Television coverage of the Football League has certainly been wall-to-wall in the past week or so with Sky proudly trumpeting their broadcasting of ten matches in ten days, but the scheduling has certainly thrown up some logistical problems for those supporters who like to go to games.
Nottingham Forest saw themselves away from home at Wolves last Friday and then Blackburn Rovers on Monday night. The knock-on effect of that was that Blackburn played their home game against Rotherham United (not on TV) on Friday night as well.
Wolves’ next home game, against Leeds, was moved to Thursday night for live coverage meaning their trip to Sheffield Wednesday this weekend has been put back to Sunday meaning consecutive Saturdays without a game for fans of the Old Gold.
The headline numbers for the TV deals that are in place are attractive but the hidden costs are harder to weigh up.
Perhaps a limit on the number of times a team can be shown in the same month could apply with Forest’s Boxing Day game against Leeds already having been moved back a day for the Reds’ third appearance on Sky in December.
And, with the Football League(the EFL from next season) always keen to stress the strength of their ‘product’ maybe it is time they insisted more on set days and times for games to be televised live and not moved to every day of the week simply to suit Sky’s marketing preferences.