Rangers well within rights to ignore ‘£38m’ SPFL TV deal as Aberdeen statement full of lies
Another day, another club accusing Rangers of being greedy and only thinking of themselves then following it up with nonsense claims.
Rangers are so far yet to agree to the terms of a new TV deal for the Scottish Premiership, as they don’t feel it represents enough value for themselves and the league as a whole.
But Aberdeen chairman Dave Cormack decided to release a statement on Sunday [25 September] trying to dispel all the myths surrounding the deal to convince everyone that it was a great bit of business and to put pressure on Rangers to sign.
That’s all well and good, except all he’s actually done is prove that he has no idea what he’s talking about and that Rangers (and Livingston) are absolutely right to not agree to a deal as it currently stands.
“It was recently reported that Sweden is getting £48 million a season versus the current SPFL deal of about £25 million,” he said.
“These reports state that Malmo gets double what Rangers got for last season’s second place finish. The reality is that Sweden has sold all 240 top league games per season to live television. The SPFL currently sells only 48.
“All of Malmo’s home games are live on television. SPFL premiership clubs are committed to only four (soon to be five) live television games at home.”
All of this is correct, but judging whether a deal is any good based on a per-game basis is wildly obtuse.
Firstly the SPFL is selling the rights to all 228 of their games, bar 60 for pay-per-view, but the right holders (Sky) will only be allowed to show a maximum of 80. So that means you’re selling 168 games for £38m, not 80.
The statement also includes a chart which is incredibly misleading, largely because the fees mentioned are incorrect.
The TV deal will not be £30m for 60 games in 2024-25. It’s £29.5m by the end of the deal in 2029, so it’s actually around the £27m mark, meaning you’re adding in another 12 games for around £2m. That works out at £166,666 per game. Shockingly low.
At no point will the deal be worth £38m per-year, so I’m not sure where it’s coming from.
It’s £29.5m in 2028-29 and then plus £8m, but only if Sky agree to take those two bonus packages.
Considering that they currently don’t even show the 48 games they pay for, why would they go up to 80 games in the next two years? At absolute best, this deal is worth £37.5m a year.
If or when Sky inevitably turn down the bonus packages the SPFL will be scrambling to get rid of those packages at far less than £8m a season.
If they were to find a home for those packages for between £5-6m per season, the deal would be worth £32-33m in 2024-25, rising to £35m in 2029.
With that said, with a realistic figure of £33m in 2024-25 for 168 games sold, with only 80 shown, that makes it worth £196,000 per game. It isn’t terrible but is still considerably below many rival leagues.
The other leagues’ figures cited are massively wrong. Norway’s current deal ends in November and was worth £37m per season, not £30m. The deal from 2023-2028 is worth nearly £70m per season (£291,000 per game) The Belgium Pro League is £93m a season but does not play 446 matches, just 249, working out at £373,000 per game.
Ultimately, Rangers know their worth and they’re not willing to settle for less just to appease clubs that hate their guts and existence anyway.
It’s on the league to do better, not Rangers, so Cormack should keep quiet until that’s the case.
In other Rangers news, Morelos and Colak could form a formidable duo as GvB should look to blow teams away