League Reconstruction 20/21 season

[DA Baracus]

41 minutes ago, Pet Jeden said:

SKY will indeed flex their muscles. But it won't be to demand that the glorious Hearts get reinstated. It will be to tell Doncaster that unless  the SPFL can fulfil the contract to the very last letter, then they can forget £30m pa. That was for X number of games, starting in August, with a crowd and an atmosphere. Well, with the exception of St Johnstone games.  And it was before SKY themselves were skint because their customers have been melting away since March.

Nonsense. How can you possibly define an 'atmosphere' in a legal document?

A crowd can't be defined either unless it's over a certain number surely?

How do you know the Sky contract states games must start in August? Games are often rearranged and Sky often rearrange schedules to suit.

More likely is that the Sky contract states a number of games rather than a start date.

[Blaze]

Holy f**k mate, you need to get a girlfriend/boyfriend/non binary friend or some fresh air.

I've been trying to think about this a bit, and my view is that the current structure is pretty good and doesn't need much changing, so I was trying to work out if there was a way to have a temporary reconstruction without actually disadvantaging teams who've earned their place in next season's Premiership, and I think I maybe have something. It's not perfect, but I think it could be a workable solution. Essentially, you make it so that the extra relegation places introduced to take things back to normal are more likely to be allocated to the clubs who benefit from expansion in the first place.
Expand the league to 14 teams, but with two different categories of teams. Let's say that the 12 current Premiership clubs are called Premiership A teams and the added Championship clubs (eg Hearts and Inverness) are Premiership B clubs. Play out a full season as normal, with everyone playing everyone as usual (eg a 6/8 or 7/7 split).
At the end of the season, the top 10 Premiership A teams stay up, regardless of where they finish in the overall league table. This makes it exactly the same as normal for them - you have to finish above 2 current Premiership clubs to stay up. The 11th Premiership A club gets a play-off place, and the 12th Premiership A club is relegated, which again is absolutely normal.
If the leading Premiership B team finishes in the top 10 of the overall league, they get to stay up. If they finish 11th they take part in the play-offs. If they finish 12th or below they are relegated.
If the other Premiership B team finishes in the top 11 of the overall league, they take part in the play-offs. If not, they are relegated.
The top 3 clubs from the Championship also participate in the play-offs, alongside the Premiership clubs who have qualified. These play-offs will either have 4 or 5 clubs in them, playing for either 1 or 2 promotion spots, depending on the outcome of the Premiership, but it is easy enough to scheduled two different possible play-off systems (both weighted in favour of higher league finishes, with the 11th Premiership A club and the Championship winners ranked highest). It could also be a mini-league system instead.
The biggest downside is that the Championship winners wouldn't get automatic promotion, but it seems likely Hearts will skoosh that league next season anyway, so the clubs may grudgingly accept it as a one off if there's a financial incentive of some sort. An alternative would be to have the same system, but with a 16 team top flight and 4 "Premiership B" clubs, with similar rules in place for getting things back to normal.
I think it's pie in the sky nonsense which the clubs will never go for, but it does perhaps come closest to the concept of "fairness" in a temporary reconstruction.


EDIT: Just as an example, suppose the table ended as below. The top 11 here would stay up - Inverness as a Premiership B team who finished in the top 10, and Dundee United as one of the top 10 Premiership A clubs. Hearts and St Mirren would go down automatically. Accies would enter the play-offs alongside the top 3 from the Championship.

If Hearts had finished 11th instead of 12th, United would still have stayed up, but Hearts would also have entered those play-offs. If Inverness had finished 11th instead of 10th, they would have entered the play-offs, but there would have been 2 promotion places up for grabs via them.
1. Killie
2. Celtic
3. Rangers
4. Motherwell
5. Aberdeen
6. Livingston
7. St Johnstone
8. Hibs
9. Ross County
10. Inverness
11. Dundee United
12. Hearts
13. Hamilton
14. St Mirren

[craigkillie]

Not sure if you've noticed, but we're sort of having to spend a lot of time indoors just now.

[Fife Saint]

SKY will indeed flex their muscles. But it won't be to demand that the glorious Hearts get reinstated. It will be to tell Doncaster that unless  the SPFL can fulfil the contract to the very last letter, then they can forget £30m pa. That was for X number of games, starting in August, with a crowd and an atmosphere. Well, with the exception of St Johnstone games.  And it was before SKY themselves were skint because their customers have been melting away since March.

[emoji23]

[wastecoatwilly]

2 hours ago, Pet Jeden said:

SKY will indeed flex their muscles. But it won't be to demand that the glorious Hearts get reinstated. It will be to tell Doncaster that unless  the SPFL can fulfil the contract to the very last letter, then they can forget £30m pa. That was for X number of games, starting in August, with a crowd and an atmosphere. Well, with the exception of St Johnstone games.  And it was before SKY themselves were skint because their customers have been melting away since March.

TBH, I hope SKY feck right off so clubs can use their own tv having a season ticket and paying celtic tv 50 quid a year is good enough for me.
I can watch the game after 10 on the day of the game so why pay SKY?All they do is pump more dosh at the English game and we get the crumbs.
Each team in the EPL gets between £6-8 million a game share the love or feck off
Plus if Scottish football got rid of SKY no more 4 glasga derbies.

Edited May 21, 2020 by wastecoatwilly

[Ludo*1]

I know it's an absolute token gesture but Sky done us a few solids when we were in financial fuckedness last time.

They allowed Neil McCann to play for us on trial - I realise this isn't anything special, but he was contracted to Sky at the time and was their main Scottish football pundit that season. They also picked our game in the cup against Motherwell to be the TV pick when the OF games could've and are normally picked in such a situation in order to give us some much needed cash.

Their treatment of the Scottish game is absolutely abhorrent and the SPFL needs to negotiate a deal that's not reliant on 4 OF games a year, but just because their coverage has been pish doesn't mean they're complete scumbags either. They were willing to pay more than BT were on the basis that we accept we're just cannon fodder time filler.

BT were maybe willing to make us a major player on their network with the coverage they'd give Scottish football, but weren't willing to pay near what Sky were. It's a shite state of affairs that we will be treated like time fillers but that's on Neil Doncaster's negotiation skills and BT's greed, not Sky.

[djchapsticks]

3 hours ago, Pet Jeden said:

SKY will indeed flex their muscles. But it won't be to demand that the glorious Hearts get reinstated. It will be to tell Doncaster that unless  the SPFL can fulfil the contract to the very last letter, then they can forget £30m pa. That was for X number of games, starting in August, with a crowd and an atmosphere. Well, with the exception of St Johnstone games.  And it was before SKY themselves were skint because their customers have been melting away since March.

I'd love to see proof of this contract that stipulates TV money is dependent on a crowd and atmosphere.

Here, these should help you with that terrible clutching habit.

Edited May 22, 2020 by djchapsticks

[Ludo*1]

1 minute ago, djchapsticks said:

I'd love to see the contract that stipulates TV money is dependent on a crowd and atmosphere.

 

 

Even England don't have that.

Germany do, but we'll never see a system like that in Scotland. They're far too progressive and have always been of higher quality.

[djchapsticks]

1 minute ago, Ludo*1 said:

Even England don't have that.

Germany do, but we'll never see a system like that in Scotland. They're far too progressive and have always been of higher quality.

When I say I'd love to see it, I meant if love to see his proof of it and how it could even be applied. Not that I'd like to see it happening.

Here's the thing though, it's nonsense to suggest that a crowd and atmosphere is even enforcable in a contract not least because apart from a ridiculous notion, it's completely subjective. 

If a couple of hundred people are watching in a stadium of 80,000 (as was the case with Dortmund vs Schalke on Saturday) , that is still a crowd and if they are shouting, it's a fucking atmosphere. How can you stupluate it isn't? 

They don't renege on Champions League or Euro/world Cup qualifier money when UEFA enforce games to be played behind closed doors due to crowd trouble or racism, so why on Earth would it be stipulated for Scottish football specifically? 

[Sergeant Wilson]

6 hours ago, wastecoatwilly said:

TBH, I hope SKY feck right off so clubs can use their own tv having a season ticket and paying celtic tv 50 quid a year is good enough for me.
I can watch the game after 10 on the day of the game so why pay SKY?All they do is pump more dosh at the English game and we get the crumbs.
Each team in the EPL gets between £6-8 million a game share the love or feck off
Plus if Scottish football got rid of SKY no more 4 glasga derbies.

Individual club tv deals, I wonder which clubs would benefit most from that?

Let me think...who would play against each other more often to wring more money out of mug punters...wait, it's coming to me...no, it's gone again.

Who could it be?

[IrishBhoy]

6 hours ago, wastecoatwilly said:

TBH, I hope SKY feck right off so clubs can use their own tv having a season ticket and paying celtic tv 50 quid a year is good enough for me.
I can watch the game after 10 on the day of the game so why pay SKY?All they do is pump more dosh at the English game and we get the crumbs.
Each team in the EPL gets between £6-8 million a game share the love or feck off
Plus if Scottish football got rid of SKY no more 4 glasga derbies.

This would be brilliant for Scottish football, I’m surprised your the first person to think of it. Teams like Hamilton, St Johnstone and Ross County should be jumping at the chance to ditch the Sky deal and bring in circa. £100,000 per year punting their own TV deal at £50 a year. 

[Sparticus]

A stream season ticket would be amazing.If i could watch live all my clubs games in a season then they can just have my money now.

[Sparticus]

9 hours ago, Lebowski said:

19 hours ago, Sparticus said:

First-If the SPFL experts cant squeeze more money out of Sky, how do you expect a bitter old woman with a self interested motive to do it?
Second-Trial is just another word for temporary.Like Budge when she was told no re construction last time she said ok we'll rejig it then,Rearrange it?Different words,same meaning, same outcome.No.
Third- Yer lucks ran out.

She never even presented anything at the last meeting. They asked for opinions and were told by six clubs they didn't want it. It wasn't quibbling over details, it was "No, we don't want it".

I just find it an incredible waste of time to do this herself when the group couldnt agree anything.They couldnt agree because changing it was wrong.

[Pet Jeden]

6 hours ago, djchapsticks said:

I'd love to see proof of this contract that stipulates TV money is dependent on a crowd and atmosphere.

Here, these should help you with that terrible clutching habit.

The contract will run to several hundred pages. It might not mention whether games played behind closed doors qualify. But it might - e.g. in case an OF match was ordered to be behind closed for diciplinary reasons . It will not refer to atmosphere - (in future I’ll try to remember that you take every word literally). But make no mistake, it makes a huge difference to the attractiveness and value of the product. Now, DJ, let me explain human nature and business negotiations to you. When one party a) is no longer getting what they expected, b) are under big financial pressure themselves, and c) have 200 pages of contract in which to find a loophole, then they will not be paying the same price out of some sense of honour and responsibility to Scottish football. There will be a renegotiation. Your team’s major income source is going to take a big hit.

[Lofarl]

Do Sky show championship matches?

[Sparticus]

2 minutes ago, Lofarl said:

Do Sky show championship matches?

Should be more worried about the contract with BBC Alba.

[Dons_1988]

16 minutes ago, Pet Jeden said:

The contract will run to several hundred pages. It might not mention whether games played behind closed doors qualify. But it might - e.g. in case an OF match was ordered to be behind closed for diciplinary reasons . It will not refer to atmosphere - (in future I’ll try to remember that you take every word literally). But make no mistake, it makes a huge difference to the attractiveness and value of the product. Now, DJ, let me explain human nature and business negotiations to you. When one party a) is no longer getting what they expected, b) are under big financial pressure themselves, and c) have 200 pages of contract in which to find a loophole, then they will not be paying the same price out of some sense of honour and responsibility to Scottish football. There will be a renegotiation. Your team’s major income source is going to take a big hit.

Your point about atmosphere is still extremely vague though.

Whilst playing behind closed doors is enforced by government then I'm not sure Sky will have much ability to find a loophole there.

In the unlikely event that by the end of the contract we're still playing behind closed doors they'd be well within their rights to say 'yeah, without fans OF games are unimaginably boring so we're not paying that again'.

They will squeeze as much as they can out of the fact we stopped the season early though, probably not a direct financial penalty but they have the SPFL by the balls in terms of negotiating anyway.

[djchapsticks]

20 minutes ago, Pet Jeden said:

The contract will run to several hundred pages. It might not mention whether games played behind closed doors qualify. But it might. 

To be fair, this is all you had to post. 

A clear admission that everything said previously is just speculation and conjecture on your part. 

 

[Aim Here]

17 minutes ago, Pet Jeden said:

The contract will run to several hundred pages. It might not mention whether games played behind closed doors qualify. But it might - e.g. in case an OF match was ordered to be behind closed for diciplinary reasons . It will not refer to atmosphere - (in future I’ll try to remember that you take every word literally). But make no mistake, it makes a huge difference to the attractiveness and value of the product. Now, DJ, let me explain human nature and business negotiations to you. When one party a) is no longer getting what they expected, b) are under big financial pressure themselves, and c) have 200 pages of contract in which to find a loophole, then they will not be paying the same price out of some sense of honour and responsibility to Scottish football. There will be a renegotiation. Your team’s major income source is going to take a big hit.

Alternatively, you have every matchgoing football fan in the country under some stage of lockdown, who can't get to the match, who can't go down to the pub to watch the game and whose only chance of seeing their team in action - or any football at all - is to watch it at home, possibly getting a new Sky TV subscription if they don't already have one. TV companies offering live football for closed-door games are likely to see an uptick in demand. Every fan missing from the stadium is an indication of someone willing to pay to watch football whose demand for it isn't being met.

I don't see the new TV deal being less than the old one when there's straightforward reasons for it to be more profitable. The monetary amount changing hands this year, might be less, but only because there were 8 unplayed matchdays and they might offset the refund for that into next season's broadcast deal.

[Pet Jeden]

10 minutes ago, djchapsticks said:

To be fair, this is all you had to post. 

A clear admission that everything said previously is just speculation and conjecture on your part. 

 

90%* of this board is speculation and conjecture
 

 

(* note for DJ this is a figure of speech and not a researched statistic)

Edited May 22, 2020 by Pet Jeden