Gateshead friendly to be streamed live for £9.99

Eddie Howe's Newcastle United begin their pre-season schedule against Mike Williamson's Gateshead this weekend and the club has this evening announced that the game will be broadcast live on National League TV.

It will cost the princely sum of £9.99 to screen the action, however, which seems incredibly expensive to us for a game of relatively little consequence. Kick-off at the Gateshead International Stadium is at 12.30 p.m. on Saturday, 15th July, and tickets for the match sold out within hours of going on sale back in June.

The National League TV website makes it VERY clear that the £9.99 is for the Gateshead vs. Newcastle friendly ONLY, and that it won't give people access to any other pre-season fixtures involving National League clubs. There's nothing else on their schedule page, to be fair, but still...

We at least hope that The Heed are seeing a very hefty percentage of the revenue generated from the streaming of the game. They apparently get 60% for league games, with 25% going to the other 71 National League clubs, and 15% being retained by the National League itself.

(Do we blame Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenny for this?)

In a small update, Newcastle United Communications Officer Lee Marshall took to Twitter to clarify that NUFC won't be taking a share of the streaming revenue or gate receipts for the game:

So the breakdown is likely to follow the numbers shared above, with Gateshead getting 60% of the streaming revenue.