Having invented football in 1992, Sky Sports are now planning to re-invent it.
From next season, Sky are screening live Premier League games on a Friday night and according to the Daily Mail, they are planning on a novel approach to the production of these games.
Sky are attempting to make the Friday night games as spectacular as possible, in order to convince fans who go out on a Friday to choose pubs and venues with televisions screening Sky rather than, say, the 1% of venues which currently do not screen Sky Sports.
Evidently, Sky do not feel they can compete with the Late Late Show for those fans who choose to stay in on a Friday night.
To do this, it appears Sky are planning to more or less disregard any meaningful interaction or debate about football and are instead targeting 'celebrity presenters' in order to make the games more appealing. So instead of using Ed Chamberlain, David Jones or the other fine presenters Sky have on the payroll, a more 'celebrity-driven' approach to presenting, with Vernon Kay, Holly Willoughby and Top Lad James Corden all under consideration.
The broadcaster are also toying with the idea of ditching a full-time studio, and instead doing a number of Outside Broadcasts with a live audience, which will hopefully see an exponential increase in Irish lads turning up and ironically wearing a GAA jersey in the background.
Nothing has been fully decided upon as of yet, but this Soccer AMification of Sky's live football coverage is a bid to make the £11 million it costs Sky to screen a game worthwhile. We are not convinced.
