This Saturday, you have – in theory – your pick of 13 football games being broadcast legally on UK TV.
You would need deep pockets and several screens to do it, but you could watch three games from the Premier League, one from the Scottish Premiership, three from the Championship, a pair a piece from League One and League Two and a couple from the National League.
Subscriptions to Dazn, Sky Sports, TNT Sports and Premier Sports (me neither) would be required and you would also, for one week only, need to be signed up to TikTok to watch a stream of Southend vs Carlisle at 5.30pm.
I went down this cul-de-sac when, after criticising the 3pm blackout as being completely outdated and calling for it to be scrapped, the most common riposte from its defenders was that not being able to watch matches in traditional kick-offs was the real reason why we still have such a healthy culture of match-going fans in this country. But the reality feels very different.
That is just the legal stuff. Dodgy firesticks that circumnavigate legal broadcasters are all too common and you are only one click of a mouse away from illegal streaming sites that have feeds of every match from England, Scotland and countless other minor European leagues. You shudder to think of the shady characters behind those sorts of operations.
It is a mess and the 3pm blackout is the sacred cow that needs to be slaughtered to sort it out. It feels utterly bewildering that in 2025 you can spend £150 a month to watch football and be forced to keep abreast of your own team via live text or push notifications. It is an analogue policy in a digital world.
The argument behind the blackout, which has been here since the 1960s, is two-fold. Firstly, it protects crowds lower down the pyramid but prevents casual fans from watching so-called “bigger” games on TV when the vast majority of matches in Leagues One and Two and grassroots are being played.
Secondly, scarcity actually protects the value of live games. If every match was to be made available, would broadcasters actually end up paying comparatively less per game?
But I think we underestimate fan culture in this country. Watching on TV is the palest imitation of going live and I have yet to meet a single supporter who says anything else.
Loyalty to the lower leagues here is ingrained and surprisingly robust, even in an attention economy craving instant fixes. Young fans gorge on away day “limbs” videos on social media from places like Accrington Stanley and Walsall – no-one ever went viral leaping off their couch watching a team that play hundreds of miles away.
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So what’s the solution? Sensible, well-priced streaming that gives a fair whack back to clubs is surely the way. Package it all up with a British version of the NFL’s Red Zone show (which shows action from games as they go on).
Sky are already doing this on a Sunday with the plethora of 2pm kick-offs and Dazn proposed it with the EFL back in 2023, only to get knocked back. Instead, we get seven EFL games moved to midday in a sort of half-way house arrangement that probably is the worst of both worlds.
Remarkably this status quo is protected until at least 2029, which is when the next Premier League TV deal starts. Given the breakneck speed of advances in technology, I fear the blackout will feel positively jurassic by that point.
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