If you rewind the clock back ten years to 2003 to E.S.P.N. you would have found only two Premier League games. Those games were Arsenal versus Manchester United and Manchester United versus Arsenal. This was the rivalry that was such ratings monster that E.S.P.N. took a chance and showed the games live in the United States. The rivalry was so epic that they had to get in on action. Come back to today and Premier League games have gone from helping build Fox Soccer Channel, which is now merged into Fox Sports 1. The Premier League spent time on E.S.P.N. and E.S.P.N.2 to now exclusively on N.B.C. Sports for the next three years. The reasoning for such a deal is isn't the nearly 1.5 billion people worldwide who watch the Premier League. That's the most watched sports league in to the entire world by the way. It's that the Premier League brand has been consistent with it's quality for all these years. The most consistent being Manchester United under Sir Alex. If N.B.C. is willing to bet that the Premier League will maintain its high level of quality than it justifies all the money its invested in that deal. By the way that was $250 million dollars for three years so yeah it better work.
In England the amount of money that a Premier League team brings to a city or town can be enormous. The city of Manchester in the north of England went from being a large town into one of the major cities in England. There are three cities in England that most people know of London, everyone knows that one. Liverpool because of the Beetles and their success. Than Manchester because of Manchester United. There are two Premier League teams in Manchester but the other Manchester City has just comes into prominence in these past 3 years. The other teams of the of the league gain a lot of money from ticket sales, merchandise, and the leagues television revenue deals. The town or cities these teams are in gain tax and local business revenues from the teams. This all keeps thousands of people employed year to year. By the way the Premier League season is from August to May but this isn't just money for England this is money for Europe.
The Premier League is governed by the English Football Association, the F.A.. All teams in the F.A. can compete for the F.A. Cup, the worlds oldest Football competition. The F.A. covers not only England but also Wales except some Welsh teams, Scotland has its own league the Scottish Premier Football League. So every team in the F.A., including the minor league teams get to participate in the F.A. Cup which brings the number of teams up to over 700 teams. All of these this means a small team of amateurs can play a massive team of professionals and make money. There's also the Capital One Cup which is played just between the 20 Premier League teams and the clubs of the Football League which is 72. I say all this because there are similar competitions in Europe.
The governing body of European football is the Union of European Football Associations, or just U.E.F.A.. That goes across countries and has the Europa League and the big money maker, the big ratings draw, the Champions League. I'll just talk about the Champions League but make it easier to understand. In this competition the top three teams from ten different countries play each other until there's one winner, the Champion of the Champions League. The thing is you break this down into smaller divisions and spread this out from August to May. That way the Leagues get to play their games, the other Football Associations get theirs and you have two competitions going on nearly year round.
Take all of that and realize that an average team plays about 40 games in the regular season, theres a 10 game pre-season. Which by the way Manchester United started taking internationally a few years back. Than add the games of the Capital One Cup, the F.A. cup and thats possibly 60 games minimum in a year. Now a very successful team that in the Premier League finishes in the top four go tho the Champions League. Thats another 10 ten games there, and if you win the Champions League there's the Super Cup and another 5 games to win to play for the F.I.F.A. Club World Cup competition so you can be crowned Club World Champion. Now think back to the ticket sales, merchandising, advertising, taxes, flights, other revenue making deals and keep in mind the television money.
The Premier League games are on N.B.C., the Champions League is on Fox Sports and E.S.P.N. deals with F.I.F.A.. That's plenty of opportunity for the U.S. markets to make money for the League, U.E.F.A. and F.I.F.A. and money to go in the other direction. When you look at rating year to year the U.E.F.A. Champions League Final does a bigger rating than the SuperBowl. This is so successful that Fox, the network that broadcasts the Final in the U.S., also now shows the F.A. Cup Final on Fox. National, free television showing a soccer final that's NOT the World Cup Final. That's unheard of in 2003, but that's what happened in 2013. I expect the Europa League Final is next, followed by the U.E.F.A. Super Cup. Of course the U.S. has its own soccer league, Major League Soccer, M.L.S. and that has gotten better. Deals with E.S.P.N. and N.B.C. bring money to M.L.S. but it's advertising along side Premier League programming is great cross promotion for M.L.S.. All of this means money flowing like a river.
None of this would have been possible if not for the influence of Sir Alex Ferguson. The fact that his teams were the one that made people want to watch the Champions League Final is a credit to him. The Final went from being a 3pm eastern time game broadcast on ESPN2 on a Wednesday. To Saturday afternoon at 2pm on Fox. That a difference of cable television on a weekday at work time to a Saturday at home in the afternoon on national television. The need for people to watch Manchester United led to the growth of Christiano Ronaldos popularity and than Leonel Messi.
The fact that the F.I.F.A. games series from Electronic Arts has surpassed the Madden series, also from EA as the top selling sports game franchise worldwide is a pleasant surprise. The Winning Eleven series used to be the top game but the was good only in Europe now its number two but still does well. The fact that the names Robin Van Persie, Javier Hernandez, Steven Gerrard, Mesut Ozil, Franck Ribery, and Mario Balotelli are recognized outside of Europe is a testament to the growth of the game outside of Europe and South America. Add to that Tim Howard, Landon Donovan, Clint Dempsey, Thierry Henry and the growth American talent is also a sight to see. This is still growing larger every year. That's the truly phenomenal part of the whole thing. Soccer is the most popular sport in the world, now it may end up being the most profitable. It shouldn't surprise anyone now that the top 50 most valuable sports franchises in the world are in the American NFL. Watch you may not know is that the top three are soccer teams Real Madrid, Manchester United, and Barcelona. Add to that Arsenal and Bayern Munich both worth over $1 Billion dollars you can say, wow. Remember it all started only ten years ago and the sky is still the limit.
Full Post
No comments:
Post a Comment