Official 2012/13 Premier League thread

[Baddar]

Surely supporters (diehards especially) would rather go to the actual stadium and show support in person and experience the full atmosphere of the game regardless of whether it is televised?

Not always the case.

I know, for all the support Cardiff have had this season, whenever there's a game of theirs on Sky, there's empty seats everywhere - yet, there'll be 26,000+ tonight. Granted, they're going for promotion so it was always going to sell out, but they've had big crowds all season. There's talk of increasing the CCS capacity to 60,000, which is ridiculous until they're a stable Premier League team, if ever. It'd look like the DW Stadium most weeks, only much, much worse if they made it that big.

[Matt]

Surely supporters (diehards especially) would rather go to the actual stadium and show support in person and experience the full atmosphere of the game regardless of whether it is televised?

Nope. Especially when you consider the cost, why go out, get frozen to death and spend silly amounts of money rather than stay at home and watch it on a service you're paying for anyway. Besides there's very little atmosphere at most grounds these days anyway.

Attendances drop when the match is on tv (massive games aside), you can see that yourself by just looking at a club's attendance figures.

[Matt]

Also how many people wouldn't bother with season tickets any more and would just go to the big games if they could watch every match on television.

Getting rid of the blackout would be the death of football as a spectator sport, you might as well just start calling seasons a television series

[Summers]

Yeah, it sucks that they're all on elsewhere, but that just means we can stream them. >_>

Others are right, though. It'd lower attendances, which would hurt clubs. Not worth it.

[Kaney]

STOP FUCKING INJURING OUR BEST PLAYERS GOD DAMNNIT

[Hobo]

I saw a suggestion on twitter that cheaper ticket prices and reinstating safe standing and unallocated seating would be a good idea for clubs.

[stokeriño]

I get the theory behind the first two of those. What would be the great advantage of unallocated seating (in any stadium that actually fills up), beyond annoying everyone with a pressing motivation to arrive stupidly early?

[Matt]

Encouraging fans to arrive earlier means they're more likely to eat and drink in the ground, maybe. Safe standing is a good idea, cheaper tickets only works if you can find a cheaper figure that will give you a better income, if dropping the prices by a fiver means you get an extra thousand, it's probably not worth it. An extra 5000 and maybe it is.

[stokeriño]

One other thing that comes to my mind with the idea of unallocated seating is that it gives free reign for the troublemakers to congregate into little hordes. Maybe not enough on its own to revive pitched battles in the stands or anything like that, but it nonetheless seems more trouble than it's worth.

[Ant]

Whenever i have seen him, Mirellas has been the most class player on the pitch.

[Regia]

One other thing that comes to my mind with the idea of unallocated seating is that it gives free reign for the troublemakers to congregate into little hordes. Maybe not enough on its own to revive pitched battles in the stands or anything like that, but it nonetheless seems more trouble than it's worth.

Unallocated seating could work for lower league sides I suppose, since I'm sure most people sit wherever when there's a smaller attendance. I mean, I don't think I've ever sat in my allocated seat whenever I've decided to go and watch Walsall play.

[Thrilla]

Yeah, Mirallas was a player I had earmarked for my dream team this week but I forgot to make the changes I had planned. He's been class for the last month or so.

[Matt]

One other thing that comes to my mind with the idea of unallocated seating is that it gives free reign for the troublemakers to congregate into little hordes. Maybe not enough on its own to revive pitched battles in the stands or anything like that, but it nonetheless seems more trouble than it's worth.

Unallocated seating could work for lower league sides I suppose, since I'm sure most people sit wherever when there's a smaller attendance. I mean, I don't think I've ever sat in my allocated seat whenever I've decided to go and watch Walsall play.

A few already do, for away supporters anyway.

[stokeriño]

I used to work with a Darlington supporter who went to their home games where they could have as few as maybe 900 fans in a 10,000 seater stadium. Obviously assigned seating would have been a farce if enforced.

[Matt]

Ross Barkley looks a good player, shame he couldn't get a game for us ahead of noted footballing legendiconmegastars Michael Brown and David Norris.

[stokeriño]

Have made the mistake of turning the match on. I fully expect Arsenal to pull out a jammy 2-0 win after having dallied about for most of the game. Probably via another soft penalty.

[Ant]

I would say Anichebe is the second coming of Heskey but even he could hold the fucking ball up.

[stokeriño]

I approve of this result and wish to subscribe to its newsletter.

[Adam]

Anichebe is good but he didn't have a good game tonight.

I was impressed by Barkley, hope he keeps on progressing. A draw was a fair result tonight though Giroud missed a golden opportunity.

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

This is the best result there could have been.

It's back in our hands again to avoid St. Totteringham's Day and yet Everton haven't gotten too too close.