With more and more fans being out-priced of going to see live games, many have turned to legal or illegal online streams of games over the years. Legal stream accessibility has improved over time with fans now able to watch streams from their phones and tablets, instead of only being able to watch a very low quality stream on their PC. Due to legal streams becoming a common way of viewing matches, the temptation of watching illegal streams on dodgy websites has declined in recent years which can only be a good thing for people’s computers.
Although rightly criticised for their influence over when games are now played, Sky have enabled their customers to watch games live from their phones using Sky Go. This makes it a lot easier for football fans to view games that they might not have been able to see at grounds because of ticket prices and other potential circumstances. New to the 16/17 season, Sky Sports are now allowed to post highlight videos on their SkyFootball Twitter account. This is a great way for football fans on Twitter to view highlights instantly without having to pay large sums of money to go to either see games at grounds across the country, but also not having to pay for subscriptions for Sky Sports or BT Sports for their TVs.
Sky have also effectively used Facebook as a way of showing highlights on match days where the videos appear on the news feeds of fans who have liked their page on the site. Although Sky might have their own reasons for posting these videos on social media, it cannot be denied that it’s allowing fans to view the game where they might not have been able to in the past, mainly down to financial reasons. The BBC have also harnessed social media as a way of bringing highlights or clips from BBC football programmes to their audience. They are however lagging behind Sky for obvious reasons as they do not have the rights to show Premier League or Football League matches so are unable to provide the same streaming service as Sky. Perhaps in the future, they may look to provide the opportunity of streaming FA Cup matches, although some may describe that as a further way of taking the magic away from the cup.
There is a perception of the modern football fan being an “armchair supporter”, somebody who only watches games on TV or now, on their mobile phone. This is an unfair criticism as the amount of money for even just one child ticket for a game is astronomical and that is across the leagues, not just the Premier League. If ticket prices were to be lowered to a fair amount of money, there may not be as many “armchair supporters” around. In the time being however, online streaming of games and viewing highlights via social media is not a bad thing. It is bringing the game to fans who might not have been able to see it otherwise and it is not right that fans are able to be denied their love of football because of ridiculous ticket prices.
