Anybody who has seen the plugs in recent weeks for Sky's coverage of the forthcoming soccer season in Britain may have been surprised by the claim that the game only means as much to them as it does to its viewers.
Most of those who tune in afterall may enjoy quoting Bill Shankly's line about soccer being far more important than life and death but only at Wapping 2, home of the satellite broadcaster, has the Premiership genuinely become a matter of survival.
From its launch in 1989 Sky had been anxious to find a major hook on which to hang its marketing and, since its first deal with the English FA three years later, the entire media organisation's fortunes have been inextricably linked with the development of post-Taylor report British soccer.
This season the station, or rather group of stations, will carry a total of 230 fixtures. Sixty Premiership games will be live on Sky Sports 1 with a similar number from the three league divisions combined on Sky Sports 2.
A clearer line will be drawn between the two channels as they become separate subscription options for satellite viewers (they will remain bundled on cable for the foreseeable future). Those who predicted that the price would go up once the package was sufficiently strong will see the first evidence of that from the outset.
Subscribing to the three Sky Sports channels will, in fact, cost subscribers via satellite dishes around £25 per month for the coming season. Those receiving the stations via Cablelink (or other cable services) will pay slightly over half that amount (£13) which will remain unchanged until the new year at least.
Those subscribers receiving Sky Sports 1 directly will continue to receive Sky Sports 3 free of charge but Sky Sports 2, now also to carry the FA Cup, Italy versus England in the World Cup and England's rugby matches at Twickenham against the southern hemisphere nations, shall be encoded separately.
In addition to the major competitions, Sky has picked up a number of smaller packages including coverage of England's home games, schoolboy and under-21 internationals as well as the English FA Trophy.
They have backed away from the European club competitions, however, after their £2 million purchase of Manchester United's campaign two years ago ended after just two games when they went out in the first round to Rotor Volvograd.
Their absence from the market has allowed British terrestrial services to pick up some crumbs with Liverpool's home games being quickly bagged by the BBC and the newly-launched Channel 5 seeking to hitch its own wagon to the game by acquiring the rights to Arsenal, Aston Villa and Chelsea's home legs.
Nobody, so far at least, has bothered to sign up Leicester City while Channel 5s bid of around £1 million for Chelsea's Cup Winners' Cup games has been seen as being somewhat over the top given their rivals' reluctance to schedule live football for a Thursday night. Nevertheless, after the experience of Sky few would question football's ability to help a new broadcaster to increase brand awareness.
Match Of The Day (now starring our very own Mark Lawrenson) will return this weekend although the BBC have lost their live FA Cup rights to ITV who, with the Champions League also under their belts, seem satisfied that Bob Wilson will finally be earning his reputedly enormous wage packet by having something to present.
Back at home, RTE, who are scheduled to considerably extend their coverage of the domestic game this season, bring us the Champions League once again and they will also carry Chelsea's Cup Winners' Cup games.
TnaG, though, who last year came up with the bright idea of showing Spanish league highlights on a Monday, have come up with the even brighter one of including Scottish action this year. Now everybody (well just about everybody) here will be able to share the misery of our Celtic following brethren across the water by tuning in for the hour long (30 minutes from each league) show on Mondays at nine or Tuesdays at six o'clock.
If that's not exotic enough for you, then keep an eye on Eurosport which will be covering all of France's and Brazil's internationals live, or start lobbying Cablelink to share Channel 5 with the nation ("we're still monitoring the situation, but we've had very few enquiries about the station since it was launched", says the cable operator's Tara Delaney) for it has Major League Soccer from the US and the Brazilian League lined up for those long winter nights.
Sky's Pre-Christmas Timetable
August 10th: Tottenham v Man Utd; 11th: Arsenal v Coventry; 24th: Barnsley v Chelsea; 25th: Blackburn v Sheffield Wed; 31st: Liverpool v Newcastle.
September 1st: Bolton v Everton; 14th: Blackburn v Leeds; 21st: Chelsea v Arsenal; 22nd: Liverpool v Villa; 28th: Blackburn v Coventry.
October 5th: Liverpool v Chelsea; 6th: Leicester v Derby; 19th: Tottenham v Sheffield Wed; 20th: Barnsley v Coventry; 26th: Arsenal v Villa; 27th: Leicester v West Ham.
November 2nd: Everton v Southampton; 3rd: West Ham v Palace; 9th: Arsenal v Man Utd; 10th: Leicester v Wimbledon; 23rd: Leeds v West Ham; 24th: Tottenham v Palace; 30th: Arsenal v Liverpool.
December 1st: Bolton v Newcastle; 6th: Liverpool v Man Utd; 7th: Wimbledon v Southampton; 8th: Sheffield Wed v Barnsley; 14th: Bolton v Derby; 15th: Man Utd v Villa; 21st: Newcastle v Man Utd; 22nd: Wimbledon v Arsenal; 26th: Villa v Tottenham; 28th: Newcastle v Liverpool; 29th: Southampton v Chelsea.
