...It cannot seriously be denied that the professional game, and the Premier League in particular, dictates to the rest of English football. However, Sky's money has so disproportionately enriched the professional minority that although the professional and non-professional games have equal votes on the FA's main board, the reality is different and will remain so without government intervention.
You may say that as Sky has no control over the administration of football, it is innocent. Strictly speaking that is true, but the effects flow from Sky's actions and they have to shoulder some responsibility, however indirectly. You cannot claim to have saved football and deny the inconvenient consequences.
Minority sports' problems are different, but no less important. Sky's money increases the amount that can be spent on developing the sport, but the numbers of viewers decreases dramatically. Minority sports need more money and exposure to grow but they cannot have both.
Rugby demonstrates this point fully. When Sky won exclusive rights to show England's Five, now
Six Nations Championship matches, the viewing figures were a fraction of the BBC numbers. The Home Unions Committee – France and Italy have separate deals – were alarmed by the decrease in exposure.
They were also aware of numerous complaints about rugby not being free-to-air and the contract returned to the BBC. The viewers on Sky for the last round of games in the Heineken Cup, a top quality European club tournament, varied between 100,000 and 185,000. This year's England v France game had a peak audience of over 9 million on the BBC.
Cricket also faces this dilemma. Sky's money has led to better salaries for professional cricketers and money for the amateur game. Without it, cricket would struggle to maintain its present development initiatives, but far fewer people see cricket and as such its public profile has been lost.
Another unintended side effect is that Sky's money has allowed the ECB to duck the decision about how many counties should play professionally. Privately, practically everyone thinks the present number should be halved, allowing the distilled talent to compete more intensively.
It is no secret that News Corp, Sky's majority shareholder, is vehemently against the protected list of sporting events in the UK which mandates certain events must be shown on terrestrial, free to air. The retention of the list means that events that go beyond sport and have a wider social relevance can be seen by everybody.
This would not be the case if Sky owned the rights because there are millions of people who cannot afford Sky. The basic sports package for the 15 million people still to get Sky is £39.75 per month, or £477 annually, from which Sky's profit margin is about £17 per month. The amount spent on sport, including sports rights and production, out of each licence fee of £145.50, is around £15.
Whatever your view of terrestrial and satellite sports coverage, you cannot honestly ignore the fact that the latter is far more expensive.
Furthermore, if Sky succeeds in its quest to deregulate sports broadcasting it will effectively become a monopoly broadcaster because of its financial position
. The BBC cannot increase its bidding power and the failure of ITV Digital and Setanta shows that any other broadcaster would need billions of pounds to challenge Sky.
Even so, it would be naive in the extreme to believe that Sky would not increase the cost of sports viewing further.
Ultimately, British viewers can have whatever sports broadcasting they want, but if it turns out to be much more expensive they cannot say they were not warned.
Furthermore, there will be no way back.
