Bolton Wanderers made £500,000 from the iFollow streaming service last season and the League One side is keen to continue using the platform for all games apart from 3pm Saturday kick-offs and maintain the domestic blackout for those fixtures.
Wanderers supporters and those of other clubs up and down the Championship, League One and League Two became very much accustomed to watching matches via the service in the 2020/21 campaign. It was down to the action taking place largely behind closed doors owing to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Ian Evatt's side were among the most watched sides in League Two last season via the platform as they achieved automatic promotion to League One. In the 2021/22 season, there were no domestic broadcasting or live streams of 3pm matches on Saturdays in the EFL as the position moved back to something resembling pre-pandemic rules.
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There were domestic streams allowed of midweek evening games or matches taking place on Saturdays not kicking off at 3pm that had not been chosen for broadcasting by Sky Sports. Matches which start at 3pm on Saturdays can be viewed by an international audience live on iFollow, but not by a domestic one.
Speaking exclusively to the Manchester Evening News , Wanderers chief executive Neil Hart explained that the Whites had a gross revenue of half a million pounds over the course of last season thanks to the iFollow service and was a 'fantastic' source of revenue for the club. He believes that football ought to be made as accessible as possible and streamed as much as can be done within broadcast and commercial agreements.
Wanderers chief executive Hart believes streaming games does not impact attendances for matches and fans attending stadiums to watch live football. He believes that streaming can act as a valuable source of revenue at times of the year when colder or inclement weather conditions, particularly for midweek games, can make watching the action via a stream perhaps more appealing for some supporters.
Hart said: “My view on iFollow and the whole streaming debate is - and I’m a fairly young chief executive at 42 years old, so I might have a different view to someone who might be 20 years older than me - my view is very much around we’ve got to be making football accessible. We’ve got to be streaming it as much as possible really.
“I understand the blackout on Saturday at 3pm and that’s fine, but outside of the 3pm Saturday window, I just want to make football accessible. I do not believe that will impact on bums on seats in stadiums. It’s a totally different experience, live football vs watching football on a screen and I think you’ll always get your crowds and your attendances attending those matches.
“I’m not fearful from a Bolton point of view that streaming matches would reduce our attendances. Last season, iFollow did fantastic for us, it did half a million pounds - 500k - of gross revenue into the football club. That is unbelievable, it did not impact attendances, it did not impact ticket revenue. In fact, what you find is you find season ticket holders, obviously when we go away and we’re playing Plymouth away or Gillingham away on a Tuesday night, they can watch the game and pay their £10 or they might have their match pass.
“Of the half a million pounds, interestingly, 60% of that came from an international audience outside of the UK, which is very interesting as well. We had some debate internally around streaming home matches. We played Crewe on a Friday night, should we stream that?
"I remember we played Cambridge on a Tuesday night and we asked should we stream that? So we streamed that and we did £25,000 from that game through streaming, because people just won’t come out for a Tuesday night, one degrees, in January when they might not have a lot of money, the weather is terrible, but accessing it via a stream and paying benefits the football club and the viewer and supporter, so I’m just in favour of making football accessible where possible that does not breach broadcast agreements.”
There is debate within the game whether the domestic 3pm Saturday blackout which prohibits matches being broadcast live to a UK audience ought to lifted or not. In Bolton's division of League One indeed, Plymouth Argyle owner and chairman Simon Hallett has come down in favour of this being abandoned and games kicking off on a Saturday at 3pm to be streamed domestically.
Asked about the subject, Hart said his own personal view is that he would like the 3pm Saturday domestic blackout to be removed. However, he stressed that from an overall Wanderers position, the club is happy for this to be maintained and for the 3pm Saturday domestic blackout to continue, but for every other game to be able to be streamed.
Hart believes ditching the 3pm Saturday domestic blackout is not a realistic prospect for football right now, owing to commerical and broadcast contracts and complexities surrounding this issue. He does not believe abandoning it is likely to happen in the short term and stressed that Wanderers are happy to keep the 3pm Saturday domestic blackout as it is but to be able to stream fixtures outside of that.
He said: “My personal view is that I would like to see it removed. I would like to have the domestic blackout removed but I don’t think that is possible, particularly at the higher level of the game, which obviously filters through the pyramid. I just don’t think that is a realistic proposition for football at the moment.
"I am okay with saying ‘okay, because of broadcast and commercial contracts and the complexities around it, let’s leave the Saturday 3pm games, let’s black them out, that’s okay, but every other fixture, let’s stream it’.
“I’m all about compromise and solutions and agreeing something where we can move forward and I think it’s a complex issue around the 3pm. I think we will get there with it, but it won’t happen quickly.
”I don’t think it’s realistic in the short term and from a Bolton Wanderers point of view, we are happy for the 3pm blackout on a Saturday to be maintained but every other fixture to be able to stream that.”
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