Transfer Deadline PLC

As I write there are 9 hours 05mins and 32 seconds until transfer deadline day comes roaring to an end.  No doubt Jim White, the bouncing silver fox of Sky Sports News, will announce the ending of the countdown (along with live Big Ben link up) in typically enthusiastic fashion alongside @hayleymcqueen. 

We'll all finally remember to breath again having spent the final hour hoping above hope that somehow our club has managed to pull off the 'deal of the window' (not that we enjoy the hyperbole).  Then, unbelievably of course, a fax (why still faxes?) will have gone through with seconds to spare.  We'll all steel ourselves again as Jim will excitedly declare that things have yet to be tied up, but we're just awaiting confirmation. 

Finally at 1am we'll break that SSN trance and retire to bed, wondering what on earth we stayed up for to see a handful of journeymen footballers move (again) in a transfer window.  Of course they'll be a few big transfers, and with the Premiership already spending in excess of £100m* this window (not including transfers completed today) there's certainly enough movement to keep everyone interested.

And it is for just these reasons that the Transfer Deadline day has become a huge economic deal all by itself.  Forget for a second the £100m+ that is currently flowing cross-boarders and into and out of various league clubs, and perhaps most tellingly footballers and agents bulging bank accounts.

Days like this have become manna from heaven for 24 hour rolling news channels, especially a dedicated sports channel like Sky Sports News.  Advertisers will be more than aware of the likely increased interest on deadline day, and will be willing to pay the premiums. 

Headline sponsorship of Transfer Deadline Day programmes become a tool in themselves for both advertisers and the network to negotiate longer term deals.  This applies equally across the associated online channels, which for many football fans like me become more crucial on days like today.  After all, the vast majority of interested watchers of the football news today are going to have to contend with finding out the news on the go, or at least from the confines of a workplace.

Traffic levels on Twitter certainly back this up, with hash tags #transferdeadlineday and #bbcfootball already dominating.  Even footballers names have begun trending as the latest sightings and signings reach a crescendo.  In future years, this area holds massive revenue potential for advertisers and clever marketers who get their offers spot on.

Equally the written press, from red tops to broadsheets have been building to transfer deadline day.  Rumours, counter rumours and moves generate miles of column space in the build up, with the fallout and implications being covered in an equal amount of detail over the rest of the week.  It is events like this that must be firmly within the budget plans of news organisations these days.  With football fans eager to consume anything and everything to give them the inside track.

Obviously deadline day wasn't brought in with the intention of generating so much revenue for so many sources.  That has been a pleasant (for many) consequence.  But with many within football calling for a review of the validity of such a window, how long can the sales boost last in what for many companies is a quiet period?

Hopefully for a little longer, after all Jim White's over exuberant delivery is the equivalent of Freddie Piquionne diving into the crowd, it may not be by the rulebook, but it's a long way of deserving the red card!