I’m probably being naive, but it’s a dangerous tightrope to walk, take more money for the top teams and leave the other teams with less and you potentially destroy the competition. They’ve already completely shat their pants over the points deductions in case it damages the brand and the competition, so they have to be very careful about taking more money for themselves and tipping the balance to the point the league becomes completely uncompetitive.
The current Premier League model is that money is weighted according to league position with a minimum guarantee both in terms of payments and number of times they'll be shown live in the UK. Yes, clubs that are on TV more often get more money but it's a (relatively) fair system. In England in 2022-23, the top earners from the TV deal (Man City) got £146m. The bottom earner got £93m. That gap is big but it's not a chasm. In Spain the difference between the top and bottom earners was €155m to €43m. Italy is similar. The disparity in France is even worse. Scotland even worse, albeit at much lower overall figures. What I'm saying is that, as imperfect as the broadcast deal is here, it's far better than a model that rewards absolutely clubs according to the number of viewers – especially bearing in mind global audiences. The top clubs would presumably love to be rewarded proportionately for all their worldwide armchair fans, even if it meant they were earning many, many times more than the unfashionable.
To be fair, the competition is more or less destroyed anyway. There's no way to wind it back now. The sums of money involved mean that no one will challenge the current state of affairs without a nation state or a billionaire who has billions to spend. People talk about how 'competitive' the league is but what they really mean is that six or seven clubs are vying for second place and they finish in a slightly different order each season, while being portrayed as being in various states of semi-permanent crisis. Man City will win their fourth in a row – the first club to do so – and their sixth in seven years. At what point do the media have to admit that getting mega excited about two other teams being in contention until folding like a cheap deckchair on the same Sunday in mid-April is pretty thin gruel? Even Manchester United are going to find it hard to catch up and they have owners who are among the richest people on the planet. All that is going to happen over the next decade is that wages will go up and the financial gaps between the clubs will widen, making it even harder for anyone to move up from one bracket to the next. They may do so fleetingly – Newcastle did it last year, Villa this – and they may do it again here and there. Unfortunately the financial regulations are a farce. But the purpose of the Premier League is to funnel money from the masses to the few and it is extremely successful in that regard.
Yes and those leagues aren’t as popular, and why aren’t they as popular? Obviously everyone always wants more money in most walks of life, and the big 4/6 whatever, are no different, but equally the money they currently get comes from being in the most popular league in the world that rakes in the most revenue, if they want a distribution like Spain or France they may suddenly find the Premier League is no longer as popular, (just like La Liga etc.) and they end up with less money in the longer term anyway. If they just wanted as much money as possible without regard for anything else, then Parachute Payments wouldn’t exist, but they do, because some semblance of competition from the also-ran clubs is one component of the leagues popularity. I do think they big clubs appreciate the value of the PL in its current makeup, which is why they went for the European Super League, they want more money but trying to get it from the PL would be counterproductive, so the only option would be to trash the premier league and go out on their own again (like they did when the PL was formed)
Exactly. It's only competitive now in that the top 6/7 clubs compete for the top 6/7 places and the bottom 6/7 compete to avoid finishing in the bottom 3.
But as enjoy the games has stated themselves, it’s still more competitive in terms of revenue distribution than pretty much any other league, and it’s also the most popular/the highest revenue generator, is that somehow a coincidence? Does making it even less competitive (even though it’s still more competitive than any other European league) make it more popular, or less?
I don't think you're being naive and I suspect the PL board / bosses etc would advise the big clubs of exactly that. But when push comes to shove will they care?
Did you not hear? He's replacing the Sky comms whenever we are shown alongside Troy Deeney with in-depth analysis from Michael Owen.
Yes, whilst it has become far less competitive, it's still more competitive than many of the other leagues in Europe, which are even more polarised. Any plans to make these leagues yet more polarised would be a joke. I honestly wish the european breakaway league had gone ahead and English and other European domestic leagues had become relatively compeitive again, even if far poorer. A sad state of affairs. Who do we think will win the 2-3 way race to come second to Citeh next season ?
Absolutely, could not agree more. I'm sure it will happen at some point because money talks. Football is far from being alone in chasing the money either. Cricket with more and more 20/20 and Golf with the god awful LIV and that utter prat Greg Norman. I heard this morning that Rory has been offered $850m to join LIV! He has said no and fair play to him Sadly with the introduction of Saudi in to sport, the money will go up but the competition will suffer. It's only a matter of time before there is a Premier League game over there
