Naming Rights: They're Just Wrong

(Photo by Clive Rose/Getty Images)

"Hmmmmm...what to name a stadium and all stands in it.
After legendary players of the team? Nah that wouldn't get any money would it?
After all, it is only intangible passion and respect.

No, no, I need an irrelevant sponsor's name to really give that company some exposure. So much in fact that it completely overshadows the popularity of the football club itself. Ah, there we go, The ENIC Stadium!"

The above quote was my idea of Daniel Levy's thought process when thinking of some silly name for a new stadium, even though the entire site will be located closer to White Hart Lane than the previous one!

I keep saying football has rotted to the core with money, sponsorship, and protectionism of TV rights in order to maintain the other two things I mentioned six seconds ago.

What has happened to the love of the game instead of desire for money from the game?

I'm talking about sponsors and a wild demand for copyright protection of live images of Fernando Torres' face.

So here I am with another rant. It’s in two parts. Part one is about the childish money-grabbing techniques of IMG media who hold "rights" to the Premier League amongst other sporting events.

Part two is about the golden carrots that sponsors dangle in front of football clubs.


PART ONE

You see, instead of IMG Media (which is American—notice the pattern yet?) letting Sky and ESPN (UK) split the games right down the middle and offering their share on a red-button feature (which Sky came up with in the first place and also offer every Champions' League fixture on), they let countries where the English Premier League games aren't played have 80 percent of the remaining games, without offering them to the country where they're played!!!

Why can't they just offer the games here AND sell rights to those countries? They are too silly to realise that there are more Tottenham, West Ham, Aston Villa, Sunderland, and Everton fans in the UK than there are in Romania!

Where’s the financial disadvantage in showing all games in their country of origin whilst selling them to other countries at the same time? It’s not fair on the more local fan bases who can’t always get access to tickets because of the corporate sections within the stadiums being reserved.

IMG media have made it harder on themselves by supporting these silly laws to protect live video which, when live, is INTANGIBLE! Live footage isn’t tangible unless it’s recorded. Lyrics and music by artists are tangible. That’s the difference.

Put England first for English football.

Don’t worry, they’ll still have their £billions at the end of the week.

Maybe more if they broadcast all matches, but they don’t, and yet this company wonders why very few people are subscribing to Sky Sports/ESPN. You can put all the sports you like on them, but football is the most watched game in the world.

Therefore, a red-button feature for league matches would have the executives of IMG, Sky Sports, and ESPN up to their eyeballs in money, while all football fans would be up to their eyeballs in their PREFERRED team, rather than the top four, which a lot of fans don’t want to watch every single weekend.

If a red button feature for the Champions League is available midweek and people are happy with that, why not the Premier League!!??

They have the same viewing audience considering Manchester United, Arsenal, Liverpool, Chelsea, and Barcelona are in it every year.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you...hypocrisy!!!

Am I campaigning to deny Korea the right to gaze at their only player in an EPL team, Romania the right to see Nemanja Vidic (who, despite hailing from Eastern-Europe, is actually Serbian), France the right to watch their second national team (Arsenal) or Malcom Glazer his daily dose of exposure from across the pond? No!

Am I campaigning to give true football fans access to their favourite football team if they can’t pay excruciating prices for tickets (I’m trying not to jump on the "there’s-a-recession" bandwagon)? YES!

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