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Can Scottish football cash in as BT Sport takes La Liga coverage off Sky Sports

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Madrid-BarcelonaScottish football could finally be set to land a television deal that reflects the value of the game to broadcasters.

The current joint deal between Sky Sports and BT Sport is reported to bring in between £15-17m a season for 86 matches and runs until the end of the 2016/17 season. There are also some claims that Sky has the option to extend their deal for a further two seasons although previously it was also claimed that the telly deal included ‘four Old Firm fixtures’.

That deal was negotiated by Neil Doncaster shortly after the 2012 farce that saw the SPL chief executive warn about Armageddon after clubs refused to catapult Charles Green’s Sevco into the top flight.

The poverty of that deal was highlighted last year when the same broadcasters agreed a £5bn plus deal for English Premier football that sees Sky fork out the equivalent on £11m per match for the new deal which kicks in next season. It’s believed that over 10% of Sky Sports subscriptions come from Scotland.

Fears that Sky Sports have overstretched themselves were confirmed earlier today when BT Sport picked up UK rights for live coverage of La Liga.

Sky Sports have helped cultivate the audience around Real Madrid and Barcelona with the El Classico fixture given the build up treatment normally reserved for clashes between the top clubs in the Premier League.

Reporting on this development the highly informed Charles Sale of the Daily Mail stated: “A further sign that Sky Sports massively overspent in paying £11million a match for their Premier League coverage is the fact they ceded the Spanish football contract to arch-rivals BT Sport without a fight.

It is understood that Sky made a far bigger first-round offer for La Liga, but were upset enough about the tender going to a second round that they withdrew from a contest BT believed they had no chance of winning.”

The last three rounds of Scottish football rights have been conveniently shared between Sky Sports and ESPN followed by BT Sports.

With the two main subscription broadcasters and broadband providers now battling for rights it seems certain that Scottish football will be in line for a major financial boost by signing an exclusive deal with one company.

Sky’s massive English Premier League deal was negotiated after they lost out to BT Sport for exclusive rights to the UEFA Champions League and Europa League.

BT Sport already have the live rights to French, German and Italian football with the La Liga deal complimenting their European coverage which will centre on Champions League coverage.

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  • Colin53 says:

    BT IS A CON I WILL NEVER TOUCH IT THEY CHARGE YOU KNOCK DOWN PRICE FOR THE FIRST MONTH TO GET YOU IN THEN AFTER THAT BUMP UP TO ANOTHER FIVE OR TEN A MONTH

  • wulz says:

    Certainly hope our club can get a better deal out of it. As PL has said, we’d make more money out of playing our games, at 3 on a Saturday afternoon !
    HH

  • Kombuchis says:

    There is very little to no chance of Sky paying much, if anything, more than they do.

    If Sevco achieve promotion to the SPL for the first time in their history then Sky may stretch to £20m a season, on the pretense of supposed ratings winning “Old Firm” games, but I think that’s very doubtful.

    Every chairman and exec in the Scottish game is a charlatan, with the exception of Lawwell. However when it comes to rights negotiations, with Sky locked into massive multi year contracts for the English Premier League, Formula One, The British & US Open golf, Rugby Super League and BT overpaying for their long term deals on the Premier League, Champions League and La Liga, I can’t see Sky or BT for that matter making an offer of increased terms.

    As far as the SPFL securing a more lucrative deal elsewhere, that’s a non starter. It took the SPL/SPFL board over 2 years to secure a title sponsor for the Premiership, and Ladbrokes, a company in poor financial health, pay a pittance. The League Cup and Scottish Cup have been financially propped up by the Scottish government intermittently over the last 10 years and the sponsorship for both is pitiful to the point of being non existent.

    Major reform has been needed in Scotland for years and still hasn’t happened, so the chances of anything improving are slim in my view.

    Any nonsense that the addition of Sevco to the Premier League will help matters are ridiculous. Sponsors and media partners view them as toxic, their inclusion in the top flight will do nothing to change that.

  • No bullshit says:

    Iv been way bt for 2 years only went up 5 pound this month get back to sky news AND talk ur party line

  • Paul Hanby says:

    I have been witn bt tv/sports from its humble beginning and seen I grow into a major player in live sports coverage, Sky as had its own way for far and glad to be part of a company who at last can take them on keep up the good work to ever one who works for Bt

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