There are some things in football that have a sense of inevitability around them. Man United fans will disappear from all social networks when their team are struggling, Joey Barton will use those same social networks to criticise players who are better than him and Harry Redknapp will sign Niko Kranjčar. But one thing that seems to have become equally inevitable is that, every few years, talk of playing a Premier League game in strange foreign lands will resurface.
Let me lay some facts on you. Firstly, Premier League TV rights are worth £5.5billion worldwide. That’s a staggering amount; it shows that our Premier League is big business (as if there was ever any doubt). But, what is even more unbelievable is that currently North Korea and Albania are the only two countries in the world not to have some sort of Premier League TV deal already in place. Crucially, that shows how far reaching the appeal of our league is. And that’s where the money is.
The Premier League is popular worldwide, but there are still countries that could be piling more money into our game. The businessmen who run our football are not willing to leave that money where it is. And I suppose they wouldn’t be good businessmen if they were. In countries all over the world enthusiasm can still grow, interest can still grow, viewership can still grow and crucially profit can still grow.
The idea of big business is to make big money. And when a company are in a market that they have already saturated (it would be hard for the FA to squeeze any more money out of the UK), then that company must search for new revenue streams, moving into new, previously untapped markets.
The FA know this, they were wise to it six years ago when they first floated the idea of stretching the league season to 39 games and having that extra game played abroad. The idea was quickly shot down by fans all over the country and seemed to disappear quickly. But it’s hard to keep a money spinning idea down. And sure enough, here we are again.
Now the idea is to play an existing league game abroad, rather than create an extra one. And this time the idea may not slip quietly into the night like has happened previously. This is largely because the FA have now seen the idea put into action with impressive results, courtesy of the NFL.
Like the Premier League in England, the NFL had little to no chance of growing its fan base in the USA. The game was simply so popular that there was really nowhere to go but down. So, new markets were sought. With Sky’s TV coverage of the NFL already getting decent numbers it was deemed worthwhile to play a competitive league game at Wembley stadium. The idea took off and continued in that vein until last season when two ‘regular season’ games were played at Wembley. This season there will be three, all are sell-outs. TV viewing figures are up, the project was a success and continues to yield results. Before long, expect there to be an NFL team actually based in England.
This kind of success is hard to ignore. The NBA followed suit by hosting a game in London, how can we expect the Premier League not to be interested in doing similar. Of course, the success of the NFL experiment wouldn’t seem so vast if you were to poll the fans of the NFL teams who have had to give up one of their home games. Unless they make the playoffs, NFL sides get just 8 home games in a season; one disappearing overseas isn’t appealing to the fans.
And we are just as possessive over our game. I go to see my team as often as I can, I don’t want my already slim chances of getting a ticket made even less because one of our games is being played in Thailand. And that poses another question. If our league is so popular all over the world, then where exactly would this game be played? Viewing figures are huge in Asia and the Premier League has already expressed a great deal of interest in the area by taking three teams over the past few summers for the Asia trophy. But that’s just a glorified friendly, imagine the popularity of a real game.
While the USA is quickly emerging as a major market for football or (said in an American accent) Sock-Ore. This summer Man United played a friendly in Michigan against Real Madrid in front of 109,316 fans. This was just part of the kind of American tours that many of Europe’s biggest clubs embark on during pre-season, the sole goal being to win new fans.
FIFA are reluctant to let competitive games be played outside of that country’s domestic boundaries. And for once, and it’s so out of character for me to say this, I think FIFA are right. To the governing bodies that are having the FA move in on their turf, this isn’t a welcome visit, it’s an invasion. The USA for example will struggle to build their MLS (which had been thriving) if all of a sudden they’re not just competing with the NFL and NBA for TV audiences, but they’re no longer even the best football game in town because the Premier League has moved in too.
Sadly, if football has taught us anything, it’s that, if the money’s right, nothing is impossible. We can fight it and we will. But one day, be warned, this may happen.