Byline: WITH ALAN McKINLAY
IT should be an entertaining game tomorrow afternoon (Sky Sports Extra, 3pm, kick-off 4pm), no matter how Leeds and Chelsea play.
The reason is the launch of Sky Play, the latest addition to interactive services in the TV coverage of sport.
Sky Play is the world's first play-along football prediction competition, which lasts throughout the 90 minutes and, unlike other interactive options such as player-cam, actually sounds like a lot of fun.
The chance to watch, say, Manchester United skipper Roy Keane jogging around the field and spitting from time to time with the match displayed like an animated postage stamp in the corner of the screen has never had much appeal for me.
But this latest development is very different, offering as it does the chance for the armchair fan to gloat about how well he or she can read a game.
After pushing the red button on the remote handset, viewers can then select Sky Play.
The competition offers a range of pre-match predictions such as time of the first goal, name of the scorer, or who will be booked first.
Further predictions can be made at half-time, and there are additional 'pop-up' predictions to be made during the live match, including the result of a free-kick, penalty, or the referee's response to an incident. Viewers can also predict various attacking outcomes throughout the match.
Each correct 'guess' scores points and at the end of the match the final score is submitted by the Sky digibox to check whether the viewer qualifies to win a cash prize of up to pounds 3,000.
The whole thing is like a computer game with live football instead of computer graphics.
And that's not surprising when the inspiration behind it is Two Way TV managing director Matthew Tims, who developed the incredibly popular Championship Manager game for the PC.
It costs pounds 1.50 to play the game, and where this new game should really come into its own is in matches that don't sell themselves on the big-match status of the football.
England v Germany, the Cup Final or Manchester United v Liverpool won't necessarily attract extra viewers because they boast Sky Play.
Southampton v Derby on the other hand may struggle to attract the neutral fan on the basis of the match itself.
Those who have played Sky Play insist that it is very addictive and that while it may sound complicated, once that remote control is in your hands it becomes very simple.
One future development is likely to include more than one handset so you will be able to compete with other members of your family. For now, the competition is the same as it has always been: who can get their hands on the controller first.
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MAKE YOUR MOVE: Viewers can now predict the action
