SOUTHAMPTON: In almost every city in England, one sees boards written ‘Match Live’ on them outside a particular kind of pubs. These are the sports bars, which beam matches live. English Premier League is of course the biggest attraction. These days, the World Cup of cricket is also on the menu.
To watch big-ticket events live, connection of satellite television is not enough. One has to pay extra for live sports. This comes to around 30 pounds a month, plus an annual license fee of 157 pounds.
Not prohibitive for everyone, but not all can or want to spend this amount. So they head for the sports bars, for the action on big and flat screens and an evening with drinks and friends.
On Tuesday afternoon, when England was decimating Afghanistan in Manchester, The Bedford in Southampton was not exactly full, but had about 15 in attendance. It’s a popular destination on match days and is usually packed in the weekends and even on weekdays in the evenings when something is happening.
A bartender says cricket is lower on priority in comparison to rugby and boxing. Formula One also draws decent numbers. You don’t obviously ask what is No 1.
It’s unwise to conclude that the sports bars do business only because people in England can’t afford those extra pounds. It’s also about interest.
“You have to be particularly keen on sports to subscribe to these. I am not, so I don’t have it at home. If I feel like I come over here. It’s close by and sometimes the atmosphere adds to the experience. If it’s football and Southampton are playing, you feel as if you are at the stadium,” says Richard Blackwood.
If that’s how it is in this port city which is noticeably quiet and quaint compared to the hustle and bustle of some of the bigger places, one can imagine what happens in the sports bars around Manchester United’s Old Trafford.
There are quite a few over there and Jeff Marston of Manchester, who is in Southampton on work, tells they are always packed on match days. More fond of one-day cricket than Tests, he too says cricket is not what draws people to the sports bars.
It’s a different story if you are from the sub-continent though. Many from the sizable Indian population in England find it difficult, but subscribe almost compulsively when cricket is live. The Indian Premier League is a bigger attraction that Test or one-day cricket. Timings of the T20 show also suit them, as they are in the second half of the day.
“It’s a must. Otherwise, there will be unrest at home. Those who usually don’t get matches live, make special arrangements when IPL is on,” says Ashwin Lawrence from Mumbai, who lives in London and was in Nottingham last week for the India-New Zealand match.
“For the World Cup also there are many Indians who have gone for special subscription. You won’t see a lot of them in the sports bars.”
But irrespective of whether Indians crowd them or not, expect these pubs to do brisk business when the World Cup is on. Not comparable to what happens for football, interest in cricket is not negligible either, as the numbers on a working afternoon at The Bedford suggested.