I’ve been reading stats that indicate more pubs are screening sport. If this is true, and my own observations suggest that it is, we’re seeing the reversal of a trend.
A few years ago many pub companies and brewers were cutting back on their Sky subscriptions, and a lot of the pubs that have been closing have been businesses that relied, over-relied perhaps, on football and rugby to get customers through the doors. It began to look as though live games would become the preserve of a small minority of specialist sports bars.
Sky can take some of the blame for this. I remember a trial stint on the Publican news desk, when I was going for a job there, when I was lucky enough to scoop a leaked story on Sky subs increases that were about to soar above inflation.
That was in the summer of 1997. And a similar story was to break on an annual basis; until last year when Sky froze pub subscriptions.
Another factor is foreign satellite transmissions of dubious legality. The high price of Sky, and some dodgy sales techniques, have driven struggling licensees to take a chance on screening games through channels that are not only considerably cheaper but allow them to show 3pm kick-offs on Saturdays.
I’ve been surprised at how many pubs have taken the risk, and confess to watching a few games myself, or parts of them before getting frustrated at being unable to identify the language the commentary’s in, let alone understand it.
Sky and the Football Association insist that these broadcasts are illegal, and licensees have indeed been convicted. Only last week an Essex pub was fined £19,000. And the prosecutions continue.
The Karen Murphy test case has, however, confused the matter. In October, following her apparent success in the European Court of Justice, the mainstream media was full of stories about pubs being able to show any games they like, a conclusion which was, at best, premature.
Murphy is back in the High Court later this month, and hopefully judges will reach a clear verdict and we’ll know where we stand.
Whatever the result, though, the latest evidence suggests that sport can continue to play a big part in the success of many community pubs, and that it’s worth the investment. I used to think that the growth of food was incompatible with screening football but I was wrong. Good pubs can do both. And they are.
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