The crisis surrounding ITV Digital marks the beginning of the end for the remarkable television gravy train in football.
It is not just fears over the long-term futures of more than a dozen Nationwide League clubs that hang heavily over football this morning.
Even the Premiership's big guns like Manchester United, Liverpool and Arsenal will be looking at football's television crisis with great alarm.
BBC director general Greg Dyke has already warned the game will never again see another deal like the last record-breaking £1.65billion round of TV contracts.
But that will not stop the Premiership clubs gambling on the huge TV money to pay big-name stars' mega-bucks wages.
Yet what happens when the gravy train dries up, the wages still have to be paid, the stadiums still have to be filled and the fans are still demanding big-name stars at their clubs?
Nationwide League clubs can only dream of the multi-millions in the Premiership - but they regard TV cash as their lifeblood and many will go to the wall if they do not get it.
It is no surprise an estimated 900 of the Football League's 2,800 full-time players could be laid off this summer, while clubs are also considering salary caps.
And if they lose the TV cash as well, it will sound the death knell for many of the clubs who have provided up-and-coming stars. Remember the likes of David Platt, Ian Rush and England keeper David Seaman have the lower leagues to thank for putting them on the road to stardom.
The fans will also be the big losers as gone will be the days when you can turn up at your local club, queue at the turnstiles and still watch football at a proper price.
But it also has a knock-on effect on small towns, as lower division clubs also provide lifeblood to the local communities and businesses because of merchandising, catering and suppliers.
There is no doubt ITV Digital paid over the odds for the £315m contract, but they saw the Football League as an ideal way of making inroads into Sky's domination of the market.
However, they had their hands burnt with feeble viewing figures that failed to even register an audience with TV industry monitors BARB. Now they want to renege on the deal.
Many games have been watched by more in the ground than have viewed at home on television. On New Year's Day, Birmingham and Nottingham Forest attracted a crowd of 19,770 into St Andrews, but under 1,000 tuned in on ITV Digital.
Major shareholders Carlton and Granada will not go under as the contract represents a fraction of their worth - but clubs relying on the TV cash will.
The PFA has been bailing out a dozen clubs this season and chief executive Gordon Taylor fears the worst if ITV Digital are allowed to rip up their existing contract.
Taylor blasted: "It's an absolute scandal a company the size of Granada can try to pull the plug on a contract."
Even a club like Norwich City, who were in Europe a decade ago, insist losing their TV cash would HALVE their budget from £3.8m to £1.9m and put the club in crisis.
Chief executive Neil Doncaster said: "If we do not receive the £1.9m we are due in August, this would present a serious problem for the club and would necessitate an extensive rethink about our financial future."
Millwall chairman Theo Paphitis also rapped major shareholders Granada and Carlton for trying to bail out ITV Digital by breaking the contract.
Paphitis said: "With the state of the lower clubs, it would definitely mean the death knell of at least a third of the Football League clubs, which would have to immediately go into administration. The fall-out would be horrendous, because the PFA haven't got the resources to pay wages." Bradford chairman Geoffrey Richmond, a Football League board member, also warned the TV contract crisis could have a huge knock-on effect on players' wages.
Richmond said: "Since 1992, TV income and player wages have increased by 600 per cent - and unless the marketplace changes favourably in the two years the ITV deal has to run, Nationwide football is going to be faced with considerably reduced TV income.
"The boom in player wages over the last 10 years has been fuelled by TV income - but it is over now and players in the Nationwide will have to be very much more realistic in their contract expectations.
"From now on, clubs will not have the money to sustain the present wage levels in new contracts - and will almost certainly be looking at smaller squad sizes.
"The vast majority of every club's income goes on player wages - and if TV money drops, what clubs can afford for players will drop."
The Football League has come out fighting for now and at yesterday's Board meeting insisted they will stand firm and resist ITV Digital's proposal to cut their contract by £128m over the next two seasons.
But some lower division teams fear that if the contract puts the TV company out of business they will not see any cash at all.
Football League chiefs have threatened to take ITV Digital to court rather than accept a greatly-reduced £25m-a-year offer.