RE: Karen Murphy wins European case against Premier League

Firstly, well done to Karen Murphy and her legal team. Secondly, let's hope that the Premier League (and Sky?) don't try and litigate their way out of or around this. Let's hope that they recognise it for the superb opportunity it is to improve access to and support of football at all levels.

Assuming that the PL don't take the La Liga approach and allow clubs to sell their own rights, I expect (or perhaps I should say hope) that something much more impressive will happen.

If the PL go for a pan-European rights package they would have to allow the successful bidder to re-license the live footage to other European broadcasters in order to satify competition law. They could then distribute by territory without any problems, and the increase in revenue could be used to offset the reduced prices in the UK. After all, the ECJ's ruling effectively suggests that the UK satellite TV market should be open to foreign broadcasters, so prices are then much more even across Europe.

That's the simple part. The hard part is that the FAPL would have to end the 3pm Saturday broadcast moratorium. These games are already shown across Europe, and they can't really remove them from the new package while charging more to license the footage. Equally so, they can't then not show the same matches in the UK as everyone would then move to foreign broadcasters in order to show those same matches. As happens in many areas, while the technology (to show every match) already exists, the political will must now catch up.

Such a move could easily increase viewership, and if done properly would increase the exposure of local teams to the more casual fans, instead of appealing only to the hardcore football supporters who dominate match attendances. As long as the FAPL can come up with a better internal distribution of TV money that benefits the lower leagues I think it's possible. After all, they'd be offering an improved product to a much wider potential audience. Any increase in licensing costs can then be defrayed against re-licensing to broadcasters in other markets. As long as they don't try and price themselves out of reach as they've done here in the UK, this is probably the best business opportunity the sport has seen since the Bosman ruling.

And you can watch it all in your local pub, which will be able to afford an extra member of staff with all the money they've saved.