An SPFL-commissioned study done by the Fraser of Allander Institute this year estimated football – and the spending of its fans on matchdays – contributed £444m to Scotland’s GDP in 2018, which stood at about £162bn, and supported over 9,000 jobs. It is not insignificant, but other industries could argue they deserve to be put first given their greater contribution.
As national clinical director Professor Jason Leitch has pointed out, professional sport was given special dispensation to return in the summer, and football clubs in particular can still make money while some businesses are forced to close temporarily. Season tickets have still been flogged, in some cases at record speed and in vast numbers.
Then there is the argument football clubs are still signing new players while using the furlough scheme, or cutting jobs, though the riposte is that without a competitive first team, vital sponsorship and prize money would worsen their financial peril.
Stephen Morrow is a lecturer in sport finance at Stirling University, and explains football and rugby’s minimal income streams do pose different challenges.
“The nature of the industry makes diversification difficult,” he says. “The core product is the live match, and it’s a perishable product so it’s got value at the time the activity’s happening and it diminishes as soon as the match is over. So you try to leverage your income on the back of that live match.
“There are some nice imaginative ideas going on around using web broadcasts and internet activity to get some money in particularly in some of the lower clubs. But it’s not going to replace the main income streams.
“It’s obviously replicated in other industries, but it’s a very visible part of our cultural life as well as economically and I think that’s where the challenges comes from.”
Football and, more subtly, rugby, will continue to bang the drum for the return of fans as swiftly as possible. It is a consistent and forceful case being put forward time and again. But while Covid-19 stubbornly lingers and the Scottish government tries its best to combat it, the question is whether anybody is still listening.