Studs Up

Bit of a weird deal has been agreed between Arsenal and Sony. Basically if you pay for a custom made UMD disc, they’re considering a price of about a pound, then you can watch a stream of the match on your Sony PSP with a 5 second delay, including highlights etc.

Now, I had something similar when I was at the US Open in New York where American Express handed out little portable TVs where you could get coverage of the match with a slight delay. Because my seats were gash, I ended up watching the TV more than I did the match. There was a slight delay there, too, which meant the crowd noise was completely out of sync with what I was seeing. So it was confusing, and I failed to watch much of the live action that I paid to attend.

Fast forward to the Emirates which, rightly or wrongly, has a reputation for a less-than-boisterous amount of crowd noise and suddenly fans are being encouraged to put their heads down and watch the match on their telly screens? Even though my experience was a bit odd at the tennis, that sport is much more geared to a distanced involvement from the fans. Fans at the football, however, are supposed to be watching the game and going mental. If you’re focused on a stream with a 5 second delay, are you going to be joining in with many songs?

Being able to access highlights, though, will be really nice. Not sure if I’d pay for the privilege, but there’s value there. So I think there’s definitely a lot of potential for bringing video coverage to the fans at the stadium, but I’m just not sure if this is the right way to do it.