Scottish Football

[BlueKnight87 17,461]

23 hours ago, rossco87 said:

That’s the crux of the problem. There isn’t an obvious answer out there but for the money he gets paid Doncaster shouldn’t being allowed to just shrug his shoulders and settle for scraps from Sky and sell it to us as an amazing offer.
 

We have seen it is difficult to crack the UK sports market as Sky pretty much have it tied up but that doesn’t mean it can’t necessarily be done. We have a lot of American money coming into Scottish football at the minute - is there a deal that can be done there? What kind of a deal could we get with the Norwegian(?) crowd that just took the Scotland games?

 

It may well be that these avenues have been tried and the Sky offer is the best we can get. But we can’t keep selling it as an “amazing” deal when you compare it to other sizeable leagues / what Sky are paying for woman’s rights.  
 

The current success of the EPL largely comes down to the fact that they have negotiated with Sky from a place of strength and in turn Sky have marketed the “best league in the world” line for them.  It is arguable true now as the money has allowed them to recruit some of the top managers but for a long time English football was well behind other leagues in Europe in terms of tactics and technique and even the destinations top players wanted to go to (how many Ballon d’Or winners have played in England?)
 

I can’t find the link to the article now, but there was a study published about a year ago that outlined when you look at the price paid vs viewing figures Sky get an incredibly good deal for getting Scottish football (especially the Old Firm) to the point it is effectively one of their cheapest per viewer sports they have.  Is it too much to ask they give it some more prominence to the English market in terms of advertising and things like number of reporters and amount of time they give to Scottish news stories on Sky Sports News?

 

I think what pisses me off the most is that we get a pretty shit deal from them comparatively and then have to listen to those running our game tell us it is a fantastic deal when we all can see it is peanuts compared to what they dish out down south.  

Mistakes of the past still haunting our league.

Leaving Sky the first time around, going to BBC and then the Setanta deal. Once they went tits up we had no choice but to crawl back to Sky and take whatever we can get. 

The only other broadcaster is BT and they offered less than Sky did. 

We're not getting better offers until we can improve our game and offer something different.

For that to happen you need people leading Scottish football that want to improve it.

Doncaster and Co go for the bare minimum. And that's on a lot of clubs as well as they are happy to take the bare minimum. 

[wully 48,197]

Another hard luck story in the big league, feared for them yesterday tbh

[rossco87 708]

11 hours ago, BlueKnight87 said:

Mistakes of the past still haunting our league.

Leaving Sky the first time around, going to BBC and then the Setanta deal. Once they went tits up we had no choice but to crawl back to Sky and take whatever we can get. 

The only other broadcaster is BT and they offered less than Sky did. 

We're not getting better offers until we can improve our game and offer something different.

For that to happen you need people leading Scottish football that want to improve it.

Doncaster and Co go for the bare minimum. And that's on a lot of clubs as well as they are happy to take the bare minimum. 

We are in a vicious circle of low income from TV leading to lower quality of player in the league leading to the league being less marketable leading to the next TV deal being even lower comparatively to our competitors.

 

We have to somehow break that cycle which is only going to be possible by either:

- improving the TV deal.  As you say not likely given the broadcasters available and those negotiating the deal don’t seem capable of delivering a better deal

-  influx of outside investment. We have seen some outward investment recently in us / Aberdeen / Dundee etc but it isn’t really a sustainable long term plan and not sure those investing have the resources to put in to really drive those clubs on to the next level and realistically compete with us / them for the league and in Europe. I have always been slightly puzzled that none of the investors down south have looked at a Hearts or similar up here and realised with a relatively smaller investment they could get access to European money pretty much every season (let’s be honest it wouldn’t take a massive investment compared to what some are willing to sink into buying / running clubs down south to have a budget similar to us / them)

- put more of an emphasis on club structure / long term transfer planning / investing in coaching existing players. We have far too much short term decision making and not enough clubs with a vision and goal for long term development and growth, which given where we are financially needs to be focussed on strong youth academies focussed on producing players that will be attractive to bigger leagues. There has been a few more recently but the number of Scottish players that get transferred out of the league is still shockingly low. Sadly results like Dundee Utd and Motherwell in Europe really hamper this as it reinforces that our standard of football is pretty low.

[NixonRFC 1,471]

People need to stop blaming Neil Doncaster, yes he looks as inept as he sounds and he doesn't inspire confidence but he isn't the problem, he hasn't got any say, sway or power at all, every decision made comes directly from the clubs, he's basically just a useful idiot there to take the blame, folk need to direct their dissatisfaction at the clubs, their own included.

 

As for how do we get a better TV deal, this one is really simple, access access access, that's the only thing that will get serious money to the table, these graphs doing the rounds highlighting TV deals around Europe maybe accurate in terms of what each leagues receive but it seriously lacks any kind of context when discussing the SPFL.

 

The Portuguese, Belgium, Dutch, Norwegian, Greek, Polish, Danish and Swedes all have a considerably bigger TV deal than us, that's because they give their broadcasters all in access, every single game is live, in Scotland we only sell four home games a season (that looks like it'll be increased to five) because the clubs just don't want to give up their own TV rights as they believe it'll effect their season ticket sales which is and always has been the clubs biggest source of income (barring UCL Group stage qualification)

 

What we need to do is offer every game, every week available to a broadcaster, Amazon were heavily interested in this in 2018 but us and them wouldn't play ball, we also need to put an end to the 3pm blackout, SKY would absolutely bid big money for that, they more than likely would only show around  third of the 228 games but they could include a deal with the SPFL were if they sold rights to games to BBC, STV, BT Sports etc they could get half of whatever is made.... SKY would no doubt show everyone of our games as well as theirs so that woud be 72 live games, add in four Edinburgh Derbies, couple of Aberdeen/Dundee Utd games, some interesting games in the battle for Europe or Relegation.

 

Thats would take the total to 80+ games so there's big potential for SKY and the SPFL to sell the other ~140 games to other broadcasters, some will say SKY don't even show the full quota of 48 games it has currently, there's a simple answer for that really, they have no intention of broadcasting from St Johnstone, Livi, Ross County, Kilmarnock etc unless us for them are there, if they have Rangers and them rights they'll show us every single week, the way to get clubs to buy into it is by not signing up for the 3pm Blackout, clubs fear a slot of regular match goers would rather just watch it in the house than go to Sunday lunchtime/Monday night games on a regular basis, lift the blackout then the average fan will be more inclined to continue going, and perhaps...just perhaps if the money is good (easily values in the £80-100m bracket) then clubs might be inclined to reduce ticket prices to appeal to fans and give those on the fence about attending an incentive to actually go.

 

That's how we get a better deal.

1. All in Access

2. End the 3pm blackout

[GetToTheChoppa 6,873]

No chance I'm reading the last two posts.

 

 

[GersInCanada 7,775]

As I passed on the option to attend a baby shower with the wife I watched Hearts Dundee Und. Utter garbage with the usual baffling decisions from officialdom. This would only be marketable to supporters of the respective clubs. I should have watched a movie on Netflix.

[mitre_mouldmaster 21,510]

On 12/08/2022 at 15:19, GersInCanada said:

I do. My season ticket is an RTV unlimited package. No way I can go to Ibrox every week and I will be astonished if there are not others in the same boat.

Same here and im in Scotland.

Think its about £250 for the RTV unlimited and its no coincidence that the club have NordVPN as their main sponsor on it, as this allows you to access the games from the UK.

[mitre_mouldmaster 21,510]

44 minutes ago, NixonRFC said:

People need to stop blaming Neil Doncaster, yes he looks as inept as he sounds and he doesn't inspire confidence but he isn't the problem, he hasn't got any say, sway or power at all, every decision made comes directly from the clubs, he's basically just a useful idiot there to take the blame, folk need to direct their dissatisfaction at the clubs, their own included.

 

As for how do we get a better TV deal, this one is really simple, access access access, that's the only thing that will get serious money to the table, these graphs doing the rounds highlighting TV deals around Europe maybe accurate in terms of what each leagues receive but it seriously lacks any kind of context when discussing the SPFL.

 

The Portuguese, Belgium, Dutch, Norwegian, Greek, Polish, Danish and Swedes all have a considerably bigger TV deal than us, that's because they give their broadcasters all in access, every single game is live, in Scotland we only sell four home games a season (that looks like it'll be increased to five) because the clubs just don't want to give up their own TV rights as they believe it'll effect their season ticket sales which is and always has been the clubs biggest source of income (barring UCL Group stage qualification)

 

What we need to do is offer every game, every week available to a broadcaster, Amazon were heavily interested in this in 2018 but us and them wouldn't play ball, we also need to put an end to the 3pm blackout, SKY would absolutely bid big money for that, they more than likely would only show around  third of the 228 games but they could include a deal with the SPFL were if they sold rights to games to BBC, STV, BT Sports etc they could get half of whatever is made.... SKY would no doubt show everyone of our games as well as theirs so that woud be 72 live games, add in four Edinburgh Derbies, couple of Aberdeen/Dundee Utd games, some interesting games in the battle for Europe or Relegation.

 

Thats would take the total to 80+ games so there's big potential for SKY and the SPFL to sell the other ~140 games to other broadcasters, some will say SKY don't even show the full quota of 48 games it has currently, there's a simple answer for that really, they have no intention of broadcasting from St Johnstone, Livi, Ross County, Kilmarnock etc unless us for them are there, if they have Rangers and them rights they'll show us every single week, the way to get clubs to buy into it is by not signing up for the 3pm Blackout, clubs fear a slot of regular match goers would rather just watch it in the house than go to Sunday lunchtime/Monday night games on a regular basis, lift the blackout then the average fan will be more inclined to continue going, and perhaps...just perhaps if the money is good (easily values in the £80-100m bracket) then clubs might be inclined to reduce ticket prices to appeal to fans and give those on the fence about attending an incentive to actually go.

 

That's how we get a better deal.

1. All in Access

2. End the 3pm blackout

Think the 3pm blackout is actually written into UK law believe it or not. Think there is an act that went through parliament to block games being shown during this time.

Not 100% sure how this stuff works, but could be a bastard to get an exemption from.

 

[Rangers_no1 33,105]

Was a lot of hype around DU, some had them finishing third.

Actually looking more likely Ross will get sacked.

[Negri's lovechild 14,532]

3 minutes ago, Rangers_no1 said:

Was a lot of hype around DU, some had them finishing third.

Actually looking more likely Ross will get sacked.

I honestly thought DU and Aberdeen would have been a lot stronger and pushed Hearts for third this season, but weirdly the ones who seem to have improved a little are Livingston. 

[NixonRFC 1,471]

1 hour ago, mitre_mouldmaster said:

Think the 3pm blackout is actually written into UK law believe it or not. Think there is an act that went through parliament to block games being shown during this time.

Not 100% sure how this stuff works, but could be a bastard to get an exemption from.

 

It's not, it's just an agreement we enter into willingly every July, it can be scrapped every single year but the clubs always instruct the SFA to renew the agreement, the Scottish and English FA's are the only football associations in Europe who have blackouts.

[mitre_mouldmaster 21,510]

1 hour ago, NixonRFC said:

It's not, it's just an agreement we enter into willingly every July, it can be scrapped every single year but the clubs always instruct the SFA to renew the agreement, the Scottish and English FA's are the only football associations in Europe who have blackouts.

My mistake, was sure it was actually put in by the sports minister into law at one point.

I can see that the FA's get the power from this through Uefa Article 48. Its optional though, so the FAs if they wanted could just ignore it.

[JackAlex93 11,625]

Very good signing for Arbroath

[Dickie 12,905]

4 hours ago, JackAlex93 said:

Very good signing for Arbroath

Reached his true level the prick.

[graeme_4 35,326]

16 hours ago, JackAlex93 said:

Very good signing for Arbroath

Surprised that’s the level he’s at. Decent player. 

[JackAlex93 11,625]

3 minutes ago, graeme_4 said:

Surprised that’s the level he’s at. Decent player. 

Aye he's a better player than that

[The Specky Forum Organiser 66,441]

Get it right up him

Rat

[esquire8 43,660]

12 minutes ago, graeme_4 said:

Surprised that’s the level he’s at. Decent player. 

Only had offers from down south and didn't want to move. Good move for all parties. Get him fit and he is the best player in that league by a mile. 

[Rangers_no1 33,105]

On 04/08/2022 at 12:40, The Specky Liar said:

Jamie McGrath signed for Dundee Utd on loan, fancy them for third this year.

Did you mean third bottom?

[wully 48,197]

28 minutes ago, Rangers_no1 said:

Did you mean third bottom?

Took the arabs on my coupan.

Twice the dundee teams have let me down

[plymouthranger 3,947]

Jack Ross under pressure already? 

[wully 48,197]

[BlueSuedeSambas 54,497]

Wouldn’t be surprised if Neil Lennon ended up at Dundee Utd.

[Dickie 12,905]

54 minutes ago, BlueSuedeSambas said:

Wouldn’t be surprised if Neil Lennon ended up at Dundee Utd.

 

In midfield 😀

[J-Maestro 11,862]

1 hour ago, BlueSuedeSambas said:

Wouldn’t be surprised if Neil Lennon ended up at Dundee Utd.

 

Honestly, might be what they need at the moment. They're in utter freefall, he's had a habit of giving teams a temporary kick up the arse. Wouldn't trust him anywhere past a season though.