I read a brilliant tweet yesterday which read as follows: “Imagine spending £45 a month on a Sky Sports package to watch them lord it up about how much money is being spent by football clubs.” Honestly, I have never read anything more astute, accurate and from my point of view embarrassing. I say embarrassing because it is a source of embarrassment to be handing across any amount of money to Rupert Murdoch, let alone to help him grow the profits of his increasing monopoly of televised sport. It’s something I don’t like to talk about.
The tweet was so spot on because it cut through the crap in so few words. I did not watch much of Sky Sports’ frantic build up to the end of the transfer window because they act like, with some justification, that it was set up solely for them. And the ultra camp Scots presenter Jim White certainly believes it’s all about him.
Sky in particular unwittingly, perhaps, rubbed our noses right in yesterday. The record amount spent in the 2015 transfer window ignores the simple reality of who is really paying for it: Murdoch’s subscribers.
The growing madness of the Premier League can be illustrated by the sums paid for players who are plainly not world class. For instance, Southampton forked out £13m for Virgil van Dijk, a centre half who previously played for Celtic and started his career at Dutch giants…er…Groningen. He’s not even a Dutch international for goodness sake, but the Saints, who not long ago when through the hoop, have money to burn thanks to the likes of me so they have paid a large fortune for someone who, on the face of it, appears to be a bog standard footballer.
Similarly, Everton have spent £9.5m on Ramiro Funes Mori from Argentina’s River Plate. Ramiro who? I’d never heard of him, despite his stellar international career (one cap in a friendly against El Salvador), but I suppose if your coffers are overflowing with TV subscriber cash you can take a punt, which this plainly is.
Do you think this is as bad as it gets? Think again. The new Sky football deal hasn’t even kicked in yet so the transfer fees and wages will only get more ridiculous and who will pay for it all? Those of us who pay Rupert Murdoch, that’s who.
I don’t get Sky Sports for the football so I’d be very happy if Sky charged separately for it. It’s probably just me but I don’t think it’s anywhere near the best league in the world and I find that many games are interminably boring. I find it increasingly hard to relate to a sport where some participants “earn” in a week what it took 12 years for me to bring home and the paradox that the people who pay for the transfers and wages are not remotely rich is not lost on me.
Soon, the first £100m player will be on the scene and where will it end? The answer is that it won’t end for so long as people like me pay their subs. I cannot really justify the expenditure morally and financially it’s becoming a bigger hit than ever before whilst our income stands still. Losing me will not faze Murdoch but the loss of a few hundred thousand viewers might. It’s not if I get rid of Sky, it’s when, just a matter of timing.
I’d miss all that great golf coverage, as well as Super League, but I’d have to manage without it and perhaps do something else instead. After all, when I was a kid we had all of three channels to choose from and somehow we managed!
Yesterday, Sky waved our subscriptions in our faces and then wiped their backsides with them, at least metaphorically. It was an ugly display of decadence and arrogance that was firmly brought home to me by the tweet of the year. It’s really made me think about my minor role in the Murdoch takeover of our media and I know that sooner or later I will to make what will be an easy decision.
