Premier League is getting a big financial advantage due to rich TV deal
- Thread starter Altomonte
- Start date
Ghosting
New member
I forgot BT got CL away from Sky. I think the BT coverage is terrible, especially Owen.
KingMessi
SiempreBlaugrana
http://www.fourfourtwo.com/features...ill-be-completely-different-what-lower-league
Fantastic article.
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"Clubs will wither and die. In 10 years it will be completely different" What lower-league chairmen think of new TV deal
The Premier League's bumper £5.14 billion television contract could change the landscape of British football as we know it, as Richard Edwards discovers...
Richard Scudamore was, understandably, grinning like a Cheshire cat as the Premier League’s eye-watering new television deal was announced last week.
In Yeovil, Accrington and countless other locations across the Football League, there was barely a dry eye in the house too – but for very different reasons.
John Fry, chairman of League One table-proppers Yeovil Town, has seen most things during his 23 years at the helm of a club who last season found themselves playing on the same pitch as the likes of Leicester City and QPR – two clubs who could benefit from the fresh influx of TV billions.
The Glovers may have faced both sides last season but it wasn't, as Fry tells FFT, a level playing field.
“I’ve been chairman of this club for 23 years. It was tough back then and it’s tougher now,” says Fry. “We hear about all of these sums and all our players look up and see these incredible amounts of money – it makes it harder and harder to be really sensible with our playing budget. As incomes in the Premier League go up, most of it goes on wages. That’s not just consuming valuable revenue but also detracting from what we’re doing in the lower leagues, because we’re trying to pay what we can afford.
“That leads to more unemployment, and it’s killing off the sizes of squads and potential for young English players to play football. I don’t think the elite player system is working overall. It might be for clubs in the top flight, but it’s not working further down.”
If the unthinkable happens from Fry’s perspective and Yeovil endure successive relegations, they will, in all likelihood, find themselves coming up against Accrington Stanley in League Two next season.
Stanley's Sorrow
Fry can then share a pint with Stanley chairman Peter Marsden, who, like him, is disillusioned with a situation that puts more money into the pockets of clubs and players who already have plenty.
“I wouldn’t mind if this money was going to be used to good effect – but it won’t be, it just won’t be,” he sighs.
“The vast majority will go towards paying more inflated wages, because as soon as clubs get money they just try to buy someone more expensive. The best players hold out for more money, and more and more players will once again be coming in from outside the UK, which will stop the younger players coming through.”
Stanley themselves survive on average attendances of just over 1,500 – gates which consistently fall steadily each season. It’s a hand-to-mouth existence for a club synonymous with the English game, but the Accrington chairman doesn’t just fear for the future of his own side. Marsden worries for society as a whole.
“It’s very important to keep football going for the local community – it should be a source of civic pride for towns up and down the country that have a professional club,” he says.
“I think most fans don’t even mind if their club isn’t firing on all cylinders and going for promotion every year, it’s just knowing that you can come along and take your kids in the way that your father took you.
“When you endanger that because clubs are either going bust or having to go semi-professional, then you’re not just killing football, you’re actually killing part of the British way of life.
“I feel so strongly about it that I think the government should get involved. Because, left to its own devices, football seems to make a bit of a hash of it.”
"The average fan is being taken for a ride"
What is unquestionable is the Premier League’s ability to make money. And lots of it. The gripe for clubs lower down the league is that, despite the solidarity payments made by the top flight, only a tiny percentage of that cash is filtering down to clubs who need it badly.
“There’s very little in the way of parachute payments, from the Championship coming down to League One,” says Fry. “All we got was £120,000, but our revenues drop as much as £5m.
“That’s the situation we’re in and we’ll deal with it, but listen, I’m in my 70s and a lot of the older generation are supporting clubs in the lower leagues.
“When they die off, who’s going to be left supporting clubs like Yeovil? For a lot of the kids around here now, Chelsea or Manchester United is the first-choice club and then it’s Yeovil.
“The more you put Premier League matches on the big screen, it kills our gate off. When the Champions League is on and clashes with one of our fixtures, the gate drops off dramatically.
“Will the lower leagues survive? Will clubs like us survive? I think a certain number of clubs will wither and die. In 10 years’ time it will be a completely different pyramid as far as professional football is concerned. There will still be the upper end of the Premier League and probably a second tier – and then there will be the rest.”
Marsden, meanwhile, believes the latest deal simply rubs salt into the wounds of the clubs and fans who can only dream of seeing their sides rub shoulders with the likes of Chelsea, Manchester City and Arsenal.
“We are part of the rich tapestry of English football,” he says. “If you take us as a club, Accrington were one of the 12 founder members of the Football League. The only word that springs to mind is ‘obscene’ when I think how much money goes into the Premier League, and how little comes out to the small clubs.
“I just don’t understand how the average football fan doesn’t buy into the fact that they’re being taken for a ride. They could be letting everyone in free and it still wouldn’t make a blind bit of difference, but they won’t do that – all that money coming in will just disappear into the pockets of players and agents.”
Time will tell whether that prediction is correct – but history suggests he won’t be too far wide of the mark.
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Just my two cents: The bubble is bound to burst eventually.
Quoted for new page.
Yep they are utter crap IMO. Owen is just an idiot and just talks crap, easily the worst commentator here in England. I don't really care about the premier league so I just think its funny when he spouts nonsense about players in the BPL. Can imagine I'll get pretty pissed off when he starts talking crap about our players.
I also remember turning it on after a game they were showing and wondered what the hell they were doing. They were just shouting over each other and not even talking about football. I think KSI was on there at the time
Overall it lacks the professionalism of Skys coverage. Dread to thing how bad they are going to do the CL coverage.
KingMessi
SiempreBlaugrana
I think they're complaining about having to compete for fans and how they're losing the kids (as fans) to the big dogs of England. At least that's what I got out of the article.
AnfieldEd
I am Leg End
Well children will have their premier league team and their local team. So it is up to the club to engage the local community and get the kids in the door in all sorts of aspects so that in the they'll have some sort of attachment to that club. However they'll still have their premier league team but at the same time they'll be following and taking an active interest in the local club.
Champions league games back in the day used to be only on a Wednesday which is why the football league at the request of the majority of clubs now play on Tuesday instead.
Champions league games back in the day used to be only on a Wednesday which is why the football league at the request of the majority of clubs now play on Tuesday instead.
Semi-Neutral
Sir Alupp Heynrguson
Imagine if PL was as dominant as the NFL in soccer 
Jenks
Senior Member
Probably something to do with the US having 6 times the population.
Bucky
Penya Member
Yeah there was an article about how the president of La Liga admitted he's worried top players like Ronaldo & Messi wouldn't be able to resist going because of the TV deal in England. Something needs to come in to make sure there is some fair play going on, teams in the PL should be using that money to get themselves out of debt for starters then concentrate on improving stadiums.
Look at how much debt Man U are in for example and then teams in relegation danger; owners like Randy Lerner (Aston Villa) are licking their lips at the TV deal so wanting to do as much as they can to avoid the drop - even if in that example RL is selling the club, he'll want to get a return on his investment. That in itself is a problem, a lot of owners don't get a return on what they spend.
That ye olde saying, "if you're a billionaire and what to become a millionaire, buy a football club".
You only need to look at the silly amount Man Citeh's owner has and how it doesn't bother him how much he puts into the club because it's peanuts to him - where do you draw the line of financial unfairness compared to other teams? Great that he's given them a fresh lick of paint, building up surrounding areas (good for business) and giving them a new stadium, but when he's buying players left, right & centre and even going as far as buying out the competition in the PL it get's ridiculous.
Seriously look at all the players that did well in other teams in the PL that were then brought by Man City to only be a flop. It was continuous until he started bringing in foreign players; which then you have to seriously worry with this new TV deal, when will the bid come in for the likes of Messi (which they seem to think is going to happen this summer?).
Look at how much debt Man U are in for example and then teams in relegation danger; owners like Randy Lerner (Aston Villa) are licking their lips at the TV deal so wanting to do as much as they can to avoid the drop - even if in that example RL is selling the club, he'll want to get a return on his investment. That in itself is a problem, a lot of owners don't get a return on what they spend.
That ye olde saying, "if you're a billionaire and what to become a millionaire, buy a football club".
You only need to look at the silly amount Man Citeh's owner has and how it doesn't bother him how much he puts into the club because it's peanuts to him - where do you draw the line of financial unfairness compared to other teams? Great that he's given them a fresh lick of paint, building up surrounding areas (good for business) and giving them a new stadium, but when he's buying players left, right & centre and even going as far as buying out the competition in the PL it get's ridiculous.
Seriously look at all the players that did well in other teams in the PL that were then brought by Man City to only be a flop. It was continuous until he started bringing in foreign players; which then you have to seriously worry with this new TV deal, when will the bid come in for the likes of Messi (which they seem to think is going to happen this summer?).
Kerrybai
New member
The US has a population of over 300 million. Also we have not see the new foreign tv deal yet, give it a few years and the EPL will surpass the NFL because the NFL doesn't sell well beyond the US.
Yeah I remember that. Players like Santa Cruz, Elano, Bellamy. It was when they got into CL that they could get a whole team that was good together.
S7_MUFC
New member
So your problem is TV deal,Man City owner splashing the cash, Aston Villa owner not splashing the cash and Debt....All four issues are not related to each other and anyone with good business sense will know that there's no sense in using cash to clear the debt if the business still has room for potential growth instead of shrinking the proportion of debt by increasing the revenues by investing the said cash....and Most PL teams are spending on stadiums for your information and in few years time Spurs,West Ham, City and Liverpool will all have better stadiums(either new one or improved)....With the increased TV revenue the relegation candidates can essentially populate their teams with players who would otherwise play for top 5-6 teams in other leagues and that'll make the league a lot stronger....
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