Stingraypoindexter
-
Posts
48 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Events
Store
Posts posted by Stingraypoindexter
-
-
Ewan Mcgregor for next NI minister: You and the DUP form a simbiant circle. What happens to one of you affects the other. You must understand this.
0 -
Soo... if Sevco go into admin before their final game they can get 25pts deduction and still get promoted.. if they get go into admin on Monday they'll get promoted but the pts deduction will be next season?
C'mon sevco you can hold out for a few more days..
#prayforsevco
Edited to say: that's the first time i've done a hashtag thingy, felt dirty, won't happen again
0 -
we are the news.
You are yesterday's news, today's news is Jimmy Saville but it might be back to you again soon. Well done, you must be proud.
0 -
I'm confused... does this mean Daniel Cousin isn't signing for them??
0 -
Longmuir seems to be coming in for a bit of flak here alongside Regan & Doncaster. Clearly no-one is going to come out of this smelling of roses and it is unclear what hand he has in the resolution passed on to the SFL clubs. The fact that it has even come to this farce doesn't seem to reflect well on him however both Clyde and the Rovers I think have been fairly positive about him so far. Would be interesting to know exactly what his role is - is he actively working with Regan and Doncaster to push for Sevco in div 1 or is he merely passing on what the SFA and SPL positions are and letting the clubs decide themselves?
0 -
Here you are;
THE possible consequences for the Scottish Premier League's broadcasting arrangement should a Rangers newco be made to start life in the Irn-Bru Third Division were last week made public by Stenhousemuir.
It made for dire reading.
According to Stewart Regan, chief executive of the Scottish Football Assocation, and Neil Doncaster, his SPL counterpart, the existing deal, worth circa £15m per season, would disappear to be replaced with one worth just £3m. The fall off is staggering.
While Rangers are a key player as far as the television companies are concerned, they are not the be all and end all of Scottish football. In the 2010/11 season the average viewing figure on Sky was 247,000 per game. Even if all broadcast matches including Rangers are discounted, there would still have been on average a viewership of 180,000 per game. Rangers contributed 27% of the viewing figures, so why should a subsequent TV agreeement without them decrease by 500%?
It doesn't take a genius to work out that this is a terrible deal. The SPL is the 11th most-attended league in Europe, ahead of Switzerland, Austria and Norway, all of whom can command higher television revenue. Even without Rangers, the SPL would still have had higher attendances than the three aforementioned leagues. The Greek league, which has attendances half of our own, has a television deal worth three times as much, while the Norwegians pull in similar numbers.
Are attendances the key indicator here? Can they translate into viewing figures when the Barclays Premier League is on our doorstep and on our screens? Let's look at some leagues in a similar situation, namely the Austrian, Swiss and Norwegian leagues.
The former has a deal with Sky Austria worth £13.5m a season, an arrangement similar to our own. However, while the SPL goes out to 645,000 subscribers in Scotland alone, the Austrian league is broadcast to just 240,000 local subscribers, three times fewer. Like Scotland, Austria is in the shadow of its neighbour and Sky also has the rights to all games in Germany's Bundesliga.
Over the border in Switzerland, they have just signed a deal worth £20m, with a further £4m coming from domestic channels. Swisscom, the cable company with the rights, has 608,000 subscribers and is the biggest cable operator in Switzerland, giving it similar reach to that of the SPL yet generating 33% more revenue.
In Norway, they have an even better deal, with a contract signed with TV2 Norway worth a reported £44m a year revenue despite viewing figures which are lower than Sky's figures for the SPL. According to a report from TNS-Gallup, the most viewed domestic Norwegian match in 2011 was Lillestrom versus Brann, which attracted 196,000 viewers. As a comparison, a fixture between St Mirren and Hibernian attracted 392,000 viewers on February 20 last year, while the SPL's average viewership on Sky is just shy of 250,000 per match. Even if we discounted all matches with Rangers, the viewership would still be around 180,000 per match.
So, Scotland gets less money than the Norweigans, the Swiss and the same as the Austrians, but on all counts boasts higher viewerships and match attendances. So why is the deal so poor in comparison? There is a suggestion that it is to do with the popularity of the English league, but Norway attracts Premier League viewerships five times those generated by their domestic matches; a similar ratio to Scotland, given that the average English game attracts 1m viewers.
Likewise, Austrian and Swiss football is overshadowed by the Bundesliga, which attracts more viewers than domestic matches – yet they still have deals either similar to or better than the SPL.
Another issue is the perceived lack of competition for SPL rights. Since the collapse of Setanta, Sky have had a monopoly and have, therefore, dictated the figures. Indeed, a Nordiccom report into the current Norwegian deal highlighted the situtation in the UK, saying "if former rivals decide to join forces instead of continuing to compete, this may have dramatic consequences for the competition, and hence also for prices. The fewer broadcasters that originally were present, the closer a reduction can move the market towards a monopsony [one single buyer]. This, in turn, will transfer market power from the sellers to the buyers".
So the above lack of competition maybe explains the current deal being less than those of other European countries, but still cannot explain Doncaster's £3m figure. To put that prediction into perspective again, it would rank Scottish football on par with Hungary, who sell their rights domestically for £2.8m. That league gets 2900 fans per game on average.
Is that all Sky are really offering for a league which would generate viewing figures of 180,000 a game more than Norway, even without Rangers? The Barclays Premier League generates average figures of around 1m for Sky, yet receives £1bn a year in revenue. Even with their monopoly, £3m is a derisory figure. But, assuming the figures are accurate, what alternatives do we have?
There is ESPN, but they appear to be building their interests in alliance with Sky. There is BT vision, who just invested £750m to show 38 Barclays Premier League games a season. With their model, which allows users to watch via mobile devices and the internet as well as conventional TV, this may be the way forward. There is also the long-mooted SPL TV option, modelled on the successful Eredivisie TV platform in the Netherlands.
At £6 per month, or £50 for the season, the platform allows you to watch all the Eredivisie matches live, wherever you are in the world. Just to put this in perspective, if a similar deal was set up in Scotland, 37,500 subscribers would be required worldwide to match Doncaster's figure of £3m. If the numbers without Rangers remained at 180,000 a match, just short of £15m would be generated for the Scottish game, which looks surprisingly similar to what Sky are currently paying.
Is the current deal underpriced? Possibly, but with the lack of competition and the unwillingness of the SPL to take a step into the unknown, it is at least understandable. Could the proposed £3m figure by Doncaster be undervalued? Absolutely, and for that comment alone there should be a vote of no confidence heading in his direction.
Steven Burns runs the A Saint In Asia blog. You can read him at saintinasia.wordpress.com
That is a fantastic article - admitedly most of the points look as if they've been lifted from this forum but thats OK. At least someone is paying attention
0 -
That's true and i apologise for claiming the Rangers lawyers are better than the dundee supporter. It was just an assumption on my part.
Rangers lawyers are confident they would have won their case in the European courts...Shame we will never know.
Hands up who spotted the deliberate mistake.
Was it a rangers fan using the word 'Shame'
0 -
Options:
1) Duff and Duffer are totally stupid and think this will appease fans in the light of the shitstorm they are currently in2) They are acting on the orders of non owner Charles Green to try and get the ban lifted or suspended3) They are deliberately trying to get the club relegated4) They know Green is going to bolt and want to create a deliberate diversion from the inevitable liquidation5) Its a scorched earth, if we're going down we're taking everybody with us, move
Could be one or all of the above.
Apparently formatting no worky on the iPad. The Twitter account is LawTop20. He is a European sports law specialist at Buckingham Univ.
Another poss explanation
6) RFFF - we were going to give this money to mr and missus newsagents but how about you use it to take the sfa to court to prove that we deserve better! D & P, ehm and we're still on £1k an hour yeah? eh aye nae bother then neebs
0 -
The great thing is this is being driven by RFFF seemingly - they're paying for it anyway for lawyers etc. D & P probably aren't bothered one way or t'other as they know there will be no signings happening anytime soon regardless :-)
Well done RFFF
0 -
F*ck off, you !!! It wiz Ratners, man...........................
How appropriate. You can just imagine SDM at the shareholders meeting. 'People say, "how can you sell Rangers for such a low price?", I say, "because it's total crap"'
0 -
Just watched the bbc doc for the first time - very interesting and entertaining. I've followed this thread but not the rtc blog so a lot of new info to me.
Those futuristic windows in the info room are very clever aren't they, shame it still takes so long for each document to load.
Anyway - i think i have met sammy the mechanic before. I was cycling through govan last year and my peddle came loose on my bike, managed to find a garage hidden away where a scary looking bloke with tattoos and xmas cracker style jewelry had the appropriate wrench to tighten it up and get my own my way. Pretty sure it was that guy, and he turned out to be a very nice man. Poor Sammy
0 -
Ellis claimed that Whyte said his major financial backer was Prince Albert of Monaco. Mark Daly rang his office and a statement came back denying that Al knew the MBB.
Ah thank you, that makes sense.. well obviously it's completely insane but....
you need to watch it mate, just for the womans accent.
Oh I will!!
0 -
I haven't seen the program yet but can pretty much pick up everything by reading this forum and the info on the bbc pages.
The only thing I can't get a handle on is the repeated references to Prince Albert??
What is his involvement in this? Or is he just denying any knowledge of being CW's mate?Can someone clarify - merci.
0 -
Surely the recipients of the EBT's are liable for paying tax?
apologies if i have completely missed something here.
That's a great point actually, one i don't think anyone else has picked up on. Maybe you should email HMRC and ask them to investigate.
0 -
James Cook BBC (i think) - What if HMRC don't agree to CVA?
Kennedy - They would get less if Rangers were liquidised
Cook BBC - What if they wanted to make an example of Rangers to deter other FC's going down this route?
Kennedy - Well that would be very cruel.... next question
0 -
As some have already pointed out the administrators not having made anyone redundant is NOT good news for rangers and therefore it is good news for anyone interested in rangers' demise. If the club could be saved by reducing the wage bill players would have been out the door last week. The club needs to have some playing assets just be considered salvagable and have an outside chance of somone coming in and paying off the debts. The fact a pay cut couldn't be agreed just means that has to happen now rather than the end of the season. If the 16th or whenever their deadline was for someone taking over comes and goes then we'll see redundancies.
Best. Administration. Ever
0 -
However, that will only be possible if there is what has been described within HMRC as 'regime change'. In other words, Whyte must have no connection with Rangers at the end of the process."
Senator McCain has also added his voice to the call for regime change:
"Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) on Monday knocked the Duff & Phelps administration for being too passive in its response to Rangers' cheating and called for U.S.-led airstrikes on Craig Whyte's forces.
"The time has come for a new policy," McCain said during remarks on the Senate floor. "The United States should lead an international effort to protect key population centers in Scotland, especially at away games, through airstrikes on Orc forces. To be clear: This will require the United States to suppress enemy air flute playing in at least part of the country."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/05/john-mccain-syria-airstrike_n_1321700.html
0 -
Worst. Administration. Ever.
I dunno, the Nixon administration had it's moments
0 -
Back on the Ticketus front. If it does all go tits up, I'm sure Ticketus are insured with someone like AIG or Lloyds and they will pick up the tab on a claim.
That's an interesting thought, the money generated by selling ticket sales to ticketus is used to pay off rangers debt to Lloyds. Rangers then go into admin and can't pay ticketus who claim the money back against insurance from Lloyds
It's like a particularly boring episode of Pinky and the Brain
0 -
Personalised number plates - the ultimate expression of twatness....
0 -
Ben Lui, Ben Oss, Ben Dubhcraig. Theres a car park and you walk up along the cononish river. It's a long walk in to Ben Lui but it's a fantastic looking mountain from that approach.
Just done that very walk today except I biked in to the foot of Ben Lui, did that then the usual route over to Beinn a Chleibh. As the visibility was fantastic I decided to push on to Ben Oss and Beinn Dubhcraig before heading back to Ben Lui to get my bike. About 16km on foot and 12km on the bike in 7.5 hours.
If anyone is interested in hillwalking I heartily recommend Ben Lui - fantastic hill and if you can bike in then the hill itself shouldn't take more than a couple of hours..
0 -
I realise everyone's entitled to an opinion, but seriously...
1984 - Pointless?
Jesus fucking Christ.
Agreed -
I read 1984 then a few months later read Wild Swans by Jung Chang, a biographical account of her life and that of her mother and grandmother in China in the 20th century. The similarities between 1984 (written in 1949) and post-war life in communist China are staggering. Orwell was a genius. QI - most of the book was written while he stayed on Jura.
Would highly recommend Wild Swans as well.
0
What is his involvement in this? Or is he just denying any knowledge of being CW's mate?
Last Book You Read....
in The General Nonsense Forum
Posted
Hi folks,
Haven't posted in a few years but hope you don't mind me promoting myself here.
I have just self-published my first book. A 200 page adventure novel for children set in Northwest Scotland called The Flitspace.
Here is the short blurb:
Ru-um and his younger brother Cali, on holiday in Northwest Scotland, go missing while on a walk to an ancient, ruined broch. Last seen with the mysterious girl, Amelia, they are eventually found several days later, unharmed, but with Cali now inexplicably older than Ru-um.
The story follows the boys and Amelia as they venture deep under the broch and through The Flitspace into another version of Scotland very different from the one they're familiar with.
It's listed on amazon for readers 9-11 but is a fine adventure story for any reader 8 and up (some great reviews from adult readers too). Of particular interest to anyone that has ever visited that beautiful coastline, and will certainly inspire those that haven't to do so.
It can be ordered from Waterstones, Amazon etc but I would really appreciate it if anyone that did want a copy ordered from the publisher Troubador direct at the link below as then i can recover my costs a bit quicker. Thanks folks!
https://www.troubador.co.uk/bookshop/young-children/the-flitspace