Setantas Offering

[Heilandee]

I really dont think the decline in crowds in Scotland can be blamed solely on television,although in my line of work i have had several customers tell me they are taking out a Sky/Sentanta subscription rather than renewing  a season ticket (usually for one or other half of the OF)

The product in general, to all but the die hard supporters is unapealing and competition for our hard earned is more intense than ever before,especially for the family man with a couple of kids to entertain the value for money just aint there

The imbalance of support and distribution of wealth is also a major problem as was demonstrated in stark figures two weekends ago with the OF gate of 59,500 being more than double the combined gates of all other Scottish senior games added together.

The days of 20,000 plus crowds being the norm are long gone,teams are having to cut their cloth accordingly and we the punters will i fear continue to see an inferior product unless drastic steps are taken to remedy the malaise affecting Scottish football

[+Gringo]

To be fair, it's not as though you have not been given plenty of notice about the change in date for you to change your plans....

Harry, I can see where you are coming from here but sometimes five weeks isn't enough notice. Sometimes when I attend games I would fly up by using cheap fares which are booked MONTHS not WEEKS in advance. On this occasion I didn't book any flights but what if I had? Would Setanta or the SPL have given a stuff about my expense? No. would they feck. I know I may be a bit 'odd' in travelling all that way to see my football team but I can't see any rules stating that football supporters should be within a specific distance from the ground. When I plan games these days I usually have an eye the Live TV potential and, had we have been playing the likes of the OF, then I would have had my doubts. I truely never thought they'd pick this rip-snorting-end-to-end Highland derby match at the TCS - a match thats produced only FOUR goals in three SPL meetings.

[Johnboy]

The product in general, to all but the die hard supporters is unapealing and competition for our hard earned is more intense than ever before,especially for the family man with a couple of kids to entertain the value for money just aint there

The days of 20,000 plus crowds being the norm are long gone,teams are having to cut their cloth accordingly and we the punters will i fear continue to see an inferior product unless drastic steps are taken to remedy the malaise affecting Scottish football

Absolutely spot on... H/Dee

The Ibrox Disaster, Heysel, Hillsborough and clubs forced to implement all seated stadiums kissed these halcyon days goodbye for ever. The days where when you were packed like sardines into the terraces... if you needed a pee you just directed it straight onto the steps, hoping that the guy in front of you had watertight shoes..!! All the time you kept a wary eye in the air behind you as fans, consuming their cairry oots often sent the empties flying towards the pitch at no one in particular. As a child at an OF game I can remember a Rangers player being struck by a bottle, which actually came from the Rangers support.... I was completely perplexed by that until my father explained that he had missed a penalty for the 'Gers earlier on.....!!

Ah yes.... Happy days....

I don't know what the answer is.... Live games on TV don't seem to affect attendances down south, as much as they do hear.... playing each other twice, as opposed to 4 times a season, is a factor... I would be happy to go back to the days of two divisions...  even if it meant a few meaningless fixtures towards the end of the season.... When teams playing away adopt a completely negative defensive approach, it can ruin the game as a spectacle for the fans... The SPL breeds this that type of game where everybody's battling for something....

[absent friend]

This is just another example of "progress". Well that's what they lead us to believe.

Football crowds, outwith the so called elite, have been dwindling for years with the odd blip. Like all aspects of our lives the desire for consumer ease of access, at an instant, to our favourite or necessary activities brings drawbacks as well as benefits. I'm sure I'm not alone in enjoying interactive televised sport, paused or recordered to suit my life or internet shopping because I can't be ersed leaving the house.

Says it all really!!

I have been told by the Glasgow police that an OF game takes all the pressure off them as the policing problem is condensed into one area.  

I do not think that Friday night in Inverness pre 10.30pm is a huge problem for the boys in blue and therefore I feel that policing a Friday night 8pm kick-off should be within the ability of the local bobbies!

The weakness of Setanta is their advertisers and if all potential football viewers watched Corrie/Discovery/DVD etc on a Monday night, instead of the match being shown, believe me, they (Setanta), would soon change to a more popular time for transmitting the games!

I suppose I am suggesting that the public have the strength to change things but as for having the will - well I doubt it!

I can already imagine the replies ' I pay for the service !'  ' What difference will one person not watching make?' 'Who cares anyway?'

[Guest Sandy Cromarty]

The professionals on here have been mentioned as 'bleeding the game dry', who could blame them when Sky are willing to pay hundreds of millions for a season's worth of EPL, ask yourself where the money went all those years ago when 60 thousand or so of us were crammed into the cinder terraced stadia? A pal of mine played for a North London team back in the sixties, forget which league they were in but it wasn't any of the english divisions at that time and he was handed £100.00 cash a week, now that was a lot of money in them days so you can imagine what the directors were paying themselves.As for resurgence well I have to admit there that the big profile teams such as M.U. probably have benifitted the most as I travel a lot in the Middle and Far East and I know at first hand how big a following the big teams have due to Sat TV broadcasts in these countries, but it cannot be denied that satellite broadcasting has brought the game to a far bigger audience on a weekly basis than the BBC could ever aspire to.

But what is the alternative? to ban live TV broadcasts? that would mean more loss of revenue and exposure and if we didn't have Sky and Setanta willing to pay the monies they do then I am sure the game as we know it now would be in a perilous state financially, so again I say that personally I believe that Sky and Setanta have brought much needed revenue.

I heard some time ago that either Sky or Setanta paid in the region of £80,000 per game, is that figure correct for teams say at our level or is that amount for OF games?.

[CaleyD]

Clubs survived before the advent of these big TV deals from the likes of SKY and SETANTA - in fact, you had far fewer cases of administration etc and far fewer "save our club" campaigns.  The fact of the matter is that clubs got greedy and continue to do so.

As I stated already, we managed just fine on the revenue we had last season and even had a couple of hundred thousand in the bank at the end of the year, why then do WE need the additional revenue??

I know the answers I will receive to that - "Grow the Squad", "Get Better Players" etc etc - but look at the price we are paying for these things.  I was just as happy to follow ICT in our Div 1/2/3 days as I am now and was just as happy following Caley in the Highland League before that.  Yes we should aspire to play at the highest level possible, but I am fast coming to the conclusion that the price you have to pay for that is far too high.

It's really sad to see so many people on here resigned to the fact that TV money is a necessary evil and we have to just accept it regardless of the cost.

[Harry Chibber]

I know the answers I will receive to that - "Grow the Squad", "Get Better Players" etc etc - but look at the price we are paying for these things.  I was just as happy to follow ICT in our Div 1/2/3 days as I am now and was just as happy following Caley in the Highland League before that.  Yes we should aspire to play at the highest level possible, but I am fast coming to the conclusion that the price you have to pay for that is far too high.

Much like myself, you are one of the worst for complaining that behind the scenes the club isn't up to a decent standard, so it's not just on the pitch that the club needs the extra revenue for.  If we are going to atract new fans, what better way to do it than by broadcasting an occasional match here and there??? It is the way things are and it's not going to go back...  so the only way to move forward is to work with the current situation.

Gringo I understand it must be a major hassle for you having to book flights etc. but the club has to first and foremost work in favour of the majority who live around and about Inverness.

[kaiser]

I don't know what the answer is.... Live games on TV don't seem to affect attendances down south, as much as they do hear.... playing each other twice, as opposed to 4 times a season, is a factor... I would be happy to go back to the days of two divisions...  even if it meant a few meaningless fixtures towards the end of the season.... When teams playing away adopt a completely negative defensive approach, it can ruin the game as a spectacle for the fans... The SPL breeds this that type of game where everybody's battling for something....

They do affect attendances down south although for every time they mention Man U's new EPL attendance record they omit the poor attendances for another three or four games , and although the attendances seem bigger down south its relative to the population, and they are alos in decline as a whole .

Good to see you mentioning about away teams playing negatively in  meaningless fixtures at the end of the season , thankfully you don't get that now in our shiny bright SPL...oh, were you not at the game on Saturday. :003:

[Scotty]

Thought I would throw this into the mix ......

SPL Economic Upturn

For the first time in more than a decade Scottish Premier League teams made a collective operating profit, albeit a rather modest one of £2.8m.

So says the 17th Annual Financial Review of Scottish Football published by PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP.

Combined debt fell to £129m from £184m, thanks mainly to Rangers' £52m rights issue, and wage costs fell below £100m for the first time in five years.

Seven of the 12 clubs now have a wage to turnover ratio of less than 60%.

David Glen, partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers, said of the figures that refer to season 2004/05: "Clubs are now feeling the effects of the financial recovery which began last year.

"But before we get too carried away it is important to understand that the results benefit from one-off credits which total £22m.

"These include a £15m accounting gain at Rangers, £3.6m from debt write-off at Dundee and a similar £3.3m debt write off at Dunfermline."

He added: "Clubs have continued to reign in spending on wages (£96m total). They have also resisted the urge to spend major amounts in the transfer market.

"With debts gradually going in the right direction after a tumultuous few years it is now time for clubs to look forward to the next phase, to try to secure and increase revenues and attain a truly sustainable business model."

The review shows that Celtic (£62m revenue) and Rangers (£55m revenue) continue to be the financial powerhouses in Scotland's top flight.

Meanwhile, clubs outside the Old Firm have seen revenues increase by an average of 18%.

[Bridge_Ender]

'I was just as happy to follow ICT in our Div 1/2/3 days as I am now and was just as happy following Caley in the Highland League before that.  Yes we should aspire to play at the highest level possible, but I am fast coming to the conclusion that the price you have to pay for that is far too high.'

I followed ICT through the divisions also, and enjoyed it a lot, but I can't agree with that. The SPL is the ONLY place to be football wise in Scotland and if that means the odd game gets moved then I can live with that. I don't see why it has to be a monday, as I said earlier, although I perhaps understand the police reasons a bit better now.

[RiG]

Gringo I understand it must be a major hassle for you having to book flights etc. but the club has to first and foremost work in favour of the majority who live around and about Inverness.

What about the fans that bought season tickets that are no longer getting what they paid for?

[CaleyD]

Harry, it may not be so bad if they WERE working with each other to make a success of things, but the truth of the matter is that these decisions are made with little or no fan consultation.  And the only reason they know they can get away with that is because they know that the vast majority of fans will simply bend over and take whatever shafting they are dealing out.

The very fact that the SPL agreed to a deal which aimed at showing matches on a Friday Evening without consulting with all relative parties (police included) is ludicrous.  Now we are faced with a situation whereby we could find games being changed and played at almost any time of the week, not only that, but it is not going to be the likes of the OF, Hearts or Hibs who are seeing their games shifted to mid week, it is the smaller clubs who will be made to suffer the inconvenience whilst the big guys continue to reap the rewards of having their games played at weekends with maximised attendances AND raking in the lions share of the additional TV money.  It would maybe be a bit easier to accept if it was a fairer system and the clubs being inconvenienced were offered a larger slice of the cake for the trouble, but it's not, and it never will be so long as their are attitudes out there that come away with the "we just have to accept it" line.

[Guest Sandy Cromarty]

Gringo's a good hand Harry and I understand his frustration with the game being moved so do we need to rub his face in it by saying the club must work for Inverness for the Invernessians sort of comment, we have many outside supporters who dearly love our club and many of them because of travel costs maintain their support through this site and they are all very welcome so no need to isolate them.

[Scotty]

The downside of 'progress' is change ..... but if we want to see the best football we can in Inverness, then change is inevitable.

It is quite likely that we would never have got into the senior leagues if Caley and Thistle had to apply separately for membership and it was only through a monumental change in the setup of Inverness football that this happened. We all know the pain of this and the abuse meted out to those who were leaders in making this change happen. We also know that some fans never returned as they disagreed with this massive change. I myself have taken abuse on here and on the streets for launching a website about the newly merged team from its very first days but that is nothing compared to what some people endured.

It was possible that we would very quickly be booted out of the league if we hadnt spent vast sums of money to change our home park from Caley's Telford Street ground to the 'neutral' venue of the Caledonian Stadium. Again, people had to have the vision to make these changes happen and others didnt agree with these changes.

It is a fact that the club would have gone bust and we wouldnt be watching ANY ICT football if Tullochs and David Sutherland hadnt implemented major changes at the club by coming in, sorting out the debts we had accrued over the first few years and putting a structure in place that would lead to continued growth and eventually to SPL football. Once again, I know of a few people who thought DS had horns and a trident and that we were selling ourselves to the devil who would kill the club and have his company profit from the fallout - History has proven this to be nonsense and both Tullochs and David Sutherland are major factors in our rise to the SPL and also in bringing SPL football to the TCS.

As we moved up the leagues we continued to see our club change slowly. In division 3 days with a hardcore support of a few hundred, the officials and players got to know most of the regular fans by name and it was truly a cosy and welcoming environment. Division 2 was the same, and even part of our journey in division 1. However, as the team progressed on the park, and eventually reached the SPL it was inevitable that things would have to change even further.

To me the biggest change, and perhaps one of the reasons why there seems to be more negativity from fans at times is the fact that the club have had to become a lot more impersonal in their attempts to become more professional. In Div3, Div2, and even Div1 days, it was a cosy atmosphere, officials and players knew a lot of the fans by name, and on the admin side of things, rules could be bent or accomodations made. This meant that there were a lot less complaints about things as people were frequently able to resolve their issues behind the scenes or get their own way and therefore feel 'valued'. Now, with more fans, more scrutiny, and more rules applied to the club by other bodies, there is less chance to feel quite as valued as the club do have to follow all these new rules - some of which are as frustrating for them as it is for their customers.

The club do a lot of things right but we seldom hear of this as good news is not so much fun to debate. I would agree that they are still a long way from getting it totally right off the park but they continue to try. I make no excuses for mistakes that people make other than to say people do make mistakes and I can only hope that they learn from them. I also hope these same people are humble enough to listen to fans who vent on this and other websites rather than bury their heads in the sand and say - 'its always so negative' or 'i dont go on there as they are always complaining' which I know happens. [NOTE: our Chief Exec IS a regular visitor so doesnt fall into the 'ostrich' category]

anyway ... I got a bit off track there ... back to the present day. Change is inevitable and now that we are in the SPL we have more rules applied to us, less control over our own destiny and things that both the club and the fans dislike. Regardless of the annoyances, it is imperative that we stay in the SPL as the financial implications of not doing so would be disastrous. I think this was highlighted recently when the top clubs in Division 1 talked about the miniscule difference in money from the SFL for finishing top of division 1 compared to the bottom of division 3.

Like it or not, TV revenue and Setanta sponsorship is required to make the SPL work. Setanta spend something in the region of £13,000,000 per year which is spread between the clubs. Each club are guaranteed 4% of that amount with the remaining 52% distributed as a bonus depending on where they finish (0.5% for 12th, 1% for 11th, 1.5% for 10th etc ... up to 4.5% for 4th, 5.5% for 3rd, 11% for 2nd and 13% for 1st). For ICT that equates to around 1 million per season if we continue our mid table finishes. This goes a huge way to making the books balance.

Do I like the idea of Setanta having such a grip on the game ? NO

Do I think that they should be allowed to arbitrarily move games around ? NO

Do I think that live broadcasts should be blacked out in Scotland ? CERTAINLY NOT

Do I think they (and their money) are needed ? YES 

Do I think they should consider the implications of moving games around ? YES

Do I think they will do that ? NO

[Scotty]

it is the smaller clubs who will be made to suffer the inconvenience whilst the big guys continue to reap the rewards of having their games played at weekends with maximised attendances AND raking in the lions share of the additional TV money. 

there is no additional TV money directly to the clubs for each game shown - the increased sponsorship is shared based on the 4% + bonus I mentioned above so the amopunt of money a club gets is entirely within their control - play better, finish higher, earn more money. I do however agree with you about the crowds.

[Harry Chibber]

What about the fans that bought season tickets that are no longer getting what they paid for?

It is not as though you are no longer permitted into the stadium for the game. Really the situation is, they have given you 5 weeks notice that a game will be played on a Monday instead of a Saturday (no different from when a game is usually postponed due to a European fixture) and just in-case you can't make the match you have the chance to watch the game live on television... they should be wearing ski-masks!!

Harry, it may not be so bad if they WERE working with each other to make a success of things, but the truth of the matter is that these decisions are made with little or no fan consultation.  And the only reason they know they can get away with that is because they know that the vast majority of fans will simply bend over and take whatever shafting they are dealing out.

The very fact that the SPL agreed to a deal which aimed at showing matches on a Friday Evening without consulting with all relative parties (police included) is ludicrous.  Now we are faced with a situation whereby we could find games being changed and played at almost any time of the week, not only that, but it is not going to be the likes of the OF, Hearts or Hibs who are seeing their games shifted to mid week, it is the smaller clubs who will be made to suffer the inconvenience whilst the big guys continue to reap the rewards of having their games played at weekends with maximised attendances AND raking in the lions share of the additional TV money.  It would maybe be a bit easier to accept if it was a fairer system and the clubs being inconvenienced were offered a larger slice of the cake for the trouble, but it's not, and it never will be so long as their are attitudes out there that come away with the "we just have to accept it" line.

Can't really disagree with any of that.  As I've said already it's not at all ideal at the moment but as much as I hate to say it Sky Sports and the EPL have showed that it does work.  It is down to the SFA to produce a product that a company like Sky (who seem to care about the leagues they invest in) will invest serious money into and that's simply not going to happen when there are only 12 teams in our Premier league.

Gringo's a good hand Harry and I understand his frustration with the game being moved so do we need to rub his face in it by saying the club must work for Inverness for the Invernessians sort of comment, we have many outside supporters who dearly love our club and many of them because of travel costs maintain their support through this site and they are all very welcome so no need to isolate them.

:008: :008: :008: :008:

I don't appreciate you trying to twist my words, if Gringo thought I was insulting him or trying to rub it in his face (which I wasn't) I'm sure he is more than capable of telling me that himself.  I was just explaining the simple fact that the club or any business infact caters for the majority - that's just the way things work I'm afraid.  I am in no way trying to suggest he is any less of a fan, infact with the amount of work he puts in on this website each week with his prediction league I'm sure he puts in more effort than most.

[CaleyD]

How much extra do people really think this deal is worth to us?  The increased package agreed with Setanta only puts an average of £300k/year in to the pockets of each club.  Thats only equivalent to an extra 1000 people through the gates for each home match.

Plus, if you take in to consideration that we are losing the BoS sponsorship at the end of this season (with no obvious signs of a replacement) which is currently worth an average of about £200/250k per club.  Then factor in that the BoS are the leagues biggest creditor overall and are likely to start pressurising clubs to reduce debts and repay what they owe -  then just exactly how much better off will we be really?  Not Much, if any - if we are lucky we will be in the exact same financial position as we were before this new deal, except we have all the additional grief of games being changed right left and centre.

You could argue that we would be well and truely in the chit if it wasn't for the new Setanata deal.  Personally I would have rathered we waited another season in to the old Setanta deal and had secured new sponsorship before we sold our soul and I would also have far rathered we had gone down the road of putting effort in to increasing crowds in order to generate additional revenue rather than a TV deal which only serves to damage attendances.

The whole thing is self-defeating and any work being done by clubs to increase their gates is immediately undermined by the volume of televised games and the shifting of matches to obscure and ridiculous times during the week.

I agree that it's not just the TV deal which is causing problems and that we do have to give people a better overall league to watch, but so long as the SPL keep trying to bandage things up with short term fixes the changes that are needed may come too late or leave us in the situation where the whole thing has sunk so low it will be near impossible to rescue.

Also found an interesting quote from Setanta's head of production regarding the Monday Night thing and I get the feeling they were aware all along that Friday Nights were never going to be a reality.

"We have to discuss it with the SPL and check with the police authorities," said Davidson, "but at the moment we are looking at either Friday night, Saturday lunchtime, early Saturday evening or a Monday night. I think Monday night would be our preferred option for a regular slot for the extra games."

[Charles Bannerman]

What's going to be the loss in revenue as a result of one home game being switched from a Saturday to a Monday? Let's be quite pessimistic and say that the gate drops by a swingeing 3000. There would have to be quite a large underlying crowd like and Aberdeen game for that to happen. There are seven other opponents against whom there wouldn't be that kind of drop, but let's be pessimistic. At an average of £15 a head, that would be 45K in cash lost. What would the loss be from corporate hospitality etc? Am I being too pessimistic to suggest another 5K? Let's quite gloomily suggest that, from a big crowd the gross reduction would be 50K. Let's err once again on the safe side and assume that there would be no cost savings in stewarding etc as a result of a much smaller crowd. So the worst case appears to be a net decline in income of 50K for a game.

So how many Caley Thistle home games well be switched from Saturdays to Mondays in return for an extra £300,000?

As many as six which would be needed to cancel out the extra 300K? Of course not!

It looks to me as if it would be very difficult for this enhanced Setanta deal to be less finacially disadvantageous.

NB - I am only doing a ballpark calculation on finaces here.

[+Gringo]

Just making a note here, on this board, of ICT's previous attendance figures in the SPL at the TCS..

SAT 1/4/6 7368

SAT 15/10/05 6809

SAT 2/4/5 7026

[CaleyD]

It's not just about the money though, or it shouldn't be.

What about the things that are being sacraficed like the traditional Saturday afternoon match, taking your kids/grandkids etc along to watch a match, a pint with mates before and after the game - basically the whole culture that goes with being a football fan.  Thats what is slowly being erroded.  They got rid of terracing, stupid league setups to benefit the big clubs and generate more income for them, they slap FBO's on people for getting a little carried away, they move matches to unsuitable times, even block BBC from transmitting some games outside the UK on the radio.  ALL for a few quid in the bank.

Just look at how much going to a match has changed over the years and ask yourself honestly if you think it is all worth it and where you think it will all end???  And rather than talking about how the additional money will compensate for the drop in attendances would you not prefer initiatives which encouraged people back in to the stands supporting their team where it matters most - afterall, the team can't hear you cheering if your sitting at home in front of your TV.

[Kingsmills]

Whille there is no doubt that televsion is responsible for changing the culture of all league football taking place at 3pm on a sturday afternoon the fact is that ICT would struggle to maintain full time football including our youth team without the £800,000 or so we are guaranteed each financial year from various media contracts.

It seems that Setanta and the disruptution they pay to dictate are a necessary evil.