The SPFL TV Review of the Season 2017/18

With the next edition of the SPFL’s TV deal being hammered out between multiple parties as I write this (with the scuttlebutt suggesting that the numbers on the table already exceed £40m per season), this season’s numbers were already going to be instructive in a market for TV rights for sports which is acting oddly.





Oddly because while some properties are seeing stagnation (most specifically, the EPL), in general, the market for rights is more competitive than ever for two key reasons. Reason one is the entry of streaming services into the market (and, as covered recently on this site, streaming services are interested in SPFL rights) and reason two is that, unlike most TV properties, live sports appear to have already hit their lowest ebb and are now either performing at a stable level, or even increasing in viewership. Illegal streaming may not have gone away, but it does appear to have reached somewhat of a saturation point (undoubtedly driven by Kodi having it’s balls cut off last year and becoming a shadow of its former self in terms of useability). Live Sports have, in many cases, become much more valuable just because they are not seeing the decline that other TV genres are seeing - a great example of this comes with the recent massive leap seen by Ligue 1 (which has seen it’s new deal represent a 60% rise from the last jumping to just over £1bn per season).





Now, our data comes with a caveat that has been mentioned in a couple of posts throughout the season - BT’s attitude towards releasing viewing data has changed, resulting in fewer numbers being available than before. While, fortunately, they actually released a tranche of numbers for previous weeks in the season in the last couple of weeks, plenty is still missing, in particular Celtic’s Champions League games. But, even with that said, that BT released a fair portion of historical data (making me have to completely re-do every formula on the sheet…) makes this a hell of a lot more comprehensive than I thought it would be at a couple of points this season. Rather than writing this having to say that I don’t necessarily think it’s all that accurate, I can say that, aside from Celtic’s average rating across all competitions probably being a little undercooked, it’s as accurate as it’s going to get without someone from BT sending me their figures - particularly for the league as BT’s figures have tended to miss the Betfred Cup and Champions League rather than the league (aside from towards the very end of the season).





So, let’s get to business and the headline figures of the season which, generally, is a positive picture. The key figure, the one everyone is here for, is the SPFL Premiership average.





To be perfectly honest, after it jumped up from 104k to 151k last season, I expected it to drop back this season for a couple of reasons - primarily that, with Rangers stalling for 55, viewers would switch off from the prospect of watching another Celtic procession to the title. There were signs of it happening last season and, in every season since I’ve collated ratings, once the title race has become a fait accompli, viewers have started to switch off. As such, for it to have jumped up another 7.5k from last season (5%) is impressive given the circumstances that could so easily have seen things go the other way.





This backs up our earlier assertion regarding the value of the SPFL’s TV deal - the amount of people watching the league is robust, even still growing slightly.





That hasn’t been the case with everything. Scottish Cup ratings dropped along with Sky ratings in general showing a trend that the robustness of the ratings has been due primarily to solid Premiership figures and, furthermore, strong ratings at the close of the season. While, for much of the season, figures tracked last season closely, each of the final three months of the season were up, in some cases massively, on last season - this was certainly not the case in the EPL, where even a marquee game such as Man City-Arsenal in a prime slot was watched by under 500k in the dying embers of the season.





It then stands to reason that we ask why. Was this rise just driven by Hibs being back in the top tier and there being Edinburgh derbies? In part, yes. We have seen Aberdeen’s ratings their highest on record, Hearts’ have been the same. Hibs’ ratings have tracked above the average also (albeit, to a lower magnitude).





This plays out with attendances at games also - only two Premiership clubs saw declines in attendances this season with Rangers remaining pretty much identical to last season. All of Aberdeen, Hearts, Hibs and Celtic saw increases of over 2,000 attendees per game. There appears to be increasing interest in the league both in the stands and in the armchairs that seems like it may be prolonged. Certainly, barring any big drop at current Premiership clubs or the tit-for-tat away allocations argument between Rangers and everyone else escalating, you would expect attendances to be at worst static next season as St Mirren (who averaged only 100 lower than the relegated sides this term) will surely average well above what County and Thistle brought compensating for the likelihood that Livi won’t as attendances at The Tony Macaroni Arena averaged under 1.5k in 17/18 and it’s unlikely that the 5.6k who attended the playoff game will be at every match.





From a TV perspective, there will obviously be a short rise in interest due to Steven Gerrard no matter how he does - even if he lasts only a couple of months and sees his Rangers side get scudded every game, there will be a voyeuristic factor. In addition, it’s hard to think that the league will be any less competitive than this season (where Celtic’s victory was always assumed to be far more comfortable than it sometimes felt). Barring anything too bizarre happening, it would probably be fair to say that the average should hover around the 150,000 mark next season, as it has this. That sort of level of viewership will be enough to justify drastic inflation in the SPFL’s rights value in a market which has gradually turned round in their favour over the past 18 months because properties which aren’t losing viewers are thin on the ground and the fact is that the SPFL’s TV ratings are broadly similar to the 2011-12 season (which was at an avereage of 161k) - six years on, armageddon is barely noticeable.





With all that said, it’s time for the big stats of the season!





Most Watched Domestic Games





1 - Celtic vs Rangers - 30th December - 644000

2 - Rangers vs Celtic - 11th March - 541000

3 - Celtic vs Rangers - 29th April - 394000

4 - Celtic vs Rangers - 15th April - 393000

5 - Hearts vs Celtic - 17th December - 294000

6 - Hearts vs Hibs - 21st January - 276000

7 - Rangers vs Celtic - 23rd September - 275000

8 - Hamilton vs Rangers - 18th February - 236000

9 - Aberdeen vs Rangers - 3rd December - 218000

10 - Celtic vs Aberdeen - 13th May - 196000





It’s also worth noting here that both Celtic’s post-split games vs Hearts and Hibs have no rating released by BT - I’d expect at least the Hibs game to have cracked this top 10.





Premiership in Viewership order

EDIT - A error with one of my formulas was pointed out, plus Google Drive (where I store it) now has the functionality for a more complex type of formula which does most of the work for me so the numbers have been updated from the original version of this piece.





1 - Celtic - 26 Live Games - 204286 Average Rating (plus 10 games unrated)

2 - Rangers - 22 Live Games - 193083 Average Rating (plus 6 games unrated)



3 - Hamilton - 3 Live Games - 157333 Average Rating (plus 2 games unrated)



4 - Hearts - 9 Live Games - 153545 Average Rating (plus 4 games unrated)



5 - Hibs - 14 Live Games - 134385 Average Rating (plus 1 game unrated)



6 - Motherwell - 6 Live Games - 127571 Average Rating (plus 2 games unrated)

7 - St Johnstone - 3 Live Games - 126000 Average Rating (plus 0 games unrated)

8 - Aberdeen - 12 Live Games - 123250 Average Rating (plus 5 games unrated)

9 - Dundee - 5 Live Games - 88400 Average Rating (plus 2 games unrated)

10 - Partick Thistle - 3 Live Games - 85333 Average Rating (plus 4 games unrated)

11 - Ross County - 4 Live Games - 74750 Average Rating (plus 3 games unrated)

12 - Kilmarnock - 6 Live Games - 70000 Average Rating (plus 0 games unrated)





Many of the unrated games are League Cup or European games as Premier Sports do not report ratings at all and BT, as previously mentioned, have not always been reliable in their reporting.





The full raw data is available at https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ttOxa37vTxi28PgdkIoHWbMAHVrdSIP5bNgaFHevNRU/edit?usp=sharing and most figures are pulled from BARB. Some originally unrated games have come from other sources to whom I am very grateful for their help.