CELTIC PLAYER LAUNCHED: BUT IS IT ANY DIFFERENT TO CELTIC TV?
- BY LIAM CARRIGAN
- 2 days ago
- 3 min read
I tried; I really did. I tried to give Celtic’s media team the benefit of the doubt. However, there is no way to put a positive spin on this, though no doubt the usual suspects will try.
The launch of the Celtic Player left me confused, frustrated and most of all, sad. I don't like having to launch into this angry rants and criticizing the club, but when they can't even get something as simple as a matchday streaming service right, then what else can I do?
Celtic Player, The Replacement for Celtic TV, is an Unimaginative, Turgid Mess
As the old saying goes, there are only so many ways to “polish a turd”. I’ve said for as long as I’ve been running this blog that Celtic TV badly needed to be taken apart and rebuilt from the ground up.
That hasn’t happened, despite the valiant efforts of the Celtic Board and their acolytes to paint it as such.
The Celtic Player is nothing but a new veneer over the same tired, unoriginal visage.
Oh, and here’s a wee tip I’ll give Celtic’s “World Class Marketing Team” for free.
When a potential customer logs on to a new service for the first time, with an open mind, and the potential to invest in the product if it’s up to scratch, being bombarded with window after window of content with a huge “Subscribers Only” heading emblazoned across the thumbnail really isn't a good look.
This kind of marketing approach works in the adult entertainment industry, where the mere titillation of a thumbnail hinting at what’s to come has the poor, hapless customer reaching, with his spare hand, for his credit card.
It’s not quite the same though when you’re instead offered the “enticing promise” of a 2-minute montage of Celtic’s latest training session or archive footage of a friendly we played decades ago.
People don’t like being asked to cough up the cash before they’ve had a chance to see what they are paying for. Premium Content should be exactly that: premium, as in something that isn’t ordinarily available. Celtic fans have been used to getting this content free for years via the club’s YouTube channel.
You can’t just take something that people have come to expect as a freebie and say: “Ok, now we want you to pay for this.”
Customers do not appreciate having their arms twisted in such a way, nor do they take kindly to the implied emotional blackmail that comes from an “Official Celtic Product”.
Premium content should be just that. Whether it’s original content created by the club, or outside parties, or even, dare I say it, collaborations with established fan media outlets, the Celtic Player needs to offer something more that what fans have come to expect to get for free.
It isn’t doing that. What I see instead is a sly attempt to once again force through the very same aggressive monetization of content that was blown out of the water by fan revolt after about 10 minutes at the beginning of last season.
Clearly no lessons have been learned. Celtic TV didn’t need a fresh coat of paint and a rebrand. It needed a fundamental reimaging of what the platform is and what it can offer to supporters in addition to (not instead of) all the other content we already get for free.
Celtic’s current custodians may well escape the worst of fans wrath if, unlike the previous software, this actually leads to a player that works without issue on match days.
However, based on the evidence of what I've seen thus far, I won’t hold my breath on that one.
