How income from match streaming is allocated to clubs

Very interesting statement from Colchester which reveals how the ifollow money is shared out.  The home team keep all their own sales and the first 500 of the away sales.  The away team keeps the rest

Colchester United Chairman Robbie Cowling has issued the following statement:

I hope everyone is keeping well and enjoying the new season.

The early fixtures have certainly been tough with three consecutive away trips and then our first home fixture against Bolton. However, we’ve had a pleasing start in the league with four points and two clean sheets from our first two games.

In terms of fans watching the game, I think the EFL have created a great product and the revenue it is generating is gratefully received. It’s small amounts of income at the moment but I’m optimistic that more of you will want to follow the team both home and away as you discover just how good the streaming option is.

And remember we are back to the broadcast quality cameras now, not the analysis cameras we had to use for the first two pre-season fixtures.

Streaming Revenues
The way it works currently is that the home team keep all of the revenue for the tickets they sell through their own website and they also get the revenue for the first 500 that buy via the away team. For example: for Saturday’s game against Bolton, we sold 452 iFollow passes, (so we keep all of the revenue from those), and Bolton sold 2252 iFollow passes, (of which we get the revenue from the first 500).

This has put a very new aspect on the revenue that is available to clubs this season. Bolton made more money in gate receipts from our home fixture than we did because they had the revenue from 1,752 iFollow passes whereas we had the revenue from 952 iFollow passes. In normal times, we would have expected about £54,000 in home gate receipts from this fixture but we will receive just shy of £8,000, whereas Bolton would have expected about £600 for the 5% commission we pay them but will have received about £14,000 more than that.

We sold just over 300 streams for the away game against Bradford, so we earnt £0.00 for that away game and I expect that to be the case for every away game this season. So based on twenty three away games, Bolton look set to receive about £345,000 from the streaming of their away games this season whilst we can look forward to approximately £0.00.

Perhaps these facts might help some of you that think we should still be in the Championship understand what we are up against.

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That is interesting, good post.

I had no idea how it worked, now I do.

Natasha Whittam wrote:That is interesting, good post.

I had no idea how it worked, now I do.

Same here, good post.

I've made it into a thread in itself to make it more prominent as I think it deserves to be - hope you don't mind.

Could turn out to be a nice little earner for us!

Some income for us so that's great news, however it leaves the smaller clubs hanging.

Getting fans in from October 1st has been scrapped, so it's as you were.

What is Colchester's average home crowd? 450 streams doesn't sound a lot even for league 2!

Norpig wrote:What is Colchester's average home crowd? 450 streams doesn't sound a lot even for league 2!

3,361

boltonbonce wrote:
3,361

Poor effort that then, perhaps their Chairman was trying to shock their fans into buying more streams?

Norpig wrote:Could turn out to be a nice little earner for us!

It's interesting to try and build a revenue stream for the club built on that information.

If we had to play the league season behind closed doors - and using Colchester's Chairman's figures as a basis, then we would get £8k for every home match (x 23 = £184k) from away clubs (maximum). We would also get all home streaming revenue BUT all ST holders get that for free as part of their ST purchase.

So let us say we have 8,000 other fans who buy on the day who are not ST holders (I use 8,000 being that's about the number of ST tickets we've sold this season and if we did do well we would expect gates of double that - hence the 8,000. Of course it could be lots more than that but also if we have a crap season it could be lots less, so 8,000 seems a reasonable guess?).

8,000 x £10 x 23 home games = £1,840,000

£345,000 from away games.

ST sales of 8.000 at an average of say £300 each = £2,400,000.

So that would mean a season income from match days of £184,000 + £345,000 + £1,840,000 + £2,400,000 = £4,424,000

We know we have a salary cap of £1.5m for players wages - and that our 'stars' were contracted before the cap came in, so lets say £2m for wages in total which leaves around £2.8m to run the rest of the club and pay off all the other creditors (EDT being £5m alone!).


Makes you think doesn't it?

Well it does me.

That's great news that my £10's are going to the club, despite Bolton BORIS being in charge of the team.

I'm surprised that the EFL are not taking a percentage of the £10 for  the administration of it all.

Who pays for the coverage?

Looks like they do looking at the stats, Colchester received a little under £8000 for 952 sales.  Meaning a shortfall of £1520 (952x£10=£9520; £9520-£8000)

So approx 16% is used for the platform/EFL

So club gets £8.40 from the £10

Thanks, well spotted.

Senility setting in I'm afraid.


It's still great to know that the club will benefit from the streaming.

BoltonTillIDie wrote:Looks like they do looking at the stats, Colchester received a little under £8000 for 952 sales.  Meaning a shortfall of £1520 (952x£10=£9520; £9520-£8000)

So approx 16% is used for the platform/EFL

So club gets £8.40 from the £10

No, sorry, that's not what he said -

"The way it works currently is that the home team keep all of the revenue for the tickets they sell through their own website and they also get the revenue for the first 500 that buy via the away team. For example: for Saturday’s game against Bolton, we sold 452 iFollow passes, (so we keep all of the revenue from those), and Bolton sold 2252 iFollow passes, (of which we get the revenue from the first 500)".

So no commission taken from the home team and I doubt from the away team either.

I guess the stream provider might get something from sales NOT from the clubs own websites but I've no idea of what that might be.

It is also unclear the reconciliation of the 952 ifollowers of the home team with the revenue they stated they got just under £8k.

Does the £10 ifollow charge include VAT - if so that probably explains the difference between the gross revenue they received £9520 less 20% VAT to give what I presume is the nett amount the club received of the £8k

If so your final answer is more or less correct except the 'missing' element of the money went to the taxman and not as payment for the streaming service.

(There is also an element of the average price paid per user as the charge is either £10 or £7 if you are abroad or have a dodgy ip address, to take into account - but I couldn't be arsed to work that one out - other than to note £9520 is the maximum they could have received gross, the actual would be somewhat less).

Ahh yes forgot about tax.  Plymouth in League one released the following info on how the revenue is split:

For our Sky Bet League One fixtures, the distribution is slightly different. The home club receives approximately 97% of revenue from each match pass purchased (after tax) on their website, plus a proportion of the match passes purchased by the away side, commensurate with the likely away attendance at that fixture. This figure is agreed between the two clubs in advance, on a game by game basis, using historical attendance data.

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From Bradfords site:

All streaming costs over the course of the 2020/21 campaign are being covered by the EFL, allowing clubs up and down the footballing pyramid to maximise iFollow revenue.

With similar packages for Sky Bet League Two fixtures, takings from the first 500 passes purchased by away club supporters go directly to the home club, with funds from each pass thereafter heading to the away side.

From a £10 video match pass, after VAT, the total amount of profit a club makes per pass is approximately £8.34.

This means that, when Colchester United supporters purchased just over 300 iFollow video match passes ahead of Saturday's Sky Bet League Two opener, 100% of the revenue was collected by City.

Had Colchester have sold 501 passes, however, monies for the first 500 passes would have been taken by the Bantams, with the U's claiming revenue from the 501st pass - and any further passes which would have been sold.

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I have again been charged £7, and not £10, for the Newport game, and I'm assuming that its because of my VPN showing that I'm in Luxembourg. 
To make up for the shortfall, I've started both the Lifeline and Goldline lotteries, something I haven't done for years.

gloswhite wrote:I have again been charged £7, and not £10, for the Newport game, and I'm assuming that its because of my VPN showing that I'm in Luxembourg. 
To make up for the shortfall, I've started both the Lifeline and Goldline lotteries, something I haven't done for years.

Yes, using your VPN saves you a few bob. I can't be arsed using mine, so I'm paying the tenner. All helps I suppose.

boltonbonce wrote:
Yes, using your VPN saves you a few bob. I can't be arsed using mine, so I'm paying the tenner. All helps I suppose.

You've said this before, and I don't understand. My VPN connects automatically every time I log on. Mind you, it took me about 2 months to realise that I didn't have to do it manually, as there was a problem with it.

gloswhite wrote:
You've said this before, and I don't understand. My VPN connects automatically every time I log on. Mind you, it took me about 2 months to realise that I didn't have to do it manually, as there was a problem with it.

You should be able to turn it off. If you're seen as permanently oversees you'll have problems with sites like the BBC, and a few others. You can set it not to open automatically.