The Celtic Globetrotters

I don’t know what the commercial value of our summer games against Barcelona, Leicester City and Inter Milan are, but those three games are sure to dwarf the earnings we make from domestic media and prize money for the whole of next season.

TV rights for English Premier League football from next season will average just above £7m per game, that’s for each of the 10 games on the weekly card – Sweet Georgia Brown! The actual value of these varies enormously: Watford v Bournemouth has practically no commercial value, all the real value is added by games between big clubs – even the likes of Newcastle, who are a poor team, but one which many colours of football fans still want to watch.

In a different environment, TV rights for Celtic games would be north of that £7m per game figure (the increased exposure would also geometrically improve commercial rights values). Think what we could do with that kind of money…….. more paper towels in the gents, maybe, the possibilities are limitless!

Our position is far from unique, there are a dozen or so European teams of similar size who have been marginalised from what was once a meritocratic game, so change must (always) remain on our agenda. But for now, we have to make what we can from our role as the Celtic Globetrotters.