Serie A was based on rich owners. PL clubs are rich without rich owners because we have the most lucrative league on the planet because more people pay to watch it over any other league. Even mid league PL teams make the top 20 world’s richest teams.
Why do you think that?
Surely it would have to mean the collapse of Sky and BT.
Yes, but be fair, here you’re comparing the FA Cup to the league and the CL, not the Europa League.
I’m not arguing with you on which is more prestigious, especially as an Arsenal fan. I’d trade one of our recent FA Cup wins for this season’s Europa League. Especially for our club, a European trophy would be much more prestigious, success in Europe has been very scant for club of our size.
Only weighing in on the “which was more difficult” side of things (not even because it’s a particularly important issue), and even then I’m not saying that the FA Cup is always harder by any stretch.
Not necessarily. The continuous inflation rate of tv money is unsustainable in the long term.
That may be true, but even then that doesn’t account for the possibility that TV money might just plateau, the bubble isn’t necessarily going to burst with awful consequences.
It only takes one of them to give up. The price of PL only became ridiculous once BT started massively upping the bidding and actually attempt to compete with Sky in a way that Setanta / ESPN / etc. didn’t.
I’m not sure the bubble will burst, but the growth will definitely decline and maybe even stop.
Sky are attempting to reduce their price a little, that’s not a very Sky thing to do. That says to me that they’re losing business, which means that paying 3x what they were paying from 2010-2013 isn’t anywhere near as profitable. BT are probably only interested to steal business from Sky and Virgin for broadband and TV. Maybe they’ll decide they’ve stolen enough customers in 2019 to not fight as aggressively to keep all the sport they have.
3 Likes
The markets growing, there is a reason we go on these overly elaborate round the world tours every pre-season instead of getting dug in and working on the fundamentals to prepare for the challenge ahead.
Perhaps the bottom might drop out of it, or it may plateau as Jake aptly suggests, but from where I’m sitting it’s only going to keep expanding. I stopped getting shocked at the money in the transfer markets a long time ago. What would shock me would be world class players going for less, not more.
@Craigie even then I suppose we should consider what the internet will do for the sport. It might be five years or ten years from now, but eventually a Netflix for football instead of film is going to come around and revolutionize everything. Whether that will bring more money to the teams or less is anybodies guess, but I’d bet more. Personally I can’t wait for the day BT or Sky collapse, they’ve had the monopoly on the sport for far too long. Not to mention they treat their customers like dogshit and ooze greed from every orifice.
Certainly the landscape to how you watch Sport has changed dramatically in the last 25 years. I think one of the bigger problems companies like Sky/BT potentially have to deal with in the future is social media platforms. In a sense that places like Youtube/Facebook/Twitter are beginning to stream many live sporting events, for free and who knows what will happen 10 years down the line, if conventional formats start to get whittled away. I can’t see the new generation stomping out on crazy prices when they’ll just access everything online.
I suppose the biggest question mark will be where would the money come from in order to make it happen?
If anything i reckon the revenue could increase even further before things halt. It seems like the mass media companies are looking to create streaming channels because of the illegal streams like a sorta ‘cant beat them join them move.’ They will probably have better quality streams and they will also be legal too…but it all depends on pricing etc on whether such moves are successful because if they price too high no one is going to pay it and stay with the illegal streams.
Definitely better than the clubs you mentioned, even more so over 2 legs. Everything past mid table in the PL isn’t really that great tbh.
I fear that’s never going to happen as long as most domestic markets are as closed as they are right now. It would take a stupid amount of subscribers to actually make that work without selling it all within a package like sky does, which outprices most normal customers.
It will. It should have already.
It should, but there isn’t enough money behind it to make it work. If you want the Netflix for football to work in England you’d need to cut prices by at least half if not considerably more and then attract a significantly higher amount of customers to finance it. At least with how costly the licensing rights now are it’s unlikely that it’s going to happen anytime soon.
Maybe if the next contract renewal drops prices by a lot due to Sky and BT not being able to maintain their current financial commitment it could work, but otherwise they’re always going to sell it to you bundled with their remaining channels.
Even the current Netflix of sport that is being offered in Germany/Austria can’t provide anything more than highlights of the Bundesliga due to the rights being way too expensive for anything more.
That’s not really the concept I was describing though when I claimed a Netflix of football would come around is it?
BT already allow members to stream their games but it’s a poor consolation prize for people who now have to split their football viewing expense two ways.
The rights are always going to be the main issue as you say, but it would be like Disney buying Star Wars. Sky are trying to adapt with their new channel policy but it’s about 10 years too late and missing a certain European football experience that we as Arsenal fans don’t have to concern ourselves with this year.
Incredible article!! 
Neymar isn’t yet a PSG player but just asked to keep Marcos and Thiago Silva, is happy to have Dani Alves as team-mate and requested to buy Alexis Sànchez and Coutinho (his two friends) as reinforcements on attack.
About an hour ago I saw an article (Not sure what paper/country) stating neymar wants Coutinho at Barça in order to stay. Seems rather weird one player dictating the transfer policy of a club lol.
I just don’t get it, this guy is nowhere near the level of Messi, nor will he ever be…
Remember when Pelé and others used to go on about how Neymar would be better than Messi? Used to hate that crap. That said, the guy is a fantastic talent and definitely one of the best 5 footballers in the game. When Messi has gone missing or even a few times for Brasil he has failed to stamp his authority on matches the way one would hope of a player of his stature, but it might be just a question of the Barça style of play/his habits in that team, where he seems to struggle to get away from the left side touchline and into areas where he can influence more the game and increase his options. I would be interested to see what he could do for PSG. Though one also feels that he should really put together one truly prolific, dominant season at Barça (the type he seemed to be putting up in 2015-16 before he tailed off in the second half of the season) to solidify his legacy there.
I keep saying this, but if he does go to PSG, I really think we should go all in for Di María. He could play both as an 8 in the 3-4-3 and a RW in the 4-3-3. It won’t happen, of course, because Wenger would not start the season with the 4-3-3 as the primary formation (which you’d have to do, 3-4-3 with Di María as an 8 would have to be more an alternative option), but it’s the kind of move a manager who was really going all in and was a bit less chronically over-optimistic and more, well, willing to make an all in kind of move at the title would do, and tbh I’m pretty convinced that Di María could be convinced to give England another try, in London, after his bad experience in Manchester. His comments suggest that he’d like to continue in Paris but that he’s not sure if he’s part of their plans at all.
Older than Sànchez, 180k p/w, started the decline of his incredible football career, assisted by Gestifute/Jorge Mendes.
Still a fantastic footballer and the type of talent that could give us a chance to compete for the title despite Wenger’s failures as a manager, Real Madrid style. His 180k p/w or more could be easily paid for by trimming the fat and losing players like Ox, Gibbs, Wilshere, Chambers, and Giroud/Walcott. An Alexis-Lacazette-Di María Özil-Ramsey-Xhaka front 6 would be a great balance of creativity and goals.
1 Like
We should have signed Di Maria when he wanted out of Madrid instead of letting him end up in the ghetto.
Alexis-Ozil-Di Maria is the sort of sensational attacking trio that might have even seen a donkey like Giroud reach twenty league goals.
2 Likes
Antonio Conte is targeting four more signings as Chelsea prepare to back their manager with a budget which could top £250 million.
Conte is to rival Manchester City in the summer spending stakes as he moves to strengthen the Premier League champions with Alex Sandro, Antonio Candreva, Fernando Llorente and Virgil van Dijk.