for those of you who are still unaware of this, "the fleet", are owned by the subscribers to a website called myfootballclub.co.uk, where a computer enthusiast - who initially knew relatively little about football - and whose knowledge of the computer and the internet led him to the idea and creation of a subscriber based website with a user owned football team. so, for a subscription costing £35 a year, you get to be part owner of a professional english football club.
i was initially attracted to the club by an article on the BBC reporting that the site had fallen short of its membership goal for this year. i loved the idea and couldn't resist - the first time i looked at the website, there was no way that i wasn't going to subscribe. although my heart is entirely and inexplicably devoted to west bromwich albion; and despite the difficulty i have getting emotionally attached to the fleet, i was so impressed by the basic premise and what they offered the membership, that i felt it was something that really needed to be supported.
now, none of this is gratuitous or simple; there are member votes on everything, and the interactive nature of the project allows for as much or as little participation as you care. there are forums for presentation of proposals, as well as crucial voting on transfers, uniform, sponsorship and picking the weekly team etc. the funny thing is, that the more involved people get in the process - and the more knowledgeable about the actual day to day maintenance of the football club they become - the more their choices agree with the management and coaches. in other words: they themselves learn how to make more professional decisions, and understand why.
myself, well - i just subscribed to a basic annual membership and bought a team shirt. i also followed a couple of matches on the streaming audio commentary of the BBC local radio broadcasts online. but what i thought was really fascinating about the site, was their online streaming video of several live matches - and their archive of full match replays available for viewing, and download; of which there are about 7 or 8 games from last season. for me, this makes it the best football site on the internet - and shows some of the first really viable potentials for how football might be best presented on the web.
nobody seems to have realized it yet, but the blue square premier is much less encumbered by restrictive licensing and protection of "intellectual property" in the likes of their copyright and broadcasting rights. for example, the only english football that BBC local radio is allowed to stream online outside of the UK are matches from the blue square league; and from what i can tell - and until the collapse of SETANTA left some major gaps in the deal - they were certainly seeing more TV time than either the football leagues 1 or 2. the reason i say that no one seems to have noticed this yet, is the general lack of use and content for websites belonging to clubs in the blue square premier - and it seems that no really significant audience is being developed by the online streaming of radio commentary... or, rather nobody is actively promoting this and no one seems to have made the connection that this is something needing to be exploited, that would actually help to develop the potential web-based support of smaller and lower league clubs.
it's no surprise that football has been - as it was many years before, and with the advent of TV - reluctant to embrace the new media, as the arrival of new media always threatens change to the status quo; and in the case of digital media, which requires investigation by looking down into the roots and checking out the localization of the digital media experience; football is a world where everybody is invariably always looking up at the stars.
while i am generally critical that the premier league has - over the years - eroded the possibility of teams being competitive when moving between the first and second tiers of the game in england; it has been revolutionary in its vision of making use of TV to rejuvenate and popularize the english game; as well as, find huge - often non-traditional and developing - international followings, and set the standard for other competitions to also find a large international audience, in the likes of the UEFA competitions and CHAMPIONS league. it seems also to have improved the standard - and certainly the organization - of conference football, as well.
while i surf around the net, taking a look at the websites belonging to clubs in the blue square premier, i'm first struck by the number of teams who retain the cookie-cutter template WORLD websites owned by every club in the both the premier and football leagues, which are designed and maintained by digital restrictions management company, the performgroup, and all run on the idea of a subscriptions basis in order to be able to access their live streaming audio commentary (otherwise unavailable outside the UK) and video highlights. this service - which is nearly identical from club to club - will only just this season coming up, be available to mac users; and was heretofore only available on microsoft computers, due to its use of microsoft DRM software. they supply no information whatever as to whether FREE and OPEN-SOURCE software users can access the service. having taken a look at the demo, i'm guessing that the audio commentaries are accessible - as long as i use the native GNU software i was able to play the brief demo clip, but i couldn't make most of the video work. that would be ok, i might even buy a subscription to ALBION WORLD (as this service is universally called SOMETHING WORLD from team to team) based on my ability to access the live commentary; but i have so far not been inspired to spend the £39.99 to find out!
the blue square premier teams i found that still use the performgroup service were wrexham, luton town, oxford united, rushden & diamonds, kidderminster harriers, and mansfield town. the rest are of varying quality, with one or two appearing to be built on similar templates; and york city the only club that features video highlights on the home page. typically, none of these sites offer audio or video services; nor did my quick perusal indicate that there was any promotion of BBC's online streaming of licensed home matches. ultimately, there was certainly nothing as extensive or as interesting as the content of myfootballclub.co.uk. the problem is that i think that the site's main concept is so immediately novel and impressive, that it is easy to overlook that they may also be revolutionary pioneers of site content, as well.
this is not to say that the experiment has been a total success. indeed, after the initial glory of winning the FA trophy - coupled with the interest generated by the unique nature of the project - the last season of the club, operating under the website ownership, fell short of the required funds, as approximately 3000 members did not renew their subscriptions. this means that the weekly budget is currently only about 2/3's of what the fleet really needs to be competitive at the top level of the blue square. also, most of the administrative positions at the club are non-payed, and the current CEO has had to resign just this last week, as he finds himself in need of what he described merely as "gainful employment".
as i said, my absolute favourite thing about the site is the full match video replays that are available to members. i have downloaded several of these files, converted them to .avi's and burned them onto CD discs in order to watch them on television. while ready and regular TV access to the major european domestic leagues and UEFA competitions - not to mention the ever growing popularity of the WORLD CUP - has perhaps spoiled us all a bit as to the what level of play and atmosphere we've come to expect from football as spectators, blue square premier is a surprisingly high caliber of play and worth a look for any fan of english football.
while the matches are filmed on a single camera from a traditionally central location in the stands and follows the play much as any other football broadcast would - the audio commentary varies from matches that are completely free of any commentary, and feature only the crowd and natural sounds of the venue; to the use of the BBC local radio broadcast as accompanying commentary. there is even sometimes commentary done live by a couple of guys associated with the club, who stand on the steps of the mobile media truck and call the game from there using a single microphone. this can be charmingly comical, as the two pass the mike back and forth between each other; coupled with the invariable overload and distortion caused by the main commentator screaming into the mike at the advent of an ebbsfleet goal, or a particularly exciting passage of play.
the fact that blue square clubs are able to do this - as well as the opportunity to have their match commentaries accessed by an international audience through the BBC - gives them a huge marketing advantage over the clubs in the football leagues 1 and 2. this would seem a clarion call to both divisions (and similar to the formation of the premiership) to form a breakaway league and reclaim their broadcast rights and retain greater control over their product as modern communications media. just think of the immediate effect on the bigger clubs like leeds united and nottingham forrest to regain (and retain) some measure of their long lost international TV audiences in a new world of downwardly-mobile digital media; as well as the introduction to the world market of famed, long-time lower league clubs like millwall, bury, leyton orient and tranmere rovers. if only someone would start looking down...
as i joke with my friend who is a manchester united supporter, and came to be a fan of the sport many years after the establishment of the premier league and its mighty "big 4":
"when i say 'united' - i mean cambridge!"
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