How do we get that same money in Spain?
It is mostly about money and SOME homegrown talent.
Also, about the social impact of a certain country.
For example, in India they play cricket, but India doesn't have strong social impact in the Western world, so nobody cares about cricket here.
Yet, Usa and England are the two countries with the strongest social-culture influence in the western world (all the music is from Usa and Uk, movies etc).
For example, Nba. Not too many care about basketball in Europe, but NBA is huge due to Usa's influence. The same with baseball and NFL. Nobody plays it here but they are still bigger and more popular than let's say Indian favorite: cricket.
In that sense, you always get the feeling that what happens in Uk is more important than what happens in Poland or Finland.
Also, the influence of Uk's culture, music and sport is very strong in countries who speak English: like Usa, but also in let's say Scandinavia, Belgium, Netherlands.
Who are all extremely rich countries.
While Spanish influence is mostly at Brazil and South America, who are very poor.
I'll give an analogy, that is like having 2 clothing brands and one has million customers for whom it's normal to pay 100$ per jeans, while the other brand has customers in other region where even 10$ for jeans is borderline expensive.
Also, in terms of population or direct fans of EPL vs Spain:
Spain population = 47m
England = 56m
Scotland = 5m
Ireland = 5m
Northern Ireland = 2m
Wales = 3m
= 70m
Closely followed in Scandinavia + Benelux:
Sweden = 10m
Denmark = 6m
Norway = 5m
Finland = 5m
Blegium + Netherlands = 29m
= 50-ish m in total
So, you have 70m population on British island and 50-ish m population in surrounding countries where EPL is the most followed football league = 120m in total + also Usa who is culturaly the most connected with Uk.
In Spain, you have 47m population and foreign fans mostly coming from South America and 1 billion of not too rich Messi's fans from Bangladesh.
GDP Uk = 2,67 trillion $
GDP Spain = 1,28 trillion $
So, all in all, investments wise, money invested in Uk's EPL is way better money invested on paper.
In the history, it was the same, the richest leagues were the strongest.
in 1985, after the Heysel tragedy, English clubs were banned for unknown time.
In those days, Italian league was getting stronger and stronger.
And since EPL was semi dead (banned from Europe and strict rules by Margaret Thatcher), money and interest moved to Italy, who already had huge love for football.
And all top players moved to Italy (Maradona, Van Basten, Gullit, Rijkaard, Matthaus).
And once Italian league got rich and famous, money kept rolling and they were bigger and bigger and that continued through the 90s and until somewhere in 2002-2003'.
In the late 90s, Man Utd emerged and EPL clubs were allowed to play in Europe since 1991 (and Liverpool since 1992).
But it took time to bring back the money, coefficients, fans, buzz, top players.
Around the early 2000's, Italian league and too high wages started to cause problems and Italian clubs (Parma was the first) started to bankrupt.
After that, Calciopoli scandal happened with match fixing and demoting the most popular club: Juventus and Italian league died around 2002-2006.
And when one league dies = other league emerges.
In Uk, Man Utd and Arsenal emerged around 2000s and gained huge popularity all over the world.
In Spain, Rm has built Galacticos and took top players from a dying Italian league (Zidane and Ronaldo9).
In 2003, Barca bought young Ronaldinho and later discovered young Messi.
And all the money, players, coaches and sponsors from Italy = moved to Spain and EPL.
Later with CR7, Spain reached all time heights with Messi and CR7 rivalry.
And it stayed alive during MSN era.
But, the same as Italy after 2000s, Spanish La Liga is slowly dying in the last few years.
Top players, coaches, sponsors and international fans are turning to EPL.
For fans who started to follow Barca during Pep, they grew up with the idea that La Liga is the greatest league in the world.
But it was only in that specific era, due to Italy's death. And Messi.
So, currently:
1. more population in UK vs Spain
2. more population in countries surrounding UK who are following EPL
3. UK's fans being richer than Spanish fans
4. fans from neighbor countries who follow EPL (and buy matches + shirts) are richer than followers of La Liga
5. GDP of Uk being 200% bigger than Spanish
6. socio-cultural influence of UK being way larger than Spanish in Western world and the richest countries
7. La Liga lost all star players (Messi, Cr7, Neymar, Suarez) and currently have only two grannies in Benzema and Lewa
8. all players, coaches, sponsors moved to EPL
9. EPL having a huge momentum
10. also, this could be a problem: in both EPL and Italy in the 90s, they had lots of different big clubs so there were tons of derby matches on each weekend.
In the 90s, the big 5 in Italy were: Milan, Juventus, Inter, Lazio, Roma. Plus 2 very strong teams: Fiorentina (with Batistuta and Rui Costa) and ultra-rich Parma (with Buffon, Cannavaro, Thuram, Veron, Crespo).
In EPL we have: Man Utd, Man City, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea, Tottenham.
If you have 5 big teams = that is 20 derby matches in 1 season
If you have 6 big teams = that is 30 derby matches in 1 season
If you have 7 big teams = that is 42 derby matches in 1 season
Then when you watch Spanish La Liga, the only interesting matches during a season (for a casual viewers) are:
Barca-RM
RM-Barca
Barca-Atletico
Atletico-Barca
RM-Atletico
Atletico-RM
I remember in the 90s, when everyone watched Seria A, every Sunday night around 20:30 time, there was one of the matches:
Milan-Juve
Milan-Inter
Milan-Roma
Roma-Lazio
The same as in EPL, each weekend it's something like: Man Utd-Arsenal, Man Utd-Man City, Liverpool-Chelsea. Isn't it?
While when you turn on for La liga matches, 90% of time it's something like this:
Barca-Elche
Barca-Cadiz
Barca-Girona
Barca-Getafe
Barca-Almeria
So, when you put in all on paper, majority of factors are in favor of EPL, for casual football fans (when you remove Barca-glasses).