“They never learn, they just never learn…”
When I opened my previous blog post with this line I was refering to the ever hopeful yet eternally gullible Rangers support. However, the last 48 hours have shown that I could just as easily have been talking about the Scottish mainstream media.
Don’t Back Down, Double Down
When Celtic claimed the league and cup double last season, the t-shirts read “Don’t Back Down, Double Down.”
Fine sentiment for a team in pursuit of further sporting glory. Not such a smart move for sportswriters struggling to rehabilitate their already rock-bottom reputations.
Jumping on the Bandwagon
Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, The Sun (don’t worry I didn’t actually click on their site, someone sent me the gist of it), The BBC and STV have all followed The Daily Record in jumping on the Rangers takeover bandwagon.
Of course you, I and indeed anyone with a functioning brainstem could tell you it is utter nonsense. Yet, the Record ran another exclusive yesterday proclaiming to have identified the “power player” behind the Ibrox takeover plans. He’s a businessman named Andrew Cavenagh.
Their evidence for this “exclusive”? Erm, well he’s American and we know he’s been to at least two Rangers game in the recent past.
Fabricating the Story
Mr Cavenagh serves on the board of a US Health Insurance Consultancy firm, Paretohealth. Whilst the Record’s article goes on devote an entire paragraph to the text they cut and paste from the firm’s home page, they never bothered to tell you what the firm actually does.
For the record, their main focus seems to be on helping medium-sized businesses find ways to minimize their obligations towards employee health insurance coverage. But that’s an issue for another day.
As for the Daily Record: c’mon guys if you’re going to steal someone else’s work, at least attribute your sources correctly, that’s Journalism 101.
Changing the Narrative
Notice how slowly but surely the narrative has shifted in this story. First it was “The San Francisco 49ers owners want to buy Rangers.” Then it became: “A consortium including one guy who is part of the 49ers senior staff might, we think, be looking at investing in Rangers.”Now it’s “Rangers could become a feeder club for Leeds United.”
That final line, naturally has not gone down well with the ever loyal, but recently conspicuously absent true blue Rangers fans.
It’s almost as if the Scottish Press are preparing their readership for a u-turn.
It’s All About Manipulation
Remember, this form of mass-media manipulation masquerading as journalism is all about controlling the narrative. Don’t be surprised if this deal mysteriously falls through at the “last minute.”
When it does, the Record will present it as a “victory for fan power” as Rangers and their toxic support scare off another investor due to their incurable delusions of adequacy.
The truth is the deal was never on the cards.
Could Cavenagh and his friend, Leeds chariman Paraag Marathe have considered investing in Rangers at some point recently? Sure, maybe.
Afterall, even amidst all that incompetence and in-fighting I’m sure there’s still someone on the Rangers board who could throw a semi-convincing PowerPoint presentation together for potential investors.
No More Lemonade Stands
As I said before though, and I will reiterate again, this club is a financial basket case. It is not something that anyone with any semblance of business sense would touch with the proverbial, excrement-coated stick.
Or perhaps I should leave the final word to their supposed savior, Mr Marathe himself.
In a recent interview Marathe said the following.
“The fundamental thing that’s changed with professional sports teams on and off the pitch is professional sports teams are no longer run as lemonade stands.”
“They are no longer just about the football team, or the baseball team, or the soccer team, or whatever it is, it’s now run as a business, right, as a big Fortune 50, Fortune 500 type of business.”
Rangers in their current form would struggle to get on Wheel of Fortune, let alone the Fortune 500. Anyone who buys into them now would do so purely for personal, emotional reasons. There is no business reason to do so.
Sorry bears, you’ll just have to look for that sugar daddy elsewhere.