4.28.2006

The money's always greener on the other side.

The back of the Sun today talks about the SPL's new broadcast rights deal with Setanta which will net the league 13.5 million a year until 2010. Good news for clubs in the SPL particularly the smaller/newly promoted ones who will get a £500,000 each just for turning up to work the start of the 2006/2007. The rest of the money will then be payed out depending league position at the end of the season. So well done the spl for negotiating the £54.5 million deal for the next 4 years.

Contrast that however with the premiership where the TV rights packages from 2007 onwards are being bid for by a number of TV channels (including of course BSkyB). The last deal which BSkyB owned exclusively was for 4 years at a whopping £1.024bn. With the rights now split into Six seperate packages the Premier can only expect that price to rise. As happy as St. Mirren will be with their half a million pound welcome hamper when they arrive in the SPL, its peanuts in comparison with £20 million the promoted Championships teams will receive when they turn up in their sunday finest in the new season.

At the other end of the scale, I'll be playing 11s this weekend in East Kilbride and it will cost me a fiver.