Football's television money will forever turn heads.
The Guardian reports that:
"The deal that shares television's billions equally between Premier League clubs is facing its biggest threat to date after Liverpool announced they would lead a challenge for overseas TV rights to be sold on a club-by-club basis." (www.guardian.co.uk)
A debate, Liverpool's men in suits say, that needs to happen.
For any doubters this is proof that the game's elite hardly saw the recent court ruling on the cross border availability of satellite TV coverage as a Robin Hood-esque win for the downtrodden poor over the nasty rich.
It's no surprise that top English clubs, whose gods are all financial, want to maximise their profits while raising the drawbridge on competition.
Does it mean anything for Scotland?
It could.
I'd be amazed if this issue wasn't being closely tracked in the boardrooms of Ibrox and Celtic Park.
I've written before about Ajax's desire to break free from their league's collective Eredivisie Live TV channel and market their own rights separately.
They argue that the television riches of the modern game's biggest leagues have robbed them of their elite status and only by jettisoning any sense of duty to the rest of the Dutch league can they hope to clamber back to the top table.
Celtic and Rangers will gauge, correctly, that they are the only real overseas draw the SPL have.
They would also fancy being freed from a collective deal at home. They'll know exactly how many viewers they draw to the SPL coverage on Sky and ESPN. Without seeing the figures I'd guess that the average audience of around 160,000 across 60 live games would be much smaller if the Old Firm were removed from the equation.
If the concept of these existing collective deals begins to shatter across Europe Celtic and Rangers will have the precedent they need to agitate for their own breakaway.
The onus on the SPL to get their next television deal right would seem to have become ever more important.
A refreshing wind of opportunity might just have blown through Glasgow.
There's likely to be a storm of foreboding gathering over every other SPL club.
Donate to the Scottish Football Blog Blogathon, 19 November 2011
Showing posts with label SPL TV. Show all posts
Showing posts with label SPL TV. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Monday, September 19, 2011
Old Firm: In Suffolk nobody can hear you scream
"An afternoon when the Old Firm fixture reclaimed some credibility as a footballing occasion to savour."
That's The Scotsman's verdict on yesterday's humdinger of an Old Firm game.
Rangers outdid Celtic. Football outdid the myriad levels of crap that pockmarked this fixture last season.
Both these sides are now shorn of world class talent. But there was entertainment enough on show at Ibrox yesterday. Excitement, errors, skills, decent goals.
It was a football match not a reason for political slanging matches or a day for earnest hand wringing about the state of modern Scotland.
(If there were the dismal songs of hate I didn't hear them so I'm unable to pass comment.)
It was a game of honest endeavour. A match between two sides that have both limitations and ability, watched over by two managers who are still relatively inexperienced in such positions of power.
Basically, then, it was a football game. Such was the position we found ourselves in last year that our two dominant league sides producing a game that allows to talk about football now seems like something of an achievement.
It was a game that deserved an audience.
Didn't have one though. At least not where I am.
An English pub. The game on the TV. Three of us in the bar. Me. And one of those middle aged couples that have either slipped into a companionable silence or have decided to leave their mutual loathing unspoken.
I was watching the game. They were not.
This is an expensive little patch of Suffolk. It might not be a traditional footballing heartland. But there was standing room only in the same pub just hours later as Chelsea and what appeared to be the local club, Manchester United, threw up an equally engrossing match.
It would be foolhardy to claim this experience of fitba' solitude as representative.
But increasingly on trips to England I find shrugged shoulders are the response when Scottish football is discussed.
With financial hardship blighting our clubs and TV deals up for renewal that worries me.
In the summer the SPL were crowing about increased viewing figures. Without checking back I think those figures equated to something like 170,000 average viewers across 60 live games.
Figures like that will allow English based TV companies - who view Scotland as very much a secondary constituency - to hold us to ransom. They also make the idea of SPL TV look very shaky.
In which light my experience yesterday, the loneliness of my long distance pub crawl, looks more like the reality. Even for Celtic and Rangers, pretty much the crown jewels of any attempts to "sell" Scottish football, the audience is shrinking in a crowded market.
If the local brew wasn't so morish that would be quite a sobering thought.
> Want to know all the latest football scores? Go to footballscores.com where they have live updates on scores from football matches being played all over the globe, go now!
That's The Scotsman's verdict on yesterday's humdinger of an Old Firm game.
Rangers outdid Celtic. Football outdid the myriad levels of crap that pockmarked this fixture last season.
Both these sides are now shorn of world class talent. But there was entertainment enough on show at Ibrox yesterday. Excitement, errors, skills, decent goals.
It was a football match not a reason for political slanging matches or a day for earnest hand wringing about the state of modern Scotland.
(If there were the dismal songs of hate I didn't hear them so I'm unable to pass comment.)
It was a game of honest endeavour. A match between two sides that have both limitations and ability, watched over by two managers who are still relatively inexperienced in such positions of power.
Basically, then, it was a football game. Such was the position we found ourselves in last year that our two dominant league sides producing a game that allows to talk about football now seems like something of an achievement.
It was a game that deserved an audience.
Didn't have one though. At least not where I am.
An English pub. The game on the TV. Three of us in the bar. Me. And one of those middle aged couples that have either slipped into a companionable silence or have decided to leave their mutual loathing unspoken.
I was watching the game. They were not.
This is an expensive little patch of Suffolk. It might not be a traditional footballing heartland. But there was standing room only in the same pub just hours later as Chelsea and what appeared to be the local club, Manchester United, threw up an equally engrossing match.
It would be foolhardy to claim this experience of fitba' solitude as representative.
But increasingly on trips to England I find shrugged shoulders are the response when Scottish football is discussed.
With financial hardship blighting our clubs and TV deals up for renewal that worries me.
In the summer the SPL were crowing about increased viewing figures. Without checking back I think those figures equated to something like 170,000 average viewers across 60 live games.
Figures like that will allow English based TV companies - who view Scotland as very much a secondary constituency - to hold us to ransom. They also make the idea of SPL TV look very shaky.
In which light my experience yesterday, the loneliness of my long distance pub crawl, looks more like the reality. Even for Celtic and Rangers, pretty much the crown jewels of any attempts to "sell" Scottish football, the audience is shrinking in a crowded market.
If the local brew wasn't so morish that would be quite a sobering thought.
> Want to know all the latest football scores? Go to footballscores.com where they have live updates on scores from football matches being played all over the globe, go now!
Thursday, January 27, 2011
SPL TV: Here We Go Again
Another day, another SPL brainwave.
This time it's the idea of an SPL TV channel. The SPL have drafted in IMG Media to look into the feasibility of launching their own channel. Not a new idea but an idea apparently reborn in the last few weeks.
Let us then applaud the SPL for exploring all avenues. And also kudos for the choice of IMG. Love them or loathe them IMG have, whatever Sky might claim, probably had more of an impact on the monetisation of sport than anyone else.
Ever since Mark McCormack first supped cocktails with Arnold Palmer, IMG have made the money roll in.
But I still think this is a stupid idea. Totally and utterly stupid.
Certainly, I suspect SPL chief excutive Neil Doncaster is "at it". I repeatedly said he that couldn't back up his claim that a ten team SPL was more attractive to broadcasters.
Surely the idea of an SPL channel suggests that the clubs themselves don't have much confidence in their continued ability to lure broadcasters.
We're told that other countries are doing the same or considering doing the same.
And that is also true. France are on the road already, with the second tier league being used as a guinea pig.
The French model will see the channel available as a paid for addition to the existing channels when France switches to digital TV.
Would that be the SPL model? It's not as simple as just setting up a channel and claiming a spot on Top-Up TV, a service that already carries Sky Sports and ESPN.
The Dutch already have Eredivisie Live. Would that be the model we chose to replicate?
It might be a struggle if we did. Based on their subscriber numbers (around 475,000 in autumn 2010) and an entirely unscientific extrapolation of those figures we could estimate 140,000 subscribers for a Scottish model.
That would tie in with the SPL viewing figures that Setanta limped on with until they were put out of their misery. But those figures for Setanta were from the season when they had English Premier League football as well.
There is scant evidence to suggest that SPL TV would prove much of hit in England where Sky and ESPN have the live TV market just about sewn up.
Eredivisie Live has bolstered its output with the FA Cup, Europa League and England internationals.
All those are readily available to Scottish viewers on either free to air channels or established subscription channels. It's simply not a market in which SPL TV could hope to compete.
Perhaps more pertinently Ajax are making fairly strong signals that they don't consider the €4 million they earn from Eredivisie Live enough and that they hope to pull out of the deal.
The plan in Amsterdam is to sell TV rights for Ajax matches separately.
Just imagine SPL TV wasn't a success? What would there then be to stop Rangers and Celtic negotiating their own TV rights?
And would the ordinary Scottish fan be willing to pay yet more money to watch Scottish football?
Would the overseas revenues come rolling in? Maybe we could consider North America and Australia as our biggest potential markets. SPL TV would not exactly be the biggest fish in any of those ponds.
Because we shouldn't kid ourselves that it's a blockbuster product. Perhaps before reimagining himself as a tartan clad Charles Foster Kane, Neil Doncaster should address the dearth of quality on the pitch.
In all of this you get the impression that the SPL are running around trying to recover from the trauma of Setanta's collapse. But the best way to recover from that disaster is not to chase another pie in the sky dream.
Of course, this is all just at the exploratory stage. IMG have made millions from seeing financial opportunity where others have seen only oddly dressed young men doing funny things with balls.
We can only hope that they can also spot an enormous folly when they see one.
The Scottish Football Blog News Feed
This time it's the idea of an SPL TV channel. The SPL have drafted in IMG Media to look into the feasibility of launching their own channel. Not a new idea but an idea apparently reborn in the last few weeks.
Let us then applaud the SPL for exploring all avenues. And also kudos for the choice of IMG. Love them or loathe them IMG have, whatever Sky might claim, probably had more of an impact on the monetisation of sport than anyone else.
Ever since Mark McCormack first supped cocktails with Arnold Palmer, IMG have made the money roll in.
But I still think this is a stupid idea. Totally and utterly stupid.
Certainly, I suspect SPL chief excutive Neil Doncaster is "at it". I repeatedly said he that couldn't back up his claim that a ten team SPL was more attractive to broadcasters.
Surely the idea of an SPL channel suggests that the clubs themselves don't have much confidence in their continued ability to lure broadcasters.
We're told that other countries are doing the same or considering doing the same.
And that is also true. France are on the road already, with the second tier league being used as a guinea pig.
The French model will see the channel available as a paid for addition to the existing channels when France switches to digital TV.
Would that be the SPL model? It's not as simple as just setting up a channel and claiming a spot on Top-Up TV, a service that already carries Sky Sports and ESPN.
The Dutch already have Eredivisie Live. Would that be the model we chose to replicate?
It might be a struggle if we did. Based on their subscriber numbers (around 475,000 in autumn 2010) and an entirely unscientific extrapolation of those figures we could estimate 140,000 subscribers for a Scottish model.
That would tie in with the SPL viewing figures that Setanta limped on with until they were put out of their misery. But those figures for Setanta were from the season when they had English Premier League football as well.
There is scant evidence to suggest that SPL TV would prove much of hit in England where Sky and ESPN have the live TV market just about sewn up.
Eredivisie Live has bolstered its output with the FA Cup, Europa League and England internationals.
All those are readily available to Scottish viewers on either free to air channels or established subscription channels. It's simply not a market in which SPL TV could hope to compete.
Perhaps more pertinently Ajax are making fairly strong signals that they don't consider the €4 million they earn from Eredivisie Live enough and that they hope to pull out of the deal.
The plan in Amsterdam is to sell TV rights for Ajax matches separately.
Just imagine SPL TV wasn't a success? What would there then be to stop Rangers and Celtic negotiating their own TV rights?
And would the ordinary Scottish fan be willing to pay yet more money to watch Scottish football?
Would the overseas revenues come rolling in? Maybe we could consider North America and Australia as our biggest potential markets. SPL TV would not exactly be the biggest fish in any of those ponds.
Because we shouldn't kid ourselves that it's a blockbuster product. Perhaps before reimagining himself as a tartan clad Charles Foster Kane, Neil Doncaster should address the dearth of quality on the pitch.
In all of this you get the impression that the SPL are running around trying to recover from the trauma of Setanta's collapse. But the best way to recover from that disaster is not to chase another pie in the sky dream.
Of course, this is all just at the exploratory stage. IMG have made millions from seeing financial opportunity where others have seen only oddly dressed young men doing funny things with balls.
We can only hope that they can also spot an enormous folly when they see one.
The Scottish Football Blog News Feed
Friday, July 09, 2010
SPL 2010/11: TV Times
TO EVEN SHOW THE FIRST WEEK OF FIXTURES WITH LINKS TO THE FULL FIXTURE LIST ON THE SPL SITE WOULD COST ME OVER £4000. THIS IS MODERN FOOTBALL:
In order to display the Fixture Lists you must obtain the necessary licence from the Press Association. The League Logo can only be used with permission from the League concerned. The League Logo needs to be removed until permission is granted.
The Leagues have appointed the Press Association as their official agent for
the licensing and distribution of the Fixtures List. If you have
inadvertently infringed our clients' copyright please take immediate steps
to contact the Press Association (Email: fixtures@pressassociation.com) to
obtain the appropriate licence. Please confirm to us by e-mail that you are
now seeking an appropriate licence. Because of the time sensitive nature of
the Fixture Lists you are required to remove them immediately from your site
pending the granting of a licence.
We wish to make you aware that we have a good faith belief that your present
use is an infringement of the Leagues' legal rights and that all such
unauthorised use must cease immediately. Please confirm by return your
agreement to this and give your undertaking to cease all such infringements
on any and all of your web sites. Pending your response the Leagues' rights
are fully reserved.
More information here.
If you've spent the last few weeks filling in your diary with your team's fixtures for next season then more fool you.
The inevitable changes have now been announced to accomadate Sky and ESPN.
Noon on a Saturday is a crap time for a football game. So is 12.15. So is noon on a Sunday. So is 12.15 on a Sunday. So is 2.15 on a Sunday.
But I will not rant. Because I was given a stress ball today and I'm squeezing it furiously while remaining calm.
The full list of SPL 2010/2011 TV fixtures from the SPL site.
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