posted Jun 22, 2009

I can't understand why it has taken the board of the SPL so long to pull the rights from Setanta. The EPL set deadlines and pulled everything within a two week timeframe, when they were owed substantially more! There isn't a mercenary business brain among them! Forget about the £60M Setanta have already given Scottish football - what about the £400M they promised the EPL and then changed their subscription policy, screwing over customers who had originally bought for the SPL.

The board of the SPL should have forced Setanta into administration long before the EPL payment became due, offered a pittance to take over the infrastructure, and start to broadcast the games themselves.

True, the standard of presenters might get better. True, the customers might get a game other than Rangers or Celtic away each weekend.

True (and more seriously), the smaller clubs might not see an immediate benefit, but the should be promoting their clubs better anyway -free tickets to local schools anyone? John Boyle at Motherwell got that one right - they might not pay for the ticket, but you are trying to develop a brand loyalty, and they might buy a pie and a drink.

If we want to re-invigorate the SPL and the rest of the Scottish game, we have to do it ourselves. Rangers and Celtic can cry about lost opportunities, but they should put up the lions share of any start-up costs (like the cost of putting a channel on the Sky platform, fixed for ten years)

Sky is blatantly not interested in Scotland, otherwise we would have been on a par with them from the start of the EPL in the 1990's. ESPN - owned by Mickey Mouse. Don't we have enough children's comedy in the Scottish game already?

200,000 subscribers at £7.50 per month - £1,500,000. That's £15million per year, before increased subscriptions from the pubs and clubs, who have to pay subscriptions based on rates, and before selling rights abroad. All the money can be re-invested in Scotland, with quotas for player development, rather than squandering it on mediocre foreigners who leave the country with fat wallets.

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posted Jun 22, 2009

Its simple and SKY would bite yer hand off for it.
Scottish football is played from March to November .

Full Summer Season when no other football is on .
Players in peak condition for European prelimanary rounds .

English teams lending players to get them sharper over the close season .

Small midsummer break every season for Euro /World Cup etc (even if we don't qualify)

Big carrot and broadcasters would be delighted to have compettive Football on in the Summer .

The lazy thinkers and short sighted will never do it though .

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posted Jun 22, 2009

Maybe if clubs played they're players wages like they did from 60s- early 80s then possibly no club will ever be in the situation they're in? all these players getting millions of pounds, millions going through clubs. Some clubs never got as fortunate as that and the fact that TV money has been helping keeping clubs secure from administration just shows what a blow setanta bowing out can be. Lets just hope ESPN can be able 2 afford to display SPL matches to keep clubs back to the safety net they were in...i still believe clubs who relied on tv money will survive but at the end of the day nobody wants to hear about they're club possibly going to administration because of lack of little or no tv money

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posted Jun 23, 2009

What happens to the Norway v Scotland game due to be broadcast by Setanta in August? If Setanta fold do the SFA have the right to sell this game to another broadcaster? Setanta probably paid for the rights last year.

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posted Jun 23, 2009

Scottish football is dying, and its the fault of glory hunting and religious bigotry.

(The Old Firm to those with blue or green blinkers on)

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posted Jun 23, 2009

Had a look at the comments on here. The only one that makes any sense is the one about the switch to summer football. They did it in the LoI a couple of years back and it has worked, along with an improvement in results in european competitions due to the players actually being fit, rather than playing qualifying games as part of pre-season.

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posted Jun 23, 2009

I'm all for summer football. It's crazy that there's no games to watch now that we have bright sunny nights, and we could have pitches like bowling greens. There's no way I can persuade my 8-year old to come to watch a match in a blizzard in January played on a mudbath.

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posted Jun 23, 2009

For me, the problem Setanta had was in taking games away from Sky, particularly Premiership matches. I had Sky Sports for 10 years (still do) and then Setanta stepped in, took about 60 games away from my Sky package and expected me to pay another £15 a month for the privilege of watching what I already had. OK, Sky didn't reduce the price of my sports package when it happened, which was perhaps a bit naughty, but there was no way I was paying the extra subscription even if I could afford it. It was like Sky going up £15 a month. Sorry, I wasn't going to fall for that one.

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posted Jun 23, 2009

think they waited because they were worried about finding anybody that would match setanta's payments

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posted Jun 23, 2009

Unfortunately EPL knew there would be plenty of others willing to pay what Setanta would for their coverage; SPL knew nobody was waiting in the wings for theirs so wanted to give them as much time as possible.

Unfortunately many clubs in England and Scotland are going to come a cropper like many other businesses that were effectively living on credit...

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