No fans at Borough Briggs for foreseeable future but Elgin City have plans to stream pay-per-view matches when the SPFL season gets under way
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ELGIN City are set to trial pay-per-view football to allow fans to watch live streams of league and cup matches at Borough Briggs.
Restrictions imposed by the Scottish Government to deal with the rising number of coronavirus cases include a ban on spectators attending football matches across the country.
Matches will be played behind closed doors at least until the next update from First Minister Nicola Sturgeon in three weeks time.
It means that the Betfred Cup competition beginning on October 7 will be contested in empty stadiums, and Elgin's opening group match against Stirling on October 10 cannot be played in front of fans.
But Black and Whites' chairman Graham Tatters said the club is hoping to introduce a remote video production system which City supporters across the world will be able to subscribe to.
The system could bring in some much-needed revenue to the club while matches are being played without supporters, a situation which is likely to continue beyond the start of the SPFL lower league season on October 17.
It is understood that several SPFL clubs are installing the Pixellot camera package at their home grounds, intent on streaming matches over the coming weeks.
"We are putting in a camera system that allows us to live stream the games," Tatters said. "We are just waiting to see if that is technically achievable.
"Then we will be able to try and sell virtual season tickets and that can give us some revenue."
The system, if incorporated at Borough Briggs, involves four cameras being set up at different parts of the ground.
Each camera works with AI (Artificial Intelligence) which means they will be unmanned, and record the match action from different angles.
Supporters who subscribe to a particular match can interact with the cameras, zoom in on the action and rewind goals or incidents, with the ability to record moments and send via social media.
"There’s lots of people who want to know about our season tickets but we just don’t feel we are in a position to sell them at the moment because we have got nothing to offer," said Tatters.
"But now we are hoping to have this live stream service, pay-per-view. Fans can own a virtual season ticket and we are just hoping that will happen.
"We are hoping it will be ready for our first Betfred Cup game. It is in the hands of the installation squad.
"There’s a software package that comes with it and it looks very impressive on the demo, so if we can get something like that then it will be good.
"We have to find some way to keep fans interested or you could end up losing a full generation."
