Scots football in sponsor review
Scotland’s top football clubs are by-passing football authorities in an attempt to double their income from sponsors Bell’s whisky and BSkyB.
Top teams like Rangers, Celtic and Aberdeen have commissioned management consultant Deloitte Touche to produce evidence that Scottish football has been undersold.
The clubs’ move is independent of the Scottish Football League (SFL) and The Scottish Football Association (SFA), who they feel sold their rights and sponsorship too cheaply.
Deloitte Touche will investigate whether more money can be wrought from the Bell’s sponsorship of the league and Sky’s TV rights to the game in Scotland. Both deals end at the close of the coming season and were originally negotiated by the SFL. The Sky deal is understood to be worth 10m over four seasons, while the Bell’s sponsorship is worth 6m over four years.
A Rangers source says the clubs will be looking for between 30m and 40m over five years from these deals. He adds: “We see the sort of money the English Premiership attracts and we feel we can get more for Scottish football.”
An insider at Deloitte Touche says the clubs will not be able to achieve those figures but should be able to increase revenue from the deal by about 50 per cent. He says: “Scottish football has been undersold but unlike the English premiership it only has a limited amount of games that attract a large TV audience.”
