is surely just a quick-fix to the problems we’ve got at the moment.
If you’re looking for one positive, the lack of Premier League games at 3pm on a Saturday on a permanent basis could see fans going to see their local sides in the lower leagues, which may help them recover after his dreadful situation is over.
Overall though, I can’t see this taking off in the long-term.
There’s plenty of football, the market was flooded as it was and in the usual scenario there’s still room for us to have at least a few games played at the same time. We’re in danger of spreading ourselves too thin otherwise.
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Dale Tempest (@SkyBet_Dale)
Do you remember the FA Cup finals of the '70s?
No of course you don’t, you're probably too young. I do and for one reason - it was the only live game of football you could watch on TV in the whole season.
We started at 9am for the 3pm kick-off with interviews and so on, but the bit I loved most of the six hour build up was the fans' It’s A Knockout. Yes it’s ridiculous but at 10 years old it’s amazing how important it is that your fans are quicker at running carrying buckets of water than the opposing fans.
We fast forward to 2020 where we now find ourselves in a bizarre situation where every single game of the remaining 92 of this top-flight season will be shown live.
Now we all know that these are unprecedented times, so why the concern that this could be the start of wall to wall Premier League action forever? Would it be good or bad if it was?
I must admit I don’t know. I don’t really have a strong opinion either way.
Already we have many Premier League fans who don’t see a Saturday 3pm kick-off for most of the season because their teams are in Champions League or Europa League action.
It’s going to be an interesting experiment to firstly see if I can get the remote control off my wife for a month and then if that’s successful do I actually want to watch every game? Hypothetically, at 2pm do I really think I’ll be drawn to Aston Villa v Sheffield United and then perhaps four hours later tune into Bournemouth v Brighton? Probably not.
At this point, persuade me I need to watch more (the wife thinks that isn’t possible) but to be honest I’d be happiest if it eventually returns to our present normal.
The Premier League is a massive business and I’m sure it will protect itself and ensure its worldwide watching audience continue to pay accordingly.
I suppose we saw with the Amazon experiment on Boxing Day, when they made their entry in to the Premier League TV rights market, that anything is possible. If you're prepared to pay the price, then you can determine what, when and how fans can watch.
Looking at other sports, the one interesting comparison is the NFL. On Sunday nights the Red Zone at 6pm UK time is must-watch viewing for any American football fan. The majority of games start in unison and then there are different kick-off times depending on time zones etc. but Sunday is game day. It's the centre of the NFL week, just as Saturday is for English football with 3pm kick-offs our traditional start time.
So even in the most commercial sport in the world, a specific game day and time is still felt important for the attending spectators, and watching TV audience.
Perhaps we’ll eventually see Jeff Stelling and his Soccer Saturday team not just describing the relevant goals but actually doing so as we watch the action.
We get that in midweek Sky Bet EFL games, so maybe that’s where we’ll end up on Saturdays. It’s certainly where Amazon want to take the sport.
Only time will tell. Let’s be positive either way, I’ll just be happy to have my football back.
Tom Carnduff (TomC_22)
The long spell without football has placed further emphasis on the hectic schedule that can be found across Europe over the next couple of months, but the truth is that it really isn't that different to what we have witnessed previously.
By the end of the month we'll be treated to LaLiga, Serie A, the Bundesliga and the Premier League whenever we like, such is the density on the calendar, as we look to complete the remaining seasons by the end of July.
Amazon Prime's futuristic football coverage in December gave us a glimpse of what we can expect. Live games went hand-in-hand with the feel of on-demand television and we really had the choice of what game we wanted to watch.
BT Sport's excellent Bundesliga schedule has also seen every game televised across their range of channels. There's soon going to be a point where this will become the new norm across every major league, it's just overwhelming now because it's all coming at once and not as originally planned.
If we're being totally honest, is it truly different to football prior to the break? So much is being made of games being on every day when that was always the case with the range of viewing options available to us.
Monday gave us a Championship/MNF game. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday provided Champions League and the Europa League while there was another domestic fixture on Friday. Then we're back to the usual Saturday/Sunday schedule.
Even without those top continental club competitions, there was always a game available to watch. Sky Sports gave us the Premier League and EFL, BT Sport showed the best European leagues while LaLiga has its own dedicated channel. Sky Bet also regularly showed Eredivisie games. If you wanted football in the evening, you always had it available to you.
This was always the way football was going. Games are regularly scheduled across the week to fill the broadcasting schedule and the viewing figures will tell you there's a demand for it.
This was the norm before the pandemic, but we perhaps didn't realise it at the time. This is the sustainable future of football with the worldwide demand for regular fixtures.
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