League reconstruction: Let's hear your view

[lubo_blaha]

Scottish football needs an NFL-style commissioner to control it. Any decisions made by the SPFL are going to be influenced by self interest by clubs. Decisions should be made independent from this bias and should be made for the good of the league overall. 

[parsforlife]

As soon as NFL-style is mentioned my reaction is a big fat NO.

Edited March 29, 2016 by parsforlife

[effeffsee_the2nd]

the yanks dont do sport like we do, but that doesnt mean everything they do is wrong.  we (europeans) think that entertainment is watching the best teams play each other as much as possible. however, with the modern money in the game that means that the best teams stay the best teams becuase no one can accumulate enough wealth to catch them

 

The yanks have realised that domination gets boring, despite everything else they do. theyve got that one right

[SpoonTon]

The logical split, really should be North, East and South, although after a heavy night on Tennessee Jack's finest home brew, i have no idea who'd go where. Having no Angus, Tayside or Fife teams to pack out a worthwhile East section for the moment makes it difficult, but long-term, three winners and the bottom L2 team in a knockout series would bring more integrity to the format.

What happened to the West?

[BFTD]

the yanks dont do sport like we do, but that doesnt mean everything they do is wrong.  we (europeans) think that entertainment is watching the best teams play each other as much as possible. however, with the modern money in the game that means that the best teams stay the best teams becuase no one can accumulate enough wealth to catch them

 

The yanks have realised that domination gets boring, despite everything else they do. theyve got that one right

 

Not sure if serious.

[effeffsee_the2nd]

Awrite then. Since everything i say is wrong can you, in your own words tell me what you would like to see? Are you quite happy to continue with a set up which was introduced 40 year ago when we had 3 tv stations nae internet . Pubs shut in the afternoon and hardly any tv fitbaw? Dont try to be innovative just keep things as they are, damage limitation to keep existing fans. In 20 year half them will be dead with no younger ones to replace them but just worry about that then

[BFTD]

Yeah...I was surprised that you thought the Americans don't think "that entertainment is watching the best teams play each other as much as possible".

 

You're quite remarkably keen to put words into other folk's mouths.

[Burnie_man]

There will be no change to Scottish football structure.  The hordes from Govan are back at the top table to gorge themselves on their 4 OF games a season, Donkeycaster and Regan will be happy that armageddon has been avoided again, Sky and BT Sport will be beside themselves, the Scottish media will w**k themselves into a frenzy, most other SPFL clubs will fall back into line.

 

Pyramid? What pyramid…………….

[effeffsee_the2nd]

This is what will probably happen, its realy short sighted, before rangers went tits up things had been on the slide in terms of standard, crowds, tv interest and money for years .

[BallochSonsFan]

I'd like to see bigger divisions. A top flight of 16 would be ideal. Its only 30 games a season so clubs would be losing revenue, but it would allow for the introduction of a winter break to help smaller clubs with the lottery of the weather. There could be more emphasis placed on the league cup with less league games as there would be less fixture congestion.

 

I'd have a 2nd tier of 16 teams as well.

 

That leaves 10 teams. The obvious option is to make more of the Highland/Lowland leagues. It's absolute madness that the longest journey in Scottish football - Elgin City to Annan Athletic - is made by teams League 2. Surely making more of a regional bias at that level would help those teams control costs whilst still opening up the opportunities to progress to the national divisions for the teams who were capable of doing so?

[tamba_trio]

As soon as NFL-style is mentioned my reaction is a big fat NO.

 

Don't be so quick to judge.  As a business, the NFL is an amazing success.  This is a sport which - 50 years ago - was completely in the shadows of baseball.  Now the Superbowl is annually watched by half the country (imagine any Scottish football game ever being watched by half of Scotland).  

 

They do a lot of things very well:

• Revenue is shared equally: TV money, ticket sales, jersey sales, everything.  
• A salary cap which is set to avoid any debt and so the league actually makes money.
• Annually reviewing the sport and implementing changes designed to make the game more entertaining.

That's before you get into things like video replays and scheduling which is designed to give the better teams tougher fixtures in order to promote parity.  In terms of administrating a sport, they're pretty damn good.  Given Scottish footballs current position in the shadows of the EPL, we could learn a lot from them.

[Arsenal till I die]

So rangers are back in the top flight. Did the rest (apart from Celtic) blow it with voting reconstruction?

[Wilky1878]

So rangers are back in the top flight. Did the rest (apart from Celtic) blow it with voting reconstruction?

What do you mean?

[Wilky1878]

Don't be so quick to judge.  As a business, the NFL is an amazing success.  This is a sport which - 50 years ago - was completely in the shadows of baseball.  Now the Superbowl is annually watched by half the country (imagine any Scottish football game ever being watched by half of Scotland).  

 

They do a lot of things very well:

• Revenue is shared equally: TV money, ticket sales, jersey sales, everything.  
  
• A salary cap which is set to avoid any debt and so the league actually makes money.
  
• Annually reviewing the sport and implementing changes designed to make the game more entertaining.
  

That's before you get into things like video replays and scheduling which is designed to give the better teams tougher fixtures in order to promote parity.  In terms of administrating a sport, they're pretty damn good.  Given Scottish footballs current position in the shadows of the EPL, we could learn a lot from them.

Salary caps may be beneficial in certain cases but where do you set them? Set them too low and the playing standard significantly decreases and we can't keep up with even the leagues we are around or directly above just now. Set it too high and clubs just overspend anyway.

Annually reviewing the sport is something that sounds quite interesting, could you elaborate on some of the changes made in the nfl in these annual reviews?

By merchandise sales being shared equally so if the philadelphia eagles sell a jersey or a cap does that money go into a pot and get shared between all franchises? If so I'm not too keen on that but other ways of sharing income I agree with (ie 50/50 gate receipts, TV money shared equally dependant on league but still rewarding a team for finishing higher in the league. I'll give a small scale example of what I mean as I don't think I'm explaining it we'll.

Premiership teams all get £5 in TV money

Championship clubs all get £4 in TV money and so forth

Premiership 1st place gets £20roze money 2nd place gets £15 of course the values will be much higher but I just scaled it down for simpleness.

[BFTD]

Does MLS still do the shared player pool, with players contracted to the league rather than individual clubs?

 

What a ballsy system that would be for the SPFL to implement. Might even make the Premiership title interesting...which is, of course, the reason it would never happen.

[tamba_trio]

Salary caps may be beneficial in certain cases but where do you set them? Set them too low and the playing standard significantly decreases and we can't keep up with even the leagues we are around or directly above just now. Set it too high and clubs just overspend anyway. Annually reviewing the sport is something that sounds quite interesting, could you elaborate on some of the changes made in the nfl in these annual reviews? By merchandise sales being shared equally so if the philadelphia eagles sell a jersey or a cap does that money go into a pot and get shared between all franchises? If so I'm not too keen on that but other ways of sharing income I agree with (ie 50/50 gate receipts, TV money shared equally dependant on league but still rewarding a team for finishing higher in the league. I'll give a small scale example of what I mean as I don't think I'm explaining it we'll. Premiership teams all get £5 in TV money Championship clubs all get £4 in TV money and so forth Premiership 1st place gets £20roze money 2nd place gets £15 of course the values will be much higher but I just scaled it down for simpleness.

 

The NFL have a yearly owners meeting where they propose rule changes (their aim being to maximimise the enertainment of the sport).  It's interesting that modern NFL games are far higher scoring than those from 50 years ago as they believe that more offense is more exciting, and it's all about selling the product.

 

They also will change rules which noticably don't work.  

 

I wonder if the SPFL ever have meetings where they review the previous season and discuss how to improve and get more fans into grounds.  

 

I think the revenue sharing (with regards to ticket sales) sees the home team keep 60% of the gate.  It might be the same with shirt sales and such but I'm not sure.  Of course it was the 1960s when they noticed that small town teams would be left behind unless revenue was shared, something we still haven't spotted.

 

I guess - as a defence of Scottish football - it isn't easy.  There can't be many countries who pay for their neighbours league before their own (and, for England, it must be nice to have 5 million people paying into their league who don't have to get anything back from it).  And I'm sure it's Sky who insist on making the SPFL into EPL lite but I don't see any proper future for the game here unless we can break away from that.  

[Wilky1878]

I guess - as a defence of Scottish football - it isn't easy. There can't be many countries who pay for their neighbours league before their own (and, for England, it must be nice to have 5 million people paying into their league who don't have to get anything back from it). And I'm sure it's Sky who insist on making the SPFL into EPL lite but I don't see any proper future for the game here unless we can break away from that.

This. Our game isn't as bad as many portray it to be. I'd say results in Europe don't actually reflect our game but something is really holding us back in that respect. I just don't know what it is, mindset maybe?

The problems of the scottish game really start to rise when so many compare us to our closest neighbours who just happen to have more of a population in 1 city than our entire country and a TV deal that we could only dream about. It's totally crazy to suggest that we should be anything close to that but then look at all the other guys in our street so to speak in Wales, N. Ireland and Republic of Ireland and in terms of domestic football we are miles ahead of them.

I know this is a thread about reconstruction but one of the biggest stages we need in reconstruction is to replace Doncaster and Co. to get people who will actually strive to improve our game. Fs I could do a better job at marketing and improving the game than them.

[BFTD]

I think the revenue sharing (with regards to ticket sales) sees the home team keep 60% of the gate.  It might be the same with shirt sales and such but I'm not sure.  Of course it was the 1960s when they noticed that small town teams would be left behind unless revenue was shared, something we still haven't spotted.

 

I think you'll find that the administrators spotted that a long time ago, which would be why our current system of gate money distribution was introduced.

[Tory]

IMO, there are far too many football clubs in Scotland.  For the population we have and to have so many clubs is just madness.  Take Fife for example, population of around 365,000.  They have what four football clubs, thats madness, merge the four into two or even one club.  Two or one club fighting for the local populations support rather than four makes more sense.  Take Central Scotland aswell, population around 250,000 but it has five clubs.  Again madness, merge into two clubs to fight amongst the local population for their support.   Angus, a population of around 116,000 but has four clubs, absolute stupidity.  Merge into the one club, two at a very large push.  

 

Less clubs, and make the clubs that do exist professional. 

 

But who am I to say which football clubs should and shouldn't merge?  I just think it makes more sense that's all.

[HibeeJibee]

Tbh this argument is always the pinnacle of utter nonsense.

 

There are as many clubs as there are adult males wanting to play of a Saturday afternoon.

 

If you forcibly merged clubs - however that could be done, anyway - you'd get most of their fans restarting phoenix teams, and hardly anyone following the super-team. Where would clubs like "Angus Ace", "Fife Force" or whatever play? As soon as the answer is something like Arbroath or Dunfermline then you've alienated the fans of all the other clubs, on top of scrapping or demoting their old club.

 

How many clubs should be playing at a certain level or grade; whether they should be full-time or part-time; and so on are legitimate questions. Thinking that we have 'too many clubs' is not, it's madness.