The Scottish Premier League has signed a new four-year deal with Setanta Sports worth $250 million, over twice the amount of the current deal, due to expire in 2010. The extent of the game’s coverage will remain the same, with 60 games per season screened live across the UK and Ireland.
It marks “the biggest ever TV deal in Scottish football history,” according to the SPL’s appropriately named Executive Chairman Lex Gold. He claimed the deal “will allow clubs to re-invest to make the Scottish game even stronger. Ten years ago, we spoke about delivering a brighter future for Scottish football. Today, as we look ahead to our next 10 years, we can do so with confidence.”
From our view, the strength of Scottish soccer is a debatable matter. The two Glasgow giants, Rangers and Celtic, boast such an economic stranglehold on the domestic league that no other team has won the SPL since 1985. No Scottish club side has won a European trophy since 1983, when Alex Ferguson’s Aberdeen team that won the now defunct European Cup Winners’ Cup. And the Scottish national team has not qualified for a major tournament for 10 years, when it finished without a win at the 1998 World Cup. How wisely the new money is distributed and spent will play a major role in the future of the Scottish game.