The 2016–17 Scottish League Cup is the 71st season of Scotland's second-most prestigious football knockout competition. It is also known as the Betfred Cup for sponsorship reasons. The format for the 2016–17 competition has changed from the previously used knockout-rounds. Instead, it began with eight groups of five teams which included all Scottish Professional Football League clubs (including East Stirlingshire, who were relegated from the league at the end of the 2015–16 season), excluding those competing in Champions League and Europa League qualifiers, as well as the top 2015–16 Highland Football League club (Cove Rangers) and the highest placed team from the 2015–16 Lowland Football League (Edinburgh City, who were promoted to the SPFL at the end of the 2015–16 season).