Once again, Singapore football fans have been given a feeling of being shortchanged. Not for the first time, the rights holder for the Europe Champions League and the Europa League are still locked in discussions with pay TV providers in Singapore. And the games start today, but yet, consumers of SingTel and Starhub are still kept in the dark about whether they will be able to watch from their TV sets or not.
This probably hankers back to the fact that the licencee knows that they can charge exorbitant fees to SingTel or Starhub, because of past dealings with both. So, even if both pay TV provider are licked in discussions to try to get lower cost for broadcasting rights, the licensee will know they hold the upper hand. Based on their past stupidity of bidding very high for the rights to screen matches, now they cannot get the broadcast right for cheap, compared to say Malaysia.
So, who are at a losing end? The consumers, of course. Either consumers have to pay high prices yet again to watch football in the middle of the night, or miss out altogether on watching the bast teams in Europe do battle.
