The modern football schedule is spoiling my season
by Steve
I really should be enjoying this Premier League season. However, I’m finding it harder to keep up, keep interested and truly stay excited. But why?
I guess the easiest answer would be my own team, Liverpool. Yet another year of promise and expectation has been dashed. They have put in good performances (against Manchester United, Everton), but have put in far more bad ones (too many to mention).
But that would be too easy an explanation. There is still so much to potentially enjoy about this season. There are three teams still realistically in contention to win the thing. At least four sides are battling for the last Champions League spot. Relegation is not a foregone conclusion for anyone, yet. This season, every single game has had the potential to be competitive. On their day, any team can beat any other. Burnley beat Manchester United, Portsmouth beat Liverpool. This is surely progress, and sign of a season to savour, at least from a neutral’s perspective?
Then why my apathy?
I think it’s down to the scheduling of the modern game. It’s not a new argument, but I think it is still a valid one.
No longer do all games kick off at 3pm on a Saturday afternoon. Last week, only a minority did, while several games were played on Sunday. Match of the Day is no longer the complete record of the league’s progress that week. It’s merely a snapshot. With games strewn across the week, it’s hard to get a true feeling of the chase developing, especially with a multitude of games in hand to take into account.
In a broader sense, modern football is pretty disorienting now. 6pm? Thursday? Well, that must be Europa League time. 5.30? Sunday? FA Cup, of course! There may now be a game to watch every day of the week, but that, for me, dilutes the impact of football.
The many international breaks we have seems to stall the momentum further. It can seem like the season is restarting every six to eight weeks. The story of the season is continually being put on ‘pause’.
Well, enough of my moaning (for now). Do you find the modern schedule baffling? Do you yearn for everyone playing at 3pm on a Saturday? Or do you love being able to watch game after game, day-after day?
Wait until next year 
According to an old professor at my university, three o’clock kick off times were all about revenue to begin with, rather like TV kick off times are all geared towards grabbing the highest advertising revenues today. Early football teams, prior to the setting up of the football league, were factory teams and when government legislation made it complusory for factory workers to be given Saturday afternoons off the factory owners started scheduling the football for three o’clock. This meant the workers would get paid around midday, go home for some lunch, return to the factory for the match and pay back some of their wages to the factory owners in order to get through the gates to watch their workmates play. Capitalism was therefore the incentive for setting up three o’clock kick off times right from the off.
That said, I do miss three o’clock saturday games with the frequently thrown in Wednesday evening matches thrown in for good measure. Wall to wall football on tv can get boring but hopefully drives a few more people to actually go and watch from the stands, either at the big clubs or local, lower league teams.
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I’d had an inkling that the 3pm kick-off related to Saturday morning working, so thanks for confirming it!
While perhaps I’m being a little idealistic, I think there was a certain something about all games being at 3pm, as over the course of a couple of hours everything changed. Now, there is more of a drip-drip-drip effect. If your team wins, it is a good day. If your team wins, while at the same time all of their rivals lose, its a great day!
I haven’t any figures to hand, but I’m sure the Sky Sports generation has led to an increase in attendance, but as I think I may have covered here, there has also been a real rise in the average age of an attending fan, as younger supporters are priced out. Even conference games can touch £20 a ticket. My fear is, that in a few years, attendance will fall as the younger generation will have not got into the routine of a Saturday afternoon at the football. That could spell trouble for clubs already over-spending and over-reliant on ticket revenue.
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wall to wall sport only works for MLB…the slow pace allows for even tempo. In the US, American Pro Football can go 4 days a week late in season…much too spread out.
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Have to agree, Nathan. ‘Slower’ sports like baseball and cricket are far less of a problem. It is far easier to dip in and out of those sports. Without getting too high falutin’, those slower sports have a more intricate narrative, as they are played for so much longer, on any given week. Any code of football is far more suited to short bursts, otherwise that narrative is thinned out too much. If that makes any sense?
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