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By: Marc Webber

NLP's Marc Webber explains why some local radio stations are less than enthusiastic to cover giant-killing Cup runs by Non League teams.

Question: How do you kill off interest in covering a non-League club's run in the FA Cup?
Answer: Get the Football Associations' Broadcast Rights department involved.

Did you know that the reason why some radio stations may think twice about covering an early-stage Cup game is because they are likely to be saddled with a £10,000 bill for every match they cover in your clubs cup run?

This is not just an idle sideswipe at Soho Square. This is a fact-based reality for which evidence can be found on the FA's very own web site.

I have been Sports Editor for two commercial radio stations in my time. And being a business, the issue of how much we paid out for commentary rights was always a thorny issue. On both occasions, we sometimes struggled to justify paying out for rights for the biggest League teams. So, covering non-League clubs was often a blessing as it was far cheaper and attracted a loyal audience.

So, you could imagine our surprise when the FA walloped us with a bill for covering a few of our "giant-killers" in the early rounds of the Cup. Our fingers were burnt and we heavily cut back on how much coverage we gave to non-League sides during any stage of their cup runs.

We really wanted to give the publicity and the praise to these groundbreaking clubs in our area, but the sheer cost of doing so could not have justified it. But, we would find ourselves back at the same ground a week later covering the very same club in their league encounter for free, or at least far cheaper than the Cup game would have been.

I now discover that if we had plumped for 'full commentary' on a giant-killer, it could have cost us up to ten grand a game for every round. So, covering someone like Canvey Island could have cost a small fortune (enough, perhaps, to buy half the team!!).

This makes me so livid. What is the point in charging local radio stations so much at such an early stage? Is this really going to encourage radio stations to cover a club? As an Ex-Sports Editor, if I had the choice of spending that money on a League game or covering a non-League club, I would shun the non-League club (and I'm a big fan).

It clearly does more harm than good and it is probably one of the biggest examples of double standards in the game today. How come you could cover Canvey Island on the cheap in the Ryman or even the FA Trophy, but you would have to get out a bank loan to follow their success in the Cup?

Look, I can see both sides of the story and I can hear the Spin Doctors at Soho Square already reel out the rebuttal - "Ah, but look at the money the smaller clubs get from it. It's a big money earner for them."

Granted, they have done well to get that far in the Cup and they deserve every penny they get. But surely long-term good relations with a local radio station are far better than the short-term gain of forcing a friendly station to fork out vast amounts of money for a one-off (possibly two-off) game? I am sure any half-decent Chairman of a non-League club would agree with me on that.

Any demands for vast amounts of money will kill off any hopes of fostering good relations with a local radio station. Most of the stations that cover non-League teams are small businesses as well; their bank balances need to be considered too.

A good relationship with a radio station will be far more cash positive in the long run, anyway. A prime example of that was when I was Sports Editor for a station in Kent. We covered Gravesend religiously, giving them publicity they never would have had before. And we also contributed hard cash to their bank balance by sponsoring a few games.

I am not saying that non-League sides should not benefit in cash from media coverage. But I think it needs to be done on an unofficial basis or on an individual club basis. Officials weighing in with unrealistic cash demands for covering such small teams have no idea how important the links are between a local radio station and a local football team and will eventually kill off any hope of decent non-League coverage on commercial radio.

Keep the big money deals for the people who can pay it - namely the TV companies and BBC Radio.

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