‘The best league in the world’ has backed itself into a financial corner and cannot fix broken model

John Nicholson 12 Aug 2024 9:14 AM

Busy times at Premier League HQ

Premier League executives cannot maintain the idea of competition if the same teams finish in the same places. But removing those sides eliminates the money.

The Premier League executives are in a difficult position as a new season starts. They want to keep perpetuating the ‘best league in the world’ hype with the usual teams buying up all the best players, but know that if it’s the same top eight again, or anything near, which is largely definite, interest in the league will decline further and they can’t realistically push the ‘anybody can beat anybody’ propaganda without everyone laughing at such disconnection with reality.

What to do? They’ve set up the league so it hoovers the money and the eyes with the usual big teams who are rich and dominant. But that in turn reduces competitiveness and thus jeopardy and interest. They’re stuck. No-one wants to see the same results as last year, but without those big teams being successful, they might lose income from people for whom football is part of the leisure and entertainment business.

We are reaching a turning point. The old models are failing. The days of paying for one subscription are long gone. Now you need three or four or more. It’s already failed in Ligue Un in France. In the UK the viewership numbers have stalled. Most games struggle to get more than 1.5 million viewers, often much less if a ‘big’ team is not on and they’ll be lucky if more than a dozen matches get more than 2 million. Whether you think this is a lot or not, it means revenue is slowing down, or at least certainly not growing and yet the various platforms are barely scratching the surface of the interest in football, as evidenced by the numbers watching free-to-air games and even free highlights.

In redux this means millions are interested in football but are not prepared to pay fees many think are too high to see it. It’s not a sustainable product when prices keep the majority of customers out of the market. In football’s case it isn’t internally sustained, but paid for from other products on the platform/areas of business. Football thinks it’s fabulously popular as a TV product but it isn’t when one-sided games are of little interest to neutrals and predictability is the norm, especially to those who don’t see the game as a disposable part of the entertainment business.

While the overseas market is still growing, the British market suggests where it’s heading more generally. The broadcasters want to get ahead of these trends which is why, I assume, Sky are covering the Championship much more this season. To some, it could look like they have given up on trying to make the Premier League more attractive to more people; it’s a lost cause and the Championship has always been the superior league for those not hypnotised by the money and marketing – which isn’t everyone – but even the Championship is being poisoned by the top flight, with an increasing number of fans wanting to win but not be promoted to such an uncompetitive league. That’s how dysfunctional it’s become.

Add to this, top-flight teams outside the top seven or eight see little point being in a league where they can’t get any higher without unrealistic spending and don’t just want to play exhibition football. Discontent is just waiting to show itself. The dysfunction is tolerated as long as the money keeps coming, but will it if they shed viewers because of the very nature of their league? If so, for how long?

A better competition may pull in more viewers and make it more entertaining, but that would mean spending caps to even out the resources and rich clubs aren’t going to vote to lose their financial dominance, especially after being told money is the be all and end all for 30 years. So the Premier League is a road to nowhere and hasn’t got a long-term future in its current structure. The only way this can change is by creating a European league to house the richest teams, and impose a spending cap for the rest. If they don’t want to go, set a spending cap and tell them they have a choice: stay and be capped or go and compete with other rich clubs, uncapped. Their greed must be restrained, not just because they can spend a fortune, but because they can afford to make poor choices and lose a fortune, as Manchester United have spent a decade doing.

The model is broken. If you don’t want a non-competitive league, cede your status and take your business elsewhere, otherwise we face the same six or seven or eight teams fighting it out for the top six, seven or eight positions in what is effectively a sealed league (which they claim to be against but aren’t, obviously). The focus on encouraging the wealthy clubs through ownership and through media rights broke it.

We’re just pretending it’s OK at the moment but it can’t go on like this ad infinitum and change will become inevitable, the economics make it so. Ironically, many top clubs want a bigger slice of the broadcasting pie because the top teams attract the most interest, which is undeniably true. Yet another pressure to accommodate. Of course a league stripped of the top teams would maybe be of little interest to anyone. Those 12 teams are certainly unpopular at the moment. Try getting a TV audience for Forest v Southampton, or similar.

Then again, an unpredictable, exciting league may attract more interest and subscribers but probably not, especially in the short term. That’s the choice they have to make. Money or sport: choose the money and revenues fall; choose the sport and the revenues fall. Oops. Oh dear. How sad. Never mind. It can’t come too soon for those of us who want jeopardy and competition first and foremost – incidentally, like every other league.

Johnny Nic

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