Man Utd being predictably rotten at Man City suits Sky Sports

Watching the Manchester City v Manchester United game, I’m sure I wasn’t the only one that knew City would win even when United took the lead. It was like an underdog playing a top side in the FA Cup; I was only surprised it took as long as it did. It was very predictable. Very inevitable. This is in part because of City’s quality. Despite what their manager says, the gulf in class is deep and wide.

In broadcasting, predictability is everything. It guarantees the viewer will get what they expect. They are broadcasting one-sided games because they’re one-sided. They would rather show a City game which is an easy win, than a tight game where they don’t. It’s good for business if, before the game starts, that you know who is the better side and is going to be victorious. That’s the dilemma of modern Premier League football at the highest level.

No, you won’t get it right all the time, but you will most of the time. That’s not a competitive sport, that’s an exhibition. You might think the broadcaster wants a tight, unpredictable game but no, they want the outcome most people expect, in order to press the right buttons. It doesn’t matter if it’s a United fan who thinks City will win, all that matters is the predictable result. Never mind the people in the stadium, they don’t count.

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There’s nothing a TV station wants more than a predictable result. It goes against everything we think drives the game. But a predictable win is satisfying for the casual football observer. If you get what you expect, that’s more satisfying than not and being satisfied means you feel positive and will come back for more. You might think that’s not the case, but increasingly it is. A TV station has not paid to show unsatisfactory football. Everything is predicated on the game going a certain way.

That’s where we’re at now. The attraction isn’t seeing what you hope will happen, it’s what you know will happen and being proven right. If the game doesn’t provide that, it is unsatisfactory.

The mistake to make is to think of the game as a contest. A game where the broadcaster is uncertain of the result is disturbing. You can’t feel good by not knowing who will win. Your dopamine buttons are not pressed by not getting the result. The best result is to predict a 5-0 win and to get one. You get all the pleasure of being right.

So in that respect Manchester United played their role dutifully. It was as though it was played out to a predetermined script with a predictable outcome.

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Not everyone buys into this. Plenty of us are looking for a good game, but we are a minority. The mistake is to think the broadcasters want the same as the fans or that the fans must have their wishes fulfilled.

In this case, United’s supporters didn’t want to lose; the crucial aspect is not what they want to happen but what they think will happen and most people who were connected to reality expected City to win and Erling Haaland to score.

This might seem like anathema to you but you, the football daft punter who will watch any game, but you are not the valuable audience. Every broadcaster is after the casual fan who needs to have a good reason to watch. There are a lot more of them than us. And being able to give them what they expect is the best way to attract them to a broadcaster.

Think I’m wrong? How many of us actively seek out something that we think will be bad and will not provide what we think it will provide. Even if, like me, you like to watch bad football (I leave a Scottish League Division Two game satisfied because a game has indeed been bad). It’s all to do with expectations.

Because football’s wealth is entirely predicated on telly, what telly wants is very important and what it wants is results which are predictable. The Premier League has attracted so much money not because it’s unpredictable but because it’s predictable.

This is only the case with this league, further down the pyramid, traditional attractions remain and unpredictability is still valued. So although United were humbled, they can rest easy that they were helping to guarantee their media rights income by being so predictably poor.