It's not about drawing in viewers who will stay on the channel, it's about the far east market. 12:30pm here is prime time in China, Hong Kong etc ... 5:30pm here is the middle of the night over there. So getting the bigger teams into the 12:30 slot matters because they can then get more money from the TV networks in Asia to broadcast those games.
12.30 is BTs slot. In the contract they either get the first or second pick of choice of game I believe. Sometimes they pick to show us and that's how we end up playing at that time.
The club signed the contract and took their money and this is the consequence.
As Jürgen said this was all in pre covid times with big pre seasons and less cramped fixture schedules but there we go.
What needed to happen this season is CL group stages being 1 game leagues rather than home and away but with the vast amounts of money involved that was never going to happen.
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