Here is a post by Bloggers Circle member Bracknell Blog complaining in not altogether coherent terms about the fact that an England national team World Cup qualifier football match is be available to a wider audience only by a pay-to-view Internet service:

So why is this not being reported as a bad thing in the national press? Well is it because many papers are showing the game on there websites and earning money from it? Maybe it’s just too soon, but I’m not sure the average football fan is not happy about the game being internet only…

Can someone please explain to me why the fact that this game is being showed on a pay-for-view channel is anything other than an excellent thing, in that it shows a free market working nicely?

Once upon a time when TV came along, its novelty was such as to persuade sports organisations that their fine events could and should be broadcast to a nationwide audience.

This meant that there were two categories of sports fans. Those who had to make their way to the event and pay to watch it in person. And everyone else who got to see it in effect for free via TV.

This then over time transmogrified itself into a new ‘fact’. That the public had the right to watch these events for free on TV.

This ‘right’ is a wrong.

A football match, even one involving a so-called national team is a private occasion. The football associations concerned are made up of people who have come together privately because they love football. So have the players. They are all under no obligation to anyone except themselves.

If TV wants to show the match to a wider audience, let TV politely pay for the privilege and find a way to pass the cost on to those people who want to pay to watch it, either directly or via advertising. The TV outlet which makes the highest bid gets the contract.

The fact that the ‘average football fan’ has got used to being given TV football for free is irrelevant.

In effect this whole issue is about a wider ‘socialisation’ of private spaces. Private pubs and restaurants are now deemed to be ‘public’ places for the purposes of banning smoking. Why? If I want to run a pub and open it to anyone who comes in, why should the state have any say in what is allowed to happen in there? Does that apply to my house too? If one of my guests is unhappy, let him/her sue me.

Legendary chess player Bobby Fischer tried to defend this principle as applied to sport, when he argued that his chess games were his intellectual property (shared with his opponents) and that no-one should be able to make money out of selling them except with his and his opponent’s consent.

But chess is one of few sports where exactly what happens can be expressed on paper. If I watch someone making a move surely it is not unlawful for me to write down what I saw, ie say what that move was and later describe it on paper? Chessplayers basically never had the lobbying muscle to force others to pay for the privilege of watching them, to help deal with the intellectual property issue.

This Internet TV idea (now technically possible since the packet-switching equations and wires together work well enough) is the way to go. Those who want to watch any event can – the more who do so, the more people will bid to get the contract. Whereas the price the football providers gets goes up, the average price per viewer will trend down.

Just as iTunes allows us to buy exactly the songs we want and no more. And just as in the future those people wanting to read newspapers will be given options for different sorts of subscription to different writers and sections.

All (by definition) trending towards a nice equilibrium, plus also encouraging innovation and better quality.

Come on Jermain!