SPFL STILL THE POOR RELATION
bring in more? I couldn’t name you three players from the Slovakian league and sadly I’d struggle with Scotland too.
“I know Dean Windass’s son is playing in the Premiership and also Gary Dicker at Kilmarnock and that’s only because he used to play for my team, Brighton.
“The Danish league nets £50m a year from its broadcast deal but it is at least competitive – and it’s not next door to England.
“The SPFL struggles because of its proximity to the Premier League but mostly it struggles financially because it simply isn’t competitive.
“It attracts TV audiences a tenth of the Premier League and that would change if, for example, Celtic, Aberdeen, Rangers and Hearts were all within five points of each other.
“Is Scottish football undervalued? Maybe but unfortunately it’s probably around the right price because it just doesn’t have the glamour factor or the competition you find in the Premier League. “It’s probably not cost effective for broadcasters to pay much more than they are in the
current contract.” AN investigation by Record Sport into TV revenue across the continent last year provided damning proof of why our game remains the poor man of Europe.
The current deal, which has two years to run, sees Scotland anchored to the bottom of a league of 18 countries, below Poland, Norway, Sweden and Denmark and dwarfed even by Greece.
It’s understood the SPFL’s deal with Sky and BT Sport is worth slightly less than £19million per season, rising to close to £30m when overseas rights, highlights packages and a separate deal with the BBC are factored in.
England lead the way in Europe with a £1.71billion deal. The Bundesliga is next best, having just entered into a new fouryear deal worth £900m a year. Italy’s Serie A is raking in £805m per season. Spain’s La Liga is tied into a three-year deal worth £753m a year. In France their deal is worth £638m per season.
Sixth is Turkey which dishes out £385m a year. In Portugal clubs can sell their own broadcast rights to TV companies on contracts of up to 10 years at a time.
Benfica and Sporting Lisbon are believed to have negotiated their own deals worth in excess of £350m.
Even then the total value of broadcast deals for the entire league comes in at around £110m per year.
Holland has a long-term deal worth £70m a year. Belgium are entering the final year of their TV contract which has been worth £60m a year since 2014.
Even in Greece, a country that has been on the edge of economic obliteration, the contract which runs until 2019 is worth £50m a season.
In 11th is Denmark, incredible given the Danes have a population of 5.6m – just 300,000 more than our own. Even so, the Danish Superliga is deal is worth £46m per year.
THE REST Norway – £35m a year
Russia – £28m Switzerland – £25m Sweden – £21m Austria – £19m Scotland – £18.75m SKY spend £500,000 on each rugby Super League match with viewing figures regularly under 70,000. In contrast, this season’s first Old Firm game – Celtic’s 2-0 win at Ibrox, was watched by 2,750,000.