Nov 19 2008
You Have to Compete With the Free Stuff
I’m going to let you in on a little secret.
Every day, you can find some story about some large corporation (or some lame advocacy group backed by large corporations) making a huge stink about how certain people are taking their products and distributing them for free on the Internet. Illegal? You bet. The reality, however, is that plenty of folks like free stuff, especially in this crappy economy. Plus, if one source for free stuff gets shut down, ten more sources pop up to replace it. Shutting down Napster didn’t stop any dude from sharing his MP3 collection with anyone who wanted it.
So how do you deal with this situation? Simple — you offer people something better. The demand is obviously there for your product, so give it to them in a package so good that people will want to pay for it.
The Premier League hasn’t quite figured this out yet. Two weeks ago, the EPL sent its lawyers after Justin.tv for showing live streams of EPL matches on its video feeds. Then yesterday, those same lawyers went after 101 Great Goals for embedding highlight clips from EPL matches into its site. Of course, the league cites copyright violation in both cases, since it’s just that desperate to protect the billion-dollar TV rights deal currently in place.
These cease-and-desist notices, however, ignore the obvious market reality — there’s huge demand for live streams and highlight videos of EPL matches. The EPL is so eager to stamp out these copyright violations that they’re completely blind to the fact that people really want to see this stuff on their computers.
If the powers that be at the Prem had any sense, they would be doing this themselves. They would create their own official YouTube channel and serve up their own embeddable goal videos — complete with revenue sharing with Google, of course. (MLS already does this.) Plus, each video could contain an ad at the end… for the Premier League’s own streaming service. Watch any Prem match live and on-demand from anywhere in the world for only $10/month. (The AFL and NRL already do this.)
Instead, the EPL is using lawyers to try and stop these sites from doing what the EPL should be doing…
Back in his playing days at Queens Park, Sir Alex Ferguson was being bitten by a player who was marking him. He complained to the ref, but to no avail. Then, as he put it, “At half-time I wasn’t doing that well and [the coach] Jackie Gardiner said: ‘What’s wrong with you? Bite him back.’ That was the way it was at Queens Park. You didn’t sidestep people. You went through them.”
Right now, the EPL is sidestepping people. It’s complaining to the ref, when it should be biting back — by offering its own live streaming video service and its own embeddable goal videos, either through its own site or through another company’s. That way, if Man City decides to emulate Catania on a free kick, nobody has to violate any laws to see it.
Will this stop the Justin.tv’s of the world? Maybe not entirely, but it will prevent many of them from thinking there’s a gap in the market that needs filling. After all, if that gap didn’t exist, nobody would be trying to fill it.
So mind the gap, gents!
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I pray the day you describe never comes.
Football in the UK, as so many US blogs seem completely unaware, is a fair bit more than just the Prem. Moreover, most of us are at the very best ambivalent about the so-called benefits the flood of Sky money has brought the game. What we see are fat greedy clubs enabled and empowered to get fatter and greedier, with no thought for the rest of us, who incidentally develop the players they then cream off.
The reason we are still grimly hanging on to no live Saturday matches at 3 pm is because we know what happens. Show the Big Four live on telly and the floating support for most League clubs collapses. An embedded stream, officially sponsored by the Prem, would have precisely the same effect. Already our Tuesday night gates are hard-hit by the bloated greedfest that is the Champions’ League (not a League, not for Champions). Comparing the Prem to the NFL is completely pointless - the NFL is a *franchised League, with no League structure and nothing underneath comparable to the 72 Football League clubs and the pyramid. The dynamics are totally different.
Bleating about market realities ignores the strong sense of community FL clubs enshrine. It’s not a damn business, however much Rupert Murdoch wants it to be one. Supporting a small, struggling club is about identity, passion and community. It’s quite hard to convey that on Youtube.