Lack of TV coverage gives United ‘Sky’ blues

It was the first – and, thus far – only occasion in which a Ballymena United match has been screened live on Sky Sports.

It’s hard to believe that the satellite broadcaster is into its sixth season of screening live games from the Irish Premiership – the latest of them last night’s (Monday) Crusaders v Linfield clash.

By the end of this season, Sky will have shown 30 live Irish League games since they first came on board - a very welcome boost for the profile of the senior game in this country.

That’s 30 games, with two teams in each game – therefore 60 possibilities to be shown ‘live’. And Ballymena United have been on ONCE.

Little did anyone think as Ballymena lost 3-2 at home to Newry that night, that four-and-a-bit years later, their opponents would be defunct or that United would still be waiting for their next appearance in front of the Sky cameras.

Now let’s not be silly here. There are simple supply and demand factors at work. It’s why you’re more likely to see Man United v Chelsea on Sky than you are to see Wigan take on Swansea.

The top teams are always likely to attract more media attention than the strugglers and that’s perfectly understandable.

In that same period since Sky took over, Cliftonville and Linfield are already into double figures in terms of numbers of live appearances.

This was even before Cliftonville produced their fabulous current side, whose performances this season would grace any TV screen.

Sky seemed to fall in love with the Reds after the first live Irish League they screened was a terrific 2-2 draw with Linfield at Solitude – so much so, in fact, that out of the first seven games they broadcast, Cliftonville featured in five of them!

Casting my eye down the list of fixtures over those six seasons, one thing leaps out at me. Sky tends to choose matches at tight, compact grounds like Solitude, Seaview and Coleraine Showgrounds – venues where the crowd are virtually on top of the action, packed into terracing behind the goals. It all adds to the visual appeal.

It’s also extremely noticeable that the vast majority of Linfield’s Sky appearances have been away from home at venues like the ones listed above, rather than Sky screening rows upon rows of empty seats at Windsor Park.

Ballymena are in the same boat to an extent, with the Showgrounds viewed as a soulless, two-sided, open-ended carbuncle where a crowd of even 1,000 people – which would be deemed very healthy in Irish League terms – can look like nothing among nearly 4,000 sky blue seats.

But it’s not simply a question of the prestige of seeing your club appear on live TV. Invariably in this day and age, money comes into the equation and this has been brought even more sharply into focus since the IFA’s introduction of new financial regulations, aimed at avoiding a situation of clubs driving themselves to financial meltdown.

Given that the home club in a Sky game pockets £6,000, if you were to be fortunate enough to be screened twice in one season, that’s 12 grand of ‘allowable income’ towards your overall budget – which ultimately determines how much you are able to spend on players – that your competitors don’t get.

It could ultimately lead, on a much smaller scale, to the same scenario which exists in England of the rich clubs getting richer and the gap widening each year between them and the also-rans.

If there was one blessing about Ballymena United’s scoreless draw at Portadown on Saturday, it’s that it WASN’T being screened live on Sky – a game so poor in quality that it would have had remote controls being lifted and pressed to alternative channels all over Britain!

* Follow Ballymena Times Sports Editor Stephen Alexander on Twitter (@Stephen_Bmena)