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Sky Sports are Taking the Piss Thread


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Irrespective of anything else about the deal, that "up to" is ridiculous, as we've already seen with Sky failing to show 48 games under the current deal. It should be a fixed number, with an option to increase on the same terms (pro-rata). 

Although having said that, increasing the maximum while failing to reach their current smaller limit does seem odd. The current issue is scheduling, with there only being one unique slot available each week - assuming Saturday and Sunday nights are out.

I wonder if Sky are expecting to lose a chunk of their EFL rights which will free up a Friday or Monday night, and/or Saturday lunchtime each week. 

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The point of this was obviously to counter Cormack’s claims but what’s mentioned at the end of the article is a lot more interesting and I would guess, more impactful on attendances. In fact, it’s something which Cormack has implemented at Aberdeen. Who would have thought that allowing fans to enjoy themselves would increase crowds?

Meanwhile in Scotland, we have our league’s chief exec warning fans about their behaviour ahead of the opening weekend of the season.
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4 minutes ago, DA Baracus said:

If the deal is for the whole SPFL then why haven't they allowed clubs outside the Premiership to able to put games on PPV? 


The 30 lower league clubs all voted in favour of the deal, so if it's not part of it then obviously they didn't think it was something they wanted. Either that or it conflicted with their ongoing deal with the BBC.

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4 hours ago, coprolite said:

It's quite telling that absolutely no-one on here has celebrated this new deal or even said they think it's good.

I think "understandable" is about as strong as the praise has got. 

Hopefully by the time this gets renegotiated there's more competition for Sky. Streaming platforms going more mainstream is probably the best hope. 

I notice our former Head of Digital, Brand and Communication has been sticking his oar in from his new office in East London.

He's always been a blue-sky thinking type of guy who had *ideas* but I agree with him on this point (I agreed with him on other stuff as well tbf) - if the league just divvy up the money and hand it back to the clubs then they've absolutely fucked it. Until the SPFL as an entity addresses the lack of investment in marketing the brand we'll never see any sort of progress - that's also true if they continue to simply see the role of the Chief Executive of the league to be a punching bag and @lubo_blaha's comment in the post above feels incredibly pertinent in that regard about how the league actually sees itself.

The actual deal is what it is - Unlike Setanta Sky are a stable broadcaster and the choice to stick with Sky feels like a hangover from the previous collapse, BT chose not to match their offer the last time the rights were up and the idea that Amazon, Apple or streamers of that ilk will be interested is...fanciful.

As for SPFL TV or whatever does anyone genuinely have any faith that the SPFL would be able to manage that successfully?

That said, it's a different landscape now. Simply keeping heads down and ploughing the same furrow like it's the 1990s isn't the one.

Engage with the creatives lads.

Edited by capt_oats
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The blame for that lies with the clubs, who are ultimately responsible for how little funding is available to the entity of the SPFL, an operation that runs with a handful of employees. I'm certainly not aware of Motherwell making a concerted effort to change that in the half a decade that he worked there, indeed they barely made any effort to engage with or promote the actual media content the SPFL did produce.

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21 minutes ago, capt_oats said:

I notice our former Head of Digital, Brand and Communication has been sticking his oar in from his new office in East London.

He's always been a blue-sky thinking type of guy who had *ideas* but I agree with him on this point (I agreed with him on other stuff as well tbf) - if the league just divvy up the money and hand it back to the clubs then they've absolutely fucked it. Until the SPFL as an entity addresses the lack of investment in marketing the brand we'll never see any sort of progress - that's also true if they continue to simply see the role of the Chief Executive of the league to be a punching bag and @lubo_blaha's comment in the post above feels incredibly pertinent in that regard about how the league actually sees itself.

The actual deal is what it is - Unlike Setanta Sky are a stable broadcaster and the choice to stick with Sky feels like a hangover from the previous collapse, BT chose not to match their offer the last time the rights were up and the idea that Amazon, Apple or streamers of that ilk will be interested is...fanciful.

That said, it's a different landscape now. Simply keeping heads down and ploughing the same furrow like it's the 1990s isn't the one.

Engage with the creatives lads.

I think that a league wide marketing strategy was one of the recommendations from that Deloitte report recently. It really shouldn't have needed a consultant to come up with that. 

The Swedish experience of using TV as marketing and increasing crowds is in line with the Netherlands and England's experience. Obviously Sky were a big part of that in England, hyping "the best league in the world" years before that was a remotely tenable claim. If Sky get behind us it would be win win. But they're not really, unless it's an OF game. 

Making attendance more enjoyable would be a huge help but it could be really difficult. I've ended up in the Main Stand at Pittodrie before and the sweetie-rustlers' idea of an enjoyable experience apparently didn't include me shouting, whereas mine did. Shouldn't be insoluble though. 

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54 minutes ago, coprolite said:

I think that a league wide marketing strategy was one of the recommendations from that Deloitte report recently. It really shouldn't have needed a consultant to come up with that. 

The Swedish experience of using TV as marketing and increasing crowds is in line with the Netherlands and England's experience. Obviously Sky were a big part of that in England, hyping "the best league in the world" years before that was a remotely tenable claim. If Sky get behind us it would be win win. But they're not really, unless it's an OF game. 

Making attendance more enjoyable would be a huge help but it could be really difficult. I've ended up in the Main Stand at Pittodrie before and the sweetie-rustlers' idea of an enjoyable experience apparently didn't include me shouting, whereas mine did. Shouldn't be insoluble though. 

I think it needs to be a combination of ALL of the clubs individually, the SPFL and Sky to all be pulling in the same direction to improve the game. If the clubs all collectively promoted the game and made themselves both attractive to league sponsors and media partners, then the SPFL could focus more on governing the game and growing the brand. Get that right and Sky by default will promote the game better. If sponsors are coming to Sky looking for advertising, then Sky will respond in kind.

Essential too that the clubs create an environment in and around the stadium that makes the whole spectacle of the game better, which benefits everyone. To do that, we need better ticket pricing, less rank looking backdrops to the games on TV (St Johnstone seat Colour, Dundee United putting cameras in least atmospheric part of stadium etc), fuller stands etc etc etc. The EPL has some gash on the pitch, but they way they can hype that is incredible. We need to do proportionately the same.

On the clubs allowed 5 streaming games, does anyone know how much clubs actually make from this? Must be minimal for most, but I'd imagine Derby games not on Sky must make a fair bit? 

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19 hours ago, craigkillie said:

I'm certainly not aware of Motherwell making a concerted effort to change that in the half a decade that he worked there, indeed they barely made any effort to engage with or promote the actual media content the SPFL did produce.

We get that you’re not a fan of the former Motherwell media team and you’ve made that clear before plenty times. 

However, Grant Russell’s own personal views don’t necessarily represent his “former” employer’s views so I don’t see why you’re having a pop at the club here? 

Can you point me towards the endless examples of Killie engaging or promoting the SPFL produced content to shame MFC? 

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53 minutes ago, Handsome John said:

We get that you’re not a fan of the former Motherwell media team and you’ve made that clear before plenty times. 

However, Grant Russell’s own personal views don’t necessarily represent his “former” employer’s views so I don’t see why you’re having a pop at the club here? 

Can you point me towards the endless examples of Killie engaging or promoting the SPFL produced content to shame MFC? 


I'm not sure how you could see that as having a pop at the club. Motherwell are one of the few clubs in Scotland I don't really hate, they're very similar to us and have a good ownership structure and a really switched on CEO (or whatever his job is). I was having a pop at the very cynical behaviour shown by the aforementioned media team, who had ample opportunity to use their influence and appear to have done nothing whatsoever.

I was meaning stuff like this, where they actively avoid sharing SPFL content in favour of their own stuff.

 

 

 

Look at all the quote tweets here, nearly every other club sharing the SPFL content. A piece of work put together on the tiny budget the clubs give the SPFL for marketing and digital, something which Motherwell's media team clearly thought was interesting enough to use it for their own content, but they don't share or even credit the original source of the work (including an article which would direct people to the SPFL website). That's why I think it's a bit hypocritical to now be constantly saying the SPFL needs to do more with creative work and so on - maybe they'd be more encouraged to do so if people like him had engaged with it properly (and encouraged the decision makers at their own clubs to dish out the budget required to do even more of it).

https://twitter.com/spfl/status/1308383044391362560/retweets/with_comments

Edited by craigkillie
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23 minutes ago, craigkillie said:


I'm not sure how you could see that as having a pop at the club. Motherwell are one of the few clubs in Scotland I don't really hate, they're very similar to us and have a good ownership structure and a really switched on CEO (or whatever his job is). I was having a pop at the very cynical behaviour shown by the aforementioned media team, who had ample opportunity to use their influence and appear to have done nothing whatsoever.

I was meaning stuff like this, where they actively avoid sharing SPFL content in favour of their own stuff.

 

 

 

Look at all the quote tweets here, nearly every other club sharing the SPFL content.

https://twitter.com/spfl/status/1308383044391362560/retweets/with_comments

I was not a fan of two parts of the media team but I think you’re overestimating their influence if you think that they can make changes to SPFL resources and strategy…  Your post also referenced the club’s lack of effort rather than anything to do with GR or LB. 

In terms of tweeting out Motherwell branded graphics for TOTW, given the money they were taking home; I’d certainly prefer them to be tailoring things more to a Motherwell brand than simply retweeting SPFL stuff. 

Scott McClymont must have been doing well out of QTing tweets whilst he was there! 

Edited by Handsome John
Typo on were
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2 minutes ago, craigkillie said:

Selfish and insular versus collaborative and inclusive, in my opinion. How do you grow the SPFL brand as a whole (which is what he claims to be all about) if you just plough your own furrow all the time?

Again, what does that have to do with Motherwell apart from it being his former employer? 

Also, any reason why you went back two years to try and prove a point about Motherwell using content when this was only 7 weeks ago? 

Or did they not suit your agenda? 

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So to clarify, what you meant to say earlier was that Grant Russell barely made any effort. A bit of recognition that this appears to have changed wouldn’t have gone amiss then. 

Again you seem to have difficulty separating an individual from their employer. 

If the person in charge of the ticket office has an opinion on something in the SFA, I can hardly see them sitting up and taking notice, GR is no different just because he is more vocal on Twitter. 

 

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I'm not sure if I'm missing something here, but my original post that you took issue with specifically said "in the nearly half a decade that he worked there", indicating that I was discussing that specific timescale. I also only focused on things that he was specially responsible for in that era, ie the digital content put out by the club.

I'm really struggling to see how anyone could see my posts here as an attack on Motherwell FC.

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47 minutes ago, craigkillie said:

I'm not sure if I'm missing something here, but my original post that you took issue with specifically said "in the nearly half a decade that he worked there", indicating that I was discussing that specific timescale. I also only focused on things that he was specially responsible for in that era, ie the digital content put out by the club.

I'm really struggling to see how anyone could see my posts here as an attack on Motherwell FC.

You missed out the earlier part from your post, but I’ll paste it here for you…

“The blame for that lies with the clubs, who are ultimately responsible for how little funding is available to the entity of the SPFL, an operation that runs with a handful of employees. I'm certainly not aware of Motherwell making a concerted effort to change that in the half a decade that he worked there, indeed they barely made any effort to engage with or promote the actual media content the SPFL did produce.”

There is one word (he) in that whole paragraph that relates to Grant, the rest is a clear go at the club or just poorly worded on your part. 

You’ve had digs at “the Motherwell media team” in the recent past and clearly know that Russell’s no longer part of it so why not name him specifically rather than the two more junior staff left behind? 

Edited by Handsome John
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1 hour ago, Handsome John said:

You missed out the earlier part from your post, but I’ll paste it here for you…

“The blame for that lies with the clubs, who are ultimately responsible for how little funding is available to the entity of the SPFL, an operation that runs with a handful of employees. I'm certainly not aware of Motherwell making a concerted effort to change that in the half a decade that he worked there, indeed they barely made any effort to engage with or promote the actual media content the SPFL did produce.”

There is one word (he) in that whole paragraph that relates to Grant, the rest is a clear go at the club or just poorly worded on your part. 

You’ve had digs at “the Motherwell media team” in the recent past and clearly know that Russell’s no longer part of it so why not name him specifically rather than the two more junior staff left behind? 

You are being rather disingenuous here.  There are surely two separate points, although related, points being made here.

1) It is entirely down to the clubs to set the budget for the SPFL.

2) The person being discussed was employed by the club and responsible for digital output.

You appear to be very sensitive to the criticism of the attitude to the SPFL digital content whilst "he" was employed.  Far be it for me to back-up @craigkillie but I think you are taking this out of context. 

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