Big run of matches coming up roversfan99, you just need to take one game at a time, no distractions!

According to this you can stream through ESPN+ https://espnmediazone.com/us/press-releases/2018/04/soccer-fans-rejoice-hundreds-of-matches-and-exclusive-content-to-be-available-on-espn/

The club took its eyes off the (cricket) ball years ago. Seems largely now to be a conferencing and events operation with a cricket club bolted on. Having dinosaurs like Allott still pulling the strings on the playing side says it all.

Lancs looking doomed...

I would expect that as a minimum. Not exactly proactive.

As blueboy says the ‘Final 6’ and ‘Final 10’ bundles were no cheaper pro rata than half or full season tickets. We are a club that is heavily reliant on season ticket sales, we just don’t sell many walk ons - no surprise at those prices, you many add! Therefore, knowing just how important ST sales are for our bottom line, how were lapsed or those on the database chased for renewals/purchases? Why wasn’t everyone at the Oxford game given a flyer or contacted? Why weren’t they actually on sale on the day against Oxford? Other clubs have ticket office staff who’s job over the summer is to follow up on said fans. A non renewer or long term lapsed fan will be able to tell us - were you contacted by the club?

Category A, B etc. are simply a ruse to rip off away fans. Any club who they expect to bring 2,000+ will be A, regardless of the stature of the game, Sky coverage etc. Trying to use an attractive game like Villa or Leeds as a way to bring more home fans to the ground just doesn’t come into their thinking.

I believe Waggott wanted a substantial increase, in reality we hardly increased them at all on what we had after half season ticket sales in January. It’s for him to workout how that came to be. Were hordes of lapsed/new fans suddenly going to emerge to watch us bob around in Championship mid table? No, but I do think a 17% rise in price did put the brakes on any promotion/feel good factor in regards to more bums on seats.

I think there’s still some excellent debates on here, just seems to be less of them these days. An increase in traffic doesn’t seem to have led to an increase in contributors.

It's torturous just watching him bat. Cook going probably means his place to Sri Lanka is saved, but an opening partnership of Jennings and a fella on debut doesn't exactly inspire confidence.

The blackout is even more important for say a small League 1 or League 2 club as the 3/400 away fans make a real difference to the club’s income. At that level, many clubs don’t even sell away tickets in advance, so using yesterday as an example, it was hammering it down - you’d imagine plenty of potential fans would have thought better of travelling and chose ifollow instead. ‘EFL’, pathetic organisation.

I’m not particularly arsed either way, but you do make me laugh roverandout. During the World Cup you were pretty much calling people traitors if they even made a slight criticism of the team, two months later and they are woeful!

Of course, but more than 5,500? Plus, there’s always a chance of Sky coverage against a ‘big team’. End of the day closing it was probably the right idea, but Waggott should have just told the truth instead of using all these non existent ‘big’ followings as an excuse.

So one of the clubs who were used as justification for shutting the Darwen End won’t bring anywhere close to the numbers that would have filled the old allocation, never mind the whole end. Waggott has totally misread the Championship if he thinks there’s a load of clubs out there that will bring hordes of fans - or as is probably the case, it was just an excuse to shut it.

They make up/change the rules as they go along, as we’ve seen on numerous occasions over the past few years.

T’was only in jest! Bloody hell you bash one and they all limp!

From Lytham to Bash... now he definitely has hit rock bottom!

I enjoy a bit of tea time quizzing watching Pointless - what always strikes me is modern cricketers when asked about are totally unknown, but cricketers from the 70s through to Flintoff and Pietersen have big name recognition - why do you think that is? I believe Test matches get around 300/400 thousand viewers daily on Sky - Tests used to get millions. It doesn’t matter how good the coverage is if no bugger’s watching it. And it will only get worse as young people just aren’t exposed to the game.

End of the day international football revolves around a summer tournament every two years - that’s how you are judged at a continental and world level. Everyone gets that and it is a key differentiator from the league structures of club football. This Nations League stuff seems like a right complicated mess; part competition in its own right, part qualifiers for the European Championships. Doesnt matter anyway as ITV have lost the rights to internationals (not on free to air anywhere) so the vast majority of the country can just ignore it and wait for Euro 2020.

Football is enormous in this country, a vast profile and fan base that can survive being behind the paywall. A hell of a lot of that 13 million are there simply for football. Cricket, as it just doesn’t have that following, has gone underground in public profile this past decade. If you put a picture of Burnley’s Jimmy Anderson - one of the greatest bowlers in the history of the game in front of 100 say 11 year olds and a picture of some journeyman from Burnley FC - who do you think will be more recognised? Cricket should have adopted the rugby union model - i.e most games behind the paywall, but the biggest events - Six Nations every year and the World Cup on free to air. Rugby Union’s profile outside it’s heartlands - I.e the north has never been bigger, the opposite is true for cricket. Sky is for the ready converted, sport nuts who have the means to pay a hell of a lot of money every month, but what about the potential converts?

But when people said to you on the cricket thread that taking that sport away from free to air TV has ensured that large numbers of kids don’t watch and they’ve lost millions of viewers and therefore potential fans - you disagreed.

I’m going to go out on a limb and say that it’s the cash.

Indeed JH, great examples of that are when you see Leeds and say Sheff Wednesday fans having massive willy waving contests in those ‘Away Day’ groups on social media. ’HA! only 3,000 to Wigan? Tinpot! We took 5,000 for a 7am kick off!’

Indeed rovers99, me and my crew would have some reight boring train/coach journeys home and we would seem a very dis-passionate lot if after a defeat we just said “ah well, can’t win ‘em all!” And no critiques of the manager’s decisions were permitted.

Leeds pull in the ratings (relatively), saw a stat a few years ago that showed their games had considerably larger numbers of viewers than the rest in the Championship. No surprise when you consider how many armchair Leeds fans there are across Yorkshire.