Guest Jum Spence Posted July 15, 2009 Share Posted July 15, 2009 The Old Firm could contest the broadcasting rights with Sky-ESPN when the SPL holds its annual meeting on Thursday. More... 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big Spliff 0 Posted July 16, 2009 Share Posted July 16, 2009 "I don't mind who wins the bid as long as it gives us more money and no-one in Scottish football can afford to say no to that". ........ St. Mirren chairman. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
bmck 117 Posted July 16, 2009 Share Posted July 16, 2009 "I don't mind who wins the bid as long as it gives us more money and no-one in Scottish football can afford to say no to that". ........ St. Mirren chairman. that is the key point. my celtic-supporting-mate tried to show me bill leckie ranting that no other spl club would share an old firm monopoly (clearly not even listening to anything but the headlines), btu the truth is that they'll accept anything that makes them more money. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
calscot 0 Posted July 16, 2009 Share Posted July 16, 2009 On face value the OF bid looks like LESS money: 65M for 5 years = 13M per year, 25M for 2 years = 12.5M per year. It looks to me like the only way the SPL clubs will make more money is if the OF take less or none of the money out of the pot and rely on the profits. Even then the margin of increase will be small and the OF will be taking a risk - although a pretty sound one by my reckoning. I think they recognise that the bidding is underselling the SPL and there is a vast potential profit margin. After all, you would expect Setanta to have made a profit out of the SPL or they would not have bid so much - I think the reason they went under was the much higher payments to the EPL which was not recouped by the subscriber base in England. To that effect, if you think that they could have broken even with just the Scottish football, at 130M over 4 years = 32.5M per year, then that leaves a potential profit margin for the OF of 32.5 - 12.5 = 20M a year. So in the scenario that they don't take any money out of the pot, that could leave each club with 10M per season each, doubling what they would have achieved under Setanta. That's based on gaining the same subscription rates as Setanta but on a break even basis. The first premise is not that easy as building up a customer base takes time and loses cash with charging less to start with and early bird discounts etc. However there is obviously confidence that they can make more than 2M per year each offered by ESPN, and achieving the reduced Setanta offer of 4M per year seems pretty feasible, but with the potential to make even more. If the not overly optimistic 10M could be achieved, it would give our finances a great boost and reduce the gap from our European rivals. However, on renewal, the other clubs would demand a much bigger slice of the pie... To me however, this off the cuff analysis shows why OF TV could be a definite goer and why the Glasgow clubs are so keen to try it. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big Spliff 0 Posted July 16, 2009 Share Posted July 16, 2009 (edited) Depends on the distribution & re-selling model mate, as well as the costs. Unless there is scope for big big upsides to the Sky/ESPN deal I think it's complicated and risky. Someone needs to manage sales, marketing, production, broadcasting, distribution, billing and customer service for a pay-tv operation. Not cheap and not easy. Presumably all of that would be out-sourced as we have no particular expertise in this field beyond selling match/season tickets. I particularly don't like the fact that if it goes ahead we will be rushing into it. We have got things quite badly wrong in the past, JJB, Admiral, Buy-Direct etc..... Basically there is virtually no information about how it would work so it's difficult to take a view on it. Edited July 16, 2009 by Big Spliff 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
calscot 0 Posted July 16, 2009 Share Posted July 16, 2009 (edited) Yeah, I was just basing it on the fact that if a dodgy company like Setanta can do it, so can the OF. Most of it will have to be outsourced but that reduces start-up costs. My premise on the running costs outside the SPL fee, is that if Setanta could break even, then the running costs would also be covered. My whole argument is based on an actually pessimistic assumption that Setanta could break even - when you would have to think they had forecasts that showed they could make a profit. To me it's the least speculative scenario and a plausible one. If we then project a less lucrative scenario then it comes out pretty conservative. You would have to expect expenses to be a bit up and income a bit down to start with. However, I think Setanta have shown there is decent potential for growth (they went from a few million turnover to well over a hundred million in three years), as long as you leave the overpriced EPL out of the equation. The fact they went bust does however, show the risks - although you would have to expect the OF to start their own limited company backed by venture capitalists with little risk to the actual coffers of either club. You don't get anywhere in life without taking a risk and if it's done properly I think the risk is reasonably low, with the potential gains well worth it. I really hope it goes through as I refuse to buy any Sky package. I'm fine with the free channels and only want to pay extra for the football and certainly no more than I was paying Setanta - and really I'd like to pay less without the EPL stuff that I never watched. I basically don't want to pay more than �£10 per month but I'm happy with that level. At say �£100 per year, and say 7.5M in costs, the OF would need 400,000 subscribers to make the 32.5M that Setanta were prepared to pay. And that's not including advertising revenue and reselling SPL rights to other countries. They would need 300,000 to gain the 5M per year each that Setanta originally promised. So is 400,000 reasonable? With 110,000 fans watching the OF regularly, it doesn't seem too high especially at that price. I think the biggest barrier is those who pay for Sky Sports as they are reluctant to pay the extra fee and would prefer it was included. Some of them need to think about who they actually want to watch. As some news reports have hinted, to get the customers in, they really need to offer some innovation in their packaging. I think the SPL needs to offer more live games so as to include more non OF games and bring in the fans from the other teams. Extensive 30min highlights of every game on a Saturday night repeated on a Sunday would also help. That is the main thing I missed with Setanta. I remember really enjoying the highlights on Sportscene about 30 years ago as they were "extended" and lasted for almost half an hour each for two games. That was before they were live on the telly and was the way most non-season ticket holders followed their team. I doubt many non-OF farms paid for Setanta as they would probably prefer to watch the 4 or 5 games a season in the pub as it's far more cost effective. If every game had extended highlights and were exclusive to the OF TV, and their live games increased to 8 or 9, then it would encourage the non-OF fans to subscribe. Other things like an individual 20 minute news/magazine programme for each team three or four times a week would also have some buy in as well as extensive previews and analysis. Other stuff like playing the full 90 minutes of every game a couple of times during the week are the tip of the iceberg. Armchair fans want more for their money and it doesn't seem too difficult to be able to provide it - for all 12 teams. Edited July 16, 2009 by calscot 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big Spliff 0 Posted July 16, 2009 Share Posted July 16, 2009 Interesting mate. I might be coming across as a negative, but its purely down to having no information. Presumably the clubs have all the numbers and they'll only go for it if they are confident and have margin for error. Just on the subs numbers; I believe 400k is very very very optimistic. Setanta had 1.2m subs, but their range of sport was becoming quite spectacular, including US golf and EPL and such like. Thinking that OF fans formed a third of their subs base is wild IMHO. Incidentally, Sky's subs base in Scotland is proportionately lower per capita than in England as there is less disposable income here (especially in Glasgow), along with other demographic factors. You might also be interested to find out that when the OF were last on Sky as PPV (maybe 3-4 years ago) there were in the region of 15k 'buys' for the event. I'd love to be a fly on the wall at the SPL meeting today 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big Spliff 0 Posted July 16, 2009 Share Posted July 16, 2009 what a waste of finger skin this thread was see you chick, ya wee dick. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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