CELTIC have reportedly OPTED OUT of the SPFL’s contract that awarded Premiership broadcasting rights to Scottish Premiership matches.
And it means that NO home league matches from Parkhead will be broadcast on the channel this season Sky Sports remain the main broadcasters of the Scottish Premiership. Their new deal kicked-in this season and allows Sky to show up to 60 Premiershipmatches, up from the 48 stipulated in the previous deal.
And then in June, it was revealed that Premier Sports had joined the Premiership party.The Irish broadcaster, already rights holders for both the Scottish Cupand Premier Sports Cup, had sealed a deal with the SPFL to show 20 Premiership matches from this season forward.
An agreement to sell a secondary package to Premier gave the Irish broadcaster the right to show a maximum of two additional games from any Premiership stadium. And raised hopes of more showpiece fixtures in the SPFL being shown live.
Offered £75,000 for every additional home game — and a maximum payment of £150,000 for two — Celtic were reluctant to inconvenience season-ticket holders and home fans travelling from further afield by shifting more 3pm Saturday kick-offs to a later time. Last night the club declined to comment.
As part of their agreed deal until 2029, Sky retained first option of two further bundles of 10 SPFL games at a cost of £4million apiece from this season.
When Sky declined to take up the option they were thrown open to the market. And while the deal with Premier falls well short of the figures agreed with Sky, eleven of the 12 clubs voted to take the cash in any case, league sources citing a desire to grow the audience and beam more live games, such as the Dundee and Edinburgh derbies, than last season.
Announcing the Premier Sports deal at the start of June Neil Doncaster said:
We are extremely grateful to Premier Sports for their increased investment into the game, which will bring an additional eight-figure sum into Scottish football over the next five years, meaning further record-breaking payments to clubs.
That minimum figure works out at £2m a year, split between 11 clubs it comes in at £181,818 per club per season.
It seems bizarre that the SPFL can negotiate deals that provide individual clubs with opt outs. UEFA wouldn’t negotiate broadcasting deals that Real Madrid can opt out of, an EPL package without Manchester City home matches would seem strange.
Premier Sports can show Celtic away matches with last month’s 6-0 win away to St Johnstone screened with a Saturday 5.45pm kick off.
Be the first to comment