English Premier League – Is it Losing Its Midas Touch?
For several years, the English Premier League was widely acknowledged to be the richest football competition in the world. Not only did they have the greatest television deals in place for greater revenue, but they also have clubs with far reaching brands. These included Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea and many more. The Premier League clubs would enjoy high attendances and consistently did well in European competitions. This in turn brought in more revenue from gate receipts and merchandising. The combined financial rewards with broadcast rights led to the clubs attracting better quality players both home and abroad, thus giving them further opportunities to improve both on and off the field. 스포츠티비
This would appear to go on and on in a neverending cycle of wealth. However, the latest money rankings of European clubs have indicated otherwise. There are now no Premier League teams in the top two richest football clubs in Europe. Instead, previous leaders like Manchester United and Chelsea have fallen short and slid down the rankings. The only improvement was seen from Arsenal and Manchester City, both clubs having benefited in different ways. Now, the top two Spanish football teams of Real Madrid and Barcelona have outstripped their English rivals which have prompted more opinions that English football is again on the decline.
Is it true then that being overtaken on the money list truly points to the demise of wealth and success in English football? Such an accusation would require proper analysis and discussion of the true state of the various Premier League club involved. Are they suffering from a drop in revenue and thus faring worse in other areas as a result of that?
One would first have to determine the change in ownership of several of these clubs. Teams like Manchester United and Chelsea have gone from being largely British owned in the past to foreign owners or being run like commercial entities. Some of these new owners took over the clubs and used them as debt equity wagons thus causing them to be saddled with debts on the books. It does not reflect a true drop in the revenue streams for the clubs. However, with these debts, many of which require large interest payments for many years, the bottomline of these clubs have thus taken a serious hit. Their revenues might have increased with success, but they are disproportionately less than the large amounts of debt that were transferred to their accounts. This is something that is not necessarily clear on first look with recent money rankings.
Imagine yourself sitting in a stadium surrounded by the singing, chanting, and cheering of the crowd. The ball is played forward to the star striker. As he winds up to unleash his shot you can hear the audible sucking in of the breath of 50,000 fans waiting in expectation. In that split second as the ball sails goal-ward not a sound is heard. What follows next can be the exhalation of excitement as the ball sails wide, the gut wrenching feel of the opposing team scoring, the sigh of relief as your opponent misses, or the heart pounding, adrenaline fueled excitement of your team scoring.
League is not known for any one style of play, but you can always expect there to be action and excitement in some form. Most matches are played at a rapid pace. No commercials, no time outs, no running down the clock. Last season 1,066 goals were scored throughout the 380 games played. I would not be surprised to see more scored this year. Every goal scored is followed by the celebrations of the fans, but even more so, that of the players. Each player has their own style of celebrating, with some including the fans, others including teammates, and those who prefer to celebrate in their own world.
i-Cable (who have won the bidding for the broadcast of EPL games for Hong Kong) will still be showing these games, but the feed will be directly from the UK. Even though ESPN/Star will still be broadcasting the EPL games out of Singapore, their footprint does not include Hong Kong and the footie that ESPN/Star will be showing in Hong Kong is the European Champions League, the FA Cup, the League Cup and selected England games (if i am informed correctly). Therefor, EPL footie fans in Hong Kong, don’t go and sign up for NOW BBTV and cancel your i-Cable subscription, otherwise you will be in for a big shock!.