Let's get technical

In 2010, it is more expensive to watch live sport than ever before. Take season ticket prices for the upcoming Premier League season. The highest cheapest price can be found at the Emirates, where the cheapest season ticket is £893. While it is true Arsenal are still paying for their incredibly expensive new season, can they really justify charging such an amount as Britain tries to drag itself out of a damaging recession? Fans are being priced out of going to live games, especially when you factor in travel, food and other costs of a day out at the football. The two beneath Arsenal are Liverpool (£680) and Tottenham Hotspur (£650.) But perhaps more surprising is that the cheapest season tickets at two relegation threatened teams last season, West Ham United and Wolverhampton Wanderers, are more expensive than the cheapest tickets at the 18-time English champions, Manchester United. Surely the football at Upton Park and Molineux isn't going to be better than what is on view at Old Trafford?
This is very unlikely - this is another example of footballing greed, and the clubs can be as guilty of it as the players. Yes, football clubs are businesses, they need to make money through the turnstiles and merchandising, but if you price the fans out of going, attendances will fall and the price hikes will backfire. And surely it's most important to have stadiums full to capacity, to create a good image and atmosphere?
It is not just at Premier League level where prices are boarding on the ridiculous. Last season, I went to the Steel-city derby between Sheffield Wednesday and Sheffield United at Hillsborough. Yes, it was THE local derby, and there was a high demand for tickets. But the stadium still wasn't full, and £32 for an average Championship encounter? No thanks. On a similar note, Blackpool have just been promoted to the top flight for the first time in 40 years, largely thanks to a brilliant home record with a brilliant home support. So clearly the obvious solution is to whack up the season ticket prices, because the fans should be grateful about seeing Premier League football at Bloomfield Road. So much so that their paying more than those of Aston Villa, Birmingham City and Fulham, two of whom finished in the top half of the table last season while Fulham reached the Europa League final.
Eventually, all this will amount to fans taking up other options to watch their live sport, and this doesn't just apply to football. A ticket for the finals day of the 20Twenty competition this season is £50. While it's true you get to see three matches and some live entertainment, it is a lot of money to pay, especially if your time loses of the semi-finals. So why not just watch the action on Sky, which will be showing the day from start to finish? I expect this will be a option that will be taken up by a lot of fans, especially those with families who were planning family days out which will run into hundreds of pounds.
And with the blanket coverage of Sky, added to the astronomical price of watching live sport in this country, attendances are going to drop as the different mediums of watching the action increased and expands. Liverpool, Tottenham and West Ham are among those who have increased their prices for the upcoming season, while mega-bucks Chelsea have actually dropped their cheapest season ticket price. A lot of clubs have frozen their prices, but that doesn't stop them being extraordinarily high, if you were to do a survey of other European top leagues, of you were to look across Germany, Italy and Spain.
Sky has made it much easier to watch 'live' sport, and they try and make it as 'live' as possible, with a number of different camera angles, in-match replays, and even commentary from fans of opposing sides. There are now four Sky Sports channels, all available in High Definition, to try and give the viewers as good a picture as possible. In the coming season, there will be three live Premier League matches on Sky, as well as a couple of football league encounters, and there will also be one or two live games on the Pay-Per-View channel ESPN. So fans owning these packages will be spoilt for choice, and that's just football. So for £49 per month (including the ESPN package) you can watch all the action you want from the comfort of your own home. So no exorbitant ticket prices, extravagant travel costs or extortionate matchday food. You don't get the same atmosphere and experience, but it is definitely the more economical option in a recession, where one months cost is equivalent to about a game and a half if you buy a season ticket for a Premiership club, and you get much more besides your own club, football or even sport.
In light of these statistics, it is hardly surprising that an article in the Guardian towards the end of last season predicted there would be 25% fall in the uptake of ticket sales for the 2010/11 season, with Manchester United expected to be hardest hit, with a 59% fall. But the medium which is perhaps effecting live sport the most, is the internet. With the progression of the internet, especially on phones and I-phones, you can watch live sport anywhere and everywhere. Is this a good thing? If you have a busy lifestyle where you are constantly on the move, and you have that technology at your disposal, then it probably is a good thing. If you type in 'live sport on the internet' you are greeted with a long list of possible options, mostly for free, to try and get your business. This is from sports ranging from football, golf, Formula One to the big American sports such as baseball, basketball and ice hockey. And all for free, as these companies make their money through advertising revenue on their website. You will find a lot of these companies are from Asian where there are less significant loopholes to get off the ground and less stringent legal guidelins to get through.
With the influx of advanced phones, fans can theoretically watch sport whenever and wherever they like. The world is going app-crazy, with 3G phones and I-phones all the rage, and this can only be bad for live sport. People lead increasingly busy lifes, and that, coupled with the costs involved, mean if people can find an alternative to taking a day out of their schedules to go to a live event, they will find it. But the people and institutions with the power aren't exactly doing their level best to lessen the impact - unless prices are decreased to reflect the perilpus economic situation, the trend of falling attendances is going to continue. Once again, football (and more widely, sport) has its head stuck in the sand, and needs to remove it and enter the real world.