TV ASSETS

Manchester United have become one of the prized assets for television companies in the UK trying to increase their viewership. Sky has been regularly broadcasting Manchester United matches over the last 20 years. The 13-time Premier league champions have also been shown live on television more than any other club during this period. This looks set to continue even after the arrival of BT to the Premier league competition. BT have paid in excess of £ 700 million for Premier league rights in the next three years. This is seen as the biggest threat for Sky since they started showing Premier league matches more than two decades ago.

Sky have decided to eliminate the competition from the start itself by deciding to show majority of the Manchester United and Chelsea matches in the first five weeks of the campaign. Only one Manchester United match will not be shown live on Sky in the first five weeks. They have the first refusal when it comes to televised games during the first 20 weeks of the campaign. They are prepared to use it from the word go, as they regard the threat from BT as a serious one. Premier league football revenues have consistently grown due to the new and bigger TV deals.

“The first round of televised fixtures announced this morning will demonstrate just how seriously Sky is taking the challenge of its latest rival by ensuring it keeps an iron grip on the champions’ high-profile matches from August until November. With the champions being English football’s biggest draw in terms of television audience, Sky’s decision to top-load its schedule with games involving them appears a no-brainer,” read a report on Daily Telegraph.

United managed to win the record 20th league title last season. Even after the departure of Sir Alex Ferguson, there are still a tremendous pulling power.

RIVALS COULD BE HIT BY TV

Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson has said that title rivals Manchester City could be hit with major problems due to the TV schedule, and that next season will be even more interesting because of the tiredness caused by Euro 2012.

Manchester City and Manchester United are the two teams fighting for the Premier league title this season, with the online betting markets making United the slight favourites. Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson has been a staunch attacker of TV schedule affecting their Premier league season, but he has been helped by the same this time around. He has said that there is every chance that Manchester City’s chances of winning the title for the first time after a long time will be hit because of the TV schedule for the club.

Manchester United will naturally get the most amount of TV coverage due to their Champions tag, while Manchester City are also set to get the equal amount of coverage of as well due to their role as the main title challenger.

Roberto Mancini’s side are currently the leader in the Premier league table, but their advantage over Manchester United is very slender. Only two points separate both the clubs, which has been the reason for Sir Alex Ferguson to express his confidence at the possibility of winning the 20th Premier league title with Manchester United following the 3-1 win over Tottenham during the weekend.

“It doesn’t make a difference to us – but it may make a difference to them as they don’t have the same kind of experience. You never know,” Ferguson told Inside United. Sir Alex Ferguson is set to welcome Michael Owen back into the first-team fold.

Michael Owen has been absent from the Manchester United first-team for many months now, but Ferguson recently confirmed that the former England striker has indeed began training. Manchester United continued their impressive run against Tottenham – against whom they have not been defeated for 10 years now.

READY FOR TELEVISED MATCH

Tottenham manager Andre Villas-Boas prepares his side to take on the Swiss club FC Basel, and he has admitted that the much greater European experience of their opponents must not be taken lightly. Basel have not only been playing in the Europa league, but they have also have had occasional Champions League football as well. Tottenham, on the other hand, have played in the Champions League only once in their history. The first leg quarter-final match between the two clubs will take place on Thursday.

Basel have also been able to beat the likes of Bayern Munich and Manchester United in recent seasons. They also managed to take four points off their fixtures against Manchester United, which ultimately knocked the Premier league club out of the Champions league group stages last season. Villas-Boas will also have to prioritise between the Europa league and the top four positions. Tottenham are currently in a race with Chelsea and Arsenal to finish in the top four. After the weekend’s results, the club are third in the table ahead of their competition.

However, Villas-Boas as stated in the past that he would like to win the competition, which is considered by many as a distraction. The club need to win only five matches to win this competition.

“Obviously they have recent European experience that we don’t have. They have got tremendous results in the past year with Man United and teams like Bayern – teams they have surprised. They are extremely successful and one of the best teams in the country. I’m sure that the key to the game will be both teams’ motivations and the quality of the individuals. We have to admit that we have superior players but, on the other hand, the experience Basel have makes them also one of the favourites,” said Villas-Boas.

TV SCHEDULE DICTATES REPLAY DATE

The FA Cup quarter-final replay between Manchester United and Chelsea is likely to be shown on television after the English football Association confirmed that the tie will be played on April 1st. As a result of this announcement, Chelsea’s Premier league encounter with Southampton has been moved. This has disappointed the Premier league strugglers, who have said in a statement that this decision causes a lot of trouble and inconvenience to the supporters. Southampton have also noted that this fixture has already been moved once in order to accommodate the TV schedule.

It was already evident after the 2-2 draw between Chelsea and Manchester United that both teams were going to provide the FA with a lot of headache in terms of fixture congestion. This has been made complicated especially due to the presence of Chelsea in the Europa league. Rafa Benitez and his men will have to face even more congestion if they get past the Romanian club Steaua Bucharest in the Europa league. The European champions trail the Romanians 1-0 from the first leg. The team has already been playing two matches a week almost since the start of the season. The club could well be looking at over 60 matches this campaign if they progress in the Europa league as well.

“The game had already been moved once for the purposes of live Sky TV coverage – to Sunday, 31 March – however, the Premier League have deemed it acceptable to move the fixture once more. The club is extremely disappointed that this decision has been taken; not least because of the significant inconvenience a second change to the fixture will cause our supporters,” said a statement on the official website of Southampton. Southampton would rather play their game in hand now rather than see the rivals overtake them in the table.

MACC SLAM TV EXECS

The Macclesfield Town spokesperson has criticised the decision by the television companies to select every Manchester United FA Cup match as part of the live television coverage. John Harris has pointed out that every Manchester United match in the first few rounds of the FA Cup have been selected as part of the live coverage. In fact, BBC have shown Manchester United matches on 18 occasions between 2005 and 2008. Sky, who then followed BBC for the FA cup coverage, showed United matches on four occasions. Since the arrival of ITV as the official coverage provider of the FA Cup, all the United matches have been shown without exception.

As part of the live television coverage, clubs will receive around £ 140,000 in the fourth round of the FA Cup. Harris has said that this amount is paltry to United, who recently had revenues of around £ 400 million for the last financial year. He has said that this amount will be extremely crucial in the survival of Macclesfield Town, who were recently relegated to the conference. Harris has said that television companies no longer select matches based on the potential for upset, but rather go for the matches of big clubs like Manchester United.

“When you put it like that it is farcical. When we beat Cardiff City here in the third round, the scenes at our stadium were magnificent and a giant-killing could be on the cards again. No disrespect, but is Manchester United playing Fulham more attractive to a football purist? For us, that money, £135,000, would be massive, it would save our season after relegation to the Conference, which was a huge blow,” said Harris, whose team hosted the Premier league club Wigan in the fourth round of the FA Cup. They lost the match 1-0 and were knocked out of the competition.