by Clyde1998 »
30 May 2023 15:38
Sutekh From Despair To Where? Aberdeen are pretty much at their ceiling. 3rd place in the SPL. Europe might be a draw but if you look at Hearts this season, that means out of the Europa League in the qualifying stages then out in the group stages of the Conference League.
That's exactly right. Rangers and Celtic are always the top 2, Aberdeen, Hibs and Hearts should be the race for the next 3 places, while the rest is just a race to avoid the drop. Though in some seasons after 1st and 2nd it's justicen the race to not be relegated.
They really need to do something to fix the cr@pness of the Scottish league system.
Players follow the money - the only way for the standard of the Scottish league to be improved is for millions to be pumped into the Scottish game via broadcasting revenue à la the Premier League.
Aberdeen's revenue was £13.857m in 2021-22, with only £1.621m from broadcasting and £1.976 in UEFA money (leaving £10.260m in non-broadcasting revenue - 'organic' revenue from here). Our revenue in 2021-22 was £16.906m, with £8.449m from broadcasting (leaving £8.457m 'organic' revenue). Aberdeen's 'organic' revenue is greater than ours - as is Hearts (£11.159m 'organic') and I imagine Hibs have organic revenue greater than us (they don't break their revenue down by source in their accounts).
Aberdeen, Hearts and (likely) Hibs have higher 'organic' revenues than Cardiff (£9.480m), Birmingham (£9.175m), Blackburn (£8.419m) and Preston (£4.346m) - for the clubs I checked. These clubs all get greater broadcasting revenue simply by playing in a league with a larger TV deal.
The reason the Scottish Premier is uneven comes down to having Celtic and Rangers (who would compete with, or exceed, clubs like Newcastle, Aston Villa, Leeds, West Ham and Everton in 'organic' revenue - who also get tens of millions in UEFA money) competing with three clubs with Championship level 'organic' revenues and nine others with League One and Two levels of 'organic' revenues.
For the Scottish Premiership broadcast deal to rival the Championship's in terms of individual club revenue, it would require around a 5-6x increase. There's no chance of the Scottish league materially changing with the current revenue distribution both between clubs in the league and between the Scottish Premiership and other leagues.