48-468: The Scottish League Cup (also known as the Premier Sports Cup for sponsorship reasons) is a football competition open to all Scottish Professional Football League (SPFL) clubs. First held in 1946–47 , it is the oldest national League cup in existence. The competition had a straight knockout format but became a group and knockout competition from 2016–17 . Rangers are the record holders of
96-513: A penalty shoot-out is held with the winning team gaining a bonus point. The groups are regionalised: there are four groups in the North section, and four in the South section, with three pots for each regional section – top seeds, second seeds, and unseeded clubs. Each group will consist of one top seed, one second seed, and three unseeded clubs. The eight group winners and three best runners-up progress into
144-695: A Premier Sports 2 channel on the Sky and Virgin platforms after signing a contract with PRO14 Rugby to broadcast every game across the UK for at least the next three years. The HD channel was relabelled Premier Sports 1 on 18 July and launched on Virgin Media, replacing the SD version, which simultaneously was relabelled Premier Sports 2. New logos were adopted for both Premier Sports and its sister channel FreeSports . On 31 August 2017, Premier Sports launched their sister channel FreeSports ,
192-526: A free-to-air sports channel dedicated to providing live sport to the Great British public. It was available on all major platforms available in 18 million UK homes. FreeSports aimed to air a majority of live programming, with over 1000 events a year for an average of 10 hours per day featuring numerous sports, including MMA , kickboxing , association football , ice hockey , tennis , rugby league , basketball , boxing , and cricket . On 19 January 2024, it
240-465: A limited number of hours during midweek, when Premier Sports closed as they used a single satellite stream. The channels were free-to-air to both domestic and commercial customers from launch, but became a pay subscription channel on 5 August 2010. However, the channel is sold independently by Premier Sports, rather than through Sky. On 30 June 2010, the video bit rate was increased from 2.8 Mbit/s to 4.2 Mbit/s. Initially, Premier Sports
288-637: Is a group of pay sports television channels owned by SSBL Limited that are available in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland . Premier Sports holds exclusive live rights to La Liga , Scottish League Cup , Elite Ice Hockey League , NHL and NASCAR . Premier Sports has shared rights to the United Rugby Championship in the Britain and exclusive live rights to 53 Premier League games in
336-476: Is made up of CEO O'Rourke, General Manager Richard Sweeney and Operations Director Richard Webb. In April 2013, Premier Sports and Premier Sports Extra began to share their satellite stream with Setanta Sports 1 ; the arrangement continued after Premier Sports Extra closed on 13 June 2013. Only Premier Sports' branding appears on the channel, with the exception of Setanta's coverage of the Premier League , which
384-586: Is on satellite, as the former wanted to be bundled into one of the latter's basic TV packages. On 25 October 2013, the channel launched on Virgin Media as a free channel, the day before the start of the 2013 Rugby League World Cup ; It became a subscription channel on 1 March 2014. On 22 August 2014, Premier Sports, along with BoxNation , launched on TalkTalk; it was removed on 9 August 2016. In August 2012, Premier Sports launched an online subscription streaming service, run in conjunction with Ustream . The 2 Mbit/s stream broadcast all events and programming on
432-561: Is traditionally played at Hampden Park in Glasgow, though due to renovations some finals have been played at other venues, such as Celtic Park or Ibrox Stadium . The new format also allowed the SPFL to reintroduce the two-weekend winter break in January. Along with the newly designed tournament, a new television deal for it was announced as BT Sport took over rights from BBC Scotland . In February 2016
480-465: The 2011–12 season . On 5 July 2012, Premier Sport's announced on their Facebook page that NHL would continue for a further 4 years on the channel with appropriately 400 games per season being broadcast and complemented by daily coverage of Hockey Tonight. This deal was later extended until 2021. The channel also broadcasts weekly games of the Swedish Hockey League (SHL) as well as games from
528-558: The 2015 Copa América that ran between 11 June and 4 July. Premier Sports shows UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League qualifiers that include British teams, including Shkëndija versus Aberdeen in July 2015. In June 2018, it was announced Premier Sports had won rights to start broadcasting English Premier League games on the Saturday 3 p.m. slot exclusively to viewers in Ireland from
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#1732851374039576-548: The 2016–17 season, the League Cup has used a group phase format. The format has eight groups of five teams playing each other once in a round-robin format. The forty teams playing in the group stage consist of the 38 league clubs who are not participating in UEFA competitions, along with two teams from outside the league. In the group phase, three points are given for a win and one point for a draw. If matches are level after ninety minutes,
624-763: The 2017 event. Premier Sports also provides full coverage of the Four Nations championship. Premier Sports showed all Toronto Wolfpack games in League 1 in 2017 and all Toronto games in the Championship during 2018. In October 2021, the channel agreed a two-year deal with the Rugby Football League for coverage of matches from the RFL Championship and the Challenge Cup . The Championship games will include
672-533: The 2018 BDO World Trophy , which took place at Preston Guild Hall in Preston. Later in the year, 2 England Darts events were shown. Premier Sports has from time to time aired football from the League of Ireland . Since 2011 the channel has broadcast footballing action from South America. The Copa Libertadores was televised exclusively on the channel, with thirty-five live games, plus a weekly highlights package until 2016. Premier Sports also aired thirty matches from
720-698: The Copa Sudamericana (until 2016), seventy-four matches from the Campeonato Brasileiro Série A and Campeonato Paulista as well as seventy-six matches from the Argentine Primera División . In January 2012, it was announced that Celtic TV and Rangers TV would each air as a three-hour block on Monday evenings. Coverage included full replays of the weekends matches that were not aired live on Sky Sports or ESPN, pre and post-match analysis and classic archive footage. The channel had
768-632: The Kontinental Hockey League (KHL). Premier Sports also broadcasts live coverage of the Ice Hockey World Championships . Premier Sports broadcasts all 38 weeks of racing from the NASCAR Cup Series . In a one-off deal, Kimi Räikkönen 's NASCAR Truck Series debut was broadcast live and free-to-view. During the final week of the 2011 NASCAR season, in addition to the main NASCAR Cup Series race, Premier Sports showed
816-711: The Scottish Cup . The exclusive live rights include the first 2 picks from rounds 4, last 16 and quarter-finals and first pick of a semi-final. There are also options to show matches in rounds 1-3 and the final and other semi-final non-exclusively with the BBC. Also in November 2018, Premier Sports netted the UK and Ireland rights to the Scottish League Cup , currently known as the Premier Sports Cup for sponsorship reasons, for
864-462: The Summer Bash and the play-off games. On 2 October 2020, Premier Sports announced a new partnership with Impact Wrestling that will see future Impact pay-per-views and special events broadcast on the channel, starting with Victory Road on delay on 6 October 2020. The partnership also sees Impact's weekly programme Impact! broadcast every Wednesday on FreeSports . On 9 November 2012, it
912-563: The Top 14 for two seasons. On 9 December 2022, Viaplay Sports started showing European Professional Club Rugby 's second-tier competition, the EPCR Challenge Cup . The two-season contract was Viaplay's first major rights acquisition since it took over Premier Sports earlier in 2022. The channel broadcast live coverage of the 2013 Rugby League World Cup , alongside the BBC's coverage of England games. The channel also covered live coverage of
960-607: The World Series of Boxing starting from December. In February 2011, Premier Sports announced they would air all ShoBox: The New Generation events in 2011 and access Gary Shaw's archive of world title fights from the past five years. Premier Sports will also air eight Top Rank events in 2011–2012. On 14 August 2011, the channel signed a deal with Spencer Fearon 's Hard Knocks Boxing Promotions that saw six events from York Hall broadcast live, starting on 7 October 2011. From 30 May 2018, Premier Sports aired all 5 days of action for
1008-715: The Championships, All televised National Football League and National Hurling League , the Irish-hosted versions of the International Rules Series between Australia and Ireland , and also the rights to show archived classic Gaelic football and hurling matches in Great Britain. Premier Sports broadcast at least 15 NHL games a week. On 12 October 2011, Premier Sports announced that they would broadcast up to 10 live National Hockey League games per week from
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#17328513740391056-555: The LaLigaTV channel, which would become available to all existing Premier Sports subscribers on the Premier Player from October, and on Sky by January 2020. One match per round would be broadcast live on sister free-to-air channel FreeSports. Premier Sports currently has exclusive British TV rights to approximately 75% Gaelic Athletic Association games broadcast live Gaelic games , including all matches from packs 2,3,4,7,8 & 9 from
1104-719: The Polish PGE Ekstraliga. Premier Sports airs France's autumn internationals since 2016, and Italy's from 2018. On 30 April 2018, Premier Sports announced they had signed a landmark partnership with PRO14 Rugby to broadcast every game from the Guinness PRO14 live in high-definition across the UK and ROI for the next three years. The agreement starting from the 2018–19 season will see all 152 games per season broadcast live, with no less than 21 games (one per round) shown live free-to-air on FreeSports . On May 26, 2021, Premier Sports announced they will begin broadcasting
1152-732: The Republic of Ireland. They also hold shared rights to the Scottish Cup with BBC Scotland . Premier Sports was formed in 2009 by the Irish businessman Michael O'Rourke, a joint CEO and part owner of Setanta Sports and former director of Premium Sports. The channel initially focused on broadcasting sporting events that had not been available in Great Britain since the collapse of Setanta Sports GB on 22 June 2009, and were not picked up by rival sports broadcasters ESPN and Sky Sports , but are available through Setanta in Ireland. The channel's management
1200-578: The SPFL announced the League Cup final would be moved to November. The cup has its origins in a regional cup competition called the Southern League Cup which was introduced in 1940 when wartime restrictions led to a suspension of the Scottish Cup . This tournament was largely regional and did not involve all of the teams who comprised the Scottish Football League prior to the outbreak of war. The first official Scottish Football League Cup
1248-554: The Scottish Football League without a cup for their new tournament. On 15 January 1947, long-term Clyde, and then Scottish Football League , chairman John McMahon donated the three-handled trophy that is still used to this day. During the 1980s when Skol lager sponsored the competition, a second trophy known as the Skol Cup was also awarded. After the 1987–88 competition when Rangers won their third Skol Cup, they were given
1296-516: The TV channel. In April 2013, Premier Sports launched their own online player to replace the Ustream service. The service is available on multiple platforms including iOS and Android . As well as live streaming, the service also features seven day catch-up and optional season long on-demand content. Some sports are also available to view worldwide. On 30 April 2018, Premier Sports announced they would launch
1344-492: The UK & Ireland, showing 4 live matches per round from matchday 25 until the end of the 2018/2019 season. Premier Sports also broadcast weekly highlights, previews and magazine shows. Leading on from this, in September, Premier Sports confirmed that they had become exclusive UK rights-holders to La Liga, starting with matchday 4 of the 2019–20 season until the end of the 2021–22 season. They added that most matches would be put on
1392-503: The UK and would rebrand the channels back to Premier Sports. Premier Sports operates on satellite provider Sky . MSK and MSK Extra were added to Sky on 25 September 2009 and relabelled Premier Sports and Premier Sports Extra on 29 July 2010. On 13 June 2013, Premier Sports Extra closed with its Sky EPG slot believed to have been sold to the Muslim World Network, which launched on the same day. Premier Sports Extra only operated for
1440-486: The Viaplay Sports name on 1 November 2022. Viaplay Sports operate out of Stockholm , Sweden. Initially, the same feeds were used for the UK and Ireland with Premier Sports branding used for Premier League coverage which is blocked in the UK. On 28 November the channels split, with the Irish feeds reverting to full Premier Sports branding. In November 2023, it was announced that Premier Sports had bought Viaplay out in
1488-503: The cup, winning 28 times. Rangers are also the current holders, winning their 28th title after beating Aberdeen 1–0 at Hampden Park on 17 December 2023 . The domestic television rights are held by Premier Sports who replaced BT Sport from the 2019–20 season. Historically, the Scottish League Cup has oscillated between being a straightforward single-elimination knockout tournament and having an initial group phase. Since
Scottish League Cup - Misplaced Pages Continue
1536-503: The excitement of a cup final early in the season. During the 1999–2000 competition , the semi-finals and final were moved to the springtime to avoid the congestion of fixtures caused by the early rounds of the UEFA club competitions and Scotland's representatives in Europe were given automatic byes until the third round of competition. From the 2016–17 edition the League Cup reverted to a group stage format, with single-elimination knock-out in
1584-514: The final races in the Nationwide Series and the Truck Series live, commercial free and free-to-view. On 6 February 2018, Premier Sports announced on their Twitter page that they would continue to broadcast the NASCAR Cup Series for five more years. In 2018 Premier Sports, and its sister channel Freesports, broadcast live and also highlights of the speedway leagues Sweden's Elitserien and
1632-643: The last 16 onwards. The League Cup has been known by different names due to sponsorship: Before the competition's official inception, the Scottish Football League awarded the Southern League Cup winners a trophy that had been borrowed from the Scottish Football Association. In the summer of 1946, the Scottish FA asked for the return of that trophy, which became the Victory Cup . This left
1680-616: The next five years and will exclusively broadcast between 12 and 16 live Betfred Cup (the Scottish League Cup) matches and highlights per season, starting with the 2020–2021 season. In January 2019, Premier Sports had secured rights to the Dutch Eredivisie and the Chinese Super League after Eleven Sports cancelled the competition rights. In February 2019, it was announced that Premier Sports had secured La Liga rights in
1728-547: The only League Cup winners to have never played in a UEFA club competition. Scottish League Cup matches are shown live by Premier Sports in the United Kingdom and Ireland. In Australia, the Scottish League Cup is broadcast by beIN Sports . The 2009 Scottish League Cup Final was shown live on SBS due to a fixture clash on previous hosts' Setanta channel. In sub-Saharan Africa, the Scottish League Cup matches are shown live by ESPN Premier Sports Premier Sports
1776-671: The parent channel, Premier Sports Asia only airs rugby union matches. In 2014, Premier Sports began live coverage of the Belgian Pro League , with three matches from each round of fixtures. Premier Sports also broadcasts a selection of friendly matches during the football season, e.g. New York Red Bulls against Arsenal in 2014 or all International Champions Cup matches not involving Manchester United or Liverpool . In May 2015, Premier Sports announced it had won exclusive multi-year rights to all 26 games of Copa América (including Copa América Centenario in 2016), starting from
1824-486: The quarter-finals. Extra games when the Premier League was formed and expanded European competitions meant that by the early 1980s, its long-winded format, which involved group rounds played early in the season leading to two-legged knock-out rounds, attracted much criticism. In the mid-1980s the tournament was revamped to a shorter, single elimination knock-out format with a final played prior to Christmas, which provided
1872-587: The rights to broadcast the Northern Ireland national football team 's home friendlies until 2018. 1999%E2%80%932000 Scottish League Cup The 1999–2000 Scottish League Cup was the 54th staging of the Scotland's second most prestigious football knockout competition, also known for sponsorship reasons as the CIS Insurance Cup. The competition was won by Celtic , who defeated Aberdeen 2–0 in
1920-402: The second round, where they are joined by the five clubs participating in UEFA competitions. The tournament then adopts a single-elimination knockout format. There are no replays, which means all drawn matches are decided by extra time and a penalty shootout, if necessary. The semi-final matches are played on a neutral ground, determined by the location and size of supports involved. The final game
1968-513: The start of the 2019-20 season , taking over from Sky Sports . Eoin McDevitt hosts coverage alongside studio pundits, Damien Delaney , Richard Dunne , Kenny Cunningham and David Moyes . The lead commentator is Des Curran, Clive Tyldesley or Will Downing with Gary Breen or Brian Kerr the co-commentators. In November 2018, Premier Sports announced a 6-year deal with the SFA starting in 2019 to air
Scottish League Cup - Misplaced Pages Continue
2016-513: The trophy permanently and a new Skol Cup with a slightly different design was introduced the following season. Until 1995, the winners of the Scottish League Cup were granted a place in the UEFA Cup , although this privilege was rarely invoked as the winning teams usually qualified for Europe by some other means, such as winning the League Championship or Scottish Cup. The final example of this
2064-436: Was Raith Rovers who represented Scotland in the 1995–96 UEFA Cup after winning the League Cup the previous season as a First Division club. Since this privilege has been discontinued, some winners have missed out on European football qualification the following season, including 2015–16 winners Ross County who have still never qualified for European football in their history. Additionally Ross County and East Fife are
2112-605: Was announced that Premier Sports would broadcast 260 hours of Indoor Bowls in 2013. The deal includes coverage of the World Bowls Tour International Open, PBA Masters, National Under-25s, EIBA Singles Finals, England Internationals, World Pairs and Premier Threes events. From September 2010, Premier Sports began to air a number of live boxing events, featuring the likes of Lucian Bute , Érik Morales , Shane Mosley and Felix Sturm . On 8 December 2010, Premier Sports announced an exclusive UK deal with AIBI for
2160-501: Was announced that the channel would close on 25 January. Premier Sports Asia was launched on 22 October 2020 as an over-the-top (OTT) streaming channel for select Asian regions. The channel is also available as a traditional linear channel (branded as Premier Sports) replacing the RugbyPass TV channel for select Asian countries in late 2021. It takes over some of the rights to air competitions previously held by RugbyPass TV. Unlike
2208-485: Was blocked on Premier Sports. It was revealed in July 2022 that in 2021 the company had 222,000 paying subscribers and revenues of £26.4 million in 2021. In July 2022, Viaplay Group announced the acquisition of Premier Sports in the UK and its intention to rebrand the channels under its own brand. This did not affect its operations Ireland where the company continued to be owned by SSBL Ltd and continued to branded as Premier Sports Viaplay rebranded Premier Sports under
2256-478: Was contested during the 1946–47 season, when Rangers defeated Aberdeen in the final. The competition was very popular with supporters during the first few decades of its existence. The tournament consisted of 8 or 9 groups consisting of 4 or 5 teams. The groups were seeded into 2 sets with the top 16 teams in Division 1 making up the first four groups. This guaranteed that 4 'top' teams would play 4 'lesser' teams in
2304-472: Was only available in Great Britain , but became available in Northern Ireland on 3 November 2011. Premier Sports Extra was still limited to Great Britain until its closure. For many years, Premier Sports was not available on Virgin Media , although negotiations were held in early 2012. Talks broke down when the company declined Virgin Media's offer to distribute the channel as a standalone add-on, as it
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