Greece, population 11m, with crowd trouble and various refereeing controversies leading to play being suspended on three separate occasions. Even in a country buckling under stringent austerity measures, however, the terms of the television deal are still more generous than their Scottish equivalent. Clubs in the Greek Super League will share €40m (£30m) per year until 2017, with a two-year extension being negotiated that could take that figure up to €43m (£31m) each season until 2019. In Belgium, where the population is roughly the same as that in Greece, the terms are even more generous. The Jupiler Pro League last year negotiated a six-year deal worth a minimum of €55m (£40m) per season, a sum that could rise as high as €70m (£50m) each year when foreign rights are taken into the equation. Like Scotland Belgium also shares a border with bigger, more prosperous nations in France and Germany without being similarly adversely affected. The situation is more complicated in Norway (population 5m) but still very prosperous. Only just last week TV2 (a free-to-air station) bought out the sports wing of loss-making pay-TV channel C More and it remains to be seen what will happen there in future. In the last round of deals, the two channels paid a total of 1.6bn Norwegian krone (around £135m, £34m per year) to show live matches from the Tippeligaen for four seasons of summer football from 2013 to 2016. That sum is expected to fall when the time comes for the next round of negotiations with reduced competition in the market due to C More's removal from the picture but will likely still dwarf what is on offer in Scotland. In Austria (population 8m), the figures are more in line with Scotland. A three-year deal that began in season 2013/14 between Sky Deutschland (subscription) and ORF (free-to-air broadcaster) is thought to be worth around €20m (£15m) a year. It is little wonder, then, that some Scottish football fans may feel they are getting a raw deal from Sky and BT.
BT sports pay more than Sky now I think but a bulk of the revenue is generated by TV stations in US China India UAE Africa Asia N America and Europe who enjoy watching English football. Rangers and Celtic winning the thing every year and getting a free ticket into the Champions League is not fair for the rest of Scotland. I can't see many TV executives around the world salivating at the thought of paying to transmit Celtic v Hamilton Acedemicals 4 times a season . You would be better off having some Billionaire come in and fund the players and wages to mount a Champions league run. Bleating about it not being fair for Celtic is pathetic , it's ****ing hard to even get a team promoted to the EPL even with rich owners as Fuham Cardiff and many other sides in the Championship are finding out. There are huge financial rewards for teams that go up and the reason the diddy teams have paid over £20m in January is a sign that staying there can eventually get you a team that may break into the top 6 and have a go at European football.
It's just not fair Football revenue is not a charity where Celtic should get given as much or more money as other leagues that are more popular . You should ask the FA if you can move the franchise South of the boarder and start at the bottom if you want a piece of the pie like the Welsh did .
Rangers and Celtic winning the thing every year and getting a free ticket into the Champions League is not fair for the rest of Scotland. please log in to view this image
I'm talking about Sky money, Sky have ****ed Scottish football over, that's not the fault of anyone but the clowns who run Scottish football, unfortunately we are stuck with them...for the moment, then we'll get our fair share off Sky hopefully.
So the other 8 or 9 teams in the SPL don't want to win the league?. Also Fulham and Cardiff would probably beat Celtic.
You expect that, do you? Fairness, from Sky? I think supporters everywhere might be better off if Sky ****ed right off, but it's not going to happen. In the meantime, they are levelling the playing field a bit in England. And the first club to use the TV deals to reduce ticket prices could make a name for itself for all the right reasons. Who knows, perhaps that'll be a 'diddy club' like Leicester?
Until Scotland pruduces at least 6 sides with International talent in a league with 20 teams in so they only have to play each other home and away ,nobody will want to pay to watch it. You can hardly blame Sky for your league being unmarketable to anyone other than Scottish and Irish people.
Celtic get more TV cash than the others, but that's only about £2m per season total, the rest of our revenue is what makes us so big in the grand scheme. You know merchandising, ticket sales etc. Take TV money out of the equation and Celtic would be coining in far more than the vast majority of English sides, historical data will back this up.
Which is exactly the point I'm making,people do want to see it, and are willing to pay for it. Scots make up about 15% of Sky's customer base, in other words they are paying 15% of Sky's UK income but getting **** all out by way of Scottish games and equivalent revenue. I've done my bit and cancelled BT and Sky, I'll watch games for free.
Only because - like the match ticket prices - the price of pies is vastly inflated. Is it not about a fiver for a pie at the Emirates?
You might as well say take cars off the road and the horse and cart will thrive. So Celtic are a much bigger club than the 'diddy club' I support. You can have that, if it helps. My team's got better players though (thanks for Fraser Forster btw. Makes Boruc look very ordinary).
The last time I went to see them against Loverpool in the FA cup you could buy a bottle of Budweiser and a hot dog for a fiver they didn't do pies.