Coventry City fixture news from CoventryLive as up to 24 Sky Blues matches will be shown live on television in 2024/25
Coventry City, their EFL rivals and football supporters across the board are heading into uncharted waters over the next few months with significantly more matches than ever before being shown live on television.
Championship clubs will all be shown live on Sky Sports up to 24 times per season during a five-year deal worth £935 million. League One and League Two clubs will be live about 20 times per season. To put that into context, the Sky Blues were on the box just nine times last season, seven at the CBS Arena and two away.
There will still be seven Championship matches on each regular weekend which kick off at 3pm on a Saturday, but the other five will be spread over 12.30pm kick-offs on Saturday or Sunday, plus the occasional game on Friday, Monday or even Thursday evenings. All mid-week games, Bank Holidays, opening and final day matches will be on TV, as well as every tie in the Carabao Cup.
The EFL is confident the changes will not have a negative impact on attendances, which are up there as the strongest in the world for divisions below a top flight. That will surely be put to the test for City’s away match at Blackburn Rovers on a freezing cold Tuesday night in January (21st) which will be broadcast live, as will all midweek league fixtures.
That’s a 260-mile round-trip that will take the best part of five hours when factoring in M6 traffic and the usual night closures on the return journey – or it’s live on television from your front room or the local pub. And Coventry ’s geography in the middle of the country means they get off lightly in terms of miles to cover compared to Plymouth, Portsmouth, Swansea, Sunderland or Norwich.
A statement from the EFL said: “As Article 48 (the blackout rule that prevents live matches being shown between 2.45pm and 5.15pm on Saturdays) has been protected, we do not believe attendances will be significantly impacted by more match action being made available.
“Nothing beats the live matchday experience and we are confident fans that can and are able to attend a match will continue to do so in the large numbers we continue to see through the turnstiles. We also know there is a large demand from fans that cannot always get to games, so making more EFL action available through one established provider represents another way of taking EFL action to the audience.”
It added: “It is clear that supporters want more broadcast content. We already make 603 matches available and we have no evidence that they impact attendances. 2023/24 League attendances are up by 10 per cent on last season, with approximately 23 million fans attending.
“We have protected 832 key Saturday 3pm matches and introduced extended notice periods for fans, balanced club selections and five weekend matches at Sat 12.30pm. We believe the balance we have struck grows media income but not at the expense of attendance income.”
Leave a Reply