How do you solve a problem like the Scottish Premiership?

[GNU_Linux]

Time for my monthly apetura/clasura format proposal so I can sit back & watch the sportsounds of the world spend a year trying to figure it out.

[santheman]

2 hours ago, Central Belt Caley said:

Wouldn’t be everyone’s cup of tea but I’d take a leaf out of American Sports book and go for a massive league (say 30 teams) top 16 qualify for the playoffs and play home and away up to the single leg semi, then neutral venues for semi and finals. The arsecheeks would probably still win most years but I reckon Hearts/Aberdeen/Hibs etc would fancy their chances over 2 legs against the OF. 
 

Bottom 4/6/8 play in a mini league or playoffs to decide who gets relegated. 
 

This was just off the top of my head and with 30 teams you would be dipping into part time seaside league territory but a good laugh all the same. 
Hopefully the old firm would get pissed off, go to England cap in hand, leave and we could revert back to a normal league set up 

I could live with something like that.

We sometimes forget football is supposed to be about entertainment.

At the start of every season I look at the same old teams in the same old places and just get depressed at the thought of it.

Money talks however and that's why it will never happen.

[Steve McQueen]

3 hours ago, RawB93 said:

Playoffs to decide champions is the equivalent of making sure everyone gets a medal at a primary school sports day. 

You could still give a trophy for winning the regular season. Quadruple chat is inevitable.

[TheScarf]

Do they not do that in rugby? You get the regular season champions then the overall champions? Very tinpot ITSO (in this shaggers opinion). 

[Mr. X]

On 25/08/2022 at 22:58, G51 said:

The problem with football communism is that eventually the diddies will run out of other peoples money.

Is it really other people's money? You would be getting no money if you had no one to play against. It's only fair to share the gate money with the opposition.

[Monkey Tennis]

On 25/10/2023 at 13:11, RawB93 said:

Playoffs to decide champions is the equivalent of making sure everyone gets a medal at a primary school sports day. 

Whereas the current set up is the equivalent of inviting a couple of seventeen year olds to compete in a primary school sports day.

[tamba_trio]

On 25/10/2023 at 20:11, RawB93 said:

Playoffs to decide champions is the equivalent of making sure everyone gets a medal at a primary school sports day. 

We have the most boring and godawful sports league on the planet. Basically anything would make it more interesting. 

[AndyX]

Ok, deep breath, this is what I'd do.....  If you don't like TL:DR then please just DR

26 team set-up across North, South, East, and West leagues (2 with 6 teams and 2 with 7 teams). Each league is a competition, a trophy, a success, in its own right.

Play the other teams from your own league twice and other teams in the set-up once. The 4 league winners qualify for the post-season championship. Probably the 2nd place team with the best overall record qualifies too - that's a blatant sop to the OF but I think necessary. The next placed teams in each league play off for a 6th and final place in the post-season championship.

The champions are decided by these 6 teams playing each other home and away. They start level except for regular season bonus points - 5 points for team with best overall record and 3 points for league winners with next best record and 2 or 1 points for the other league winners. Teams who didn't win their leagues start with no bonus points.

The teams finishing bottom of their leagues should play-off against the winners of equivalent 2nd-tier leagues for relegation or promotion. Other details would need to be worked out: what could other teams do while the championship group is played out? how could leagues move up or down from 6 or 7 teams? where do north/west/south/east start and end? (I think it only works if Lanarkshire is part of South)

The benefits?

1 - Loads of team start the season with hopes of some meaningful success in the league. I think winning the East league would for example be seen as meaningful by Hibs, Hearts, or Livi.

2 - Other teams have a shot. The best team will usually be champions and that will usually be Rangers or Celtic, BUT with just 10 games to go there will be 6 teams within touching distance. 

3 - Sky (or whoever) very probably get their 4 OF games. We might not like being ruled by Sky but money talks.

4 - Loads of derby games. Dundee and Utd will pretty much always have their derby games every year, so too County and ICT, Dunfermline and Falkirk, St Mirren and Morton, Kilmarnock and Ayr, etc

5 - Variety. Very few teams play the same opponents 4 times a year. Everybody plays 25 different teams in the regular season.

6 - Stability. Middling sized clubs can plan with reasonable certainty about what league they will be in next season. The risk of relegation is important and would still be there, but lots of clubs have ambitions and plans that have to be suddenly abandoned because of dropping a division. This would give them a chance of a fair number of years to develop in the same league set-up.

7 - Pyramid. Ambitious smaller clubs would be much closer to the big time. There would be 26 or so clubs who would be just one step away from the top league.

It's not perfect, it couldn't ever be, but for me it's miles miles better than what we have.

[ahemps]

On 25/10/2023 at 19:44, Mr. X said:

Is it really other people's money? You would be getting no money if you had no one to play against. It's only fair to share the gate money with the opposition.

Only really the tickets you sell can I get the argument for it being 'your' money. Sponsors, TV money and UEFA money is literally someone else's money. This could and should be shared in a way that creates competition but somehow we are in a bizarre situation where we give more money to the successful teams which has the complete opposite effect.

The main factor from any of the American models is that they are designed to keep things competitive.

Formula 1 brings in some rules with financial caps, tyres, fuel etc. they still see periods of dominance but at least they kind of try to level the playing field. Football literally is trying really hard to go the other way. 

[Monkey Tennis]

1 hour ago, ahemps said:

Only really the tickets you sell can I get the argument for it being 'your' money. Sponsors, TV money and UEFA money is literally someone else's money. This could and should be shared in a way that creates competition but somehow we are in a bizarre situation where we give more money to the successful teams which has the complete opposite effect.

The main factor from any of the American models is that they are designed to keep things competitive.

Formula 1 brings in some rules with financial caps, tyres, fuel etc. they still see periods of dominance but at least they kind of try to level the playing field. Football literally is trying really hard to go the other way. 

Good post, but I'd disagree even with your first line.

Those buying tickets pay to see 2 sides 'compete', even if they have a strong preference over who wins.

if Livingston's players don't show up at Ibrox, neither do 50,000 others.  The money really should be divided accordingly.  It's morally correct and it aids competition.

[ahemps]

7 minutes ago, Monkey Tennis said:

Good post, but I'd disagree even with your first line.

Those buying tickets pay to see 2 sides 'compete', even if they have a strong preference over who wins.

if Livingston's players don't show up at Ibrox, neither do 50,000 others.  The money really should be divided accordingly.  It's morally correct and it aids competition.

I worded it that it is the only point I can see an argument for. If you buy a season ticket for a team then some people want all that money going to that team.

I agree with some sort of gate split but I am willing to concede that it doesn't need to be 50/50.

The UEFA money is the biggest killer of the smaller domestic leagues.

[Monkey Tennis]

4 minutes ago, ahemps said:

I worded it that it is the only point I can see an argument for. If you buy a season ticket for a team then some people want all that money going to that team.

I agree with some sort of gate split but I am willing to concede that it doesn't need to be 50/50.

The UEFA money is the biggest killer of the smaller domestic leagues.

I think there's a very strong argument for money to be divided for league games along similar lines to how it's done with Cup ties.

The bigger clubs with bigger crowds would still massively benefit from attracting them, over the course of the season.

Edited October 27, 2023 by Monkey Tennis

[joewarkfanclub]

If you want a better tv deal you need a more competitive league that you can sell outside of Scotland.

To get a more competitive league you would need to split gate money 50/50.

The money the big 2 would lose at the gate could be re-couped over time via a better tv deal.

Add in better competition week to week should ensure teams are better prepared for European football.

Address the number of the teams in the league to reduce familiarity and we might get somewhere close to where we need to be.

Thays the way it works in my head anyway!

[TheScarf]

A 50/50 split in gate receipts is the obvious way to go but with the current voting structure it would never pass.

[Monkey Tennis]

19 minutes ago, joewarkfanclub said:

If you want a better tv deal you need a more competitive league that you can sell outside of Scotland.

I wish this was true, but I honestly don't believe it is.

Most people don't view it as we do.  There simply is more interest in the OF.  Them winning weekly mismatches, probably is the best way to create the greatest overall income.

The issue is not to do with the size of the pot; it's all to do with its distribution.

 

Overall wealth has become much greater in football, since it started being concentrated in narrower directions.

I don't argue for fairer distribution because I think finances will increase.  I'd very readily accept their reduction in the name of creating something fairer which I'd find far more interesting.

[bennett]

24 minutes ago, TheScarf said:

A 50/50 split in gate receipts is the obvious way to go but with the current voting structure it would never pass.

Gate receipts from the old firm would be pretty low due to the high numbers of season tickets sold.

 

 

[TheScarf]

Just now, bennett said:

Gate receipts from the old firm would be pretty low due to the high numbers of season tickets sold.

 

 

There will still be 10,000 odd walk ups at Ibrox and Parkhead for every non-OF home game.  That's a lot of money for clubs split in half.

[bennett]

1 minute ago, TheScarf said:

There will still be 10,000 odd walk ups at Ibrox and Parkhead for every non-OF home game.  That's a lot of money for clubs split in half.

Slightly over 50'000 capacity and around 46'000 season tickets for us. I'm guessing that celtic will have a similar percentage. 

 

The SPFL would have to limit season ticket numbers for that to work and I can't see that happening. 

[gannonball]

5 minutes ago, bennett said:

Slightly over 50'000 capacity and around 46'000 season tickets for us. I'm guessing that celtic will have a similar percentage. 

 

The SPFL would have to limit season ticket numbers for that to work and I can't see that happening. 

Yeah the likes of Livingston wouldn't benefit either who sell so many tickets themselves to us and possibly be worse off.

[Monkey Tennis]

21 minutes ago, bennett said:

Gate receipts from the old firm would be pretty low due to the high numbers of season tickets sold.

 

 

When I talk about gate receipts, I'm absolutely including season tickets in that.  

A calculation that divides the overall income from season tickets by the number of home league games, should not beyond even the accountants at Ibrox.  That's the figure that needs split more fairly between the participating clubs.

Edited October 27, 2023 by Monkey Tennis