Spl Reconstruction

[PaleGreySky]

The whole of Scottish football has agreed that we need change - the SFA, SPL, SFL, the Clubs' boards and, last and definately least, the fans. Football is boring as hell for the fans right now, and that is why change is being suggested.

 

12/10 --> 10/12

 

That barely even qualifies as change. People in other countries won't even notice anything has happened.

[Pie Of The Month]

Those people suggesting a 16 team league are living in a fantasy land. The SPL reckon it would cost them up to £20m in lost revenue if they went to a 16 team league.

 

4 less home games for each side

Less visits from the bigger away supports in the league

Less broadcaster interest when the number of derby games are halved

 

 

Reintroducing the old league cup sections which were hardly a roaring success at the time won't come anywhere close to replacing that revenue. We are already a country with more people attending football per head of population than near enough every other country in Europe, there just isn't thousands more fans out there to come along to all these games and make up for any shortfall in revenue.

[Mr Bunny]

Those people suggesting a 16 team league are living in a fantasy land. The SPL reckon it would cost them up to £20m in lost revenue if they went to a 16 team league.

 

4 less home games for each side

Less visits from the bigger away supports in the league

Less broadcaster interest when the number of derby games are halved

 

Reintroducing the old league cup sections which were hardly a roaring success at the time won't come anywhere close to replacing that revenue. We are already a country with more people attending football per head of population than near enough every other country in Europe, there just isn't thousands more fans out there to come along to all these games and make up for any shortfall in revenue.

 

I think Norgethistle showed that extra games doesn't necessarily mean you end up with more money - some extra revenue possibly, but outgoings would cancel this for all except the biggest 4-5 teams. £20m loss estimate is a back-of-fags calculation by the power that be to justify not changing things much.

 

TV wants games to fill their air space ... on top of that the top league here gets good extra money due to the OF games (unfortunate but true). The OF against anybody is a good draw for TV and OF against Hearts, Hibs etc is good for TV - they especially like OF derbies but that can be worked round if necessary - just off the top of my head, some kind of start of season/mid season Charity cup involving top 2 teams (and or cup winners).

[Paddy Thistle]

Fans view - We want to play more teams we are fed up watching the us play the same team four times a season

 

 

SPL - You can have more teams to watch the same pish four times a season

 

 

Talk about watching Rome burn, The SPL has a disasterous record on their attempts to improve the game.

 

 

Trust these idiots to think about the good of Scottish Football and what the fans want - Aye Right

[alx]

Part of me would rather the SFL clubs told the SPL were to stick it and reorganised the three lower leagues independantly of them.

 

That's my thoughts on the matter, just tell them to stick it. They're a bunch of wahoos who couldn't think their way out of a bag.

[twinny]

Reintroducing the old league cup sections which were hardly a roaring success at the time won't come anywhere close to replacing that revenue. We are already a country with more people attending football per head of population than near enough every other country in Europe, there just isn't thousands more fans out there to come along to all these games and make up for any shortfall in revenue.

 

Those figures are skewed by the fact that Parkhead and (to a lesser extent) Ibrox are filled (well half-filled these days) with fans that cross the Irish sea every other week.

[twinny]

The increase in games at div1 level would make sense, if the clubs all had brilliant attendances to begin with. I would expect Firhill to see league attendances drop below 1000 for most midweek league games (depending on how well we're doing of course).

 

I don't have a problem with the number of games, some English leagues play 46 matches. The problem is that in both the past two seasons there have been many postponed matches and heavy fixture backlogs (which could easily happen this year too), and with many at the top calling for a winter break (a 10 team top league may allow this... in the top league! <_ this is just silly.>

 

I would hope that clubs can structure pricing for a 12 team div1 in a way that attendances wouldn't suffer, but I can't see how that is possible.

[Woodstock Jag]

More games for the 2nd tier means:

 

A backlog of games much worse than currently even accounting for Challenge Cup withdrawal if the weather is bad

 

Even higher chance of playing a team 5-7 times a season if we draw them in the Cup

 

But...

 

Would the extra games and the (admittedly small) extra money maybe mean that we as a division could drop ticket prices? If there are more games, the Club's (in principle) would get more people through the gate, and with the caveat of increased matchday liabilities (not as much of an issue e.g. floodlights if we have a winter break and USE MAY AS A GOOD MONTH FOR FOOTBALL) it would mean the Clubs might need to take in proportionally less to meet cashflow issues?

 

Say, for example the current adult season ticket is £260(£265 or so with the new VAT rate). How many more people do you think would buy the season ticket if they knew they were getting 22 games for £270 instead? Instead of working out just shy of £15 a game, it's suddenly just over £12 a game and almost reasonable!

 

And you could emulate that cut on matchday tickets as well. Bring them back down to either £14 or £15 and although it might not seem like much now, it would do a bit (especially in the current climate) to persuade the ditherer to jump back on board.

[Pie Of The Month]

I think Norgethistle showed that extra games doesn't necessarily mean you end up with more money - some extra revenue possibly, but outgoings would cancel this for all except the biggest 4-5 teams. £20m loss estimate is a back-of-fags calculation by the power that be to justify not changing things much.

 

TV wants games to fill their air space ... on top of that the top league here gets good extra money due to the OF games (unfortunate but true). The OF against anybody is a good draw for TV and OF against Hearts, Hibs etc is good for TV - they especially like OF derbies but that can be worked round if necessary - just off the top of my head, some kind of start of season/mid season Charity cup involving top 2 teams (and or cup winners).

 

No it doesn't. It shows a theory from a fan on a football forum whereas the SPL have actually done a feasibility study into a 16 team league which came back with a £20million deficit. That's without pointing out the flaws in the theory since we'd have an earlier proposed start date and the new SPL cup isn't going to be introduced alongside the league cup but would replace it for the 22 teams in the SPL structure. Also players earn an annual wage they don't earn their wage on the basis of playing 44 games rather than 36, that's what appearance or win bonuses are for. How on earth you can claim that's a back of the fags calculation and then point to a post on a football forum as an alternative is beyond me.

 

Even if this theory was correct in saying that we might lose money from the extra games then it would more than be made up by the fact the SPL 10/12 proposal provides an extra £2.3million to the newly formed SPL2. Splitting that 12 ways we'd get just under an extra £200k per season, do you honestly believe that the extra 4 games could make us a loss of £50k each?

 

You're right in saying the TV companies want to fill their air space which is why the SPL is proposing starting their calendar 4 weeks earlier and therefore being the only game in town for Sky whilst waiting for the English leagues to start back. It would be crazy to suggest a charity cup is going to appease Sky or ESPN though and why on earth would Celtic and Rangers agree to take part in a cup for the SPL to profit from? If TV wanted to show that instead of 4 league fixtures between the 2 then the Old Firm would demand an even bigger share of TV revenue which brings us back to the problem of a lack of money distributed amongst SPL clubs.

 

It's all very well the fans wanting a 16 team league or whatever but when there'd be clubs going to the wall in order to provide it then it's not a viable solution to the problems facing Scottish football.

 

Those figures are skewed by the fact that Parkhead and (to a lesser extent) Ibrox are filled (well half-filled these days) with fans that cross the Irish sea every other week.

 

It's not a massive amount really. Celtic claimed back in 2000 or so that around 10% of their season ticket holders were registered as Irish addresses, assuming these numbers have dropped at a similar rate to their attendances you're looking at around 7000-8000 tops travelling over. It's a tiny fraction of the overall support of Scottish football. That's without even considering the impact of Ireland's collapse on people spending their money on trips to Scotland for football.

[Allan Heron]

And you could emulate that cut on matchday tickets as well. Bring them back down to either £14 or £15 and although it might not seem like much now, it would do a bit (especially in the current climate) to persuade the ditherer to jump back on board.

 

It might do, but then again maybe not. On the other hand.......

[McKennan]

Where does our club stand on all of this? A watching brief, I'm sure. I would anticipate a grab at anything that would improve earnings and opportunities for income but I have the horrible feeling in me waters that the latest incarnation of the SPL (as proposed) would be a graveyard for a lot of teams like Thistle.

[Woodstock Jag]

It might do, but then again maybe not. On the other hand.......

 

Is this your Lib Dem instincts kicking in Allan?

[lady-isobel-barnett]

Even if this theory was correct in saying that we might lose money from the extra games then it would more than be made up by the fact the SPL 10/12 proposal provides an extra £2.3million to the newly formed SPL2. Splitting that 12 ways we'd get just under an extra £200k per season, do you honestly believe that the extra 4 games could make us a loss of £50k each?

 

 

It's all very well the fans wanting a 16 team league or whatever but when there'd be clubs going to the wall in order to provide it then it's not a viable solution to the problems facing Scottish football.

 

 

Apologies for the selective quoting. You've obviously thought out a counter argument even tho' I don't agree with much of it.

 

I feel where your argument falls down is that any sustainable business has to listen to what it's customers want and duly supply their needs. (You can argue that TV companies are also customers but that's not a road I'd want to go down). Lots of businesses will have more profitable products they'd love to sell to their customers but can't due to lack of demand. That's possibly where we are at the moment.

The football fan is the customer and the football fan by and large doesn't want a product that guarantees the repetition of four and more games against a handful of clubs year in year out. Quite simply if you don't give the customer what they want they'll stop buying or cut down on purchase.

[Allan Heron]

Apologies for the selective quoting. You've obviously thought out a counter argument even tho' I don't agree with much of it.

 

I feel where your argument falls down is that any sustainable business has to listen to what it's customers want and duly supply their needs. (You can argue that TV companies are also customers but that's not a road I'd want to go down). Lots of businesses will have more profitable products they'd love to sell to their customers but can't due to lack of demand. That's possibly where we are at the moment.

The football fan is the customer and the football fan by and large doesn't want a product that guarantees the repetition of four and more games against a handful of clubs year in year out. Quite simply if you don't give the customer what they want they'll stop buying or cut down on purchase.

 

And ultimately neither will the TV companies. Nothing worse than watching a live game being played in a sparsely populated ground. And compared to some of the other options available, there's nothing worse than watching a live Scottish game on the telly.

 

The SPL are looking for something that seemingly adds value to the collective TV rights for the next round of negotiations. At the end of the day, though, the ultimate value lies in retaining four OF games a season and also four Edinburgh derbies. The rest doesn't make much difference.

 

Problem is that whilst this deal might give them a good negotiating position it doesn't do anything to address the longer term decline in Scottish Football. What happens when the next TV contract comes up for negotiation? What kind of rabbit will they be able to pull out the hat at that point? Indeed, will there be a rabbit at all. The reality is that the TV rights will decline in value alongside the game in general because it's what makes the game attractive as a spectator sport that makes it equally attractive on television.

 

Rather like Dundee, we have a bunch of clubs in the SPL that are dependant on spending money that they don't have. In this case, the money is being provided by Sky and ESPN (although in many cases the clubs are also spending on the never never as well)

 

What's needed is a longer term plan that works towards a larger league with 2 games each season between clubs and, alongside this, a period of financial adjustment that reduces the criticality of the TV money. Of course, whether that will be enough to resuscitate Scottish football remains to be seen but that does need more deeply rooted reforms than simply juggling about with league numbers

Edited January 18, 2011 by Allan Heron

[John Blutarsky]

It shows a theory from a fan on a football forum whereas the SPL have actually done a feasibility study into a 16 team league which came back with a £20million deficit.

 

If I commission a feasibility study, it delivers the answer that I was looking for in the first place. I expect the SPL followed this tried & tested route.

 

Alan, you pretty much nailed it!

[Paddy Thistle]

Also players earn an annual wage they don't earn their wage on the basis of playing 44 games rather than 36, that's what appearance or win bonuses are for. How on earth you can claim that's a back of the fags calculation and then point to a post on a football forum as an alternative is beyond me.

 

 

Thats not true a player can be on a fixed temr contract that runs out at the end of a season and be renewed again in July. Thats what Thistle do with a number of players Sid, Hinchie , Maxwell etc

[Vom Itorium]

It's laughable how they've even nicked the terms of "Premiership" and "Championship" from the English as the proposed league names.

How can you laugh at that? It took some serious brainstorming of the powers that be and an act of genius for whoever thought that one up. It's a sure-fire winner, folk will get the English and Scottish versions confused easily and before we know it we'll be signing Chinese players and selling shirts all over the world. Won't we?

[PaleGreySky]

Can people stop assuming that more games means more money? It's not like we're all sitting around with a jar full of £20 notes, waiting for extra games to spend them on! It might mean that we just have bigger attendances at fewer games. Also, why not have a group stage league cup, like has been suggested many times? It work in the juniors as a very good pre-season with plenty of derbies to boost income.

Edited January 18, 2011 by PaleGreySky

[Vom Itorium]

Can people stop assuming that more games means more money? It's not like we're all sitting around with a jar full of £20 notes, waiting for extra games to spend them on! It might mean that we just have bigger attendances at fewer games. Also, why not have a group stage league cup, like has been suggested many times? It work in the juniors as a very good pre-season with plenty of derbies to boost income.

To me that is a great idea and again a no-brainer but what would they call it? They could try the Carling Cup I suppose or the Johnstones Paints Trophy!

[Pie Of The Month]

Apologies for the selective quoting. You've obviously thought out a counter argument even tho' I don't agree with much of it.

 

I feel where your argument falls down is that any sustainable business has to listen to what it's customers want and duly supply their needs. (You can argue that TV companies are also customers but that's not a road I'd want to go down). Lots of businesses will have more profitable products they'd love to sell to their customers but can't due to lack of demand. That's possibly where we are at the moment.

The football fan is the customer and the football fan by and large doesn't want a product that guarantees the repetition of four and more games against a handful of clubs year in year out. Quite simply if you don't give the customer what they want they'll stop buying or cut down on purchase.

 

Why should any business listen to what its customers want when what they want is a model which loses them money? I want Cruise Clothing to be a hell of a lot cheaper than they are at the moment and I imagine so do a lot of their customers but they aren't going to start slashing prices when ultimately it would cost them their business.

 

Quite frankly I don't buy into the fans are customers idea. If fans were truly customers they'd have taken their business elsewhere years ago due to the way they've been treated by their clubs. The financial aspect of this deal makes sense to clubs in the 1st division if it goes ahead as planned, the models put forward as what the fans want do not and until that changes rather than what the SPL propose then we won't see what the fans want for a long time.

 

 

Thats not true a player can be on a fixed temr contract that runs out at the end of a season and be renewed again in July. Thats what Thistle do with a number of players Sid, Hinchie , Maxwell etc

 

OK you got me there. With the league starting 4 weeks earlier than the current SPL which starts 3 weeks after we've normally played 2 weekend fixtures in the Alba Cup and league cup 1st round and 1 weekend fixture in the league that means if we continue using our current system of releasing players and signing them back up we'll need to sign them up a full 1 week earlier than we currently do.

 

I don't know how we'll ever cope.

[yoda-jag]

To me that is a great idea and again a no-brainer but what would they call it? They could try the Carling Cup I suppose or the Johnstones Paints Trophy!

 

Champions League Cup

 

Ready-made sponsor too

 

 

 

As for PoTM's argument - reasonably thought out, but ultimately balderdash.

l-i-b and allan heron have since set out the failings of such an argument and the downfalls and issues the 10/12 joke proposal doesn't address on the greater and wider grand scheme of things, where a 16/18 team league would longterm be for the greater good.

 

Why is it, whenever I speak with fellow and opposition supporters, they all say they would pick and choose less games, and be more likely to attend more home and away games if their team was only playing them twice a season instead of four times a season in the league? Are we all wrong PoTM?

 

SOSF

 

(save our scottish football)

Edited January 18, 2011 by yoda-jag

[lady-isobel-barnett]

Quite frankly I don't buy into the fans are customers idea. If fans were truly customers they'd have taken their business elsewhere years ago due to the way they've been treated by their clubs.

But isn't this just what they've been doing? I'd argue that it's not just the way they've been treated by their own clubs but also by the SPL/SFL/SFA. And high on that list of mistreatment is the four fixtures each team leagues. Have I got that wrong and the repetitiveness is not a major influence on dwindling attendance?

[John Blutarsky]

But isn't this just what they've been doing? I'd argue that it's not just the way they've been treated by their own clubs but also by the SPL/SFL/SFA. And high on that list of mistreatment is the four fixtures each team leagues. Have I got that wrong and the repetitiveness is not a major influence on dwindling attendance?

 

i'd say you got it absolutely right!

 

if you study recent trends in attendances, say for the past 3 years, for the majority of clubs that we assume will be invited into the 10/12 SPL set up, the evidence is clear that fans have been taking their business elsewhere. or at least have become ever more selective with their custom. i would genuinely like to know how the SPL think the 10/12 setup will address falling attendances. or do they refute the view that familiarity is even a factor?

Edited January 18, 2011 by John Blutarsky

[Colognejag]

I also like the new cups in Rugby - could football do the same?

 

There is the Heineken, Magners, Britsh and Irish club cups.

 

If there were to be matches against lower English League/Welsh league/ROI or N. Irish leaugues that would be something different for the fans to come out and watch more matches.

 

In terms of numbers of clubs, it would be a challenge to work out who would be in it, but I am sure that some criteria could be made.

 

We could have lower league teams competing in and indeed others trying to get into a new form of cup competition against new teams. These teams may not be able to get into the Champions League or Uefa Cup, but Rugby has shown that competitions can take place for lesser teams as well.

 

This would mean less need for a million games against the same other 9 teams in your league as it is at present...

[Norgethistle]

No it doesn't. It shows a theory from a fan on a football forum whereas the SPL have actually done a feasibility study into a 16 team league which came back with a £20million deficit. That's without pointing out the flaws in the theory since we'd have an earlier proposed start date and the new SPL cup isn't going to be introduced alongside the league cup but would replace it for the 22 teams in the SPL structure. Also players earn an annual wage they don't earn their wage on the basis of playing 44 games rather than 36, that's what appearance or win bonuses are for.

 

Where is this feasibility study?? why isn't it published? Why did Dundee Utd Hearts and a few others say no the 1st time if it was so great.

 

Players will ask for bigger wages as they did when the premier league became the SPL with the TV money, the players agents will know that there is more money coming from sponsership and will want there cut, for being "championship" players now.