Sky Sports fall short in showing full Premiership allocation, Hearts manager criticism, play-off final

Sky Sports provided live coverage of 41 Scottish Premiership matches this season – but failed to take up the full allocation of 48 for the third year running.

Celtic's 5-0 win over Aberdeen was the final live broadcast match of the campaign on Saturday with the Scottish champions being presented with the Premiership trophy in front of a packed home crowd. However, there was no coverage of the final Edinburgh derby of the season as Hearts and Hibs fought it out for fourth place and not a single bottom six clash, including the battle to avoid the play-off spot between Kilmarnock v Ross County on the final day, was shown.

Sky Sports’ current deal allows it to show up to 48 games from the Scottish to-flight, while the broadcaster is limited to just four live games from each of the Premiership's 12 grounds. The new deal, which starts from the 2024/25 campaign, will allow Sky to show up to 60 matches with an increase to five live fixtures from each stadium.

Ahead of the final weekend of the season the broadcaster came in for criticism from Hearts interim boss Steven Naismith with the Edinburgh derby at Tynecastle Park not picked for coverage with the teams going for fourth place.

“It’s a bigger issue with Scottish football,” he said ahead of the match. “We’ve got a TV deal and an amount of games each season don’t get covered. That’s not good enough in all honesty,” said Naismith prior to Saturday’s match.

“I think every derby across the top level should be shown on TV whether it’s the Dundee derby, the Edinburgh derby or the Old Firm.

“We have got a product here that we need to push and it’s good. I definitely agree this game should be on telly but that’s probably a discussion for the people higher up. And product does not mean the highest quality. But there is entertainment in there. You watch Queens Park v Dundee on the last day of the season in the Championship — loads of mistakes, loads of goals, a mental first half and everybody is buzzing watching it.”

Meanwhile, Sky Sports will provide live coverage of both legs of the Premiership play-off final between Partick Thistle and Ross County. First on Thursday, then Sunday.