My question is.....

Are we as fans willing to put a bit of money where our mouth is? Would we be willing to put our hands in our pocket (more than we do already) in order to maintain the sporting integrity of the league?

One of the things that has been playing around in my head with the whole Rangers NewCo thing is that one way or the other it is going to cost ICT (as it will every other club).

A lot of fans (myself included) think that any Club that goes through insolvency should be sent packing.

I'm a fairly idealistic person when it comes to such things, but not so idealistic that I don't appreciate that when the club involved is someone like Rangers then the financial hit of getting rid is, arguably, greater than the financial hit of keeping them....certainly in the short term.

Please try and answer as honestly as possible. I know giving more cash isn't an option for everyone and have included a choice to try and cover that scenario. Please don't say you will give more than you could because that's how much you would like to give on strength of feelings about the situation.

Think it also best to assume nothing in return....although if such a thing became reality I'm sure there would be room to negotiate for something in return (shares or whatever).

Please feel free to discuss below, but try and keep it as specific as possible to the topic.

There's another thread running elsewhere for discussion on other aspects of the situation -

With a bit of spare time on my hands I thought I'd do the geek thing and run the new TV deal numbers to see what it adds up to. The deal is reportedly worth £80m over 5 seasons to the league and I've tried to break it down into what that means in 'additional' fans per season and home game based on £20 gate price. These are pretty rough figures and don't take into account of other incomes from sponsorship etc. or costs like the parachute payments, league running costs, taxes and such like so you can take as much or as little from these figures as you like. It was more just to get an idea of it's rough worth should the TV deal be cancelled.

Standard Payment per club (1/12th of 48%)= £640,000

Placing TV Money TV Total Worth Fans Per Season £20 a ticket (per home game (18))

1st 13.0% £1,081,600 £1,721,600 86080 (4782)

2nd 11.0% £915,200 £1,555,200 77760 (4320)

3rd 5.5% £457,600 £1,097,600 54880 (3049)

4th 4.5% £374,400 £1,014,400 50720 (2818)

5th 4.0% £332,800 £972,800 48640 (2702)

6th 3.5% £291,200 £931,200 46560 (2587)

7th 3.0% £249,600 £889,600 44480 (2471)

8th 2.5% £208,000 £848,000 42400 (2356)

9th 2.0% £166,400 £806,400 40320 (2240)

10th 1.5% £124,800 £764,800 38240 (2124)

11th 1.0% £83,200 £723,200 36160 (2009)

12th 0.5% £41,600 £681,600 34080 (1893)

On average this means 50,027 extra fans through the turnstiles in an 18 home game season or 2779 per home match. Even if we work with hitting 9th every season it's still over 40,000 extra fans or 2240 a home game. I don't know how realistic this would be to achieve but if you consider the potentially positive impact on attendances a switch to summer football and a much more competitive league could bring and add a TV deal of even 50% of the worth of the one that is about to begin then, to me, it doesn't seem like the demise of Rangers or the Old Firm is as catastrophic an event as is being predicted by some. It could actually be the opportunity for Scottish Football to really invigorate and reinvent itself but, being cynical, who really expects the Self Preservation League to do that...?

I'm not sure how realistic that is. We only get about 3 -4 TV games per season, so our fans are hardly not attending because the game is on TV. As a result I would have thought it would be very optimistic to attract an extra 2000 thousand fans per home match. I don't think any team in the SPL is capable of increasing attendance by that figure in the short term.

Discounting ticket prices wouldn't necessarily work. Discounting would actually increase the attendance required making it even harder to achieve. A tipping point has to be calculated so the number of additional fans surpasses the income shortfall of the discounted tickets.

I totally agree that discounting tickets is pointless and proven not to really work and also that we are highly unlikely to gain 2000+ fans in the current climate. I'm arguing that this could be the opportunity for Scottish Football to completely reinvent itself and switch to summer football, a move that, for example, saved Rugby League in the UK from a not dissimilar position Scottish football finds itself in now. Summer football and a more competitive league without Rangers, or even both the Old Firm, would attract more fans, sponsors and TV would follow. Even assume there was a TV deal worth half of the upcoming one, so £8m per year. Suddenly the additional fans required to make up the shortfall halves and it all starts to look a bit more realistic that these other factors could improve attendances too.

It's all a pipe dream anyway as it's never gonna happen and Rangers will prove to just be the first of many to go to the wall unless there is a radical shake up of the Scottish game.

If Rangers went out of business then everyone could make a fresh start with a League coming into balance.

It would be very interesting to see what develops and how ICT could survive. If the only thing separating SPL football for Caley Thistle and Div 1 was the existence of Rangers and Celeic then, for sure, we are in a terrible pickle.

These two teams, because of their huge and grossly disproportionate financial clout, have distorted the relationships of all the other teams to each other in the SPLfor as long as IHE has been young and virile.

This is unhealthy, IMHO, for Inverness, for the Spl and for Scottish football in general. If they go, many good players would want to stay in Scotland and play decent entertaining football for many of the other clubs , such as Caley Thistle.

Sorry, I have no sympathy for Rangers at all and it is now up to all the other clubs to support each other by turning up and trying to help all of them to survive and then---CUT THEIR CLOTH ACCORDINGLY.

What the heck is this all about anyway? Is it money and glory or a decent game of football which many of us enjoyed in the Highland League and a good day out to boot at a more moderate expense probably. Sounds a smart way to go in today';s economic times .

And, for goodness sake, IHE is growing older by the minute so let's cut him some slack and let him enjoy his golden years.......

Why 1/12th of 48%? Make it a fair split of finances i.e. No lions share to the OF and the figures will balance.

The Rebel 10 seem to have given up on that. They should have made better progress on voting rights and income splitting by now. But then again, they have had 2 meetings of over 5 hours to deal with Financial Fair Play rules and decided to postpone both times.

I suspect that they are hoping that Rangers run out of money and time for the Miller takeover so they don't have to make a decision.

What a way to run a league!

Alex, the 1/12 of 48% is the equal payment each club gets just for being in the league. All the figures are from the SPL website. The real disparity is in the placings money - 2% between 1st and 2nd then the value of 3rd place almost halves from that of 2nd place before stepping evenly again!