from Hacker News

How England’s football league is breaking the sport [video]

by open-source-ux on 8/16/23, 8:47 PM with 6 comments

  • by drumhead on 8/16/23, 9:55 PM

    For much of the last 50 years, its been the Spanish and Italians breaking the game with insane transfer fees. But poor financial control, corruption, hooliganism and over concentration of power in the hands of a few clubs led to their decline relative to the Premier League. It was also the willingness of English fans to pay to watch it on TV which gave it a huge boost compared to its competitors. Teams were prepared to invest in better facilities because of the reliability of the money coming in from TV rights, so the experience at EPL teams and other big English clubs is pretty good. Violence has been significantly reduced so you can go to a game now without worrying about getting beaten up and most significantly the money has led to an influx of foreign coaches and players which has improved the quality of the game. This led to improved attendances and a willingness to pay higher ticket prices. So a virtuous circle ensued.

    Its been overall very beneficial for the game and fan experience. The stable cashflows have encouraged outside investors to pile in and invest big because they know they can make money in England compared to most other countries in Europe. The only country that can come close is Germany, but they have a very fan orientated focus so they're unlikely to allow the big investors that England allows.

    The biggest fear for fans is a move towards a franchised US style league, with no promotion and relegation and a fixed number of teams taking all the money for themselves. It was tried recently with the Superleague which led to a massive backlash across the spectrum in Europe. But with so many US investors in the game now I think its only a matter of time before they try it again. It appeals a lot to Italian and Spanish owners because they can finally have the stable cashflows to compete with the English clubs again. But after the recent debacle its going to be a few more years until it happens again.

  • by ryantando on 8/16/23, 10:15 PM

    Spanish League (La Liga) failed to keep the momentum meanwhile Premier League since its rise again on 2018 has been dominated on the marketing side, from content, partnerships, game like FPL to keep people engage with every match, betting platform and the unfair advantage of the language (english).

    The revenue increased a lot, it got to a point leeds united top 20 club earners was mostly fron premier league, it became a loop where all the money and exposure are there so all the good players wanted to play in Premier League

  • by bbg2401 on 8/16/23, 9:51 PM

    The larger football clubs in La Liga and Serie A still dominate transfer records when fees are adjusted for inflation. Having lived through the annual record breaking transfer fees spent by Italian clubs in the 1990s, and the regular 9 figure transfer fees spent by Spanish clubs from the 2000s onwards, I find it so difficult to see them in the same victimised light as does the author of this video.

  • by timeon on 8/16/23, 10:35 PM

    Good PR -> evenly spent TV money on teams -> attract sports-washing -> profit.