Football clubs set to charge for online commentary

NEWS In the US this week, Major League Baseball (MLB) announced that it is to charge sports fans outside the reach of the local radio station for live online audio match reports. MLB also announced a syndication deal for audio and video content with RealNetworks. Now British football teams are set to consider charging for live audio reports. "Sports will pioneer this sort of service," said Jonathon Grant, managing director of SpeakingWebsites.com, which was launched this week in London. "We are talking to both Reading and Luton about streaming audio onto the web and are looking at the revenue model." Of the two, negotiations with Luton Town Football Club are furthest advanced, Grant told silicon.com. The team is interested in charging overseas fans for the service. The team apparently has a considerable number of supporters in Denmark, and is considering commencing the service as soon as next season. There are still a number of issues to resolve, however, such as whether the offering should be free of charge for the first six months. Neighboring football club Watford last week announced that it's outsourcing all its IT to local applications service provider Freedom, but the company is not currently intending to charge for live online match commentary. "People will charge, but it's not the way we want to go," said James Barton, director of IT and ebusiness at Watford FC. "We already provide the service for our overseas supporters, but we're definitely not looking at charging." Video streaming is a different matter. When broadband services become sophisticated enough to allow it, companies will consider streaming matches over the internet, Barton believes. But streaming potentially poses problems because of exclusive broadcasting deals with Sky. If companies lose out on lucrative deals with Sky, they will have to charge to recoup losses.