Last October, the English Football League signalled they would be prepared to offer their entire inventory of 1,891 games to potential bidders during their broadcasting rights tender process.
Broadcaster DAZN subsequently launched a bid that would allow them to screen all matches across the English Championship, League One and League Two, which if successful, would have brought an end to the traditional Saturday 3pm blackout of televised matches.
That development piqued the interest of observers north of the border, with critics of the blackout hoping the EFL would indeed break with that particular tradition, and that the SPFL would then follow suit.
This week, the EFL has now instead named current rights-holder Sky as their preferred bidder and have entered into an exclusive month-long negotiation with the broadcaster, a blow to those who see the ongoing presence of the blackout as anachronistic hangover from a bygone age.
Here, we look at the history of the Saturday 3pm blackout, how it came to be, the arguments for and against, and what future may hold in a shifting broadcast landscape.
What is the Saturday 3pm blackout?
The Saturday broadcast blackout began back in the 1960s, when Burnley chairman Bob Lord successfully argued that televised football matches that clashed with the traditional Saturday 3pm kick-off time may have a negative impact on attendances.
These days, UEFA Article 48 prohibits the broadcast of live matches between the hours of 2.45pm and 5.15pm on a Saturday, with England and Scotland currently the only two countries in Europe who voluntarily sign up to adhere to the restriction.
What are the arguments for keeping it, and does it still have support?
While much has changed since the blackout came into being more than 50 years ago, the arguments for its ongoing existence remain constant, and still attract support from influential figures within the game in Scotland.
Aberdeen chairman Dave Cormack, for instance, is a key proponent of the blackout, believing that getting rid of it would lead to SPFL clubs ‘cannibalising’ the season ticket revenue that is so critical to Scottish clubs.
Cormack was also a driving force behind the Deloitte Review of Scottish Football, published last year, which has the stated aim of increasing the broadcast revenue the Scottish game raises to £50m a year from the current level of around £30m per season.
He argues that target can be achieved though without allowing the streaming of matches at 3pm on a Saturday, either via a broadcast partner like DAZN, or with clubs selling pay-per-view streams directly to fans within the UK.
“Most clubs don’t have the appetite to provide anything like 19 home league games live on television,” Cormack said.
“Why? Because it would cannibalise season ticket sales, gate income, hospitality, and retail sales, never mind dramatically impacting on the atmosphere at our games.”
The belief within the SPFL is that Cormack’s fears are shared between the majority of clubs, and that there is not a widespread appetite in boardrooms throughout the country to remove the blackout due to the reliance of Scottish clubs on gate money as a greater percentage of their revenue than is typical across Europe.
Read more of Graeme McGarry's SPFL TV deal investigation
- Inside the SPFL broadcast deal renewal meeting
- SPFL accused of leaving £20m on table by not taking TV deal to tender
- What the SPFL can do to put competitive pressure on Sky
Do those claims stand up to scrutiny?
Given that the blackout has been in place since the 1960s, it is difficult to tell what the effect of removing it would be, but the evidence from other similar-sized countries which do allow all of their matches to be shown live seems to poke some holes in Cormack’s theory.
The Swedish Allsvenkan’s £42m-a-year deal with Discovery, for example, allows the broadcaster to televise all 240 league fixtures and all games in the Swedish second tier, in contrast to the SPFL’s latest deal with Sky, that allows a maximum of 60 matches to be shown, with two further 10-match tranches available at an extra cost.
Despite allowing all fixtures to be shown across the board though over the last few years, the Swedish league has reported an upturn in attendances, with the Swedish Football League's secretary general Mats Enquvist believing that the increased exposure of the league has in turn allowed them to attract more people through the gates.
SPFL chief executive Neil Doncaster, though, believes that the landscape in the UK as a whole is unique, and he argues that attendances in Scotland would ‘undoubtedly’ be affected by withdrawing from Article 48.
Speaking to Herald Sport when the new agreement with Sky was reached, Doncaster said: “If you talk to the clubs – bear in mind we are a league, not the clubs – but if you talk to them they will tell you that when a game is on TV, broadly when it is not a sell-out, they will get a lower attendance.
“Some games will be an exception where they will be a sell-out whether it is on TV or not, but broadly speaking.
“So, there is undoubtedly in the UK – and it may be different in some other countries - but undoubtedly in the UK there is a cannibalisation effect when you take a game from non-live to live on TV.
“So, there is a balance to be struck, and my belief is that the right balance has been struck. That appears to be a view that’s echoed by the vast majority of clubs.”
What are the arguments for its removal, and is there pressure on SPFL to review its stance?
Critics of the blackout argue that its existence limits the offering that the SPFL can make to market, and makes Scottish football a less appealing package for broadcasters. That goes for the traditional companies like Sky as well as new players in the market, such as Apple, who recently struck a 10-year deal with the MLS worth $2.5bn.
As most countries in Europe sell all of their matches, while the SPFL sell a limited number while blacking the rest out, critics contend that the amount broadcasters pay on a ‘per-game’ basis is actually far less than the SPFL claim.
The blackout also prohibits clubs from selling their matches on a PPV basis to their own fans within the UK during blocked hours, and Herald Sport understands that clubs are struggling to even fulfil the five-game streaming allowance that the latest Sky deal permits due to the operational and logistical difficulties of moving matches from the Saturday 3pm slot.
While the SPFL believe the majority of clubs remain in favour of the blackout, there are now some clubs who are frustrated by its presence, and believe they would be able to raise greater revenue through the opportunities its removal would open up than they would lose through the turnstiles.
What do the experts say?
Martin Ross, Global News Editor of Sport Business and a media rights expert, says that the blackout will indeed limit the appeal of Scottish football to new players in the market such as Apple.
Ross said: “We are very unusual in the UK, not just in the SPFL, to not be selling the rights to all of our matches, and that gets you into the argument around spectators and the importance of season ticket revenues, which is not insignificant.
“So, we are a complicated offering to a tech company.”
He doesn’t think though that the removal of the blackout would prompt a catastrophic collapse in attendances.
“I think it would only be a minor threat,” he said.
“Let’s be realistic about the threat of piracy and the availability of these games in certain pubs and IPTV streaming services. You could always find a 3pm EPL game to watch if you really wanted to.
“I think that threat is minimal. It would be interesting to see if it was removed up here what the dynamics would be, and the impact it would have at the turnstiles up here.
“I still feel there is a degree of loyalty, and fans still want to go to games and experience that.
"But you can understand clubs' reluctance to undermine season ticket sales in any way. Especially if broadcasters aren't lining up to pay substantially more for rights for all matches."
Dr Dan Plumley, principal lecturer on Sport Finance at Sheffield Hallam University and a football finance expert, says that while it is understandable that clubs may be resistant to change, the threat to attendances is overstated.
And he believes that the change in viewing habits and the way people are consuming football makes it inevitable that the 3pm blackout, as it exists now, is on borrowed time.
“Because Scottish football is so culturally embedded, you will always get a core set of fans who will attend regardless,” Plumley said.
“Even if they could stream or watch every game live on TV, there would still be that percentage of fans who will go to the game.
“The risk for the clubs is what is the trade-off there? Which I sort of understand.
“You’re always trying to find the best version of the middle ground. My general take on it at the minute as the industry stands, is that I understand why that 3pm blackout is there, but I think at some point we will look to innovate.
“Can we do something with that where we still make sure we support the clubs lower down the system? It might be that there is a levy pot there, where the bigger clubs who will always get more money from streaming put some of that money into a pot that goes further down the system for the ones who can’t command it.
“There are things we can do to innovate, and there are things we can do to increase revenue for the whole of the system, but you are asking clubs to vote in a collective interest rather than just looking after their own shop.
“You can see the argument the other way. Rangers, for instance, could command a very high amount of revenue by streaming their own games to fans across the UK. Would they want to give a percentage of that pot to the leagues below? No, probably not, but that’s not to say we can’t have a conversation about it.
“That will still remain a challenge moving forward, but I just think that we are in such a highly digitalised world now that it is inevitable we will see some shift in the traditional types of broadcasting, for sure.”
