Competing with English Football

[EdTheDuck]

2 minutes ago, Buddist Monk said:

The population has little to do with it, it's coverage/attendance that matter. The OF for all their shitty laundry that constantly gets aired in public, are a big draw to the likes of Sky or BT, even more than most run of the mill English Premier games. This should be factored in way before the population is.

Rubbish. Population has everything to do with it because the number of TVs (and the number watching football on TV) is the be all and end all of what TV will pay.  Celtic getting 60,000 at Parkhead with 250,000 watching on SKY regularly and Burnley getting 20,000 attendance but 2,500,000 watching on SKY will result in the English getting a shitload of money compared to their Scottish equivalents. That's how TV  football coverage works.

If every Scottish ground was packed to the rafters but TV got tiny audiences you honestly believe TV would pay huge amounts of money?

 

[Buddist Monk]

1 minute ago, EdTheDuck said:

Rubbish. Population has everything to do with it because the number of TVs (and the number watching football on TV) is the be all and end all of what TV will pay. 

Yeah, that's far too simplistic an answer and in turn creates a false correlation between population and people who actually follow the sport. What matters to the TV people is how many people watch the games as that means ad revenue - the OF bring in considerably more revenue than the population of our country would suggest if you used your metric.

It's also alluded to in as you expand that first paragraph, so I'm unsure why you think population is the key definer here.

1 minute ago, EdTheDuck said:

If every Scottish ground was packed to the rafters but TV got tiny audiences you honestly believe TV would pay huge amounts of money?

Not sure the point you're making, even then I wouldn't trust the SFA and SPFL to get a decent deal regardless of whether there is one or one hundred thousand at the game. I don't blame the TV companies paying less because they've been allowed to get away with it for so long.

While it annoys the shit out of me, the idea that heads will only be turned when you have something relevant to our cousins down South - a Gerrard/Rodgers shoot out, these are the sort of things we should be using to bargain for more money.

[Dons_1988]

Problem with using the OF as a USP is that they will then want a disproportionate share of the earnings and that is only a bad thing for the league.

Also the conversation shouldn’t be how do we get a better tv deal but how do we increase demand for Scottish football firstly within Scotland and then afterwards we can think about further afield.

Sky treat Scottish football like dirt but they can probably justify it when so many within this country will watch English football or “Jeff and the lads” on a Saturday afternoon and not the Scottish game. If Killie v st mirren is played at a half empty stadium then sky can probably justifiably assume that there won’t be millions of people across the country wishing it was on the telly.

Make Scottish football attractive here and fill the stadiums if possible and tv deals will improve naturally. I actually think we’re going in the right direction in that regard anyway.

[Sergeant Wilson]

6 hours ago, Austinho said:

We can’t and IMO shouldn’t be trying to compete with the English game. I don’t really want to see an Old Firm League match being played in America in front of a sea of green and blue half & half scarves, League Cup draws being made in Thailand brought to you by FunXX721Xbet.com™, or clubs having official noodle and tractor partners (not a bad option for St Johnstone mind you).

The Scottish game does need money though, and it does need marketed differently. If anything, we should be doing the exact opposite of what England does and play up the ‘proper football’ for ‘proper people’ angle more. Advertising should revolve around the fans, the passion, the smell of pies and bovril, the gritty unkept terraces and the silly and absurd stuff that can only be found in Scottish football. Think balls getting stuck in hedges etc. There is a niche out there for it - look at the success of FC United for example. Fans who were sick of seeing the soul being stripped from their club who were attracted to something more honest. We can be tongue in cheek about our game without taking the piss out of it.

Some say we are stuck in the past, romancing about the glory years of Scottish football, but they should rightly be celebrated. Stop blindly following the English structure of Prem, Championship, League 1 etc. Call them their proper names - Division 1, Division 2, Division 3. Introduce more safe standing. Introduce more singing sections right behind the goals. Make the game more appealing on TV by banning (or encouraging) clubs from filling other areas of the stadium when there are masses of empty seats visible on camera (I’m looking at you Kilmarnock). Everyone is attracted to a full looking stadium and a good atmosphere - both when watching on TV and when actually deciding to attend the game. 

Without selling our soul, we need to appeal to television audiences outside Scotland. TV deals in America, Australia, Ireland and the like. Niche audiences in other countries. How about a tongue in cheek ad campaign in Qatar promoting the Scottish leagues to the locals because ‘we don’t want you missing out when we don’t qualify for 2022’. Or St Johnstone adverts in Perth, Australia saying ‘Don’t just follow the glory - support Perth’s finest’. Oops... I’m brainstorming out loud.

Which "gritty unkept terraces"?

[EdTheDuck]

7 minutes ago, Moomintroll said:

43 minutes ago, EdTheDuck said:

Comparing the TV deals in Belgium, Denmark, Netherlands (and Norway and Sweden) is not comparing like with like; for one thing Belgium has more than twice Scotland's population (and therefore TVs) and the Netherlands has more than 3 times our population. Furthermore, these deals cover every game in the top league plus second division games and the national KO/Cup (the national team might be included too, but I can;t be arsed checking).
Yes, our deal is abysmal but unless you want every game staggered over the whole weekend we won't get close to these deals. Besides which as long as our football is broadcast on, effectively, 'foreign' television who concentrate on their own league we'll be a filler item and get filler item payments.

I specifically singled out Denmark as they have a similar population to Scotland but no usp as I stated originally. I am stretching the analogy somewhat but imagine what Pepsico's share price would be in comparison to Coca Cola if they were leading with Pepsi cola and Cokes market leader was Fanta or Sprite. That is what Scottish football is trying to compete against, forget that and play to its strengths, be more Irn Bru, (the good stuff obv Gman). If Scottish football had a similar deal to Denmark then what could SSC, Derek McInnes, Neil Lennon and Martin Canning do with a 150% increase in their budgets from tv revenue?

You overestimate the Celtic/Rangers worth. The bigotfest has managed a SKY audience of about 800,000 at best afaik and that was some years ago. It is about the same as a top end English Championship game, but comes nowhere near what the EPL routinely gets. For run of the mill games the ugly sisters get 200,000 - 250,000. You can;t use the Glasgow clubs to sell to the big English audiences because the English largely couldn't give a f**k about them beyond the curiosity of the head-to-heads.

Furthermore, if we did managed to rustle up a deal worth £50M I predict that 2 clubs would share about £40M of it with, sadly, the agreement of The Rest.

[EdTheDuck]

9 minutes ago, Buddist Monk said:

Yeah, that's far too simplistic an answer and in turn creates a false correlation between population and people who actually follow the sport. What matters to the TV people is how many people watch the games as that means ad revenue - the OF bring in considerably more revenue than the population of our country would suggest if you used your metric.

It's also alluded to in as you expand that first paragraph, so I'm unsure why you think population is the key definer here.

Not sure the point you're making, even then I wouldn't trust the SFA and SPFL to get a decent deal regardless of whether there is one or one hundred thousand at the game. I don't blame the TV companies paying less because they've been allowed to get away with it for so long.

While it annoys the shit out of me, the idea that heads will only be turned when you have something relevant to our cousins down South - a Gerrard/Rodgers shoot out, these are the sort of things we should be using to bargain for more money.

I was just pointing out that TV companies only care about TV audiences, not how many people show up at the games. If Scottish football ground attendances were gigantic but Scottish football TV audiences were tiny then the TV companies would base their offers on the tiny TV audiences, not the huge attendances at the grounds.

[Buddist Monk]

14 minutes ago, EdTheDuck said:

I was just pointing out that TV companies only care about TV audiences, not how many people show up at the games.

Completely agree, but that plays against your notion of population though.

[Guest Moomintroll]

You overestimate the Celtic/Rangers worth. The bigotfest has managed a SKY audience of about 800,000 at best afaik and that was some years ago. It is about the same as a top end English Championship game, but comes nowhere near what the EPL routinely gets. For run of the mill games the ugly sisters get 200,000 - 250,000. You can;t use the Glasgow clubs to sell to the big English audiences because the English largely couldn't give a f**k about them beyond the curiosity of the head-to-heads.
Furthermore, if we did managed to rustle up a deal worth £50M I predict that 2 clubs would share about £40M of it with, sadly, the agreement of The Rest.

I wasn't looking at England as a revenue source, I was looking at the worldwide market with all the ugly sister acolytes amongst the diaspora. I agree with the distribution of monies issue but that is another argument, every time Lawell or shiny face laughably moans about the lack of domestic competition holding them back then that is the stick to beat them with.

[EdTheDuck]

6 minutes ago, Buddist Monk said:

Completely agree, but that plays against your notion of population though.

Does it? I don't think it does, you know.

 

[Buddist Monk]

2 minutes ago, EdTheDuck said:

Does it? I don't think it does, you know.

 

You've literally just argued against it in your last post!

 

[Guest]

The lack of young talent in football is beginning to feed through at all levels and the best way forward for Scottish teams is to sign all their promising youngsters on long term contracts and hold on to them as long as they possibly can. Let's face it, sticking an £8 million tag on Waghorn or a £22 million tag on Maddison doesn't suddenly make them better footballers, they're still pish in relative terms but it only goes to highlight two things, one is that the English clubs have too much money and the other is that there's a complete dearth of talent out there.

Having more money in the game will only turn mediocre journeymen into millionaires and scum agents into billionaires as is currently the case in England and it really is debatable whether it would vastly improve our product on the park. As for TV football, well, you really know you've hit rock bottom when you start watching that utter mince from the USA which Sky are continuously pumping, surely they don't actually pay to show that crap ??

Scottish football isn't as bad as people like to make out and the attendance figures confirm that our game is thriving so let's just enjoy it how it is and leave the oligarchs and gangsters with their play things until there's the next global recession or they get bored and then we can just sit back and enjoy the carnage................

[Guest Pampered Adolescent]

6 hours ago, Austinho said:

We can’t and IMO shouldn’t be trying to compete with the English game. I don’t really want to see an Old Firm League match being played in America in front of a sea of green and blue half & half scarves, League Cup draws being made in Thailand brought to you by FunXX721Xbet.com™, or clubs having official noodle and tractor partners (not a bad option for St Johnstone mind you).

The Scottish game does need money though, and it does need marketed differently. If anything, we should be doing the exact opposite of what England does and play up the ‘proper football’ for ‘proper people’ angle more. Advertising should revolve around the fans, the passion, the smell of pies and bovril, the gritty unkept terraces and the silly and absurd stuff that can only be found in Scottish football. Think balls managers getting stuck in hedges etc. There is a niche out there for it - look at the success of FC United for example. Fans who were sick of seeing the soul being stripped from their club who were attracted to something more honest. We can be tongue in cheek about our game without taking the piss out of it.

Some say we are stuck in the past, romancing about the glory years of Scottish football, but they should rightly be celebrated. Stop blindly following the English structure of Prem, Championship, League 1 etc. Call them their proper names - Division 1, Division 2, Division 3. Introduce more safe standing. Introduce more singing sections right behind the goals. Make the game more appealing on TV by banning (or encouraging) clubs from filling other areas of the stadium when there are masses of empty seats visible on camera (I’m looking at you Kilmarnock). Everyone is attracted to a full looking stadium and a good atmosphere - both when watching on TV and when actually deciding to attend the game. 

Without selling our soul, we need to appeal to television audiences outside Scotland. TV deals in America, Australia, Ireland and the like. Niche audiences in other countries. How about a tongue in cheek ad campaign in Qatar promoting the Scottish leagues to the locals because ‘we don’t want you missing out when we don’t qualify for 2022’. Or St Johnstone adverts in Perth, Australia saying ‘Don’t just follow the glory - support Perth’s finest’. Oops... I’m brainstorming out loud.

FTFY

[Buddist Monk]

8 minutes ago, WATTOO said:

...the best way forward for Scottish teams is to sign all their promising youngsters on long term contracts and hold on to them as long as they possibly can.

[Jimboyjones1976]

This isn’t just about competing with English football, which we can’t. In England I feel the money spent doesn’t get as good as a return as up here and by that I mean that many pounds are wasted in England as bigger markets create higher prices. The Salford FC case is an isolated incident. This club is spending way above the rest in their league and even teams and managers around them have been surprised so I s not a cut and shut case that we can’t compete, Aberdeen just couldn’t compete with this particular club. I think even Steven Robinson said he was in for two of the same players as Salford FC, getting one and losing one.

[Hawk89]

3 hours ago, Swello said:

A couple of years back, an american colleague of mine who is based over here showed me what he gets for Major League Baseball (a sport I've got zero interest in). From memory, for something like £80 a year, he got to watch any game in that league live or on-demand on a huge bunch of devices and platforms (although I think he couldn't watch games for the team in his area live), I think he got videos of incidents as they happened, he got highlights packages, all the stats and interviews, etc - they even had a radio channel which was nicely retro. There was an ability to tailor it to the team you support IIRC and the whole thing just felt very well put together. 

Agree that something like this would be phenomenal. NHL / NFL also do "game passes" and season tickets. Would be an amazing forwards step but you just know the SFA / SPFL would f**k it some how. The barriers to entry though would be difficult to get by unless you could convince Amazon / Netflix that this was the way forwards. IIRC in the NFL one your fine if you have an international account but if you live in Michigan you can't watch the Detroit Lions when they are at home to try protect attendances.  

[gannonball]

2 hours ago, EdTheDuck said:

 

Furthermore, if we did managed to rustle up a deal worth £50M I predict that 2 clubs would share about £40M of it with, sadly, the agreement of The Rest.

As inept as some clubs proved themselves at the Setanta deal why on earth would any club other than us and Sevco agree to that, don't know if its paranoia or stupidity when people dream up this type of scenario.  

[Dons_1988]

As inept as some clubs proved themselves at the Setanta deal why on earth would any club other than us and Sevco agree to that, don't know if its paranoia or stupidity when people dream up this type of scenario.  

They have in the past, that’s why.

[gannonball]

11 minutes ago, Dons_1988 said:

 

They have in the past, that’s why.

 

Tv money was always split evenly I thought?  I know some league placings took a battering after the collapse of the last deal but as much I believe negotiations should be left to the likes of Lawell who know how to get the best deal and it should then be split evenly after.  I also think Aberdeen despite being one of few clubs that were sceptical over the Setanta deal, I dont know why they didnt want to get rid of the 10-2 vote when Rangers died.

[EdTheDuck]

31 minutes ago, gannonball said:

As inept as some clubs proved themselves at the Setanta deal why on earth would any club other than us and Sevco agree to that, don't know if its paranoia or stupidity when people dream up this type of scenario.  

If the Prem had a £50M deal and the clubs wanted to spread it around evenly, Celtic would be looking at about an extra £1M - £2M a year. It would make almost no difference whatsoever to their income. To a lesser extent it would be the same for your mirror image across town.

However, how about an extra £15M for Celtic? That would be worth getting, right? That would make a difference, right?

Celtic, with the collusion of your best buds and probably with a few crumbs thrown at Aberdeen, Hearts & Hibs would mangle any decent deal for their own ends. Guaranteed!

Your club cares not a single jot about Scottish football. If they could abandon it they would in a second, purely and simply for the money, for no other reason.

[gannonball]

4 minutes ago, EdTheDuck said:

If the Prem had a £50M deal and the clubs wanted to spread it around evenly, Celtic would be looking at about an extra £1M - £2M a year. It would make almost no difference whatsoever to their income. To a lesser extent it would be the same for your mirror image across town.

However, how about an extra £15M for Celtic? That would be worth getting, right? That would make a difference, right?

Celtic, with the collusion of your best buds and probably with a few crumbs thrown at Aberdeen, Hearts & Hibs would mangle any decent deal for their own ends. Guaranteed!

Your club cares not a single jot about Scottish football. If they could abandon it they would in a second, purely and simply for the money, for no other reason.

What on earth are you slavering in about? We can’t  just turn up at the negotiation table at the TV companies or the SPFL and say we are taking a bigger percentage cut, no club would agree to it.  For it to change it would require 10 clubs agreeing to it, not going to happen.