Official Site in trouble
12/02/03 | Special Report

Not only is the design bland and formulaic, and the content uninspiring and weak, but Nottingham Forest's official website appears to be on the verge of a cash crisis. Anyone visiting the site now has to endure a garish 'takeover' page advertising a free trial of the Forest World service, before they can enter the site. This is not innocent generosity on behalf of those behind the service; it is a last, desperate attempt to save the project from financial ruin.

The Forest World project started at the begining of this season and was part of the deal with all Nationwide League clubs to standardise their websites, which itself began in the summer of 2001, while ploughing money into football was still fashionable. The websites were taken over en masse by Premium TV (PTV), a media company owned by ntl. The deal was appealing to the clubs as it meant the maximisation of advertising potential - in other words, instead of advertisers reaching a few thousand per day by advertising on each club site seperately, they could place ads on the whole 'network' and reach millions, and would therefore pay more.

The clubs may have bitten, but the fans were not so easily convinced and were quick to complain about the new sterilised sites they were being given. PTV then had to spend thousands revamping all its sites, the message boards and chat rooms in particular.

ntl's financial problems are well known and it now seems that PTV's deal could go the same way as the ITV Digital one did last year. The World services have so far only attracted 25,000 subscribers across the whole network of 72 Football League clubs - that works out at just a few hundred per club. With customers paying just £35 for a whole season's access, it looks unlikely that PTV will recoup the millions invested in the project.

There have been two main problems with the services. For a start, many fans have complained of a poor return for their money, claiming that the reception of the live audio commentary (the World services' main attraction) is poor and often cuts out. They also say that the daily video news updates hardly qualify as quality journalism, and there have even been concerns raised about the secureness of the services' credit card system. Word of mouth spreads quickly in football circles and many people have been put off.

But the biggest reason that Forest World and its counterparts are failing to pull in the punters that they should - in theory - be getting, is that the main selling point of the project is the fact that you can't get these kind of services elsewhere - which would be great, if it were true.

Internet commentary has been around for ages; Forest were one of the first clubs to experiment with it. And it's going to take more than PTV buying up 'the rights' to stop unofficial broadcasts going ahead. All you need to do is stream the audio of your local radio station through another server and there is very little anyone can do about it.

The same applies to anything offered in the Forest World package - if you look hard enough, you can probably find everything on offer for free elsewhere, in some form or other. Some fan sites even started publishing links to the goal videos and interviews which by-passed the password system, and only stopped after a few stern e-mails were sent out.

The Discerning Eye, former source of inside information about the club but currently a love-in for the board of directors, still broadcast internet commentary of Forest games for free. While this certainly seems like a daring blow for the forces of liberal freedom, it is done with the unofficial approval of the official Forest site's webmaster, Geoff Peabody, who is good friends with Eye editor, Karl Pridmore.

Karl, who is based in Canada, has long been friends with many people high up the club, including chairman Nigel Doughty. Quite what Mr Doughty thinks of Karl ripping off a service which is supposed to making money for his club is unclear, but The Discerning Eye seems to have no plans to scrap its internet commentary services, despite running an editorial in August that raved about the quality of Forest World and even criticised those who believed the service should remain free.

As long as sites like The Discerning Eye provide alternative services for free, and as long as the quality of the real thing remains so poor, the Forest World project is doomed to end in tears for all concerned, and could end up costing the club a lot of money should the deal collapse.