No domestic live EFL from next season on iFollow - ATV Too?

[Winchelsea Green]

That's my biggest concern how do we get cheap trains and the like with late fixture changes this isn't a good move for football despite the money

The new deal requires longer timescales for changing match times. See “increased notice for fans” here :

Sky Sports agrees new five-year EFL deal: Over 1000 matches per season!

From 2024/25 to 2028/29, Sky Sports will broadcast a minimum of: 328 Sky Bet Championship matches, 248 Sky Bet League One matches, 248 Sky Bet League Two matches, All 15 Play-Off matches, All 93 Carabao Cup matches, All 127 EFL Trophy matches

www.skysports.com

 

[Mark Smith]

The thing that I have not seen answered, which doesn't effect me anyway, is what about the overseas ATV subscriber.

OG, Mat, and others have moaned this year that they couldn't watch Argyle games shown on SKY. Next year they are all on SKY!

I’ve lived in France for six years and never used anything but a British credit card with British address, so think your point may not hold water.

You are right and you are wrong. I have lived outside the UK since 1989 and believe me I have tried all manner of things to get around geoblocking and the rest of it over the years.

During that time companies have blown hot and cold about whether they look at where a credit card is issued, what the billing address is and what your IP address is.

But almost always they have defaulted back over the years to the “see no evil“ approach, even Sky, especially now in the internet age. If they get their money they only look as closely as the regulator requires. Amazon are still difficult as they have private vendors to protect. MSM companies make a token effort.

I think I am correct in saying that our own beloved club doesn’t ask questions about an ATV subscription taken out with a UK cc billed from a UK address, and yet that would be the simplest control.

 

[Green Flash]

I’ve lived in France for six years and never used anything but a British credit card with British address, so think your point may not hold water.

Ok, I have just noticed when I have tried to access certain US streaming services they have required a US address with connected credit card. There are also other ways to make VPN harder to use that I confess I dont understand. For example when I am abroad VPN does not seem to work to get Sky TV even though I am a genuine subscriber.

 

[Green Flash]

Unenforceable as its not a criminal offence in the UK to access region locked content

Its will not be a criminal matter Butternubs it could be written into the contracts as a commercial measure. If Sky hope to get £12 (or even £10) for a day pass from football followers or want to encourage more subscribers (which of course they do, which is why they are shelling out so much in the first place), they can build in contractual penalties for clubs failing to take sufficient steps to block domestic access to their own rival coverage. To date they havent really cared as most games are on a saturday afternoon which sky are not showing anyway, but with far more non saturday games I just worry they will put their foot down...

 

[German Shepherd]

You are right and you are wrong. I have lived outside the UK since 1989 and believe me I have tried all manner of things to get around geoblocking and the rest of it over the years.

During that time companies have blown hot and cold about whether they look at where a credit card is issued, what the billing address is and what your IP address is.

But almost always they have defaulted back over the years to the “see no evil“ approach, even Sky, especially now in the internet age. If they get their money they only look as closely as the regulator requires. Amazon are still difficult as they have private vendors to protect. MSM companies make a token effort.

I think I am correct in saying that our own beloved club doesn’t ask questions about an ATV subscription taken out with a UK cc billed from a UK address, and yet that would be the simplest control.

Hallett's all for live streaming at any time so I wouldn't expect Argyle to be all that bothered. I do a couple of home games a year usually, streaming or no streaming, but now I'm 'living in Italy' Argyle have had another £200 off me for the other home games which they wouldn't have got off me if I weren't 'living in Italy'.

 

[Green Flash]

Hallett's all for live streaming at any time so I wouldn't expect Argyle to be all that bothered. I do a couple of home games a year usually, streaming or no streaming, but now I'm 'living in Italy' Argyle have had another £200 off me for the other home games which they wouldn't have got if I weren't 'living in Italy'.

Argyle will only be bothered if Sky impose contractual obligations to take more effective steps to prevent use of VPN. I have no idea whether they have but if I were them I would.

 

[Butternubs]

Its will not be a criminal matter Butternubs it could be written into the contracts as a commercial measure. If Sky hope to get £12 (or even £10) for a day pass from football followers or want to encourage more subscribers (which of course they do, which is why they are shelling out so much in the first place), they can build in contractual penalties for clubs failing to take sufficient steps to block domestic access to their own rival coverage. To date they havent really cared as most games are on a saturday afternoon which sky are not showing anyway, but with far more non saturday games I just worry they will put their foot down...

No one can stop people accessing that content. Repressive governments have tried, and failed. There's no way a club can do it with two IT staff. Whatever is in the contract between Sky and clubs around this will be wishy thinking and there because lawyers wanted it there. It will be completely unpoliceable and unenforceable. In other words, a total non-issue for end users.

 

[Green Flash]

No one can stop people accessing that content. Repressive governments have tried, and failed. There's no way a club can do it with two IT staff. Whatever is in the contract between Sky and clubs around this will be wishy thinking and there because lawyers wanted it there. It will be completely unpoliceable and unenforceable. In other words, a total non-issue for end users.

Butternubs I am not sure about that, clubs share platforms for streaming services, it is not all done by Argyle, they just create the content. It certainly is possible to make it harder to access streaming via VPN than it currently is. Whether or not Sky insist on it remains to be seen...

 

[Butternubs]

Butternubs I am not sure about that, clubs share platforms for streaming services, it is not all done by Argyle, they just create the content. It certainly is possible to make it harder to access streaming via VPN than it currently is. Whether or not Sky insist on it remains to be seen...

I remain unconvinced.

 

[Mark Smith]

I remain unconvinced.

Sky won't let you watch from abroad, because those are the rules they are subject to. But, believe me, they don't make much of an effort to stop VPNs.

The BBC spent many years and a lot of budget with a specialist department chasing and closing out VPNs, but now they seem to have largely given up - either because of their own budget cuts, or because VPNs are like the mythical hydra and they knew they were fighting a losing battle. Interestingly, they are more sensitive about downloads than purely live streaming.

 

[Prince Maurice]

Decent VPNs work both ways, therefore when abroad you can put yourself back in the UK and such things as Sky, BBC I-Player, UK betting sites etc will work whilst foreign.

I use F-Secure by FREEDOME for around £30 a year. Recommended by the MoD for OPSEC and utilised well when abroad to use UK sites and takes me to Belgium every other Saturday when home

 

[GreenEden]

Decent VPNs work both ways, therefore when abroad you can put yourself back in the UK and such things as Sky, BBC I-Player, UK betting sites etc will work whilst foreign.

I use F-Secure by FREEDOME for around £30 a year. Recommended by the MoD for OPSEC and utilised well when abroad to use UK sites and takes me to Belgium every other Saturday when home

I do same with Nord absolutely brilliant ! The flight to Iceland every Saturday is a bit of a pain though ! 🫢😉😆

 

[Mark58]

I thought I would pop in to say that even after closely reading this entire thread I haven't a Scooby Doo about any of it!

I suppose it doesn't help that I keep getting VPN mixed up with VPL. Thankfully the CPS have decided not to take matters further.

Oh, for the days of jumpers for goalposts...

 

[Frank Butcher]

A short history on VPN technology for anyone interested (Mark 😉). Back in the day I helped design/deploy many of the early VPNs. Virtual Private Networks were originally designed to segregate private network traffic from other networks - typically the public Internet. In the old days companies would buy leased lines from BT, Virgin etc. and pay through the nose on line rentals. VPNs changed that allowing traffic to be ‘tunnelled’ through the Internet with authorisation and encryption technology ensuring that the connection could be trusted and secure. This was typically known as site to site VPN. There are other use case examples but I’ll keep it simple.

Then along can remote access VPN, allowing individual users (home networking for example) and small offices to connect to HQ doing away with costly dial up and/or ISDN type technologies. My company was using and selling this technology in the early/mid 2000s and I was regularly working from home long before the boom during Covid.

The hosted VPN services discussed here are based on the same principles, except the main objective is to disguise your identity. Basically, making it look as though you are coming from a remote location even though you are local - or vice versa as the use case determines.

Clearly there’s lots of detail but I’ve tried to keep it fairly straightforward - hopefully that helps explain it a little if anyone is interested.

 

[Manchesterlala]

Why would they? Pay £10 to watch Argyle live, 1x game or £11.99 to watch 24 hours of all Sky Sport channels. £11.99 is still better value for money.
I’d ask if Argyle will still be able to offer full match replays as early as the next morning for £5.50 per month?

You go either further and that £35 per month is better value than £11.99 for 24 hours. But it's only better value if you want or have time to watch more than just 90 minutes of football.