IMAGO / Shutterstock Photo by Luke Nickerson
2.3 More Celtic and Rangers home games
It is understandable why more Celtic and Rangers away games are shown due to them being able to attract more viewers, as more fans attend home games. However, their home fixtures against the next biggest clubs: Aberdeen, Hearts, Hibs and Dundee United are also highly appealing.
Unless it is an opening ‘flag day’ curtain raiser, title decider or trophy presentation fixture, home games throughout the season (apart from the derby) are rarely televised.
Doing so would still attract a large TV audience without detracting from attendances at Celtic Park or Ibrox. Less people would to turn to illegal streaming, as these games would also be covered as part of their subscription package.
2.4 Two midweek Glasgow derbies a season
On 2nd February 2022, Celtic Park was absolutely rocking on a cold, wet Wednesday evening in an emphatic 3-0 victory against Rangers in what proved to be a pivotal turning point in the season.
There is something special about playing a big game under the lights. Unfortunately, night games between Celtic and Rangers do not generally happen and only occurred on this occasion because it was postponed in January due a unique set of circumstances (i.e. Covid restrictions).
Fans of both clubs would welcome two of the four derbies be played midweek (one at either ground). Whether the authorities would allow this is another matter, but it would be awesome if it did!
An evening game at each ground with a return to large away fan allocations would be epic and despite any potential problems, would be enthralling for fans watching at the ground or on TV. This would enhance its appeal to a wider audience thus attracting more interest in the game.
This could also be extended to Edinburgh and Dundee (at a later date) derbies.
2.5 Saturday 3pm Games
Current rules prohibit games from being televised on a Saturday between 2.45pm and 5.15pm. However, if the SPFL has the power to overturn this, it should. This is the only available time slot when there is no competition from televised English matches.
It is feared that showing a 3pm game would affect attendances at grounds. However, it would have very little impact at Fir Park if Motherwell were playing either of the Glasgow giants. Neither would it affect attendances at Parkhead or Ibrox when the opposition is Aberdeen, Hibs or Hearts. Glasgow and Edinburgh derbies could also be played in their traditional time slots.
If Sky Sports obtained the rights they could display Soccer Saturday’s live scores along the bottom/right of the screen whilst simultaneously showing a game (with a full screen option). This would maximise viewers as a lot of neutrals from England and elsewhere that are unable to watch a live EPL game would tune in.
Away fans would also benefit from a 3pm start as opposed to a lunchtime kick off that involves a four-hour trip.
3: Improved Coverage and Presentation
Until the latest TV deal began in 2020, Sky Sports and BT Sport shared the rights to screen SPFL matches.
The level of coverage and presentation between them was night and day. Many fans had hoped that BT Sport would acquire the exclusive rights to the SPFL, but unfortunately the opposite happened as it is now solely in the hands of Sky.
Sky Sports have made it abundantly clear that they do not care about Scottish football and continue to treat it as the poor relation to its English counterpart. BT Sport on the other hand gave it the time of day through its promotion, coverage, analysis and presentation.
Whichever company/companies acquire the SPFL rights in the future; here are some suggestions as to how it could be improved:
(Photo by Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)
3.1 A better use of pundits and commentators
One of the biggest criticisms of Sky Sports is their nonsensical use of sub-standard pundits and commentators like Kris Boyd and Andy Walker.
It is baffling that certain pundits are continually used when they did not represent either of the clubs involved on match day (e.g. Boyd being used for Livingston v Celtic). Celtic fans view Boyd as a terrible pundit that sees the world through blue tinted spectacles! He has no business being on the panel for any of their games that are not against his formers clubs, Kilmarnock and Rangers.
Rangers fans equally felt the same way towards Chris Sutton when BT Sport hosted their games against the likes of St Mirren and Ross County. In the interest of fairness, he should not have been on any of their games other than Celtic.
Whatever game is being shown, it is important to achieve the right balance on the panel. This should consist of a host plus two/four pundits that represented either club involved.
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I couldn’t agree more with each of the points highlighted in the article. Especially the point about away fan allocation. We constantly hear from clubs outwith Celtic and Rangers that they don’t have the budgets to compete with the big two yet they’d rather see thousands of empty seats at their grounds than receive the additional income from filling those vacant seats with away supporters whichever teams they are playing. They cannot argue on one hand that they strive for greater revenue yet turn away the opportunity to acquire that revenue, albeit from away support. Cutting off noses to spite one’s face comes to mind. Futhermore, clubs in the SPFL often vote to protect their own interests by voting against expansion of the league to protect the income they receive by playing against the big two at least three times per season yet limit the away support when their grounds are half empty. Where is the logic in that? We need a complete overhaul of the league structure by expanding it to eighteen clubs with proper relegation and promotion, playoffs if practicable, and do away with this ludicrous split. I’m not suggesting that Celtic and Rangers won’t continue to dominate but there is a serious lack of ambition from the smaller clubs. They are happy in their self-interest to hunger after crumbs rather than develop Scottish football as a whole and grow the product to make it a more attractive spectacle. Scottish football is being governed by a bunch of inept, insular, antediluvian carrion crows.
Well said I completely agree.
Most if not all of these clubs struggle to get the basics right, on and off the field!
A lot of the time, watching a Scottish league game is similar to watching a kick about in a local park; players lack basic technique, teams lack structural discipline and tactics are basic!
These are all things that could easily be taught and coached into players and teams, but nobody bothers, and it shows more when our 3rd place finishers and below enter European competition for their annual pumping, often against teams working with similar budgets but who do get those basic fundamentals of the game right!
We have 3 choices as far as our leagues concerned, that i can see:
1. Do nothing, stay as is, 12 team set up with nobody outwith Glasgow learning or progressing.
2. Form a 14 team top flight, Championship and 3rd tier, with a split after 26 games in each, promotion/ relegation etc, and hope its better than present over time!
3. Form a closed Premier League consisting solely of Full-time professional clubs(i think we have around 21 – 22?), with no relegation, and hope teams can use this to their advantage by using the breathing space with fear of relegation removed to work on technique, tactics etc, perhaps even fielding more youth.
… wouldn’t do our league any harm if a company like Red Bull decided to invest in a team outwith Glasgow too, create a third force in the league…
A single Celtic v *rangers game can attract approximately about 1.5 million legitimate viewers worldwide, and a lot more if you count, ahem, streams of the game!
Could Celtic & *rangers get together and sell their own 4 game tv package for their league encounters against each other, sell them to armchair fans for £40 for all 4 say, and split the profit?
… it’d bring in both clubs a lot more per season than they can ever hope to make off Sky or whoever!
Let the SPFL weakly negotiate terms for games outwith the Glasgow Derby.
It also looks as if the number of clubs in the leagues mentioned in this article has a direct effect on how much the offer from tv companies amounts to, with those from an 18 team league making more than those from a 16 team league, and so on down to 12 team leagues…this could be yet another reason why it’d be more beneficial to restructure our league, though anything more than 14 teams in it wouldn’t be able to cater for 4 Glasgow Derby’s/season, but in the long term this may actually be beneficial to the league as a whole as it’d half the number of fixtures potential opposition title challengers would face against the Glasgow clubs!
Good article though and a lot of good points made.