Championship to return

[Westwood52]

What about next season.Not worth buying a season ticket;as the option of actually attending games will be unlikely this side of Xmas.So for next season;everybody pays the £10 a game to watch on I Follow; until attendance is back up and running.When the ground is open again;hopefully in January;I would hope existing Season Ticket holders would have the option of reserving their usual seats first.Presumably the New Year cost will reflect how much of next years season is left.
Lot of decisions to be made.

[Nameless]

You would think it would be possible to have some kind of crowd actually there.
Making (say ) 2000 tickets available across 4 stands would allow people to sit spaced out, avoid congestion in the concourses and not cause travel problems. No catering to be allowed to discourage loitering and gates open 30 mins before ko.
Perhaps done on a points basis with restrictions on how any games you could attend to ensure everyone gets a chance to go.
Clearly would need rules to be relaxed a little more but surely something along these lines would be workable?

[AthleticoSpizz]

Based on that...the organisation and costs involved....cheaper and easier to have nobody there.

[Jagermesiter1871]

That’s £90 to watch all the games then - could be an expensive few months for me!

You don't have to watch them all. Just go on cricfree or myp2p and there will be a stream.

Will there definitely be watchable streams? Was a struggle prior to the break.

[Simmops]

That’s £90 to watch all the games then - could be an expensive few months for me!

You don't have to watch them all. Just go on cricfree or myp2p and there will be a stream.

Will there definitely be watchable streams? Was a struggle prior to the break.

Probably not

[Nameless]

Based on that...the organisation and costs involved....cheaper and easier to have nobody there.

Well it would be cheaper and easier not to play football at all. Is that your proposal ?
It wouldn’t be difficult to do, every other business is adapting the way they operate. Supermarkets found ways to keep allowing customers in throughout lockdown.
What costs do you come up with ? You would need stewards,but in proportion to the crowd size, you would probably sticker up the seats to be used and barrier off some areas, you’d need some degree of cleaning but not huge amounts.

[skipper]

That’s £90 to watch all the games then - could be an expensive few months for me!

You don't have to watch them all. Just go on cricfree or myp2p and there will be a stream.

Will there definitely be watchable streams? Was a struggle prior to the break.

Well its obviously easy to set up. I don't see why they can't just do a pay-per-view ticket and earn that moula. I'd pay for a decent quality stream.

[Westwood52]

Based on that...the organisation and costs involved....cheaper and easier to have nobody there.

Well it would be cheaper and easier not to play football at all. Is that your proposal ?
It wouldn’t be difficult to do, every other business is adapting the way they operate. Supermarkets found ways to keep allowing customers in throughout lockdown.
What costs do you come up with ? You would need stewards,but in proportion to the crowd size, you would probably sticker up the seats to be used and barrier off some areas, you’d need some degree of cleaning but not huge amounts.

The supermarkets operate on a revolving door policy.One in one out.Boris seems keen on opening the Pubs sooner rather than later.Short of waiter service outside don’t see how that is going to work.I was reading yesterday this owner of one of those village coffee shops said that she needed to run at at least 80% capacity to make it worth her while.

[AthleticoSpizz]

Based on that...the organisation and costs involved....cheaper and easier to have nobody there.

Well it would be cheaper and easier not to play football at all. Is that your proposal ?
It wouldn’t be difficult to do, every other business is adapting the way they operate. Supermarkets found ways to keep allowing customers in throughout lockdown.
What costs do you come up with ? You would need stewards,but in proportion to the crowd size, you would probably sticker up the seats to be used and barrier off some areas, you’d need some degree of cleaning but not huge amounts.

well, one ‘cost’ before we even get to the game, is administrating exactly who will be allowed to attend.

[Nameless]

Based on that...the organisation and costs involved....cheaper and easier to have nobody there.

Well it would be cheaper and easier not to play football at all. Is that your proposal ?
It wouldn’t be difficult to do, every other business is adapting the way they operate. Supermarkets found ways to keep allowing customers in throughout lockdown.
What costs do you come up with ? You would need stewards,but in proportion to the crowd size, you would probably sticker up the seats to be used and barrier off some areas, you’d need some degree of cleaning but not huge amounts.

well, one ‘cost’ before we even get to the game, is administrating exactly who will be allowed to attend.

If only we had an existing process for doing that....

[Nameless]

Based on that...the organisation and costs involved....cheaper and easier to have nobody there.

Well it would be cheaper and easier not to play football at all. Is that your proposal ?
It wouldn’t be difficult to do, every other business is adapting the way they operate. Supermarkets found ways to keep allowing customers in throughout lockdown.
What costs do you come up with ? You would need stewards,but in proportion to the crowd size, you would probably sticker up the seats to be used and barrier off some areas, you’d need some degree of cleaning but not huge amounts.

The supermarkets operate on a revolving door policy.One in one out.Boris seems keen on opening the Pubs sooner rather than later.Short of waiter service outside don’t see how that is going to work.I was reading yesterday this owner of one of those village coffee shops said that she needed to run at at least 80% capacity to make it worth her while.

Presumably she means she needs to take a certain amount of money.
It’s not going to work if people just say ‘ I need to do what I did before’. They places that survive and prosper will be the ones who think of new ways of operating. One of the coffee shops I use in town have been delivering ground coffee and beans during lockdown, they didn’t do that before but I can see them carrying on with it to offset what might be lower numbers buying their morning latte. There is a very good restaurant at Shiplake that has developed not only a decent range of take out meals but built up a wide range of food stuff to buy.,there isn’t a shop in the area so I reckon they will keep ,that going while they can’t operate at full capacity.

[AthleticoSpizz]

Well it would be cheaper and easier not to play football at all. Is that your proposal ?
It wouldn’t be difficult to do, every other business is adapting the way they operate. Supermarkets found ways to keep allowing customers in throughout lockdown.
What costs do you come up with ? You would need stewards,but in proportion to the crowd size, you would probably sticker up the seats to be used and barrier off some areas, you’d need some degree of cleaning but not huge amounts.

well, one ‘cost’ before we even get to the game, is administrating exactly who will be allowed to attend.

If only we had an existing process for doing that....

yes, but will it be able to cater (fairly) for the (currently unknown) numbers....what I am trying to say is probably not coming across very well in all honesty, but at least I know what I’m chuntering on about.

[Nameless]

well, one ‘cost’ before we even get to the game, is administrating exactly who will be allowed to attend.

If only we had an existing process for doing that....

yes, but will it be able to cater (fairly) for the (currently unknown) numbers....what I am trying to say is probably not coming across very well in all honesty, but at least I know what I’m chuntering on about.

Well you wouldn’t do anything until you knew numbers...
You could do sales several ways - priority to STH then a couple of points bands. Or just on points. You could sell all the seats on a ST basis. As with all sales it will never be ‘fair’ but it would be a possible way to start getting fans back. Otherwise do we wait until we’re just back to how it was ?

[AthleticoSpizz]

Which is/was kind’ve my point.
With the numbers and restrictions still very much an unknown, how can we know if everybody who meets the ticketing criteria can be satisfied...there will be some administrative headaches to get through.

Then of course there will be the disabled and STHs who require carers etc. to navigate through this....it will have a financial burden of sorts.
Or something like that.

Yeah agree tho’, things need to get back to some kind of normal, but it will be a long time yet

[Millsy]

Yes they will be behind closed doors and it appears that the remaining games may well be streamed live and free via the RFC website, no doubt that it will be confirmed one way or another in the next couple of weeks.

Question. Sky have an agreement to show x number of FL Championship games live during the season so are they still selecting games to show as part of that agreement and if so would that mean that those games then become unavailable in the UK as free to air on a tv medium? I presume that is the case for the PL games that are not free to air. In which case it seems unfair to season ticket holders at some clubs.

Many thanks Sutekh.

So with 14days to go there's still no clarity. A bit strange, but I guess this is unprecedented. I'd gladly pay £10 or more to watch a game live remotely.

A little bit more clarity already.

1. 30 of the remaining 108 Championship games will be televised on Sky as part of their existing agreement, believe those fixtures will be revealed by 10th June (and as Leeds don’t have 30 games left there’s a chance Reading might be one of them).
2. Season ticket holders will be able to stream home games through ifollow without charge (unsure whether you have to sign up to ifollow or just the club’s website to do that though).
3. Non season ticket holders will be charged £10 per game if they want to watch games via ifollow. If you are already subscribed to the full ifollow service then presumably it should just be business as usual for you.
4. All play off games (presuming they do go ahead) for all divisions will be live as per usual.
5. League games will be scheduled to be played on Fridays (at 6pm and 8pm), Saturdays (at 12.30pm, 3pm and 5.30pm), Sundays (at 12 noon), Tuesdays and Wednesdays (on both days at 5pm, 6pm and 8pm). Would expect the final set of fixtures for the season to remain kicking off at the same time (least for those clubs with something to play for on the final day).
6. Fixtures are due to commence on 20 June with the next round on 26/27/28 June. First midweek games are 30 June and 1 July. Season currently slated to end on 22 July.

Out of interest PL clubs are having to “pay back” £330million on their TV deal while Championship clubs have to “pay back” £10million. As I’m not clear on exactly how many league games broadcasters are not able to show I’m unsure whether this is reasonable for a 3 month hiatus.

More details at

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/52940391
https://www.getreading.co.uk/sport/foot ... e-18374172

Thanks again mate.

Business as usual for ifollow people would mean £10 a game only for people abroad.

I'll have a look at the link but I hope UK viewers are able to get £10 access too given the circumstances.

[Nameless]

Which is/was kind’ve my point.
With the numbers and restrictions still very much an unknown, how can we know if everybody who meets the ticketing criteria can be satisfied...there will be some administrative headaches to get through.

Then of course there will be the disabled and STHs who require carers etc. to navigate through this....it will have a financial burden of sorts.
Or something like that.

Yeah agree tho’, things need to get back to some kind of normal, but it will be a long time yet

But it is exactly the same as buying awaytickets.
Variable number, decide the criteria, put them on sale. Not everyone gets a ticket but you limit the pool to a subsection of fans. It’s standard stuff.
Allow a number of disabled spaces ashappens at away games.
Cost of the ticket factors in the wages ofonemember of staff.

[AthleticoSpizz]

Yeah but...yeah but,

I’m losing this aren’t I

[Westwood52]

I always had this fear if we dropped down a division;only having crowds of 8000 or so.I think a crowd of 2000 would be a bit eerie.

[Nameless]

Yeah but...yeah but,

I’m losing this aren’t I

I’m just gently guiding you along !
I may be missing something massive but London Irish operated on crowds of 2k for quite a while so presumably it’s not totally impossible. The money we’d take would cover the extra costs. Not saying it will happen, just that it seems on the face of it thatthere could be a mid point between having no one there and having a normal crowd again.

[Nameless]

I always had this fear if we dropped down a division;only having crowds of 8000 or so.I think a crowd of 2000 would be a bit eerie.

Kind of works for U23 games, the atmosphere is different but quite fun.
The killer would be having to have everyone spaced. Hard to get a song going in those circumstances.