[wilko1991]

(Original post by FrigidSymphony)
There's a wee thing we've always been proud of having and maintaining in Scotland, it's called multiculturalism.

By the way, how do you think any decent Scottish players would have ever shown up if it hadn't been for the Old Firm's youth systems?

Multi culturalism is fine. Orange marchs and massive st paddy day celebrations can gtfo.

And to your 2nd point I just love having old firm players playing for Scotland....

[Celtic_Anthony]

Yeah, **** yer Orange marchs. And your Orange aprils, mays and junes. But July is fine, I'll give you that.

[TOSCS]

Regardless of what team this wilko1991 cretin supports, he sounds like a massive hun.

[wilko1991]

Sorry for spelling marches wrong. I am clearly an idiot. I thought there may be more puns though and was pretty disappointed.

And for the above I love it how Rangers and Celtic fans classify anyone who doesn't like us = the other glasgow team.

Hearts = huns
St mirren = tims
Killie = huns
hibs = tims

etc etc. when the reality no one could give a **** about you and your stupid politics.

[FrigidSymphony]

(Original post by wilko1991)
Multi culturalism is fine. Orange marchs and massive st paddy day celebrations can gtfo.

And to your 2nd point I just love having old firm players playing for Scotland....

So what, we should rely on the fantastic Kilmarnock wonderkids? Yeah, that'll get us qualified for the Euros.

[wilko1991]

(Original post by FrigidSymphony)
So what, we should rely on the fantastic Kilmarnock wonderkids? Yeah, that'll get us qualified for the Euros.

Ok. I don't really care about Scotland that much. Would like to see them get to the finals and do well and all that but would never go down to a game or anything. Club over country every day of the week.

Also you should put this on your facebook, twitter whatever....

http://www.theawayend.net/articles/f...premier-league

Make the Ross Country, and all of the other spl games, a sell out. Would be ace.

[R-KAM]

(Original post by wilko1991)
Multi culturalism is fine. Orange marchs and massive st paddy day celebrations can gtfo.

And to your 2nd point I just love having old firm players playing for Scotland....

St Paddy's day? Really? One of the most celebrated days in the world?

[R-KAM]

Great post by HenryClarson on RTC regarding Scottish TV deal.

For the last 6 months we have heard how if Rangers are not in the top flight, then SKY will walk away. The figures banded about have been complete fiction. Now, thanks to Stenhousemuir being the first club to really reveal what Regan and Doncaster have been saying, we have some real figures to compare against.

All we had till yesterday was a commercial revenue of 18.7 million GBP

In the Stenhousemuir statement last night (here) they claimed that the SFA and the SPL (eg, Regan and Doncaster) had presented the SFL clubs with the following figures re: tv deals:

Rangers in SFL3:

Loss of Sky broadcasting payments of circa £10m/season
Loss of ESPN broadcasting payments of circa £5m/season
Loss of Sportfive broadcasting payments of £2.7m/season (overseas broadcasters)
Loss of sponsorship of £1m/season
Additional new broadcasting deal with income of £3m/season
Rangers in SFL1:

Sky and ESPN have committed to retain their deals but include Rangers Newco content during the season
Loss of Sportfive broadcasting payments of £2.7m/season (no requirement if no Old Firm games)
Loss of sponsorship of £1m/season
So, here we have the following confirmed. DOMESTIC (I am excluding all other rights, as my figures below only include domestic rights, and not those sold to overseas) rights are currently 15m GBP per year. If Rangers are in SFL1, then TV deal will more or less stay as it is. If Rangers are in SFL3 then the TV deal will be only 3m GBP a year.

3,000,000 a year???!! Seriously?

Lets just assume for one minute that Regan/Doncaster are being serious. How does this deal compare to other European countries?

There is 2 ways we could do this. Firstly, we can compare total attendances and secondly, brand value. I will explain brand value later, but lets start with Total Attendance,

The SPL, with Rangers, was the 11th most supported league (by attendances) in Europe last season. We had higher attendances than the Belgian, Russian, Portuguese, Swedish, Norweigan, Danish, Greek, Swiss, Austrian and Polish Premier Leagues. How did our TV revenue compare?

Note I have converted to EURO’s, so 15m becomes 18.75m.

Country League Rank attendance Actual TV rights/year EUROs
SCO 1 11 3,116,574.00 18,750,000.00
BEL 1 13 2,844,299.00 45,700,000.00
SUI 1 18 2,045,762.00 36,500,000.00
POL 1 19 1,950,048.00 5,760,000.00
NOR 1 20 1,931,144.00 56,000,000.00
GRE 1 23 1,555,201.00 44,000,000.00
AUT 1 24 1,452,970.00 17,000,000.00
DEN 1 25 1,395,774.00 45,000,000.00
As you can see, our deal does not compare very well (i have even included sources for these figures, just in case Doncaster thinks I am making them up!). All the leagues below us in this table get more TV revenue than the Scottish game, apart from the Polish league and Austrian leagues. However the Polish league has good oversea’s rights in Israel and Germany which boosts their revenue.

Another way to look at it is Brand Value. I took the brand value from this excellent report on European football which looks at the value of clubs in the country and then ranks the countries and leagues according to brand value. The SPL comes in at 16th in this list as you can see below.

Rank Country Value (millions) TV rights EURO
2 G ER 3,038 422,000,000.00
3 ESP 1,531 560,000,000.00
4 ITA 1,122 892,000,000.00
5 FRA 849 517,000,000.00
10 SUI 201 36,500,000.00
11 DEN 155 45,000,000.00
12 BEL 150 45,700,000.00
13 NOR 108 56,000,000.00
14 POR 108 ?
15 ROU 102 ?
16 SCO 96 18,750,000.00
17 SRB 77 ?
18 AUT 70 17,000,000.00
19 POL 54 5,760,000.00
20 SWE 50 ?
21 GRE 44 44,000,000.00
26 hun 19 3,500,000.00
37 IRL 4.5 1,000,000.00
As you can see, Scotland is still ahead of countries like Austria and Greece. Our brand value is not far behind Norway which has a deal almost 4 times what we have.

Based on the 2 tables above, it looks like our current deal is well undervalued, compared to other European countries, but lets adjust it for there being no Rangers. As Regan and Doncaster have just told us thanks to Stenhousemuir, our deal is ONLY 3,000,000 should Rangers be there. Here is the table for attendances again, minus ALL Rangers fans throughout the season; (again, adjusted to EUROs)

Country League Rank attendance Actual TV rights/year
BEL 1 13 2,844,299.00 45,700,000.00
SCO 1 11 2,396,574.00 3,600,000.00
SUI 1 18 2,045,762.00 36,500,000.00
POL 1 19 1,950,048.00 5,760,000.00
NOR 1 20 1,931,144.00 56,000,000.00
GRE 1 23 1,555,201.00 44,000,000.00
AUT 1 24 1,452,970.00 17,000,000.00
DEN 1 25 1,395,774.00 45,000,000.00
As you can see we are now behind Belgian but far ahead of the Swiss, the Danish, Greeks, and Norwegians. Infact, our ‘NEW’ deal would be equivalent to what the hungarian league takes in TV revenue domestically (they also have a deal for games to be shown in Romania which I haven’t included) .

Just to put that in perspective, the Scottish game gets 2.4 million fans (after taking out the Rangers fans!), while the hungarian League attracts just 700k fans. 3.5 times less. The Scottish game has a brand value of 96 million, while the hungarian league has a value of 19million!! Yet our TV deal will be the same? We will get half of what the Polish league gets, despite us having more fans and a higher brand value?

Ok, So Doncaster and Regan are talking ****. We knew that though. What we really want to know is what SHOULD our TV deal be. Based on the tables above I extrapolated the attendances against TV revenue for all the countries I could find data on and then used the ratio of tv revenue/attendances to predict what each country SHOULD get. The table below assumes Rangers are NOT in the league, yet keeping our current TV deal:

Average Ratio 17.93
Country League attendance Actual TV rights/year Ratio Estimated TV Under/Over value
RUS 1 2,896,940.00 51,940,174.73
BEL 1 2,844,299.00 45,700,000.00 16.07 50,996,357.21 (5,296,357.21)
FRA 2 2,590,962.00 46,454,196.15
ITA 2 2,399,991.00 43,030,215.29
SCO 1 2,396,574.00 18,750,000.00 5.341 42,968,950.80 (24,962,700.79)
POR 1 2,379,165.00 42,656,819.20
UKR 1 2,215,430.00 39,721,161.40
SUI 1 2,045,762.00 36,500,000.00 17.84 36,679,128.92 (179,128.92)
POL 1 1,950,048.00 5,760,000.00 2.954 34,963,041.64
NOR 1 1,931,144.00 56,000,000.00 29 34,624,105.71 21,375,894.29
RUS 2 1,660,545.00 29,772,448.67
SWE 1 1,556,651.00 27,909,699.52
GRE 1 1,555,201.00 44,000,000.00 28.29 27,883,702.00 16,116,298.00
AUT 1 1,452,970.00 17,000,000.00 11.7 26,050,769.32 (9,050,769.32)
DEN 1 1,395,774.00 45,000,000.00 32.24 25,025,283.73 19,974,716.27
Even if we keep our current TV deal of 15,000,000 GBP (note, figures above are in EURO), then a game without Rangers is still UNDERVALUED to the tune of 24,000,000 EUROs when compared to other European leagues!!

If we take the Doncaster/Regan figures of 3.5million Euros, our game would be undervalued at close to 39m Euro’s!

Throughout this saga we have been fed lie after lie. I have already proven our clubs won’t go bankrupt, as have others. No club has ever challenged figures presented by me here, by others (such as Killie fans here) or by Motherwell themselves. I now challenge Doncaster and co to challenge these figures.

Maybe someone in the MSM would like to ask Doncaster and Regan WHY they undervalue our game so much?

My full worksheet can be found here on Google Docs – I have made assumptions, but if you can improve this please do so!

[TOSCS]

Our pre-season kicks off today against German mob FC Augsburg for those unaware. Line-up here

edit: it's actually a 3-4-1-2 , or indeed a 3-5-2/5-3-2

[nevergohalfpace]

My dad supported Rangers/supports Newco Rangers. My brother joined a sunday league side called St.Peters Celtic. He was not amused.

[Left Hand Drive]

(Original post by nevergohalfpace)
My dad supported Rangers/supports Newco Rangers. My brother joined a sunday league side called St.Peters Celtic. He was not amused.

Never let him forget he supports a brand new team with no history!

[nevergohalfpace]

(Original post by Left Hand Drive)
Never let him forget he supports a brand new team with no history!

I support Coventry so took the piss when we got Fleck :P I have some sympathy, Coventry don't have the greatest management either.

[TOSCS]

(Original post by nevergohalfpace)
I support Coventry so took the piss when we got Fleck :P I have some sympathy, Coventry don't have the greatest management either.

Fleck is ****e anyway. The next Wayne Rooney according to the Scottish press, purely for the fact he played for their darling Rangers.

[nevergohalfpace]

(Original post by TOSCS)
Fleck is ****e anyway. The next Wayne Rooney according to the Scottish press, purely for the fact he played for their darling Rangers.

imo the Scottish press is anti-Rangers. Celtic get a lot more praise than Rangers do (before the whole Rangers financial scandal/trouble broke out). Rangers always got in trouble for being sectarian when Celtic are just as bad.
Tbf my gran used to show me the Celtic sign when I was young and say "bad" and show a Rangers one and say "good". In the end I supported neither :P

[Celtic_Anthony]

(Original post by nevergohalfpace)
imo the Scottish press is anti-Rangers. Celtic get a lot more praise than Rangers do (before the whole Rangers financial scandal/trouble broke out). Rangers always got in trouble for being sectarian when Celtic are just as bad.
Tbf my gran used to show me the Celtic sign when I was young and say "bad" and show a Rangers one and say "good". In the end I supported neither :P

That's a load of nonsense.

If you fancy, you can compare and contrast the media responses to each club's financial woes. Or you can compare the treatment given to new owners (namely Fergus McCann v. Murray and Whyte). Or you can compare the treatment given to new managers (Dr Jo Venglos v. Dick Advocaat would be particularly revealing).

I don't know of anyone (in the real world, at least) that believes there is media bias against Rangers.

[Left Hand Drive]

(Original post by nevergohalfpace)
imo the Scottish press is anti-Rangers. Celtic get a lot more praise than Rangers do (before the whole Rangers financial scandal/trouble broke out). Rangers always got in trouble for being sectarian when Celtic are just as bad.
Tbf my gran used to show me the Celtic sign when I was young and say "bad" and show a Rangers one and say "good". In the end I supported neither :P

All you need to see is the media campaign to ensure 'The Rangers' go into the first division.

I hate the 'Celtic are just as bad' thought. Please just compare the Celtic fans at Seville to the Rangers fans at Manchester

[Celtic_Anthony]

(Original post by Left Hand Drive)
All you need to see is the media campaign to ensure 'The Rangers' go into the first division.

I hate the 'Celtic are just as bad' thought. Please just compare the Celtic fans at Seville to the Rangers fans at Manchester

Ach, but the media did the 'Save Celtic' thing as well, remember.

Spoiler:

Show

[Left Hand Drive]

(Original post by Celtic_Anthony)
Ach, but the media did the 'Save Celtic' thing as well, remember.

Spoiler:

Show

With another no vote chalked up I expect the propaganda machine to kick into over drive tomorrow.

[Celtic_Anthony]

(Original post by Left Hand Drive)
With another no vote chalked up I expect the propaganda machine to kick into over drive tomorrow.

The print media* is going the same way as TFOD and becoming increasingly irrelevant, but acting in the same way: lots of wailing and thrashing, trying to convince people it matters.

'Cept the FT, which is probably the finest Newspaper out there, but everyone forgets.

[TOSCS]

I have to say, "there is an anti Rangers bias 'cos there are more stories about them being sectarian" probably sits rather high up on the list of the most incredibly stupid things I've ever read on the internet.