SPFL Review

[velo army]

11 hours ago, Sergeant Wilson said:

Microbes on Saturn's moons know that won't be the outcome

What's their big team?

I like Nelms and I vibe with his frustration at the pishy marketing of our leagues. I think his outsider perspective can be of huge benefit to Scottish football.

As someone said previously, priority numero uno is to rename the leagues. The naming of the leagues as they are is the most tin pot, small time and (Scottish) cringe-worthy thing about us.

I can understand the suspicion and ire of St Johnstone fans though. They've been a more successful club over the last decade than four of those five clubs, but I wonder if Brown was approached and declined? 

I got excited for the McLeish report when it came out, so I'm looking forward to hearing what our God-fearing, flag-shagging, aluminium-mispronouncing overlords come up with.

[craigkillie]

How has Dundee's marketing improved since the Americans took over? I haven't seen any particularly interesting examples in what must be at least 5 years now.

[capt_oats]

10 minutes ago, craigkillie said:

How has Dundee's marketing improved since the Americans took over? I haven't seen any particularly interesting examples in what must be at least 5 years now.
 

I could be wrong, and happy to stand corrected if I am, but do Dundee not shift fewer season tickets now than when the Americans took over?

[ahemps]

11 hours ago, Jim McLean's Ghost said:

No the problem is that we share a media market with England and have to schedule or TV fixtures around their games.

For example Sky paid for 48 live games last season. They did not show 48 games.

Independence and closing our TV market to England is the only way we can grow.. Our value per game is in the top 10 in Europe but we can't show more games because of our current position in the UK and the TV market.

Closing off a market to 55m people will grow our game???? I really don't believe cutting off the English TV will grow our game, whether we like it or not but being on the TV in English homes or pubs must help with the exposure to our game. Where is there another market like this for the SPFL????

Does Danish football get shown in Germany? Does Croatian football get shown in Italy??? I doubt that they do. Sky sports gives us exposure that similar sized countries don't get. It may be annoying our games are shown at times to accommodate EPL games but in my opinion if we go head to head with them we would lose more viewers than we gained.

[Sergeant Wilson]

28 minutes ago, ahemps said:

Closing off a market to 55m people will grow our game???? I really don't believe cutting off the English TV will grow our game, whether we like it or not but being on the TV in English homes or pubs must help with the exposure to our game. Where is there another market like this for the SPFL????

Does Danish football get shown in Germany? Does Croatian football get shown in Italy??? I doubt that they do. Sky sports gives us exposure that similar sized countries don't get. It may be annoying our games are shown at times to accommodate EPL games but in my opinion if we go head to head with them we would lose more viewers than we gained.

What he means is, when we're independent we can shoot the SKY satellites down and then just broadcast Scottish games for Scottish people.

It's foolproof.

[Swello]

1 hour ago, velo army said:

As someone said previously, priority numero uno is to rename the leagues. The naming of the leagues as they are is the most tin pot, small time and (Scottish) cringe-worthy thing about us.

I think this hits on the key point - if we are talking about Marketing, making Scottish football a wan copy of English football was one of the worst ideas ever. If we market Scottish football for what it actually is rather than what some people wish it was, I think there is a good "real football" story to tell - but aping the over-commercialised, touristy shite from the English Premier is just a failure from the start as it spectacularly misses the point.

43 minutes ago, craigkillie said:

How has Dundee's marketing improved since the Americans took over? I haven't seen any particularly interesting examples in what must be at least 5 years now.

If there was a miracle, easy way to suddenly double your support and make your club hugely profitable through the power of marketing, I'm sure someone would have hit on it by now. I think the truth about running a middling Scottish club is that building things up is probably a slow, painstaking process that involves getting your hooks into the community that the club is part of as there aren't tens of thousands of latent supporters out there in easy reach just waiting for a good marketing campaign.

[the jambo-rocker]

There's nothing wrong to start asking questions about what can be done to improve Scottish football. Keeping the OF out keeps the 'us v them' agenda out of it that taints the league a bit also IMO.

Absolutely nothing has been said other than we want to increase our revenue, and judging by everyone's thoughts on what they'd like to see and what they wouldn't for everything outside of that is clearly a touchy issue.

The only thing I'm really annoyed about is once again, clubs going out of their way to do this rather than the SPFL, which really should have been their job in the first place, asking these questions themselves and being proactive about it.

Edited September 15, 2021 by the jambo-rocker

[capt_oats]

19 minutes ago, the jambo-rocker said:

The only thing I'm really annoyed about is once again, clubs going out of their way to do this rather than the SPFL, which really should have been their job in the first place, asking these questions themselves and being proactive about it.

Is that not part of the problem/point though? The SPFL is simply an administrative body. If clubs want some sort of change then it's up to them to enact it.

21 minutes ago, Swello said:

I think this hits on the key point - if we are talking about Marketing, making Scottish football a wan copy of English football was one of the worst ideas ever. If we market Scottish football for what it actually is rather than what some people wish it was, I think there is a good "real football" story to tell - but aping the over-commercialised, touristy shite from the English Premier is just a failure from the start as it spectacularly misses the point.

I noticed Grant Russell QTing a Daryll Broadfoot tweet on the subject (a tweet that tagged Ian Greenhill from Studio Something). There are plenty of people around the game who have a genuine interest in brand, marketing etc who I'm pretty sure have "ideas" and are very, very good at their jobs.

One of the (many) problems is that the SPFL in and of itself is limited to what it has the budget to do because by and large it simply redistributes money back to the clubs so there's not a lot of scope for blue sky thinking.

 

Edited September 15, 2021 by capt_oats

[Dons_1988]

4 minutes ago, capt_oats said:

Is that not part of the problem/point though? The SPFL is simply an administrative body. If clubs want some sort of change then it's up to them to enact it.

I noticed Grant Russell QTing a Daryll Broadfoot tweet on the subject (a tweet that tagged Ian Greenhill from Studio Something). There are plenty of people around the game who have a genuine interest in brand, marketing etc who I'm pretty sure have "ideas" and are very, very good at their jobs.

One of the (many) problems is that the SPFL in and of itself is limited to what it has the budget to do because by and large it simply redistributes money back to the clubs so there's not a lot of scope for blue sky thinking.

 

The problem with that is the USP. We all know what people see that as. 

[Ludo*1]

1 hour ago, craigkillie said:

How has Dundee's marketing improved since the Americans took over? I haven't seen any particularly interesting examples in what must be at least 5 years now.
 

 

29 minutes ago, Swello said:

I think this hits on the key point - if we are talking about Marketing, making Scottish football a wan copy of English football was one of the worst ideas ever. If we market Scottish football for what it actually is rather than what some people wish it was, I think there is a good "real football" story to tell - but aping the over-commercialised, touristy shite from the English Premier is just a failure from the start as it spectacularly misses the point.

If there was a miracle, easy way to suddenly double your support and make your club hugely profitable through the power of marketing, I'm sure someone would have hit on it by now. I think the truth about running a middling Scottish club is that building things up is probably a slow, painstaking process that involves getting your hooks into the community that the club is part of as there aren't tens of thousands of latent supporters out there in easy reach just waiting for a good marketing campaign.

100% this.

Our American overlords have stated from the start that the club's plan lies with the new stadium to boost the fan experience. A huge amount of money goes into just keeping Dens ticking over and it's crumbling so they've stated like most sensible businessmen that the money they are spending just now is to keep Dens safe and then the experience should be improved on the park and then when we're into our new stadium (if it ever happens) then that's when there'll be a more noticeable difference.

As far as marketing the club in other ways, we've heavily expanded our youth infrastructure to the point where we can compete with United (and indeed the OF in some cases) for the best youth players in the area which previously just wasn't the case.

Step by step our infrastructure has improved.

The key failing and fewer ST holders has largely been down to successive disastrous managerial appointments. End of the McCann era and more vitally the McIntyre era really hurt our crowds which only seem to just be showing shoots of recovery now with our highest ST sales since the Americans first season.

[Ludo*1]

9 minutes ago, capt_oats said:

Is that not part of the problem/point though? The SPFL is simply an administrative body. If clubs want some sort of change then it's up to them to enact it.

I noticed Grant Russell QTing a Daryll Broadfoot tweet on the subject (a tweet that tagged Ian Greenhill from Studio Something). There are plenty of people around the game who have a genuine interest in brand, marketing etc who I'm pretty sure have "ideas" and are very, very good at their jobs.

One of the (many) problems is that the SPFL in and of itself is limited to what it has the budget to do because by and large it simply redistributes money back to the clubs so there's not a lot of scope for blue sky thinking.

 

There's being limited and marketing yourself as a budget, straight to DVD version of the English leagues though.

[capt_oats]

Vaguely related but here's a podcast from last year with Cormack (and Burrows) talking about "change" in Scottish Football. I'd imagine it might give a "flavour" of the direction this report might go.

So if you want to give it a listen...have at it.

Cards on the table, I didn't make it far...I mean, Jim Spence and Roger Mitchell? Yikes. Solidly in the not for me category.

Direct link to the podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/it/podcast/ayne-243-is-scottish-football-investable/id1438454748?i=1000475642643&l=en

Edited September 15, 2021 by capt_oats

[Derry O'Driscoll]

1 hour ago, craigkillie said:

How has Dundee's marketing improved since the Americans took over? I haven't seen any particularly interesting examples in what must be at least 5 years now.
 

It's not. 

 

Ground is a tip and gets worse every year. 

 

Ticketing system a shambles too. 

 

Apart from mentioning a new stadium which nobody believes will happen, we don't do that much in trying to grow the club and get extra fans and money in. 

 

 

 

 

[lubo_blaha]

There's nothing wrong to start asking questions about what can be done to improve Scottish football. Keeping the OF out keeps the 'us v them' agenda out of it that taints the league a bit also IMO.
Absolutely nothing has been said other than we want to increase our revenue, and judging by everyone's thoughts on what they'd like to see and what they wouldn't for everything outside of that is clearly a touchy issue.
The only thing I'm really annoyed about is once again, clubs going out of their way to do this rather than the SPFL, which really should have been their job in the first place, asking these questions themselves and being proactive about it.

The SPFL has the structure that is has because that’s what the clubs want. They have a skeleton staff because the clubs would rather have the money for themselves. People have huge expectations of the league being able to market itself to the world when the reality is that their marketing department consists of a couple of guys who run the social media.

[Chefki Kuqi]

I'm intrigued as to what people mean by saying we're missing in the marketing front specifically, what the selling point of the league is. Not to say there isn't one, but it is fairly nebulous and perhaps treated as something of a silver bullet.

Loathe to say given the amount of time devoted to the OF but as far as I can see one of the best pieces of marketing for the game going on is Sportscene as it provides an avenue to familiarise yourself with the storylines of other clubs. I think an equivalent version of EFL on Quest would be beneficial too, and its not like BBC Scotland is churning out content that'd get a higher viewership currently.

[ayaye]

If the intention is to generate revenue certainly one of the best ways would be to create more competition at the top of the uppermost league. A merger of the Edinburgh and Dundee clubs respectively would surely realise teams that could compete with Rangers and Celtic. I wonder if this will be suggested?

[Charles Stiles]

14 hours ago, Sergeant Wilson said:

This. 

 

Thank goodness we are trying to move away from just copying England. Two Yanks leading a movement for more money for the bigger guys with talk of a breakaway league set up would never happen there. Oh...

 

[Guest Flash]

Imo Celtic and Rangers will be keeping out of this to make it appear that it isn’t about them. The review will make various recommendations that won’t get voted through. It will end up in a breakaway, whether just the clubs in the top division or with some from the Championship making up two new divisions. 
It may or may not be motivated by clubs wanting to leave the SPFL and set up a new organisation but I think that is how it will end up.
 

[Clown Job]

1 hour ago, ahemps said:

Closing off a market to 55m people will grow our game???? I really don't believe cutting off the English TV will grow our game, whether we like it or not but being on the TV in English homes or pubs must help with the exposure to our game. Where is there another market like this for the SPFL????

Does Danish football get shown in Germany? Does Croatian football get shown in Italy??? I doubt that they do. Sky sports gives us exposure that similar sized countries don't get. It may be annoying our games are shown at times to accommodate EPL games but in my opinion if we go head to head with them we would lose more viewers than we gained.

Scotland is a market for Sky to promote the EPL, not our own game and they certainly don’t care about promoting Scottish football in England 

Does Danish domestic football take a back seat for the Bundesliga?

Do they show more game from Seria A in Croatia than Croatian domestic games?

I doubt it

How anyone can think it’s a good deal we have with them is beyond me

Id happily have live English games blacked out in Scotland if it meant our own clubs get the exposure

Edited September 15, 2021 by Clown Job

[ahemps]

24 minutes ago, capt_oats said:

Vaguely related but here's a podcast from last year with Cormack (and Burrows) talking about "change" in Scottish Football. I'd imagine it might give a "flavour" of the direction this report might go.

So if you want to give it a listen...have at it.

Cards on the table, I didn't make it far...I mean, Jim Spence and Roger Mitchell? Yikes. Solidly in the not for me category.

Direct link to the podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/it/podcast/ayne-243-is-scottish-football-investable/id1438454748?i=1000475642643&l=en

I listened to this at the time it came out. it was quite interesting and the views from Cormack and Burrows are good. Cormack at least appears to be thinking out the box and throwing ideas out there even if some are a bit far fetched but I liked some of them. Burrows is a guy who is genuine and wants to see the game and his club progress. I felt Mitchell however can not get the idea of making the OF and probably Celtic bigger and better the focal point of Scottish football out of his mind.