Rangers vs Celtic Scottish Super Cup is a no-brainer

Compared to our cousins south of the border where TV deals are printing money at all levels, Scotland is a relative backwater.

The Premier League pays £7.6m for each game while Scottish clubs will receive around £30m per year in total once the new agreement with Sky kicks in.

For Rangers, it’s relative peanuts, with the league runner-up receiving just £2.7m in the last accounts.

While that’s transformative for one of the smaller clubs it’s chicken feed for an outfit whose revenues are pushing towards £90m a season.

From Rangers’ point of view, even in the unlikely circumstance that the TV deal was doubled, it still wouldn’t be a massive return on the kind of time and effort taken to herd Scottish football’s various cats into a collective.

That’s not to say Rangers don’t care. At the highest levels of the club, there is serious concern about how shortchanged Scottish football has been by the leadership of Neil Doncaster.

In James Bisgrove, the Govan club have someone with huge experience of rights deals from his previous career and still has his finger on the pulse of how market conditions look. Like Stewart Robertson before him, there is little doubt he’d be unimpressed with how that information conflicts with the lived reality that Doncaster has negotiated for SPFL clubs.

The leadership at the top of the SPFL has stagnated. A decade with barely a creative impulse is a long time.

So in the spirit of solidarity, here’s a simple idea that would drive some serious dosh into the Scottish game – A Scottish Super Cup.

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It’s so simple, it’s barely believable that it hasn’t been discussed before.

A one-off game between the top two teams in Scotland the previous year would as good as guarantee a tantalising Old Firm clash with something meaningful on the line in the opening game of the season. What a way to kick off the campaign that would be!

Hampden filled to the rafters, noise and colour everywhere and TV companies desperate to get their slice of the pie. Surely such a spectacle would be attractive enough to achieve a bounty akin to what Sky pay for Crystal Palace vs Luton Town. After all, in terms of competition, there’s little truly on the line anywhere when a season gets underway. This would really mean something every year.

Between 50,000 punters paying £50 a ticket and Sky, Amazon or Viacom stumping up £7.5m for the TV rights you are already talking about a £10m generating fixture before you factor in food sales, programmes and hospitality.

And the cost? Play one less pre-season game to ensure the players are not overloaded. Not exactly a stretch for either of our top two clubs.

Some people might say we have enough Old Firms as it is but the structure of the Sky deal means one of them has often lost its magic. Because the TV company hopes for a title race that lasts deep into Spring, they always schedule the last two Old Firm games as late as possible. Understandable perhaps, but for three years in a row, the final game has been essentially a dead rubber.

Adding another clash that matters right at the start as the most tantalising amuse-bouche would surely be the optimal way to kick the season off with a big bang.

The Charity Shield is a big event that draws in eyeballs down south and there’s no reason why our own version wouldn’t capture hearts and minds.

If Scottish football really wants to make the most of its assets and bring in the money it needs, it needs to start trying new formats and maximising its opportunities.

People love Scottish football’s flagship fixture, warts and all.

Scottish Super Cup? It’s a no-brainer.