The value of Rangers to the Scottish on-trade is more than £40m, and that is a conservative estimate.
The figures seen by DRAM, show that fans spend around £19m around a home game while the remainder is spent when an away game is on.
Therefore Scottish pubs and hotels, particularly those in the West of Scotland, could suffer following the news last week that Rangers has gone into administration. Administrators Duffs & Phelps are currently looking into missing millions. If Rangers are not rescued Scotland’s pubs and hotels could take a massive hit as will the rest of the Scottish economy.
However the administrators are suggesting that the club will be saved, which will definitely be good news for the on-trade, but licensees are understandably nervous.
Said one, “The implications to the Scottish economy and the pub trade could be huge. Tennent’s don’t sponsor the old firm for the good of their health, they sponsor it because there is a commercial benefit.”
There are 960,000 Rangers fans in Scotland, making it the biggest fan base of any club. Research conducted by Sportswise a few years ago suggested more than 50% of fans going to a home match spent £10 or more in a pub pre-match while a further 70,000 fans watched the match from the pub. Hotels will suffer too. For every home game, according to the Glasgow City Marketing Bureau, 1,000 hotel rooms are booked – that’s a minimum of 18,000 rooms per annum.
Said one licensee with multiple venues, “If Rangers cease to play it will have a massive negative effect on business. There will be knock on effects too. Will Sky invest in Scottish football if Rangers are not playing? Their fan base accounts for 49% of Scottish football supporters, the largest of any Scottish club.” He concluded, “An old firm game can mean up to £20K for one of our pubs, it would be very difficult to make up that deficit.”
Rangers went into administration after the club failed to pay HMRC a £9m tax bill.