Football bubble about to pop?

beerguts

A story on France 24 is highlighting that the domestic league is in financial trouble. The TV deal offered didn't even reach the reserve price and it looks as if a lot of clubs might have to reduce spending dramatically.
I know the French league would be the poorer relation to the PL but does anyone think this might be the start of the football bubble popping?

https://f24.my/7KB1.W

Sweet.Science

Barcelona can't pay their players either .

The French league doesn't matter.

A2LUE42

The French issue was an overinflated tv deal that never made sense in the first place. Similar happened ITV before when they launched the digital service, The TV company went bust. The league got a new deal with someone else at a more reasonable rate.

Kivaro

Sweet.Science wrote: »

Barcelona can't pay their players either .

Well, in fairness, after paying Messi €555 million over the last 4 years, is there any money left in the kitty? €1/2 billion is a bit much.
Professional athletes are getting paid WAY too much.
When we talk about inequality, let's have a look at these people too.

osarusan

How would it start to pop?

As a sport it is still massively popular, and even if the money was cut by 50% all across the board, it would still be huge money.

Some of the wages are madness, but even with such a drop, or worse...what else are the players going to do?

As long as there are mega-rich oil/gas/tech/whatever tycoons, there will be rich clubs.

For Forks Sake

Farmers league anyway.

joseywhales

I long for the days when teams like red star belgrade or celtic could be european champions.

joseywhales

joseywhales wrote: »

I long for the days when teams like red star belgrade or celtic could be european champions.

Celtic cant even be scottish champions

Fr Tod Umptious

osarusan wrote: »

How would it start to pop?

As a sport it is still massively popular, and even if the money was cut by 50% all across the board, it would still be huge money.

Some of the wages are madness, but even with such a drop, or worse...what else are the players going to do?

As long as there are mega-rich oil/gas/tech/whatever tycoons, there will be rich clubs.

Few reasons why it could pop.

COVID is one.
For almost a year teams have had no one through the gate or buying in the club shop.
That is a lot of lost revenue.
That's is going to hurt their ability to buy and sell and pay players.

TV saturation. The value of media rights has decreased in the last offering, some packages remained unsold for a long time.

Then in the English case you have Brexit.
Access to better quality European players has been reduced so you are stuck with poorer quality British and Irish players, just like in the bad old days of the 80s.

Plus the UK government may soon ban betting advertising on shirts.
That will hit a whole lot of teams if it comes to pass.

The January transfer month which finished yesterday was the lowest money wise since 2012.

trashcan

It would be no harm for top level football to have a bit of a crash to be honest.

AllGunsBlazing

I remember back in the early 00's when ITV paid massively over the odds for the rights to broadcast English second tier football.


So utterly piss poor were the viewing figures that it would have been more cost effective to bus every single fan of each club to the ground on match days.

Eventually the English Premier League will devour all of football the world over.

osarusan

osarusan wrote: »

How would it start to pop?

As a sport it is still massively popular, and even if the money was cut by 50% all across the board, it would still be huge money.

Some of the wages are madness, but even with such a drop, or worse...what else are the players going to do?

As long as there are mega-rich oil/gas/tech/whatever tycoons, there will be rich clubs.

The top of the pyramid is where all the money is. But it's nothing without a solid structure underneath it.

The danger is not for teams placed 1-6 in the Premier League. It's for the rest where the real struggles lie.

buried

European Super League in a NFL style incoming

joseywhales

Deleted User wrote: »

Celtic cant even be scottish champions

If things were still equitable, we'd probably have ajax dominating europe right now. Burnley could be english champions. West Ham would have dominated the noughties.

Garzorico

buried wrote: »

European Super League in a NFL style incoming

I’d vote for that.

osarusan

Fr Tod Umptious wrote: »

Few reasons why it could pop.

COVID is one.
For almost a year teams have had no one through the gate or buying in the club shop.
That is a lot of lost revenue.
That's is going to hurt their ability to buy and sell and pay players.

That is the only one that I would really agree with. I don't think the rest are going to have much impact at all.


But COVID really could kill clubs. Not the big ones, but the lower division teams. And not so much in England but in other European countries without the tv deals.



In a way, it would be nice to go back to a time when the top 3/4 clubs in the top 3/4 leagues didn't hoover up every bit of talent on the planet. But it will never happen.

Harry Palmr

What's striking is that none of the new money big players are piling in to take on the incumbents. Amazon have barely dipped a toe in the market. In France Discovery and a couple of others didn't even reach the reserve price of the contract. Right now football is at best a stagnant market for broadcasters which is why the European Super League has some traction. That will attract the big money at the expense of national leagues.

Strumms

Kivaro wrote: »

Well, in fairness, after paying Messi €555 million over the last 4 years, is there any money left in the kitty? €1/2 billion is a bit much.
Professional athletes are getting paid WAY too much.
When we talk about inequality, let's have a look at these people too.

It’s spiraling out of control...

It’s greed...

Blame clubs, sure, but players and their agents are more culpable then anybody for what’s happening in the game...

Messi basically could name his price.... imagine Barcelona wouldn’t give him what he asked for ! He’d probably flirt with Madrid, PSG, United, City.. and possibly take a move to one of them....

Oscar Grau could possibly have ordered himself a headstone had that happened...

doublejobbing 2

The interest of the Irish public in the Premiership certainly has dipped in recent years.

A combination of:

- the generally poor forum of Utd, Liverpool, Arsenal in the last decade

- a lot more people realising supporting your local LOI team on a Friday night is a lot more craic than spending your Saturday afternoon on the couch watching "us" in a goaless draw against Burnley. Or even worse the absolute anti climax so many of the big derbies turn out to be

- pubs, when open, are generally deserted for these matches, a combination of a lack of interest and people watching them on streams. A decade ago United vs Liverpool would get as many people in the door as a big Ireland qualifier, sometimes more.

- while some would debate whether it was ever fashionable, grown men do not wear premier league jerseys walking round the streets like they did 10 years ago.

a very cool kid

doublejobbing 2 wrote: »

The interest of the Irish public in the Premiership certainly has dipped in recent years.

A combination of:

- the generally poor forum of Utd, Liverpool, Arsenal in the last decade


- pubs, when open, are generally deserted for these matches, a combination of a lack of interest and people watching them on streams. A decade ago United vs Liverpool would get as many people in the door as a big Ireland qualifier, sometimes more.
.

United, in particular being poor/boring is terrible news for the PL. There was a stat a few years ago that 51% of PL viewers watched a match involving United. They are box office, the other smaller teams are really just supporting cast in some ways.

doublejobbing 2 wrote: »

The interest of the Irish public in the Premiership certainly has dipped in recent years.

- a lot more people realising supporting your local LOI team on a Friday night is a lot more craic than spending your Saturday afternoon on the couch watching "us" in a goaless draw against Burnley. Or even worse the absolute anti climax so many of the big derbies turn out to be

This my friend I'm afraid is nonsense, I try to go to a couple of LOI games a year. The standard is dreadfully poor, you don't feel welcome and everything about it just screams amateur. The fact even the style of play has gone so negative as well - you'd struggle to keep an eye on it on tv.

Roger_007

I think that the overall entertainment value of the PL games has declined in recent years. It’s not so much that the level of skill on show is any less, it’s the lack of any real characters or passion in the game. I used to love the fierce rivalry between certain clubs which would be reflected on the field in personal ‘battles’ between certain players. It doesn’t seem to happen anymore.
Even the managers are so polite to each other, it’s almost embarrassing.

https://www.spotrac.com/epl/rankings/

This website is great for looking at the amounts different premier league players are under. Out of 570 paid players, 236 are on a weekly wage of £50,000 a week or more, and that's before you account for money for "image rights" many players enjoy. £2.6 million/ €3 million a year.

84 of them on £100,000 a week or more (16 players seem to earn that exact amount of £100,000, which must increase their marketability and future clout in contract negotiations to have the 6-figures a week. 19 players earn £40,000 a week). £5.2 million/ €5.9 million a year.

And the figures for what Messi, Ronaldo, Lewandowsi etc. even just from salaries are just head-spinning. But even the guys getting £500,000 a doing pretty well I reckon!

Malcomex

AllGunsBlazing wrote: »

I remember back in the early 00's when ITV paid massively over the odds for the rights to broadcast English second tier football.


So utterly piss poor were the viewing figures that it would have been more cost effective to bus every single fan of each club to the ground on match days.

Eventually the English Premier League will devour all of football the world over.

ITV was stupid enough to do that.

Nobody was ever going to watch it

Fr Tod Umptious

osarusan wrote: »

That is the only one that I would really agree with. I don't think the rest are going to have much impact at all.


But COVID really could kill clubs. Not the big ones, but the lower division teams. And not so much in England but in other European countries without the tv deals.



In a way, it would be nice to go back to a time when the top 3/4 clubs in the top 3/4 leagues didn't hoover up every bit of talent on the planet. But it will never happen.

Covid-19 will certainly have a bigger impact down lower down the leagues it's impact on the top flight will be relatively short, but hurtful all the same.

The real elephant in the room is the TV rights.

They dropped £500m last time and are expected to drop another £500m this year for the 2022-2025 rights auction.

BT have pulled back from trying to compete with Sky and are now happy to complement them seeing as BT is now available to purchase through a Sky subscription.

None of the likes of Facebook or Twitter or Youtube are interested in investing billions in rights.

That leaves Sky holding all the cards and they can have a big say in the price.

No wonder the big clubs are looking to Europe.

dublin49

The next generation are alot more savvy than we were about paying for sport and the fragmentation of coverage to lots of providers suggest to me the days of Super pay days from the likes of Sky /BT are numbered.I think fans will move to taking coverage from the teams TV Station or paying for one off matches rather than a SKY /BT package.I think the money from tv will dramatically reduce and the premiership wont be as populated from all parts of the world as the reach of the British clubs will be reduced by the reduction in the tv money.

NIMAN

Sweet.Science wrote: »

Barcelona can't pay their players either .

Did I not read the other day they are paying Messi £123,000,000 every year?
Any wonder they have no money.

chrissb8

Kivaro wrote: »

Well, in fairness, after paying Messi €555 million over the last 4 years, is there any money left in the kitty? €1/2 billion is a bit much.
Professional athletes are getting paid WAY too much.
When we talk about inequality, let's have a look at these people too.

Eh no. Do you know how many players do not make it to be a top elite professional footballer? Barely any at all. Those who do, work their backs off and have made it to the very top of their profession.

That is not an easy feet to achieve in football and the demand is already huge, the competition insane and the chance of making it, slim to none.

Y'know. Similarly to like being a recording artist, or being an actor.

Anyway....

Football stadiums holding thousands are built. Matches broadcast to millions of people all over the world. Video games, merchandise etc. etc.

You get the idea of how much money is made from football. Now, why should that money not go to the players in which the very spectacle is built around?

Football is the most lucrative sport and was built on the players throughout the years to get to where it is at.

In fact, it would be a shambles if footballers didn't get paid what they get paid with the money in the industry.

When people say they shouldn't be paid what they get paid because they're only kicking a ball around a field.

Yes. They are, and people love this kicking of the ball around the field so much it has become a global phenomenon.

NIMAN

All true, but Covid really has knocked the stuffing out of the game.

From Day 1 I couldn't get interested to watch matches with no fans. It was soulless. I tried again recently and still can't get into it.

Speaking to a lot of family and work colleagues, it seems many are following. Many are losing interest rapidly, so unless Covid ends quickly and stadia are packed out again in the next 12 months, I feel it will deal the game a massive blow.

Mysterypunter

NIMAN wrote: »

Did I not read the other day they are paying Messi £123,000,000 every year?
Any wonder they have no money.

Barca and Real Madrid get huge tax breaks from the Spanish government, its a bit like the situation with the Queen of England where she is a tax dodging toff, but is seen as a tourist attraction by the government so they justify her existence for that reason, the two clubs are similar in that they make huge losses which are subsidised by the Spanish government for sure in the case of Madrid, not absolutely sure about Barcelona, may have fallen out with the Madrid government because of their support for Catalan independence, but it was the case up to about 10 years ago, that's why Real could sign the Galactico squad players, eg Figo and Zidane

Harry Palmr

Harry Palmr wrote: »

What's striking is that none of the new money big players are piling in to take on the incumbents. Amazon have barely dipped a toe in the market. In France Discovery and a couple of others didn't even reach the reserve price of the contract. Right now football is at best a stagnant market for broadcasters which is why the European Super League has some traction. That will attract the big money at the expense of national leagues.

TV ratings keep falling, broadcast rights kept rising. For a while. It makes sense in a perverse way, live TV audiences keep getting smaller but sport is one of the few ways to reliably have an audience to sell fast food and viagra to.
New players would be smart to wait for prices to fall.
As well as that, the plethora of streaming options will take a while to shake out. People are paying for a few streaming options but content keeps fragmenting. However right now if Amazon have whatever, 50 million Prime subscribers then how many more will adding the Premier League get them? Considering the current prices for rights I think they'd need to charge more than a tenner a month.

Strumms

The premier league may very well kill the golden goose...as tv coverage is concerned..

Sky is great, love loads of other sports so I’ve no issues paying... I used to pay for setanta too, when I ended up having Saturday off work it was great on cold ****ty winter days, a 3pm premier league kickoff, summer not so much on ... but hey... the premier league are entitled to maximize their revenue stream but they are fûcking over the football public with the current setup...it’s a pretty ****ty way to do business.

Should always have been only one broadcaster for EPL..regardless of the match day / kickoff time. That was a really ****ty thing for the EPL to do in hindsight...greedy, should have been a one stop shop group of channels / subscriptions...

Rights sold separately for cups both FA and League Cup, no problem, different competitions, they sell separately.... but all EPL should be the one TV provider / company in my view.

osarusan

I think splitting the broadcasting rights into different packages for different broadcasters was a result of EU policy on monopolies...or something like that.

Johnny BGood

a very cool kid wrote: »

United, in particular being poor/boring is terrible news for the PL. There was a stat a few years ago that 51% of PL viewers watched a match involving United. They are box office, the other smaller teams are really just supporting cast in some ways.



This my friend I'm afraid is nonsense, I try to go to a couple of LOI games a year. The standard is dreadfully poor, you don't feel welcome and everything about it just screams amateur. The fact even the style of play has gone so negative as well - you'd struggle to keep an eye on it on tv.

Surely the “standard is dreadfully poor” excuse has been put to bed over the past decade.
St Pats under L. Buckley, Dundalk under S.Kenny and Rovers under Bradley (several more)have played a very attractive brand of football which would be far superior to what you’d see in an average game in England.
Why did you not feel welcome? Was it the bad language or the sh** curry chips?
These are problems at every game around Europe.
Just another excuse and a reason to put the league down for no apparent reason.
Yes facilities could improve but in terms of the people involved(who are great) and the standard of games, it’s as good in terms of playing football “the right way” as I’ve ever seen.
I always feel the need to compare ourselves to Scotland, who’s club fans support them regardless of how sh** they may be or how much they a frowned upon by English fans.
Ireland unfortunately has this culture of going elsewhere and paying a fortune to get some satisfaction when they could just go down the road.
Weird.

NIMAN

A lot of Irish football fans are event junkies. Not quite the same excitement for them to go to an LoI game.
They like supporting a winning team too, hence many also become rugby fans when Ireland or the provinces are doing well.

Ireland must be the only country where so-called football fanatics don't support their local team?

Many leagues around Europe/the World are likely at the standard of the LoI or worse, but fans still support their teams.
Instead in Ireland we get "I wouldn't watch that sh1t" as a retort.

snotboogie

a very cool kid wrote: »

This my friend I'm afraid is nonsense, I try to go to a couple of LOI games a year. The standard is dreadfully poor, you don't feel welcome and everything about it just screams amateur. The fact even the style of play has gone so negative as well - you'd struggle to keep an eye on it on tv.

The quality of football has largely improved across the leavue. To be fair my local team Cork City have been playing brutal stuff for the last few years but the match experience itself is actually decent, I'm far from a hardcore LOI fan and I've never once felt anywhere close to unwelcome.

Polar101

At the moment player wages aren't sustainable - some of the biggest clubs can pay them, if they get tax breaks like in Spain, big TV money and sell loads of shirts. But how many other clubs can?

It's starting to look like revenues for TV rights have reached their maximum, so something will have to change. It might lead to some kind of a super league, where the richest clubs can still compete, and domestic leagues will be for the teams who weren't big enough.

One solution might be a US style wage cap for players, but who's going to implement that? If, say, the Premier League does it, best players will flock to other leagues. If UEFA implements it (don't see that happening), the best players will go to the Middle East or China. Something like that might be the only long-term solution, but I'd expect things to get financially worse for many clubs and leagues, before they get better.

You can already see "new" stuff happening, they tried the "box office" thing this season in the premier league, where people who already pay a subscription couldn't view the "special" games without paying extra. That didn't work, but anything to fleece sports fans for more money will be attempted.

Pawwed Rig

a very cool kid wrote: »

This my friend I'm afraid is nonsense, I try to go to a couple of LOI games a year. The standard is dreadfully poor, you don't feel welcome and everything about it just screams amateur. The fact even the style of play has gone so negative as well - you'd struggle to keep an eye on it on tv.

The standard is actually fairly good which is reflected by Dundalk getting to the Europa League group stages. Some of the best games I have seen in the last few years have been LOI games. It is more than that though. It is the opportunity to see football regularly rather than the annual pilgrimage to Anfield or Old Trafford. Also it is supporting Irish football rather than ploughing money into an already over inflated EPL.

As to feeling welcome? I am not sure what you are looking for there. You buy your ticket, sit down and watch the football. No more or less 'welcoming' than the time I visited the Camp Neu or the Allianz Arena

dan1895

Pawwed Rig wrote: »

The standard is actually fairly good which is reflected by Dundalk getting to the Europa League group stages. Some of the best games I have seen in the last few years have been LOI games. It is more than that though. It is the opportunity to see football regularly rather than the annual pilgrimage to Anfield or Old Trafford. Also it is supporting Irish football rather than ploughing money into an already over inflated EPL.

As to feeling welcome? I am not sure what you are looking for there. You buy your ticket, sit down and watch the football. No more or less 'welcoming' than the time I visited the Camp Neu or the Allianz Arena

You mean you don't go around LOI grounds hassling people you've never seen there before??

Pawwed Rig

dan1895 wrote: »

You mean you don't go around LOI grounds hassling people you've never seen there before??

:pac:

screamer

I certainly hope it does pop. I find football utterly boring, posers more than players these days. Overpaid legs about sums it up. In the grand scheme of things, football is not important and certainly not worth the ridiculous sums of money paid out. It’ll die out eventually as new generations find other sports and pursuits more interesting, till then it’ll have to be endured.

Fr Tod Umptious

Deleted User wrote: »

TV ratings keep falling, broadcast rights kept rising. For a while. It makes sense in a perverse way, live TV audiences keep getting smaller but sport is one of the few ways to reliably have an audience to sell fast food and viagra to.
New players would be smart to wait for prices to fall.
As well as that, the plethora of streaming options will take a while to shake out. People are paying for a few streaming options but content keeps fragmenting. However right now if Amazon have whatever, 50 million Prime subscribers then how many more will adding the Premier League get them? Considering the current prices for rights I think they'd need to charge more than a tenner a month.

But they don't keep rising.
The domestic rights were £500m down last time on the previous deal and expected to be the same for the next deal.

The EPLs deal with their Chinese rights holder collapsed in September and they had to do a new one with another provider for less money.

Fr Tod Umptious

dublin49 wrote: »

The next generation are alot more savvy than we were about paying for sport and the fragmentation of coverage to lots of providers suggest to me the days of Super pay days from the likes of Sky /BT are numbered.I think fans will move to taking coverage from the teams TV Station or paying for one off matches rather than a SKY /BT package.I think the money from tv will dramatically reduce and the premiership wont be as populated from all parts of the world as the reach of the British clubs will be reduced by the reduction in the tv money.

That can only happen if the EPL completely rewrites it's reason for being.

It was setup as 22 (now 20) clubs to bargain collectively for their interest without having to worry about the interest of the other 72 clubs in the football league.

So everyone in the Premier league gets a slice of the TV pie.

If you all teams to broadcast their own games then all that is gone.

The revenue that a top team could generate would vastly outstrip what a team further down the table could generate.

WesternZulu

doublejobbing 2 wrote: »

The interest of the Irish public in the Premiership certainly has dipped in recent years.

A combination of:

- the generally poor forum of Utd, Liverpool, Arsenal in the last decade

- a lot more people realising supporting your local LOI team on a Friday night is a lot more craic than spending your Saturday afternoon on the couch watching "us" in a goaless draw against Burnley. Or even worse the absolute anti climax so many of the big derbies turn out to be

- pubs, when open, are generally deserted for these matches, a combination of a lack of interest and people watching them on streams. A decade ago United vs Liverpool would get as many people in the door as a big Ireland qualifier, sometimes more.

- while some would debate whether it was ever fashionable, grown men do not wear premier league jerseys walking round the streets like they did 10 years ago.

I wish what you were saying is true. The reasons pubs aren't full when matches are on is down to "dodgy boxes" and far more reliable streams than ten years ago.

Even if you did want to go the legal route you can buy a one off game from Now TV for €10 and have a few beers at home watching it. Still works out cheaper than going to the pub.

As for jerseys, I think fashion trends have just changed in the last decade as it's not as accepted as it was. I might not see as many United or Liverpool jerseys about on the street as I once did but I'm not seeing any more LOI ones either.

grassylawn

AllGunsBlazing wrote: »

I remember back in the early 00's when ITV paid massively over the odds for the rights to broadcast English second tier football.


So utterly piss poor were the viewing figures that it would have been more cost effective to bus every single fan of each club to the ground on match days.

Eventually the English Premier League will devour all of football the world over.

Why do you think that?
A lot of Spanish-speaking football fans in the world. Lower taxes on wages in Spain. And it's just a nicer place to live. You don't get many Spanish pensioners retiring to Bournemouth.

Fr Tod Umptious

Deleted User wrote: »

TV ratings keep falling, broadcast rights kept rising. For a while. It makes sense in a perverse way, live TV audiences keep getting smaller but sport is one of the few ways to reliably have an audience to sell fast food and viagra to.
New players would be smart to wait for prices to fall.
As well as that, the plethora of streaming options will take a while to shake out. People are paying for a few streaming options but content keeps fragmenting. However right now if Amazon have whatever, 50 million Prime subscribers then how many more will adding the Premier League get them? Considering the current prices for rights I think they'd need to charge more than a tenner a month.

But Amazon, or any other non traditional media company, are never going to buy up anything more than the smallest of rights packages.

They are not going to stump up billions for the domestic rights that Sky and BT currently bid for.

It's just not in their business model.

snotboogie

grassylawn wrote: »

Why do you think that?
A lot of Spanish-speaking football fans in the world. Lower taxes on wages in Spain. And it's just a nicer place to live. You don't get many Spanish pensioners retiring to Bournemouth.

Problem is that none of them are in particularly wealthy countries: https://www.sbibarcelona.com/newsdetails/index/413 The China Premier League deal alone is worth more than the entire overseas portfolio for La Liga. Also nicer place to live depends where in Spain and where in England, most big players would choose London as a city over even Madrid or Barcelona. Granted Malaga might be more appealing than Sheffield but there are plenty of undesirable places in Spain for multimillionaire footballers too.

Fr Tod Umptious wrote: »

[/b]

But Amazon, or any other non traditional media company, are never going to buy up anything more than the smallest of rights packages.

They are not going to stump up billions for the domestic rights that Sky and BT currently bid for.

It's just not in their business model.

Tencent have the full rights in China, so big tech getting involved is not out of the question.

bocaman

Covid 19 is a temporary setback for football. I'll agree the transfer fees and wages are highly inflated. But I've been listening to the argument for years that the bubble has to burst. It hasn't. If anything it's increased and will continue to do so.

joseywhales

joseywhales wrote: »

If things were still equitable, we'd probably have ajax dominating europe right now. Burnley could be english champions. West Ham would have dominated the noughties.

Athletico Madrid would have won 2 Champions Leagues in the past 5 years. Monaco would have won one as well.

Fr Tod Umptious

snotboogie wrote: »

Problem is that none of them are in particularly wealthy countries: https://www.sbibarcelona.com/newsdetails/index/413 The China Premier League deal alone is worth more than the entire overseas portfolio for La Liga. Also nicer place to live depends where in Spain and where in England, most big players would choose London as a city over even Madrid or Barcelona. Granted Malaga might be more appealing than Sheffield but there are plenty of undesirable places in Spain for multimillionaire footballers too.



Tencent have the full rights in China, so big tech getting involved is not out of the question.

Sky built a whole new TV service (subscription based satellite TV) and used Premier League broadcasts as the linchpin of that service.
The EPL broadcasts drove the subscription model.

BT picked up a remnants of Setanta, a small company that tried to match Sky but got burned in the late 2000s financial crash.

BT then tried to compete with Sky (they had the money Setanta did not have) and this drove the price up during a few rights auction in the 2010s.

But now that BT can get subscribers signed up through the Sky they don't really need to try and compete with Sky for subscribers.

Now if you look at Amazon they already have a huge subscriber base based on selling stuff online and at an enterprise level selling cloud IT infrastructure services.

They don't necessarily need a vehicle like EPL rights to drive subscriptions the way Sky do or BT did.
They already have the subscribers.
So they are not going to go OTT in a rights bidding war.

Tencent ended up paying less for their rights than the original deal that fell through, just the same way as Amazon ended up paying less for the EPL rights they bought than the EPL had originally hoped because they remained unsold for a longer time than was expected.

grassylawn

snotboogie wrote: »

Problem is that none of them are in particularly wealthy countries: https://www.sbibarcelona.com/newsdetails/index/413 The China Premier League deal alone is worth more than the entire overseas portfolio for La Liga. Also nicer place to live depends where in Spain and where in England, most big players would choose London as a city over even Madrid or Barcelona. Granted Malaga might be more appealing than Sheffield but there are plenty of undesirable places in Spain for multimillionaire footballers too.



Tencent have the full rights in China, so big tech getting involved is not out of the question.

Your link says that the revenue of La Liga in 2016 was 3.6 billion. That is a lot. This link says the premier league had the same revenue for the same period. I didn't look into any differences in how the figures were determined but they appear comparable and both are very great.

https://www.espn.com/soccer/english-premier-league/story/3156045/premier-league-clubs-combine-for-36bn-in-revenue-in-2015-16-deloitte