THE media’s interest in the Old Firm of Rangers and Celtic – particularly Rangers during recent weeks because of their financial difficulties – risks suffocates media coverage of other sports – according to The Herald’s rugby correspondent.
Writes Kevin Ferrie, today: “Long before Rangers’ troubles were of sufficient significance to register with the London-based networks and newspapers, we had only to look at the balance of coverage of sport within the Scottish media.
“Sports bulletins on Scotland Today or Reporting Scotland have invariably started with a Celtic or Rangers story for decades and the same applies to the back pages of, in particular, Scottish tabloid newspapers.
“That is not an indictment of those outlets since their output merely reflects the supposed Scottish obsession with sport which goes no further than people aligning themselves passionately, to the point of fanaticism, with one or other of these clubs.
“What all of this also means, though, is that any individual or, more particularly, business looking to gain benefit from sponsoring sport in Scotland looks first and foremost at ways of investing in the Old Firm.”
