Author: wayofthecass

So finally the SPFL have come to an agreement over the new TV deal something which has been getting discussed far and wide across the Scottish footballing spectrum for the past 18 months or more.

And the winner is…….Sky. That brand that we all know and love with wonderful coverage being provided by the gorgeous Hayley McQueen flanked by the stunning pairing of Kris Boyd and Kris Commons.

Safe to say it isn’t the winner we wanted. By we, I don’t just mean Celtic fans but all of Scottish football. A recent online poll found that 90% of Scottish football fans surveyed would prefer BT to win the rights as they generally provide superior coverage with far more in-depth analysis and passion for the game up here.

The likes of Chris Sutton, Steven Craigan, Michael Stewart and Ally McCoist might not be everyone’s cup of tea – each one’s popularity usually depending on what team you support – but they sell the game as opposed to Sky who’s coverage often borders on apathetic to the point of disrespect.

Commons was a wonderful servant to the club but he usually gets lost in his own analysis and Boyd wavers from boring to confusion then onto anger and all in one sentence. Either way, both are pretty limited pundits and would be blown out of the water by the BT guys.

Hayley does her best to fit in what she can from her meagre surroundings in the blink and you’ll miss it introduction and post-match analysis segments and there is a general air of disinterest about the whole thing. The general impression is that they can’t wait to get back to their beloved English Premier League

BT, on the other hand, are fronted by wisecracking Darell Curry who is often required to act more like a referee as opposed to a presenter in order to reel in the often hilarious quarrelling that occurs between Sutton and the rest of the panel. Added to that every game no matter how seemingly inconsequential it might appear in the grand scheme of things is given a worthy amount of build-up and analysis so in other words…..respect.

So bearing all that in mind it’s come as a surprise that BT was so easily outbid by Sky and not only that have lost all rights to the Betfred League Cup as well.

That means that BT will in just over 18 months have literally no relationship with Scottish football at all which is pretty shocking considering the effort they have put into promoting the game during these past five years.

Now as much as I would have preferred BT to have gotten the rights the facts are that they refused to put their money where their mouth is. The deal has now been unofficially confirmed as being worth £160 million over a five year period beginning the season after next with Sky Sports having inclusivity to all 48 top flight live matches.

I can’t mention my source but all I will say is that he is a board member of a Premiership club. All members were asked to take a final vote yesterday at around 2pm and the decision was unanimous. Some had earlier baulked at Sky’s offer believing the rights could be worth somewhere in the region of £40-50 million per season but the facts are that BT’s preference was to continue the current carve-up between themselves and Sky whilst individually investing less and that the likes of Amazon, Eleven Sports etc when sounded out just weren’t really that interested. Sky’s offer of just over £32 million per season was by some distance the best financial package and an initial offer of three years was actually negotiated up to five to give extra long-term security. The deal was apparently brokered by a consultant who had been involved in the English Premierships’ last round of TV contract negotiations and he was keen to point out to the members the fact that TV sports rights in the UK across the board are generally decreasing in value as opposed to increasing.

The EPL themselves have seen their own rights tumble pretty dramatically from £5.1 billion for a three-year deal to £4.775 billion which begins next summer. That’s a drop of £325 million, around about £108 million a season. Even then those figures are pretty optimistic with some sources claiming the drop was nearer the £500 million mark.

The final two packages available in the first round of bids back in February actually went unsold and weren’t negotiated until six months later when Amazon and BT picked up what was left. Not long after Richard Scudamore announced he was stepping down from his role as the EPL’s Executive Chairman which he had held (though previously called Chief Executive) since 1999. Coincidence? Hardly.

As much as I, like just about everyone else it seems,  prefer BT’s coverage the facts are that they were have thrown the kitchen sink at both Champions League and English Premiership TV rights to such an extent that they have hardly any money to invest in anything else. So it shows where their priorities lie. The SPFL is not the only rights they failed to retain as they have also lost the rights to Serie A, UFC and NBA with all being picked up by the new player Eleven Sports.

This unsurprisingly goes hand in hand with the departure of chief executive Gavin Patterson who back in 2013 led BT’s assault on live sports rights. The hope was that impressive sports packages would also entice new broadband customers but this strategy has failed dramatically as the number of new subscribers each quarter having apparently collapsed. As a result at the time of the announcement about Patterson’s future, or lack of, BT’s share price had fallen around 14% over the previous four weeks alone with full-year results showing a 1% drop in revenue, not helped by the company dealing with the aftermath of an accounting scandal at its Italian division, which resulted in a £530 million write-down and a major fall in its share price last year.

Shareholders at BT had wanted Patterson out for some time and with the news, any hopes of BT being capable of competing with other major providers for sports rights renewals went with him.

The new deal will see 48 matches – a reduction from the 60 shown previously between both Sky and BT – all appear on one format each season along with six playoff matches and kicks in the season after next. We can only hope that in that time Sky takes on board the feedback and improve their coverage to match a significantly increased investment.

It’s not only the league games though that BT failed to retain. They’ve also let the Betfred League Cup slip through their fingers and into the hands of Irish broadcaster Premier Sports. Again their coverage there was spot on and they played a big part in changing the format so that it would feature regional league matches played in the summer by teams not competing in Europe. This coverage came at a cost of a measly £8 million over four years but was by all accounts much better than the previous deal in place with the BBC. Premier Sports offer whilst apparently better wasn’t significantly so but BT once again failed to invest and just as with the league games their coverage will cease to exist from the summer of 2020 onwards.

The Scottish Cup rights are a whole other kettle of fish with Premier Sports and the BBC sharing them with Sky letting them go, and of course, the BBC has also renewed their deal with the SPFL which will see them retain league highlights as well as showing 20 live Championship games per season starting in a few months, on a new channel, to be unveiled next year.

I’ve seen some people unfavourably comparing the deal to the new one signed by the EFL down south which is a £595 million contract over three years. The thing about that is it covers 130 matches per season across three leagues and 72 clubs and also includes League Cup games so actually in the grand scheme of things most English clubs have got a poorer deal than the SPFL.

All in all, it’s more money. How much more is difficult to quantify but we do know that it was widely accepted that the total pot of TV income was £21 million last season with £17.5 million of that coming from the league TV deal alone. This new deal secures at least £32 million per season and could be more when factoring in a new foreign TV rights deal with beIN sports as well as the new Scottish Cup and League Cup deals.

Is it what we wanted? No. But is it the best deal we could get……yes. And just like in every other aspect of life money talks and there was no way Scottish football was walking away from an extra £10 million plus per season.

I like BT. We all like BT. But the fact is they obviously don’t like us as much back. That and the fact that they are skint.