Neil Doncaster answers Hearts vs Hibs question as SPFL chief grilled on TV coverage

SPFL chief executive Neil Doncaster has answered a question over the broadcast of Hearts vs Hibs clashes next season.

The Edinburgh derby is one of Scottish football’s iconic rivalries but some matches between the pair were omitted from live TV coverage this season by main broadcaster Sky Sports. A quota of 48 games will increase to 60 for the TV giants next season as a new deal kicks in.

Doncaster appeared on Sportsound over the weekend to discuss a range of topics, with Hearts and Hibs brought up to him in one question. He revealed there are 20 games left to be taken to market, which could benefit additional coverage of the derby.

He was asked “Fans will say they want more games on TV and don’t want Hearts and Hibs not on TV…” Doncaster responded: “We did the deal back in 2022 to extend with Sky and we’re going up from 48 games to a maximum of 60 and giving clubs the ability to have up to five PPV games per season but also crucially having the ability to take a further 20 games to market so we’re currently in that process at the moment.

“We issued an ITT (invitation to tender) about two weeks ago to various broadcasters and we’ve had a couple of rounds of bidding. We’re working through that. They’ll be decent games involving Rangers and Celtic, the Edinburgh derby.

“Sky could bid for the other 20 but the reality is they’ve bought over 1000 English Football League games so they are awash with football content in the UK so I would expect it to be bought by another broadcaster.

“We’d love Apple and Google to be bidding aggressively. Amazon will be out of the English Premier League market - they didn’t succeed in the recent auction - but you have the likes of DAZN, Premier Sports and TNT Discovery who might be short of football content and might be interested so I’d be hope to be in a position to have more games.”