Kieran Maguire tips Sunderland and Dreyfus to ‘suffer’ after £119m deal news
Matchday income at Sunderland could fall if the Football League abandons the long-respected 3pm broadcast blackout.
So says finance guru Kieran Maguire, speaking exclusively to Football Insider about talks reportedly held at a recent EFL meeting.
No Saturday 3pm kick-off has been broadcast in the UK for nearly 60 years in an effort to protect attendances throughout the pyramid.
But the Daily Mail reported last Thursday (25 November) that the EFL could scrap the blackout in a bid to boost its £119million-a-year TV deal.
Kyril Louis-Dreyfus has confirmed he owns a controlling stake in the club despite claims to the contrary, per the Sheilds Gazzette today (4 December).
The return on his investment will depend heavily on the future of the EFL’s broadcast deal and the Black Cats’ matchday income.
Maguire explains why abandoning the blackout might have a detrimental effect on Sunderland’s matchday coffers.
“There is an algorithm with the streaming service that calculates how much a team receives,” he told Football Insider correspondent Adam Williams.
“The argument with iFollow is that people aren’t going to watch their team play away, so the home team loses out financially.
“If the system is going to be reformed, I think there are a lot of ramifications that have to be thought through.
“Going to a match can be a marginal decision for some people, especially if you’re a non-season ticket holder and the weather is awful.
“Instead you can have some mates round and only one person pays for the streaming pass. That is the potential loss.
“If you do it on a one-for-one basis, you’re losing some ticketing revenue but you might pick up more from streaming passes.
“However, it is more likely that they’ll suffer financially if people get together and watch these games.”
Sunderland are in their fourth successive season in League One following back-to-back relegations in 2016-17 and 2017-18.
Lee Johnson’s side are currently 5th in the third tier ahead of today’s (4 December) clash with Oxford United at the Stadium of Light.
In other news, Kevin Phillips claims Sunderland handed promotion advantage after Johnson reveal.