You have to hand it to media tycoon John de Mol: he doesn’t give up easy, certainly when it comes to football on tv. The media tycoon lost millions on a failed sport channel in the 1990s and more recently on his purchase of the premier league football highlights.

But like a never-say-die midfielder he’s back on the pitch again with a new deal to partner the premier league clubs in a venture to broadcast their own games live.
This week’s auction of broadcast rights for Dutch football failed to lure a buyer for the live broadcasts. So the clubs have decided to go it alone with De Mol’s tv production company Endemol and a number of unnamed backers who will guarantee the clubs a return until the revenue targets are met.
But as with the previous deal for live football, the expected explosive growth in pay-per-view revenue seems unrealistic for live broadcasts. And why didn’t any of the prospective buyers at the auction jump in.
The premier clubs look to the situation in English football which generates enormous sums. But they fail to mention that England has the best league in the world at this moment and a far bigger market that is attuned to pay-per-view tv. There are too few top games and too few top players in the Dutch league. Plus the public is not keen to pay extra for live football.
But maybe De Mol knows something that we don’t. He’s losing 2-0 at the moment but the game is far from over.