iFollow

Being launched at £110 for the year, to replace EFL Player and to provide live video coverage of EFL games for overseas subscribers from next season.  Great for me, as I should be able to watch all of City's games, unless they are being shown on Sky.

It will be interesting to see how the EFL will police the subscriptions and how effectively they will be able to block UK users from accessing the system.  I haven't been asked for an overseas address yet, so maybe they are going to rely on blanket geo-blocking of UK IP addresses.

With the boot on the other foot, here we can access streams like BBC iPlayer and Netflix, which are initially geo-blocked.  Netflix spends a fortune trying to limit availability outside home regions, because of licence considerations.  I wonder how much the EFL could afford to invest in similar technology.  

There are so say over 270,000 potential overseas subscribers, which if everyone took up iFollow would generate a gross £30,000,000.  I am guessing that these are the overseas EFL Player subscribers, who normally pay around £40 per annum, so, if so, the additional revenue from iFollow would be £70 per subscriber, or £19,000,000 p.a. on full take up.  The following article suggests a 70% take up, so still a very decent amount of cash, most of which should find its way back to the EFL clubs.

http://www.efl.com/news/article/2016/efl-live-streaming-platform-ifollow-unveiled-for-global-fans-3703898.aspx

It seems highly unfair not to offer some sort of service to UK fans...I imagine subscriptions would be in the millions not hundreds of thousands - it could honestly produce hundreds of millions for the league.

UK fans will find a way to access it no question, if a multi-billion company such as Netflix can't stop people with VPN etc, the EFl have next to no chance in stopping it.

Better off making a tonne of money from it rather than just missing out as people pirate the games.

This is all reminiscent of that great season where Malaysian TV streamed every city game - it was awesome.

I've always paid about £40 for Cardiff City Player and by cancelling every year I would always get an offer shortly afterwards of the previous season's highlights on dvd thrown in if I rejoined.
I haven't had details of the new subscription price yet but if it's £110 for home subscribers, they'll need to throw in more than a dvd.

Cyncoedslumdog wrote:I've always paid about £40 for Cardiff City Player and by cancelling every year I would always get an offer shortly afterwards of the previous season's highlights on dvd thrown in if I rejoined.
I haven't had details of the new subscription price yet but if it's £110 for home subscribers, they'll need to throw in more than a dvd.

I would pay £110 to watch every game live to be fair

Rhys wrote:

Cyncoedslumdog wrote:I've always paid about £40 for Cardiff City Player and by cancelling every year I would always get an offer shortly afterwards of the previous season's highlights on dvd thrown in if I rejoined.
I haven't had details of the new subscription price yet but if it's £110 for home subscribers, they'll need to throw in more than a dvd.

I would pay £110 to watch every game live to be fair

I agree, but not if it's the usual CCPlayer.

As I'm a poor youth struggling to get by and support his wife I usually wait for my rich father to purchase sports subscriptions and then piggyback his connection

Funnily enough, in response to my enquiry about expected quality of service, I have just received this from EFL.............

With regard to the quality of streaming, we would advise the following:

WIFI or broadband internet connection (DSL/cable or higher) of 800 kbps or higher. You can also access the App over a 3G/4G connection via supported mobile devices. If you have an internet connection speed of 5 Mbps or higher and your computer meets the requirements below, you will be able to enjoy the service at its highest video quality.

Your device needs to comply with the following minimum system requirements:

Windows: 2.33GHz or faster x86-compatible processor, or Intel® Atom™ 1.6GHz or faster processor for netbooks; 32- and 64-bit: Microsoft® Windows® XP SP3 (32-bit), Windows Vista® (32-bit), Windows 7, Windows 8.1, Windows 10 and later new Windows releases; latest versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer, Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome; 512MB of RAM (1GB of RAM recommended for netbooks); 128MB of graphics memory.

Mac: Intel Core™ Duo 1.83GHz or faster processor; Mac OS X v10.9, or later; latest versions of Safari, Mozilla Firefox, and Google Chrome; 512MB of RAM; 128MB of graphics memory.

We hope this has assisted in some way but it is worth mentioning that upon the launch of the service, you club should be able to assist with any technical requirements.

I'd consider it as long as there was a decent replay service. The equivalent one for the NHL (run by Premier Sports) removes games after 7 days, which means finding the time to catch up becomes even harder.

Exactly how I "manage" my Sky subscription Slumdog