The phenomenon of football blackout on Saturdays (Edition #3)

3rd edition of this newsletter is out. It’s Saturday and I thought it should be interesting to learn more about the football blackout on TV that has existed in the United Kingdom for more than 40 years.

I promise this edition is shorter than yesterday. Enjoy!

Decades have passed since this football blackout law first appeared. Millions of football fans from the UK cannot enjoy top-notch games that kick off at 3 pm on Saturdays. And it’s totally awful (in my opinion)!

The rule says that Premier League, Football League or FA Cup matches cannot be broadcasted on live television on Saturday between 2:45 pm and 5:15 pm.

The man that should be blamed for this is Bob Lord, chairman of Burnley F.C., who managed to persuade his fellow Football League chairmen that broadcasting matches on Saturday afternoons would bring about a dismal outcome for the attendance of lower league games. That, of course, according to Lord would impact the income too.

The rule counts more than 40 years already and is even applied to foreign football matches. Eg. if the game starts at 4:30 pm, the first half is not broadcasted, it doesn’t matter that it is played in Spain, Germany, or any other country.

Interestingly, UK gamblers can still bet on sports events that happen while the TV is not showing the game and see live stats.

However, recently, the FA Cup final got an exception and it was allowed to be broadcasted even though the game started at 3:00 pm, on Saturday.

Interesting fact, live radio broadcasts are allowed and fans can enjoy at least hearing what’s happening in the field.

Will it change someday?

There are a lot of discussions happening among football fans and the community and the pressure has reached an enormous level in recent years.

Multiple investigations were completed stating that there is no correlation between attendance and match time at lower league games.

Moreover, discussions about streaming services losing a lot of potential profit, and the necessity of being more open-minded sparked lately.

The first positive outcome was the 2019-2020 Premier League season when the kick-off of some games was pushed to 7:45 pm. The number of games broadcasted on live TV has increased positively.

In 2022, there were reports circulating in the media indicating that the English Football League (EFL) was contemplating the possibility of lifting the blackout clause in their TV rights sale which would take effect in the season starting from 2024.

That is a unique football phenomenon that still exists in the 21st century. Despite that, football fans are quite divided and some of them are totally fine with this blackout. What will happen next? We’ll see in the nearest future.

If you liked this post, share it with your friends and family to keep my work ongoing. It doesn’t cost you anything and you will learn something new about football daily.