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Tuesday 12 December 2023

Best Seat In The House

From my living room in Sheffield on Friday evening, while listening to the Sky Blues beat Birmingham City, I was transported to Kirkcaldy for a very enjoyable game between Raith Rovers and Partick Thistle, the magic of the iPlayer bringing the BBC Scotland coverage to me.

I've blogged and tweeted for nearly a decade now on the subject of affordable football, almost always in terms of going to games but it does mean something else to me and that's the way that I consume the game while at home, which usually means the Beeb.

From the excellent coverage on local radio, to Match of the Day and Sportscene (for coverage of the top leagues in England and Scotland, live football from the Women's Super League, Scottish Championship and Irish Premiership, I get most of what I need to keep in touch with the game at lots of levels and in different parts of the UK.

Everybody's different, of course, and much of the above won't float everyone's boat but, at a time when the broadcaster's future seems to under perpetual threat, I think its always worth highlighting what you get for your money.

But all too often it is hidden away and you have to seek out games like the Raith one if you want to watch it.

The excellent Sean Ingle wrote in The Guardian recently, about the kind of output a BBC Sports Channel could show.

His main concern was the lack of airtime given to those sports that come to the fore in Olympic years but are then relegated to online or the red button, but the point is valid for football coverage away from the top leagues and if it was available on Freeview or a Sky platform then I'm sure would be popular, especially as the games are being covered anyway.

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