Rangers commercial director James Bisgrove has added his voice to those questioning the SPFL's decision not to put their new Sky TV deal out to tender.

A £150m deal was agreed on Tuesday that will see up to 60 league matches broadcast per season on the Rupert Murdoch-owned satellite channel until 2029.

The contract was backed by the 11 other top-flight clubs but Rangers have consistently held the position that Neil Doncaster and his executive team are underselling the Scottish game.

Speaking in an exclusive interview with the Rangers Review last week, managing director Stewart Robertson pointed out the clubs don't know the value of SPFL content because they have rushed to an agreement with Sky without following the standard business practice of going to market.

Bisgrove agrees and points out there is a very good reason the Premier League, Champions League and Europa League always follow this process to find the best offer.

He said: "Stewart and I were in the SPFL Premiership clubs meeting and asked how can we, as a group of clubs, as a league, be sure that this is the best value in the market when we haven’t engaged with the other players in that market?

"The information and the intelligence that we’d got suggests that very recently other big rights that were in the market created and had competitive tension. 

"You’ve got BT Sport and their joint venture with Discovery, you’ve got Viaplay and NENT, you’ve got DAZN. And there are others further afield, the likes of Amazon.

"We’ve said all along we think Sky are a great partner, they’re a brilliant partner for Scottish football but to give everyone assurance that the value is as high as it possibly can be, you’ve got to take this to the market.

"There's a reason why TEAM Marketing that run the UEFA Champions League, Europa League tenders, go to the market every time. They run a competitive process, it’s the reason why the Premier League do that."

Rangers Review:

The SPFL have been vocal about the value per game in the deal, with Aberdeen chairman Dave Cormack going as far as to release a statement with bar charts to illustrate this point. Like many on social media, who widely rounded on the Atlanta-based businessman over his missive, Bisgrove sees this argument as a "red herring".

"The other area where I think we’ve absolutely missed a trick is being more innovative on our packaging," he said. "I’ve seen reports about 60 games and the value per game but actually that’s a complete red herring because with the exclusivity Sky have, it’s the other games that are locked away, so why have we not looked at different packages like the Premier League have done and been more innovative and more commercially savvy with the way that we’ve taken that to the market?"

Rangers may not like the deal, but they are prepared to live with it. 

Bisgrove said: "The deal’s been passed and we’ve aired our view. We have a lot of respect and support for what Sky do and their investment in the game but we don’t feel that the commercial process that underpinned that contract extension was in any way right or was in any way set up to get maximum value out the market."

READ MORE: Stewart Robertson outlines Rangers’ position on £30m TV deal amid continuing SPFL frustrations

When asked about the situation at a daily newspaper press conference on Tuesday, Doncaster denied the market hadn't been consulted without explicitly addressing why the deal wasn't put out to tender.

“Oh, everyone had a chance, so don’t be misled,” Doncaster said. “Everyone had a chance to come forward, it was clearly no secret that we were out in the market. We were talking to the key players in the market, and ultimately the deal that has come forward is the deal that has been endorsed by clubs.

“There has been a proper process. We sat around this table with the cinch Premiership clubs, all 12 sat here and talked about the process that had been gone through in terms of market testing and talking to the various people who might be interested in Scottish football.

“So, it’s a complete fallacy to suggest there has been no process. There has been a full process whereby we had a very experienced rights advisor who used to work for the Premier League in England leading the discussions, and ultimately this is the deal that emerged."