China, the Wolves are coming...

[Kenny]

Jeff Shi reveals Wolves in process of negotiating broadcast rights with one of the biggest TV channels in China and hope to launch a summer tournament there

 

[pr0sl0]

No more pre-season games against Northampton then!

 

[Paddingtonwolf]

Bloody hell. That is a huge move. Really huge.

 

[The Bear]

I've heard rumours this will be regardless of which division we're in too.

If they were to offer a subscription to Wolves fans over the net, now that would be a game changer. Would they even be allowed to do that with the FA restrictions?

 

[pr0sl0]

I hope this means we get our games broadcast live regardless of UK TV coverage. I can get to the away games in and around London but apart from that I'd happily pay for a subscription to a Wolves TV channel...

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

I hope this means we get our games broadcast live regardless of UK TV coverage. I can get to the away games in and around London but apart from that I'd happily pay for a subscription to a Wolves TV channel...

Wolves won't be able to sell the games to UK viewers. You would think it would make the availability of streams (iffy ones, obviously) for our games way easier if it goes through, same as when Vincent Tan actually had an interest in Cardiff all their games were on Malaysian TV and you could find a way to watch them if you really wanted to.

 

[The Bear]

Could the said TV channel offer an overall subscription to it's channels over the net though? The fact it has Wolves games on there would be a "bonus".

Usually these foreign channels don't allow overseas subscribers.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

Not a hope that would be allowed.

 

[Paddingtonwolf]

Without a change in the law not a chance.

 

[The Bear]

Which station did Tan get Cardiff games on to?

I can't imagine we'd be on a channel like CCTV-5 which is their biggest sports channel, though if they say it's one of the big ones then who knows. I'd have thought a cable channel like StarSports or Goal TV would be more likely.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

Tan owns/owned the majority stake in MiTV so put all the games on there as far as I recall.

I don't think the Championship has any collective agreements with any channels in Asia so if a channel wants to snap our games and our games only up then they're free to do so. But to reiterate, it's only by illicit means that it would benefit us (ie UK based fans) in any way. The club would get in serious trouble if they started nudging our fanbase to sign up to a random Chinese channel that just *happened* to have our games showing every week.

Would also be counter-productive for now even if it were allowed, we're running at gates of around 20k in a 30k stadium. We need more people in the ground, not more people staying at home on Saturday afternoons.

 

[pr0sl0]

It makes sense though. The big money isn't in gate receipts, it's in building the club's brand and turning around lucrative sponsorship deals. If crowd numbers started dipping Fosun won't care about knocking ticket prices down until they recover, and even though they would never tell fans in the UK to watch games on streams, they're definitely going to want fans everywhere else in the world to watch.

This is also why I expect the stadium redevelopment to start sooner rather than later. There really isn't a reason for Fosun to care about crowd numbers taking a hit in the short term when the medium to long term plan is to build the club's long-distance fanbase.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

A full stadium is a marginal gain for us, both in terms of atmosphere on the day and in attracting players, no-one really likes playing in a 60% full ground. As a commercial enterprise then it's great that we're looking at this option (as you say exposure for sponsors would be a huge thing) but it isn't an either/or situation. Get the overseas fanbase up, fine. But we also need to work at getting 25k+ into Molineux every fortnight, ticketing has been an issue for longer than I care to remember and we're quite clearly at a price point where people aren't going to be tempted back unless we find ourselves top of the league.

 

[The Bear]

If we get into the Prem and don't spent all our time in the bottom 6 then the crowds will take care of themselves anyway.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

That's a hell of a long way off. I'm not convinced we're a top six team in this division yet, let alone going up a level and being nowhere near relegation. We can't just wait until we turn into Southampton. There's an entire generation that doesn't really have the widespread habit of attending matches as it stands. Our fanbase is seriously ageing (admittedly this isn't a problem exclusive to Wolves).

 

[Parkins left foot]

That's a hell of a long way off. I'm not convinced we're a top six team in this division yet, let alone going up a level and being nowhere near relegation. We can't just wait until we turn into Southampton. There's an entire generation that doesn't really have the widespread habit of attending matches as it stands. Our fanbase is seriously ageing (admittedly this isn't a problem exclusive to Wolves).

What are you saying - I'm only 25 (well in my head - though the body doesn't always follow :icon_smile

 

[FrankMunro-371]

What are you saying - I'm only 25 (well in my head - though the body doesn't always follow :icon_smile

We have a joint age of 46 then...

 

[Kenny]

http://www.expressandstar.com/sport...-deal-and-hope-to-launch-overseas-tournament/

 

[FrankMunro-371]

No big spending in January then.

 

[Kenny]

No big spending in January then.

Not sacking KJ either and only signing 5-8 players.............

We will sign players in January, but it won't be anywhere near the numbers from the summer