This article will focus on the Betfred Cup, formally known as the League Cup. Next week I will look at the Irn-Bru Cup.
An Earlier Start, with increased Television Revenue...
Summer Football has always been an contentious issue in Scotland. Some believe that the league season should be played throughout the summer to attract higher crowds due to good weather and make Scottish clubs more competitive on the European stage with the early rounds of the Europa League in July. Others believe that Scotland should continue with the strong tradition of football under the January floodlights with the paying spectators wrapped up warm with a pie and bovril in their hands. I, like most fans am in the latter school of thought. Although the idea of starting the season in July instead of August is an idea many supporters are in agreement with.
The new Betfred Cup started on Friday 15th July, with recently relegated Dundee United traveling 12 miles or so to League Two Arbroath at Gayfield live on BT Sport in front of a crowd of 3124, 2500 of which were from the Championship club. The Group C match which resulted in the first penalty shoot-out for a bonus point in Scottish football history was BT Sport's 9th highest viewed show of the week. The same two teams played at roughly the same time of year in 2015 in a Forfarshire Cup match, witch only a mere 1200 members of the paying attended.
With four of the big six clubs not involved in the group stages (Celtic, Aberdeen, Hearts and Hibernian) due to European commitments the focus for the competition lay with mainly Rangers as well as Dundee United.
(Panorama from Arbroath vs Dundee United, right)
It's wise to add that from their coverage, BT Sport, unlike Sky Sports, actually seemed to care about Scottish Football and market it as if it's one of their prime assets unlike Sky who tend to treat the Scottish game as a filler in between English Premier League matches and Spain's La Liga.
BBC Scotland paid roughly £850k per season for the rights to 4 League Cup matches, BT Sport are paying £2.4m for 13 live matches. Now, any change in a competition format that can increase the TV revenue three-fold should be considered; however for what BT actually requested it was basically a steal for the SPFL. Considering how poor the SPFL and the SFA are at marketing the game (which is an article for another time) this deal with BT is probably the best accomplishment the League's Chief Exec. Neil Doncaster has completed in his time as the supremo of Scotland's domestic leagues. Betfred also sponsor the tournament - parting ways with £1m for the privilege over the next three seasons.
The knock-on effect of this cash is that the prize money has increased drastically. For example in 2015 a team that were knocked out in the First Round such as Arbroath would have received a measly sum of around £7000 whilst, this season Arbroath were bottom of Group C and received £15,000 in prize money as well as an extra £10,000 for being shown live on Television. £25,000 may be scoffed at, but for a part-time club like The Red Lichties it goes a long way toward keeping the club financially secure.
Group stages in the League Cup are not a new innovation from the SPFL, the old league cup in the 1960s and 70s featured a four-team group stage. It was dropped in favour of a straight knockout format.
However, every cloud and all that...
However, it's not been all good, the crowds on the whole have been lower than expected, with the reasoning being that many fans are away on holiday in the month of July and League Cup games are not valid on Season Tickets. An early example of this was Motherwell vs Rangers, which only attracted 4500 at Fir Park, a match that can attract nearly double that. Even the Quarter-final stage had relatively poor crowds with all but one match live on BT. Celtic vs Alloa couldn't even attract 16,000 to Parkhead, Rangers vs Queen of the South barely half-filled Ibrox and St Johnstone's visit to Pittodrie was viewed by under 9,000 spectators. The other match between Morton and Dundee United was watched by less than 2,500 at Cappielow
(Video from Aberdeen vs St Johnstone)
— Alex Marr (@Alexmarr98) September 22, 2016
With both semi-finals being televised kick-off times for both matches being moved to suit BT Sports' schedule rather than the traveling fans. The clash between Celtic and Rangers was moved from 3pm on a Sunday to a 2:30pm kick-off, which is understandable, however, the Aberdeen vs Greenock Morton match was moved from the Saturday 3pm kick-off slot to a 12:15pm time in Glasgow.
Multiple things are wrong with this, firstly, for Aberdeen fans to make it to Hampden Park, they would have to leave Aberdeen at around 7:30am. To make matters worse, there are trains to Glasgow that arrive before kick-off but all of these are incredibly expensive as the cheapest is £40, which is twice the price of a match ticket. With all of these factors combined, it almost creates a perfect storm that will result in a crowd of less than 15000 watching the match in a 52,000 seater stadium. If the match was held at Easter Road in Edinburgh at a 5:15 kick-off the game would be sold-out in a terrific football stadium which was recently voted the 11th best stadium in Europe.
The Betfred Cup has been given the green light to stay in its current guise until 2020. Despite the problem's it's caused the increased revenue from BT Sport's TV Deal and Betfred's sponsorship is too much to refuse, even though Television can be an irritant for fans and clubs and the new penalty shoot-out for a bonus point can leave outsiders bemused. The revamped tournament is here to stay and all that can be said for my own opinion is:
"Vive le Betfred Cup"
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