Hospitality entrepreneurs pay through the nose to broadcast Euro matches on big screens
Owning a hospitality business sounds like great fun, especially if you have a large terrace too. And with the Euros, it’s a real party: XXL screen, everyone dressed in orange and if ‘we’ also win: cha-ching, extra revenue! But hold on a minute: for many hospitality entrepreneurs, it’s not actually that profitable. Broadcasting the Euros costs a fortune.
Licence seller Videma: steep rates
‘This is getting completely out of hand,’ Ruud Bakker told hospitality trade magazine Misset Horeca earlier this week. Ruud is chairman of the Eindhoven branch of Koninklijke Horeca Nederland. In the past, people often watched the European or World Cup on big screens here, but this year it’s an impossible undertaking. Because it’s: insanely expensive. Ruud: ‘It’s no longer affordable, not even collectively. It no longer pays off. Videma’s tiered prices (the organisation that safeguards the rights for nineteen channels concerning the broadcasting of TV programmes, ed.) amount to more than three euros per viewer. And if fewer people show up than you expect, you still have to pay.’
Even more so: ‘Tax money already goes to the NPO, which is used to purchase the Euros rights. Now we’re paying extra for an expensive licence,’ says Ruud. ‘Nowhere else in Europe do you pay as much as here.’ (Hey, that sounds a lot like energy prices/petrol prices!)
Completely unfair
Even more remarkably: the UEFA rights holder’s website states that no licence is required for non-sponsored events with up to three hundred people. And the international fee for commercial events is considerably lower than the rates Videma charges. It’s all completely unfair, of course, but why should hospitality entrepreneurs have to bend over backwards for it?
Price reduction
Because football should be for everyone, the NOS is now making it cheaper for entrepreneurs to show European Championship football matches on large outdoor screens, after the House of Representatives made a moral appeal to the NOS. And it makes quite a difference. Hospitality entrepreneurs will now pay approximately 75 cents per expected visitor, instead of 3 euros. And the good news: the adjusted rates apply retroactively to the entire Euros.
Tonight at 6:00 p.m., the Netherlands national team will play its third group-stage match. The opponent is Austria. Perfect with an orange tompouce!
Also read:
- Going out for a drink on a terrace? It’ll cost you this summer
- Jumbo’s controversial orange cheering sweaters back in stores
- Oh no! The price of fries is going up even more
Source: NOS
