Our crappy Sky Deal - DIY Broadcasting

[OTT]

I saw a tweet earlier pointing out how shit our 'record' tv deal is. So, I'm posting the below because I strongly believe its a better idea than what we've got. I'll apologise in advance as this turned into bit of a ****ing essay (puts tin hat firmly on)...

 

I even made a table... **** me  

 

I’ve been long annoyed at how poorly Sky values Scottish football. It got me thinking about alternative ways we could create a competitive TV deal which escapes the virtual monopoly Sky has with sports broadcasting in the UK. To attempt to put into context the numbers we’re talking about, the most up to date figures I could find for Sky subscribers in Scotland is 1 million (2012), of that approximately half are Sky Sports subscribers. Taking the full 1 million and the advertised Sky TV deal of £25 a month this means they are making in the region of £25 million each month, or £300m a year. Factoring in the circa 500,000 who also pay for a Sky Sports pass this is an additional £23 a month, so £11.5 million a month or £138 million a year. Over and above this, pubs pay in excess of £1,000 a month and face punitive fines and court action if they don’t have the commercial license. Together that is £438 million a year whilst they offer Scottish football a pitiful £26 million a season/year and that is a ‘record’. Demeaning and insulting doesn’t even begin to describe my feelings towards it. Ignoring the ‘fag packet’ maths above, its an indisputable fact that Sky are taking hundreds of millions out of Scotland whilst offering our sport what amounts to a derisory pat on the head. 

 

This made me to look at the success of the FOH and wonder if this could be applied to a national sport broadcaster. Obviously with FOH we're paying for ownership, whilst here it would be in exchange for a product/service and the knowledge you are supporting Scottish football. I previously posted about this but there are 2,372,777 households in Scotland. Sky have set the minimum necessary amount to not be worse off at £26m. Following a subscriber model where we had 100% uptake this would mean that we’d be generating £23,727,770.00 a month if we charged £10 for a subscription or £284,733,240.00 a year. Quite clearly 100% uptake is delusional. Below is a general idea based on uptake:

 

 

%	Households	Per month @£10	Per Year
100%	2,372,777	£23,727,770.00	£284,733,240.00
90%	2,135,499.3	£21,354,993.00	£256,259,916.00
80%	1,898,221.6	£18,982,216.00	£227,786,592.00
70%	1,660,943.9	£16,609,439.00	£199,313,268.00
60%	1,423,666.2	£14,236,662.00	£170,839,944.00
50%	1,186,388.5	£11,863,885.00	£142,366,620.00
40%	949,110.8	£9,491,108.00	£113,893,296.00
30%	711,833.1	£7,118,331.00	£85,419,972.00
20%	474,555.4	£4,745,554.00	£56,946,648.00
10%	237,277.7	£2,372,777.00	£28,473,324.00

 

Doncaster likes to trot out his wee stat about Scottish football being the most attended league in Europe per capita (whilst simultaneously and viciously underselling that same game), so it stands to reason that we could expect reasonable uptake. This isn’t factoring global sales, advertising or selling any games on a game by game basis to broadcasters in other countries. I understand that what I am suggesting is hugely ambitious but it offers a real chance to give Scottish football the TV deal it deserves. If we could manage just 20% uptake we’ve more than doubled the pathetic sum offered by Sky. We don't have an alternative to Sky. BT offered even less! Doing it ourselves, is literally the only path I can see.

 

But SPL TV crashed and burned!?!?

 

Absolutely true. The internet has opened up a global audience now though and more and more older people are joining in. In 20 years time we won’t have elderly who aren’t online. Thats why this idea is 100% focused on the internet. **** the television, its dying. Potentially, games could be sold to the BBC or ITV on a game by game basis to avoid any of the elderly/ not online missing out. There are far less hurdles to create a website than to create a TV channel too which would help drive costs down I believe. Much like with Sky, a commercial license could be offered to pubs creating another revenue stream. We know the Old firm are Skys magic dust for English viewers, its a game that sells itself so there is massive opportunity to pick up ‘1 day pass’ sales through the rest of the UK and even Ireland (hell globally, there are tens of millions of Scots in America, Australia, New Zealand and Canada). We're seeing subscriber formats take off around the world, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Now TV, there are even food prep meals that will deliver to you based on a subscriber model. Its tried and tested and I believe would work. 

 

In terms of content clubs could agree to put out a portion of their clubs TV channel to help support content initially so it's not just games. Alternatively a SSN type set up could be adopted focusing entirely on Scottish football on a league by league basis.

 

What I am suggesting is a huge undertaking and will require far brighter heads at the top of the sport than Neil Doncaster or Ian Maxwell, but we can’t afford not to take a chance. We’re going absolutely nowhere under Sky. Hearts, Aberdeen, Motherwell and Hibs will never see the Europa League group stages with the current cash starved deal on the table. Celtic and Rangers will never realise their dreams of actually being treated like a big club in the same way Bayern or any of the European heavy weights are spoken about. Our Peterheads or Stranraers will continue to teeter close to the edge of oblivion and our best and brightest young talents will continue to be snapped up by English clubs for pennies on the pound. To avoid disaster these past few months we've been entirely reliant on the good graces of guys like James Anderson stepping in to save our weakest clubs.

 

If we were to carry this out successfully, we could finally move away from a 4 old firm game league format dictated to us by a broadcaster utterly unwilling to properly invest in our league. We could properly afford to develop Scottish footballs brand and move it away from the international laughing stock Doncaster and his ilk have led it to. 

 

The above isn’t a fully formed idea, it's a general thought about an alternative approach not dependent on what little crumbs sky decides to throw our way. Creating an organisation which could generate in excess of a quarter of a billion is clearly going to require top people to make it work successfully, but it's absolutely something which is sitting there ready to be tried. I mean what's the worst that could happen? We keep failing and losing?
 

[Boris]

People don't subscribe to sky sports just for SPFL. It's just handy they can watch it along with EPL, golf, internationals etc etc.

 

But, I don't disagree that the SPFL is majorly undersold. 

 

Which of course helps the duopoly.

[poggs]

I believe I saw viewing figures that show more sky sports subscribers in scotland watch the English premier league on sky than watch the SPFL coverage on sky and by quite a bit!

 

So, the figures aren't all that.  Sky only need to outbid the 2nd highest bidder.

 

No-one else really wants to show us (no amazon or realistic BT bid for us), so sky only need to pay the minimum that the SPFL will take.

 

Setting up a full tv channel from scratch to cover the games would cost most of the £25 million in the 1st couple of years,so no money at all to the clubs.  Years 2+ likely a bit more profit, but not really enough to risk it. 

 

Rubbish really

 

 

Edited August 7, 2020 by poggs

[Locky]

There was a story of outsourcing which took place in Greece a year or 2 ago, I might've told it before on here.

 

PAOK Salonika, fed up of the Athens bias (sound familiar) decided to basically opt out of the TV deal when the league renegotiated. They were the only side to do so. Novasports which is essentially their Sky, had to renegotiate a TV deal that omitted PAOK home games. PAOK now had the freedom to figure out something for themselves. Of course their own fans can pay to watch the matches live, a Greek friend of mine who lives in Edinburgh does so every week. 

 

More to the point though, they coin in from fans of other clubs, particularly the big 3 and Aris, their city rivals. Of course there is the possibility that fans of these clubs could boycott, but as well know, that doesn't always happen. High profile matches in Greece don't have away fans in attendance, and in the case of PAOK vs Olympiakos, they've been going at it for the title recently, so the games are too big to miss really. Then of course there is international broadcasters, highlights packages etc. All need to be paid for by the network, to the club directly. 

 

Not sure how successful it's been really, but I haven't heard that it's been a failure either. It's certainly an interesting concept.

[NANOJAMBO]

There is no interest in the SPFL in England - no matter what anyone says, no matter the OF fixtures. 

 

I've lived down here 30 years. 

[Smoked-Glass]

Look how good the coverage used to be.   Loads of build up and interviews n stats ect

 

 

[andi17]

8 hours ago, OTT said:

I saw a tweet earlier pointing out how shit our 'record' tv deal is. So, I'm posting the below because I strongly believe its a better idea than what we've got. I'll apologise in advance as this turned into bit of a ****ing essay (puts tin hat firmly on)...

 

I even made a table... **** me  

 

I’ve been long annoyed at how poorly Sky values Scottish football. It got me thinking about alternative ways we could create a competitive TV deal which escapes the virtual monopoly Sky has with sports broadcasting in the UK. To attempt to put into context the numbers we’re talking about, the most up to date figures I could find for Sky subscribers in Scotland is 1 million (2012), of that approximately half are Sky Sports subscribers. Taking the full 1 million and the advertised Sky TV deal of £25 a month this means they are making in the region of £25 million each month, or £300m a year. Factoring in the circa 500,000 who also pay for a Sky Sports pass this is an additional £23 a month, so £11.5 million a month or £138 million a year. Over and above this, pubs pay in excess of £1,000 a month and face punitive fines and court action if they don’t have the commercial license. Together that is £438 million a year whilst they offer Scottish football a pitiful £26 million a season/year and that is a ‘record’. Demeaning and insulting doesn’t even begin to describe my feelings towards it. Ignoring the ‘fag packet’ maths above, its an indisputable fact that Sky are taking hundreds of millions out of Scotland whilst offering our sport what amounts to a derisory pat on the head. 

 

This made me to look at the success of the FOH and wonder if this could be applied to a national sport broadcaster. Obviously with FOH we're paying for ownership, whilst here it would be in exchange for a product/service and the knowledge you are supporting Scottish football. I previously posted about this but there are 2,372,777 households in Scotland. Sky have set the minimum necessary amount to not be worse off at £26m. Following a subscriber model where we had 100% uptake this would mean that we’d be generating £23,727,770.00 a month if we charged £10 for a subscription or £284,733,240.00 a year. Quite clearly 100% uptake is delusional. Below is a general idea based on uptake:

 

 

%	Households	Per month @£10	Per Year
100%	2,372,777	£23,727,770.00	£284,733,240.00
90%	2,135,499.3	£21,354,993.00	£256,259,916.00
80%	1,898,221.6	£18,982,216.00	£227,786,592.00
70%	1,660,943.9	£16,609,439.00	£199,313,268.00
60%	1,423,666.2	£14,236,662.00	£170,839,944.00
50%	1,186,388.5	£11,863,885.00	£142,366,620.00
40%	949,110.8	£9,491,108.00	£113,893,296.00
30%	711,833.1	£7,118,331.00	£85,419,972.00
20%	474,555.4	£4,745,554.00	£56,946,648.00
10%	237,277.7	£2,372,777.00	£28,473,324.00

 

Doncaster likes to trot out his wee stat about Scottish football being the most attended league in Europe per capita (whilst simultaneously and viciously underselling that same game), so it stands to reason that we could expect reasonable uptake. This isn’t factoring global sales, advertising or selling any games on a game by game basis to broadcasters in other countries. I understand that what I am suggesting is hugely ambitious but it offers a real chance to give Scottish football the TV deal it deserves. If we could manage just 20% uptake we’ve more than doubled the pathetic sum offered by Sky. We don't have an alternative to Sky. BT offered even less! Doing it ourselves, is literally the only path I can see.

 

But SPL TV crashed and burned!?!?

 

Absolutely true. The internet has opened up a global audience now though and more and more older people are joining in. In 20 years time we won’t have elderly who aren’t online. Thats why this idea is 100% focused on the internet. **** the television, its dying. Potentially, games could be sold to the BBC or ITV on a game by game basis to avoid any of the elderly/ not online missing out. There are far less hurdles to create a website than to create a TV channel too which would help drive costs down I believe. Much like with Sky, a commercial license could be offered to pubs creating another revenue stream. We know the Old firm are Skys magic dust for English viewers, its a game that sells itself so there is massive opportunity to pick up ‘1 day pass’ sales through the rest of the UK and even Ireland (hell globally, there are tens of millions of Scots in America, Australia, New Zealand and Canada). We're seeing subscriber formats take off around the world, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Now TV, there are even food prep meals that will deliver to you based on a subscriber model. Its tried and tested and I believe would work. 

 

In terms of content clubs could agree to put out a portion of their clubs TV channel to help support content initially so it's not just games. Alternatively a SSN type set up could be adopted focusing entirely on Scottish football on a league by league basis.

 

What I am suggesting is a huge undertaking and will require far brighter heads at the top of the sport than Neil Doncaster or Ian Maxwell, but we can’t afford not to take a chance. We’re going absolutely nowhere under Sky. Hearts, Aberdeen, Motherwell and Hibs will never see the Europa League group stages with the current cash starved deal on the table. Celtic and Rangers will never realise their dreams of actually being treated like a big club in the same way Bayern or any of the European heavy weights are spoken about. Our Peterheads or Stranraers will continue to teeter close to the edge of oblivion and our best and brightest young talents will continue to be snapped up by English clubs for pennies on the pound. To avoid disaster these past few months we've been entirely reliant on the good graces of guys like James Anderson stepping in to save our weakest clubs.

 

If we were to carry this out successfully, we could finally move away from a 4 old firm game league format dictated to us by a broadcaster utterly unwilling to properly invest in our league. We could properly afford to develop Scottish footballs brand and move it away from the international laughing stock Doncaster and his ilk have led it to. 

 

The above isn’t a fully formed idea, it's a general thought about an alternative approach not dependent on what little crumbs sky decides to throw our way. Creating an organisation which could generate in excess of a quarter of a billion is clearly going to require top people to make it work successfully, but it's absolutely something which is sitting there ready to be tried. I mean what's the worst that could happen? We keep failing and losing?
 

Please don't insult yourself with the fag packet comment [and a lot of the younger ones won't get it lol] you are at least showing initiative and vision unlike the  corrupt Dinosaurs in charge of our game.Great post 

[Kiwidoug]

Sky here is utter rubbish.

[WDJ87]

Personally I would love to see something like this happen. I think its a top idea, not one easily achieved though.

 

I believe you would have to charge more than £10p/m though. To achieve the numbers (money paid to the league) in your table their would need to be no outgoings, which is not going to happen. But still, £20-25 p/m is something I would gladly pay knowing the majority of the money goes into our game. I do not subscribe to Sky or BT Sports for the reasons you listed above. They charge us the same as they do down south and give us a fraction of the product England receives (meaning our game up here, not the overall sports package). I have no interest in English Football and find myself giving less of a **** about the euro competitions each year (probably because Scottish teams outside of the OF do so poorly). I have the same issue with the BBC, although they are slowly getting better up here but not fast enough. We pay the same license fee yet we (used to, at least) wait an extra day to see "highlights" and the production of the show was/is never as good as MoTD. 

 

The EPL, Championship, L1&2 all have dedicated shows to broadcast highlights across various channels. Yet only our top league gets coverage. For too long our lower leagues have been just ignored.

 

Our League structure needs a massive revamp and so does our TV coverage. Badly! Sadly we cannot do much about the former as none of us (as far as i know) are in positions to change it. The latter though..... could be achieved with some hard graft and investment. If you set up some from of crowd funding etc and have the balls to have a go, I'd be behind you 100%. Is this just an idea you are hoping someone else will pick up and run with or are actually willing to give it a go yourself?

 

 

[OTT]

3 minutes ago, Kiwidoug said:

Sky here is utter rubbish.

 

I agree. The amount Sky take out of Scotland versus what they put back in with its frankly shite production value is offensive. We'd be far better doing it ourselves. Yes we have to swallow the start up costs, the production costs, buy our own cameras, pay the pundits and the various other salaries of production staff, admin staff etc. but when the sort of money above is on offer its surely an easier decision. Its a real opportunity to actually build the brand that is Scottish football. Right now, Doncaster has led us to being an international laughing stock and footballing backwater. The potential that doing it ourselves brings is incredible. It's absolutely a challenge and a risk, but I really don't see what other choice we have. Sky have ruined world football, so you're either the haves or have nots, and right now we're the have nots with no chance of change. Bringing things in house would be taking back control of the direction Scottish football is headed in. 

 

It would create a shit load of jobs and money for the economy, which if you want just another reason to do it!

 

@andi17 Ahaha, now that you mention it that was probably a poor choice of words!  

[Restonbabe]

Imangine getting a global broadcasting deal with the likes of amazon, Google, Netflix or Facebook. Your talking about millions being pumped into the game up here. 

[Jambo61]

4 hours ago, OTT said:

I saw a tweet earlier pointing out how shit our 'record' tv deal is. So, I'm posting the below because I strongly believe its a better idea than what we've got. I'll apologise in advance as this turned into bit of a ****ing essay (puts tin hat firmly on)...

 

I even made a table... **** me  

 

I’ve been long annoyed at how poorly Sky values Scottish football. It got me thinking about alternative ways we could create a competitive TV deal which escapes the virtual monopoly Sky has with sports broadcasting in the UK. To attempt to put into context the numbers we’re talking about, the most up to date figures I could find for Sky subscribers in Scotland is 1 million (2012), of that approximately half are Sky Sports subscribers. Taking the full 1 million and the advertised Sky TV deal of £25 a month this means they are making in the region of £25 million each month, or £300m a year. Factoring in the circa 500,000 who also pay for a Sky Sports pass this is an additional £23 a month, so £11.5 million a month or £138 million a year. Over and above this, pubs pay in excess of £1,000 a month and face punitive fines and court action if they don’t have the commercial license. Together that is £438 million a year whilst they offer Scottish football a pitiful £26 million a season/year and that is a ‘record’. Demeaning and insulting doesn’t even begin to describe my feelings towards it. Ignoring the ‘fag packet’ maths above, its an indisputable fact that Sky are taking hundreds of millions out of Scotland whilst offering our sport what amounts to a derisory pat on the head. 

 

This made me to look at the success of the FOH and wonder if this could be applied to a national sport broadcaster. Obviously with FOH we're paying for ownership, whilst here it would be in exchange for a product/service and the knowledge you are supporting Scottish football. I previously posted about this but there are 2,372,777 households in Scotland. Sky have set the minimum necessary amount to not be worse off at £26m. Following a subscriber model where we had 100% uptake this would mean that we’d be generating £23,727,770.00 a month if we charged £10 for a subscription or £284,733,240.00 a year. Quite clearly 100% uptake is delusional. Below is a general idea based on uptake:

 

 

%	Households	Per month @£10	Per Year
100%	2,372,777	£23,727,770.00	£284,733,240.00
90%	2,135,499.3	£21,354,993.00	£256,259,916.00
80%	1,898,221.6	£18,982,216.00	£227,786,592.00
70%	1,660,943.9	£16,609,439.00	£199,313,268.00
60%	1,423,666.2	£14,236,662.00	£170,839,944.00
50%	1,186,388.5	£11,863,885.00	£142,366,620.00
40%	949,110.8	£9,491,108.00	£113,893,296.00
30%	711,833.1	£7,118,331.00	£85,419,972.00
20%	474,555.4	£4,745,554.00	£56,946,648.00
10%	237,277.7	£2,372,777.00	£28,473,324.00

 

Doncaster likes to trot out his wee stat about Scottish football being the most attended league in Europe per capita (whilst simultaneously and viciously underselling that same game), so it stands to reason that we could expect reasonable uptake. This isn’t factoring global sales, advertising or selling any games on a game by game basis to broadcasters in other countries. I understand that what I am suggesting is hugely ambitious but it offers a real chance to give Scottish football the TV deal it deserves. If we could manage just 20% uptake we’ve more than doubled the pathetic sum offered by Sky. We don't have an alternative to Sky. BT offered even less! Doing it ourselves, is literally the only path I can see.

 

But SPL TV crashed and burned!?!?

 

Absolutely true. The internet has opened up a global audience now though and more and more older people are joining in. In 20 years time we won’t have elderly who aren’t online. Thats why this idea is 100% focused on the internet. **** the television, its dying. Potentially, games could be sold to the BBC or ITV on a game by game basis to avoid any of the elderly/ not online missing out. There are far less hurdles to create a website than to create a TV channel too which would help drive costs down I believe. Much like with Sky, a commercial license could be offered to pubs creating another revenue stream. We know the Old firm are Skys magic dust for English viewers, its a game that sells itself so there is massive opportunity to pick up ‘1 day pass’ sales through the rest of the UK and even Ireland (hell globally, there are tens of millions of Scots in America, Australia, New Zealand and Canada). We're seeing subscriber formats take off around the world, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Now TV, there are even food prep meals that will deliver to you based on a subscriber model. Its tried and tested and I believe would work. 

 

In terms of content clubs could agree to put out a portion of their clubs TV channel to help support content initially so it's not just games. Alternatively a SSN type set up could be adopted focusing entirely on Scottish football on a league by league basis.

 

What I am suggesting is a huge undertaking and will require far brighter heads at the top of the sport than Neil Doncaster or Ian Maxwell, but we can’t afford not to take a chance. We’re going absolutely nowhere under Sky. Hearts, Aberdeen, Motherwell and Hibs will never see the Europa League group stages with the current cash starved deal on the table. Celtic and Rangers will never realise their dreams of actually being treated like a big club in the same way Bayern or any of the European heavy weights are spoken about. Our Peterheads or Stranraers will continue to teeter close to the edge of oblivion and our best and brightest young talents will continue to be snapped up by English clubs for pennies on the pound. To avoid disaster these past few months we've been entirely reliant on the good graces of guys like James Anderson stepping in to save our weakest clubs.

 

If we were to carry this out successfully, we could finally move away from a 4 old firm game league format dictated to us by a broadcaster utterly unwilling to properly invest in our league. We could properly afford to develop Scottish footballs brand and move it away from the international laughing stock Doncaster and his ilk have led it to. 

 

The above isn’t a fully formed idea, it's a general thought about an alternative approach not dependent on what little crumbs sky decides to throw our way. Creating an organisation which could generate in excess of a quarter of a billion is clearly going to require top people to make it work successfully, but it's absolutely something which is sitting there ready to be tried. I mean what's the worst that could happen? We keep failing and losing?
 

I have said for ages clubs should retain/ sell their own home TV rights!

Everyone can sell the new firm games, guaranteed. No need to cut in the tic or newco, if they can't play fine!

Thereafter a sliding income scale based on who you are and who you are playing!

Ensures everyone gets a fair cut! Money distributed more evenly than now for sure!

 

I say **** the newco, don't like it then **** off elsewhere.

 

Also puts SPFL and SFA in their place, serving all not just themselves!

[OTT]

3 hours ago, WDJ87 said:

Personally I would love to see something like this happen. I think its a top idea, not one easily achieved though.

 

I believe you would have to charge more than £10p/m though. To achieve the numbers (money paid to the league) in your table their would need to be no outgoings, which is not going to happen. But still, £20-25 p/m is something I would gladly pay knowing the majority of the money goes into our game. I do not subscribe to Sky or BT Sports for the reasons you listed above. They charge us the same as they do down south and give us a fraction of the product England receives (meaning our game up here, not the overall sports package). I have no interest in English Football and find myself giving less of a **** about the euro competitions each year (probably because Scottish teams outside of the OF do so poorly). I have the same issue with the BBC, although they are slowly getting better up here but not fast enough. We pay the same license fee yet we (used to, at least) wait an extra day to see "highlights" and the production of the show was/is never as good as MoTD. 

 

The EPL, Championship, L1&2 all have dedicated shows to broadcast highlights across various channels. Yet only our top league gets coverage. For too long our lower leagues have been just ignored.

 

Our League structure needs a massive revamp and so does our TV coverage. Badly! Sadly we cannot do much about the former as none of us (as far as i know) are in positions to change it. The latter though..... could be achieved with some hard graft and investment. If you set up some from of crowd funding etc and have the balls to have a go, I'd be behind you 100%. Is this just an idea you are hoping someone else will pick up and run with or are actually willing to give it a go yourself?

 

 

 

 

The outgoings would be substantial, there is no getting away from that. It doesn't mean its not worth it though. I've mentioned the name before, but Adam Crozier would be the guy I'd want in to head it up. Bags of experience, although seems to be a bit of a marmite character. In respect to the £10/m, I wanted a semi-realistic number to base the idea around. Netflix is about £5 and has huge uptake, Sky is £25+ and has less, I think theres a balance to be struck. £10 remains an attractive enough number irrespective of where you are on the ladder IMO. Don't forget, advertising would likely feed into any revenues too, so the higher the viewership in all likelihood the more you can charge advertisers.

 

I think the idea needs work, part of the reason of posting it was to gauge thoughts and actually put the idea out there. There will be people who can take this idea and build on it tenfold. Further, I think the clubs would need be the ones to run with it. Being fan run, perhaps if the idea can get refined a bit it could get pushed up for the club to put in a working paper and try and get some traction on. I do think it is the only viable option to actually overhaul finances. Sky are never going to put decent money into Scottish football, so much like with FOH I think it falls onto Scottish football to do it itself. 

[Ribble]

14 hours ago, poggs said:

I believe I saw viewing figures that show more sky sports subscribers in scotland watch the English premier league on sky than watch the SPFL coverage on sky and by quite a bit!

 

So, the figures aren't all that.  Sky only need to outbid the 2nd highest bidder.

 

No-one else really wants to show us (no amazon or realistic BT bid for us), so sky only need to pay the minimum that the SPFL will take.

 

Setting up a full tv channel from scratch to cover the games would cost most of the £25 million in the 1st couple of years,so no money at all to the clubs.  Years 2+ likely a bit more profit, but not really enough to risk it. 

 

Rubbish really

 

 

Nail on head!

 

Clubs and dans in Scotland only care about themselves, the reason the EPL gets so much money is that when say Man City v Norwich is on a Sunday at 4, fans of every team tune in whereas in Scottish football unless it’s your team or maybe your rivals then most folk tend not to watch. 
 

The majority of Scottish based Sky Subscribers don’t watch Scottish football so why would Sky plow in millions of pounds that they don’t need to as they are already the highest bidder?

 

As we’ve seen in the past (Setanta) it’s not easy to set up a pay tv sports channel, Sky’s broadcast costs while still high will be less than its costs for a separate channel as they will have volume discounts on broadcast kit, connectivity, satellite uplinks etc from the other sports that they broadcast. Say it costs Sky 100k to broadcast an SPL game, the costs for an independent SPL only broadcast could easily be double!

[BackOfTheNet]

15 hours ago, OTT said:

In terms of content clubs could agree to put out a portion of their clubs TV channel to help support content initially so it's not just games. Alternatively a SSN type set up could be adopted focusing entirely on Scottish football on a league by league basis.

This is actually an important part of your post. (The whole thing is great and actually I could see it work. But it would be a fairer system and Rangers and Celtic would never agree with it, so although it’s actually very plausible in a real world setting and I think other leagues are probably contemplating it, the Scottish league voting set up would never allow it)

 

But back to the part quoted above. Scottish football has taken a back seat to English football for decades now. Far too many of the young team have their ‘English team’ beyond the age of 12. But as much as it annoys me I understand it to an extent. They turn on SSN and it doesn’t matter what the biggest story in Scottish football is at the time it will take a backseat to transfer speculation in England. Scotland is seen as lesser, always. It’s programmed in the minds of the viewer that Scotland will be after England. Click on BBC fixtures and you will get English Premiership fixtures listed before Scotland.

 

So a dedicated channel, something to easily turn on once the tv is turned on to have in the background (that often happens with SSN) but dedicated to Scottish sport first and foremost would go a long way of sorting the unconscious bias towards England. So don’t underestimate having something that as soon as you click on it, view it, watch it is primarily Scottish sport - rather than have a Scottish section within its Sports section, it’s Scottish sport by default.

Edited August 8, 2020 by BackOfTheNet

[kila]

2 hours ago, Ribble said:

The majority of Scottish based Sky Subscribers don’t watch Scottish football so why would Sky plow in millions of pounds that they don’t need to as they are already the highest bidder?

 

Because who wants to watch the Old Firm away v shite teams? These games that Sky pick are the worst to watch for a non-Old Firm fan.

 

They show the Edinburgh derbies, maybe Hearts v Aberdeen. And these games do draw in big viewing numbers. But they don't show enough of them. It's all focused on the Old Firm. Zzzzzzzz.

 

Honestly our league has so much potential it just won't be realised because of the Old Firm focus.

 

[WDJ87]

2 hours ago, BackOfTheNet said:

This is actually an important part of your post. (The whole thing is great and actually I could see it work. But it would be a fairer system and Rangers and Celtic would never agree with it, so although it’s actually very plausible in a real world setting and I think other leagues are probably contemplating it, the Scottish league voting set up would never allow it)

 

But back to the part quoted above. Scottish football has taken a back seat to English football for decades now. Far too many of the young team have their ‘English team’ beyond the age of 12. But as much as it annoys me I understand it to an extent. They turn on SSN and it doesn’t matter what the biggest story in Scottish football is at the time it will take a backseat to transfer speculation in England. Scotland is seen as lesser, always. It’s programmed in the minds of the viewer that Scotland will be after England. Click on BBC fixtures and you will get English Premiership fixtures listed before Scotland.

 

So a dedicated channel, something to easily turn on once the tv is turned on to have in the background (that often happens with SSN) but dedicated to Scottish sport first and foremost would go a long way of sorting the unconscious bias towards England. So don’t underestimate having something that as soon as you click on it, view it, watch it is primarily Scottish sport - rather than have a Scottish section within its Sports section, it’s Scottish sport by default.

 Not sure that would come into play, a lot of people say that Sky only care about showing the OF games. So let them keep them. The league doesn't vote on the current tv deal anyway. If Sky want to offer a reduced amount to only show OF games let them. I hardly think the SPFL would reject a bid on all non OF games, if it was alot more than Sky offered for the whole League. Mind you in saying that you never know with the current set up.

[WDJ87]

13 hours ago, OTT said:

 

 

The outgoings would be substantial, there is no getting away from that. It doesn't mean its not worth it though. I've mentioned the name before, but Adam Crozier would be the guy I'd want in to head it up. Bags of experience, although seems to be a bit of a marmite character. In respect to the £10/m, I wanted a semi-realistic number to base the idea around. Netflix is about £5 and has huge uptake, Sky is £25+ and has less, I think theres a balance to be struck. £10 remains an attractive enough number irrespective of where you are on the ladder IMO. Don't forget, advertising would likely feed into any revenues too, so the higher the viewership in all likelihood the more you can charge advertisers.

 

I think the idea needs work, part of the reason of posting it was to gauge thoughts and actually put the idea out there. There will be people who can take this idea and build on it tenfold. Further, I think the clubs would need be the ones to run with it. Being fan run, perhaps if the idea can get refined a bit it could get pushed up for the club to put in a working paper and try and get some traction on. I do think it is the only viable option to actually overhaul finances. Sky are never going to put decent money into Scottish football, so much like with FOH I think it falls onto Scottish football to do it itself. 

 

Don't get me wrong, I think its totally worth it and like you said, probably the only realistic chance our game has of improving money coming into the League. Doncaster doesn't care, his salary stays the same regardless. I honestly hope this idea could grow legs and become a reality. Thing is how do we make that happen? If I can help in anyway I will gladly.

[Spellczech]

There is a Kevin Costner baseball movie where the famous phrase was "Build it and they will come" (Field Of Dreams). Basically the EPL said this to Sky in the 90s, so Sky provided the money to the clubs to build the "best league" and buy the best players...Problem is that this has hurt every other league including of course the SPL - remember how good Italian football was?... However, winners are the first to market so Sky has no interest in building another league to rival the EPL, indeed quite the opposite...It's a catch-22 situation now. BT screamed "monopoly" in order to get a piece of Sky's pie (which they pay for with another huge wedge of cash, and only the consumer lost out! -go figure...). They did this rather than build another league to rival Sky's - pretty obvious why: No other league has more than 1 or 2 big clubs... 

Edited August 8, 2020 by Spellczech

[BackOfTheNet]

1 hour ago, Spellczech said:

There is a Kevin Costner baseball movie where the famous phrase was "Build it and they will come" (Field Of Dreams). Basically the EPL said this to Sky in the 90s, so Sky provided the money to the clubs to build the "best league" and buy the best players...Problem is that this has hurt every other league including of course the SPL - remember how good Italian football was?... However, winners are the first to market so Sky has no interest in building another league to rival the EPL, indeed quite the opposite...It's a catch-22 situation now. BT screamed "monopoly" in order to get a piece of Sky's pie (which they pay for with another huge wedge of cash, and only the consumer lost out! -go figure...). They did this rather than build another league to rival Sky's - pretty obvious why: No other league has more than 1 or 2 big clubs... 

 

I recall the first ever Premier League, the advertising was fantastic. They borrowed loads from America (Super Sunday and Monday Night Football are NFL things) but it worked. It was rebranded with a lot of hoopla and within 5 years it was starting to get some of the best players in the world. Scottish football can generate money and become a spectacle to watch, it just has a boring league set up and zero marketing at the moment. And traditionalists who scoff at the idea of a bigger league or playoffs I’m sorry but that’s where the excitement and money is at these days.

[Spellczech]

2 hours ago, BackOfTheNet said:

 

I recall the first ever Premier League, the advertising was fantastic. They borrowed loads from America (Super Sunday and Monday Night Football are NFL things) but it worked. It was rebranded with a lot of hoopla and within 5 years it was starting to get some of the best players in the world. Scottish football can generate money and become a spectacle to watch, it just has a boring league set up and zero marketing at the moment. And traditionalists who scoff at the idea of a bigger league or playoffs I’m sorry but that’s where the excitement and money is at these days.

It also has the OF which take a wrecking ball to any team which tries to challenge them, with the full support of the media and the authorities who alllow them to unsettle and tap up players...

[Ribble]

6 hours ago, kila said:

 

Because who wants to watch the Old Firm away v shite teams? These games that Sky pick are the worst to watch for a non-Old Firm fan.

 

They show the Edinburgh derbies, maybe Hearts v Aberdeen. And these games do draw in big viewing numbers. But they don't show enough of them. It's all focused on the Old Firm. Zzzzzzzz.

 

Honestly our league has so much potential it just won't be realised because of the Old Firm focus.

 

It was meant to be St Johnstone v Aberdeen today, how many fans of other teams do you think would have tuned in for that?

 

If anyone really wants change then they have to support the game as a whole, stop blaming Sky/BT, stop blaming the Old Firm. The success of the EPL has been due to the collective shouting from the rooftops that it’s the greatest league in the world, nobody moaning that only a handful of sides have won it over the last 30 years etc 

[kila]

8 minutes ago, Ribble said:

It was meant to be St Johnstone v Aberdeen today, how many fans of other teams do you think would have tuned in for that?

 

If anyone really wants change then they have to support the game as a whole, stop blaming Sky/BT, stop blaming the Old Firm. The success of the EPL has been due to the collective shouting from the rooftops that it’s the greatest league in the world, nobody moaning that only a handful of sides have won it over the last 30 years etc 

 

BT Sport were brilliant for their coverage of our game.

 

It's not just the fixture itself, it's the effort in the programme. The marketing, pundits, commentary etc. Sky is just honking and will talk about the Old Firm at any opportunity, and their lineup is littered with those affiliated. That isn't an enticing thing to tune into.

 

Edited August 8, 2020 by kila

[BackOfTheNet]

56 minutes ago, Spellczech said:

It also has the OF which take a wrecking ball to any team which tries to challenge them, with the full support of the media and the authorities who alllow them to unsettle and tap up players...

It’s very disheartening seeing players like McLaren, McKinley, McCann (all the Mc’s) shoot off to them. I think it’s worse now that young players have only ever known that when you turn Scottish football on it’s only one of two teams 95% of the time. They will see any other team as a step below and if there’s any interest they see it as their ONLY chance at title silverware and major european competition. Kids get involved in club set ups very young these days too, playing on Saturdays often meaning even if they ‘support’ a team they’re nowhere near invested in a team as much as the average fan - which in turn means club loyalty isn’t what it used to be either. But maybe if we had a league where youngsters would grow up watching and seeing other teams challenge they may not only want to play for one or two teams (or down south).

[John Findlay]

I see there is a full SPL programme tonight, six games St Johnstone at home to the blue side of Glasgow, the green side at home.

Yet not one of these games is live on Sky the exclusive broadcaster of Scottish football. Instead Sky are showing live English league cup quarter final games live. Aye great tv deal for Scottish clubs right enough.

[Tazio]

2 minutes ago, John Findlay said:

I see there is a full SPL programme tonight, six games St Johnstone at home to the blue side of Glasgow, the green side at home.

Yet not one of these games is live on Sky the exclusive broadcaster of Scottish football. Instead Sky are showing live English league cup quarter final games live. Aye great tv deal for Scottish clubs right enough.

But they’re showing two Scottish games live one after another at the weekend. 
Bet you can’t guess the clubs involved. 

[John Findlay]

1 minute ago, Tazio said:

But they’re showing two Scottish games live one after another at the weekend. 
Bet you can’t guess the clubs involved. 

Errr Hamilton and Ross County?

[Mikey1874]

Links to all the games here

 

http://www.hesgoal.com

[Tazio]

6 minutes ago, John Findlay said:

Errr Hamilton and Ross County?

Nah, Hibs and Hamilton. Can’t quite remember their opponents though...

[Italian Lambretta]

I dont know anyone who actually has sky tv and pays for it. As far as Im concerned its FREE

[Lord Beni of Gorgie]

No game on tonight 

[Mikey1874]

Great goal

 

 

 

Full game here

 

http://www.hesgoal.com

[Mikey1874]

Rangers looking good

 

 

[Spellczech]

Build a better product and we would get a better TV deal. The English had the luxury of doing it the other way round but that ship is long gone...

[benny]

BBC showing Porto v Benfica tonight and a South American game in the early hours of Thursday.morning.

[Jambo61]

On 07/08/2020 at 20:05, Kiwidoug said:

Sky here is utter rubbish.

Sky her is utter English!

[Jambo61]

Just now, Jambo61 said:

Sky her is utter English!

Here

[Restonbabe]

Truthfully. I didn't even realise there was a full spfl card on tonight, nor did I care. Only hearts. 

[Danjam]

Think it’s a great idea, additional benefits to the clubs would

be deciding our own kick off days/times. Easier to fill hospitality with Saturday 3pm kickoffs than a Monday night. Sell more season tickets if games were on traditional days/times

 

Show real time highlights/commentary on a Saturday afternoon live scores

program.

 

Other than start up costs and less camera angles/technology I fail

to see any downsides. 

[Bull's-eye]

Why would any massive media organisation deal with the tinpot clowns at the SPFL, their Shit show is played out in public and laughed at across the globe. The way it handles the bigots, the way the Scottish media is controlled, the level of refereeing, the petty minded thoughtless club owners.......the list goes on and on and on and on.

 

Football rights isn't just about the product on the pitch anymore, that ship has sailed and we missed that boat as well.

It's about the entire product, the image, competitiveness and a way to attract global viewing. The EPL manage all of the above to exceptional levels and protect their clubs and their image for the betterment of its members. The tv companies and worldwide audience lap it up and are still doing it with no crowd.

 

The SPFL just hop from one embarrassing saga to the next doing little in between. 

[Locky]

Something which popped into my head recently, was a memory from when I was in Budapest in February. The night I arrived, Ferencvaros were at home so I went to their game. In my hotel after, I found a channel showing extended highlights of every other game that had been played that night, followed by full re-runs of them all after. Woke up in the morning, bashed the TV on and there it was again, extended coverage of all last nights games.

 

This was the Hungarian league remember. A league weaker than Scotland. Nothing over the top, just good, honest coverage of their league.

[Smoked-Glass]

1 hour ago, Locky said:

Something which popped into my head recently, was a memory from when I was in Budapest in February. The night I arrived, Ferencvaros were at home so I went to their game. In my hotel after, I found a channel showing extended highlights of every other game that had been played that night, followed by full re-runs of them all after. Woke up in the morning, bashed the TV on and there it was again, extended coverage of all last nights games.

 

This was the Hungarian league remember. A league weaker than Scotland. Nothing over the top, just good, honest coverage of their league.

Scotsport used to be good on Sundays. 

 

Not the Monday embarrassment that started in 2004.   🤮

[Gorgie Boot boy]

Is there an alternative

[OTT]

8 hours ago, Danjam said:

Think it’s a great idea, additional benefits to the clubs would

be deciding our own kick off days/times. Easier to fill hospitality with Saturday 3pm kickoffs than a Monday night. Sell more season tickets if games were on traditional days/times

 

Show real time highlights/commentary on a Saturday afternoon live scores

program.

 

Other than start up costs and less camera angles/technology I fail

to see any downsides. 

 

Yup. If it was properly and professionally fleshed out I think it could get some decent financial backing by people that care about Scottish football. Guys like James Anderson and the guys that bought Hampdump for the SFA. It offers a genuine chance for Scottish football to prosper financially and compete in Europe. We'd be on similar financial footing with the Scandinavian leagues without breaking a sweat.

 

Obviously letting Doncaster and co anywhere near this would likely cause it to implode and fail, but if the right person headed it up I could see a huge success coming of it. 

[DesertDawg]

2 hours ago, OTT said:

 

Yup. If it was properly and professionally fleshed out I think it could get some decent financial backing by people that care about Scottish football. Guys like James Anderson and the guys that bought Hampdump for the SFA. It offers a genuine chance for Scottish football to prosper financially and compete in Europe. We'd be on similar financial footing with the Scandinavian leagues without breaking a sweat.

 

Obviously letting Doncaster and co anywhere near this would likely cause it to implode and fail, but if the right person headed it up I could see a huge success coming of it. 

 

And that's problem no. 1 right there.  Doncaster will never be on board for this as he'd be the first to go along with his ridiculous salary and bonus.

[Restonbabe]

2 hours ago, OTT said:

 

Yup. If it was properly and professionally fleshed out I think it could get some decent financial backing by people that care about Scottish football. Guys like James Anderson and the guys that bought Hampdump for the SFA. It offers a genuine chance for Scottish football to prosper financially and compete in Europe. We'd be on similar financial footing with the Scandinavian leagues without breaking a sweat.

 

Obviously letting Doncaster and co anywhere near this would likely cause it to implode and fail, but if the right person headed it up I could see a huge success coming of it. 

The only person is Barry Hearn than Polish a turd as bad as this pub league and sell it for millions. It will ever leave me what he said after he came up for a conference 

[cauther col]

Cut off my Sky Sports this week , had it for near 30 years . £28 saved off the bill right away! 👍

[OTT]

48 minutes ago, Restonbabe said:

The only person is Barry Hearn than Polish a turd as bad as this pub league and sell it for millions. It will ever leave me what he said after he came up for a conference 

 

I know.. I'd love for Ann and a couple others to start talking to him directly with a view of putting something together. With the voting shenanigans over the summer, I think its pretty clear the structure of Scottish football isn't just failing the smaller clubs, its prohibitive to change, only by dumping it all and starting again can we actually begin to make the changes we need to see. A ScotPremTv or something along those lines could correct course from the path Sky has forced us down, it should in theory allow every club to kick it up a notch and we'd no longer be hamstrung by 4 OF games being a necessity to league structure. 

 

We have a hugely engaged football audience in Scotland, its absolutely possible to get this going if there was investment. Effectively we'd need a philanthropist(s) to loan the money to get things going with them being paid back to ensure that the money isn't diluted by it being owned by third parties. If it was operated strictly as a vehicle to increasing the TV money with fairer distribution then we'd really be onto something. 

 

Guys like Barry Hearn, Adam Crozier have the skills in marketing and media to get it operational and there are absolutely more people like James Anderson that would be prepared to support the project IF there was the right people involved from day 1. It would be a real chance to lift Scottish football out of the dirt. 

 

I'd wonder if the government would be willing to loan money to make it happen? 

 

(I posted this initially as an idea hoping people would add onto it and suggest tweaks etc., by no means is it a cast iron plan, but I think it does cut to the root of the problem in Skys lack of support for Scottish football). Hopefully we might eventually see some traction in an idea along these lines. Its apparent that Scottish Sky subscribers are doing little but subsiding English football. If we want things to improve, cutting out the middle man and going straight to the viewer from the league might be the best way to maximise the money clubs can get.  

[Gorgie Boot boy]

Mandy Henry has excellent contacts in the media, Hearts TV have history with quality presenters.

 

Scottish football needs it's own innovative channel, would take a huge amount of money to compete with Sky.

 

 

[Smoked-Glass]

Remember that sky sports has more sport than just football so ppl buying it tend to want the whole package.  Cricket, golf and boxing fans for example.   

 

Once you take that into account its not awful value for 3 tenners a month.   And if more than one person in your household watches it then even better. 

 

 

P. S. They do all the international qualifiers too.