Tickle Tackle - Who Cares About The Fans?
Tuesday, 16th Oct 2007 20:09 by Steve Tickle

Who cares about the fans? Not the TV companies, that's for sure. Last week, the Rams had four (yes, that's four) fixtures rearranged.

The trip to Newcastle has been put back by one day and the kick off moved to 2pm and the home game against Blackburn Rovers has similarly been put back a day with the kick off being moved to 1.30pm. Both these changes are so the games can be shown on live TV. This has also meant that the Rams' visit to Bolton, originally scheduled for New Year's Day, has now been put back to January 2^nd.

On top of these changes, Everton's involvement in Europe has meant that their visit to Pride Park Stadium has also been put back by one day. We get used to these changes nowadays but it's no consolation to the fans who've invested their hard earned cash in season tickets, or who have rearranged their lives in other ways so that they can watch their favourite football team..

Now it's fair enough that teams which are playing on Thursday in Europe have an extra day's recovery or travelling time before their next league game but it didn't always used to be like this.

Way back in the Seventies, when the Rams were playing in Europe, all the European competitions were played on Wednesdays, nowadays they're spread over Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays.

We could easily go back to that system again but there's little chance of it. It restricts the potential TV audience doesn't it?. After all, you can really only watch one game at a time. If the games are spread over three days then you're likely to watch a game on each of those three days and that means three lots of advertising revenue for the TV companies.

The vast bulk of European football's income comes from the TV companies and as long as that's the case, football is going to dance to their tune. Matchday income for most clubs is relatively insignificant in comparison with TV money and what's more, the big clubs want TV exposure because it helps sell their branded merchandise around the world... so they're not going to complain too loudly.

No, unfortunately, if you have to turn your world upside down so you can still get along to watch your favourite football team, don't expect too much sympathy from anyone except maybe your fellow fans.

Talk about this on the message board.