Who Needs Rangers

Football

In 1986, the season before Souness arrived, Celtic pipped Hearts to win the title on the last day of the season. It was Celtic’s first title in 4 years, after Dundee United and Aberdeen had lifted the previous 3.  During this time Aberdeen had won the Cup Winners Cup in 1983 beating Real Madrid. Dundee United had reached the European Cup Semi Final in 1984, losing to a Roma side who it later transpired had bribed the referee. The SPL was the 7th highest ranked league in Europe in 1986, having peaked at 4th in 1984.  The national team was heading for their 4th consecutive World Cup appearance. The Scottish game was thriving. Meanwhile, Rangers hadn’t won a title since 1978, they hadn’t even finished in the top 3 since 1982.

Despite Celtic’s fateful double win in 1988, one team was to dominate Scottish football for the next 10 years.  1989 was the start of their 9 in a row, when they outspent all others, assisted by generous bankers and weakened opponents. But as Rangers dominated in Scotland, our league’s standing in Europe declined, dropping to 26th ranked league by 1998, the year Wim Jansen’s team stopped the 10. One exceptional season apart, in 1993, Rangers largely failed in the newly formed Champions League. Our game was hardly thriving as Rangers dominated at home, but failed dismally abroad.

Attendances

2.26m supporters attended the 180 top division matches in 1986, 450k of those going to both Parkhead and Ibrox. 1.36m split between the other 8 clubs in the top league.

Last season, 3.11m attended the 228 matches in the top league, that’s an 1,100 rise per match over 25 years, not a massive change.  

The big difference is where those fans go though, now it’s 930k at Parkhead, 860k at Ibrox. Both Celtic and Rangers have saw their attendances double over the period, with a similar number of fans as 25 years ago split between the other 10 clubs in the top division. Fans of other clubs have drifted away from the game, perhaps due to a mixture of inconvenient kick off times and a lack of belief that their teams can challenge the big 2 (soon to be 1). As was recently noted on the CU podcast, Inverness fans have never seen their team play Celtic or Rangers at 3 p.m. on a Saturday !

What about the finances ? Rangers are important, they bring millions into the game we are told. But how much of that actually goes to the other teams ? The biggest spike in attendances, other than for Celtic, is when Rangers go to Pittodrie, with attendances up around 6500 for those matches.  Even assuming these are all Rangers fans, at an average of £30 a ticket, and assuming 2 games then Rangers could bring an extra £390k onto Aberdeen’s income stream. Yet in 2009, only 2 seasons ago Aberdeen’s attendances rose by 19,000 (£570k income) as they had their 2nd consecutive top 4 finish. So increased attendances, and additional income are more dependent on the success of the team rather than the existence of RFC.The table below goes into more detail.

* Based on average attendances for season 2011/2012, cash effect is money lost from loss of Rangers, based on £42 for Celtic game, £30 elsewhere. (figures tie in with monies owed to Dunfermline per administrator’s statement)

The table shows that the figures quoted in the mainstream press are grossly incorrect, and also take no account of the potential additional income the remaining clubs could earn should Newco not get an SPL place. Look at these examples of how clubs could make up the shortfall :

Motherwell : Additional £1.5m from 2 cup runs + 4 European games in 2011.
Aberdeen : European run in 2008 brought £4m additional income
Hearts: Attendances when finishing 2nd in 2006 up 1/3rd, about £2m additional income.
Additional £1m difference between finishing 2nd and 3rd in the league.
£100k difference per place in league based on current sponsorships/tv deal

Yes, but without Rangers there would be no TV deal, we are told.

SPL clubs, outside Celtic & RFC, have a combined turnover of £52m. £14.5m of this comes from TV & sponsorship via the SPL, so paying punters contribute 72% of the income, yet the chief executive of the SPL appears to pay no heed to what they actually want.

The table below shows the TV income figures for the second tier leagues in Europe, it’s worth noting that the SPL is better attended, by a higher percentage of the population, than any of the others, yet has a smaller TV deal.

The new improved TV deal will only offer £16m per season to the SPL, which compared to $60m for the Belgian and £30m for the Danish leagues shows that Doncaster is failing in his job to sell Scottish Football.

Only in Portugal are there teams of a comparable size, with a worldwide fanbase, to Celtic and Rangers. If you look at the Swiss and Danish leagues, these are dominated by one team, substantially larger than any other, in the league.  Copenhagen winning 7 of the last 10 Danish titles, and Basle winning 6 of the last 10 Swiss titles. Both these countries have got strong TV deals. This would appear to disprove the theory that we could not get a deal should there be no Glasgow derbies to sell next season.

I’d also speculate that 3 seasons without a Glasgow derby, in the event that a Newco was demoted to Division 3, would lead to huge interest in the return of the fixture, leading to a potential better deal in 3 years time. It would also spread TV and sponsorship income through the SFL where clubs are even more cash strapped than in the SPL.

In the event that we can’t get a TV deal, then perhaps the SPL TV deal that the other clubs proposed in 2002 and was considered again last year could be resurrected.

In the Netherlands, they have their own TV channel. Eredivisie Live costs €12.50 a month for domestic viewers. They have 570k subscribers, 3.5% of the population. That would generate about €64m assuming 9 months of subscriptions, before running costs. You can subscribe from overseas for £5 a month to watch every match live on a legal stream, which no doubt raises extra revenues. Scotland has higher attendances per head of population than the Netherlands, so it would be a reasonable assumption that we could attract a similar percentage of the Scottish population to subscribe to an SPL TV channel . That would be 175k subscribers, not counting exiles such as myself who currently pay Sky Sports and ESPN £30 a month to be able to watch the SPL . 175k subscribers at say £90 a year would bring in income of £15m. Ok there would be running costs but surely they could bring in the BBC or STV to help cover some of those and make a deal on some of the matches. No SKY does not mean no TV deal, despite what Doncaster would like us to think.

Whilst these issues will not be debated in the mainstream press or media, as they have a reliance on Rangers to sell papers and advertising, the facts are out there and need to be debated.

Our standard of football, the size of our attendances and the ability to watch the SPL on TV are not dependent on Newco cheating their way into the SPL, or as they say in some circles, we don’t need no stinking Rangers.

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