Time to worry as TV switches off

Yet football continues to assume that the money tap will never be turned off.

There are colossal implications for sport arising from this situation, however. Each year, nearly 92,000 hours of sport are broadcast via a plethora of channels in Western Europe and somebody has to pay for it.

To date, competition among broadcasters has driven the cost of televised sport to incredible levels.

Now, television companies have realised that they cannot pay ever-increasing amounts in the hope, rather than the expectation, of attracting larger audiences because they are failing to generate sufficient income from advertisers. Yet 85 per cent of Premiership clubs spend most of this television income on players? wages, a situation which is unsustainable.

Some of the sharper football club chairmen recognise that the broadcasting goose will not lay its golden eggs ad infinitum. As a result, they are taking advantage of football?s profile and generating fresh revenue streams: constructing new stadia that are usable 365 days a year, selling the naming rights to the highest bidder, developing exclusive content for club-owned television channels and internet sites.

It is dangerous for any business to be so reliant on one source of income and there is a conscious move on the part of the more enlightened clubs to ensure they look beyond television.

The football industry has reached a critical stage in its development.

The relative ease with which it attracted television revenues will give way to a phase of brandbuilding and marketing that will complement the existing affinity of fans.

Television revenues must become less crucial.