The Premier League in England was created in 1992 to supersede the old Division 1 and in that time has exploded to be the most lucrative league in all football. In 2007, the Premier League was valued at generating annual revenues of £1.8 billion. This is the fourth highest behind the US National Football League, Major League Baseball and the National Basketball Association. In 1992, BSkyB gained the rights to broadcasting all Premier League matches which at the time was quite surprising, 17 years later you can hardly imagine a Premier League without Sky TV coverage. The revenue levels shared between all football club in the Premier League makes being in the top flight very lucrative and has led to a gulf between the other English football clubs.
In 2006, Irish company Setanta broke Sky TV’s rights to broadcast all football and has also got involved in International football coverage. This occurred after the European Commission concluded that the Premier League matches should not be with just one company.
More recently, American sports network channel ESPN are interested in broadcasting Premier League football. They have publicly declared that they would want to cover 100% of all Premier League football matches. The deadline for the first tenders is February 4th 2009 and it is expected that ESPN will be bidding. This could negatively impact upon all Premier League club’s earnings depending on how the deal was scoped, but due to economical pressures club revenues through these TV deals could decrease anyway.
BBC’s rights to broadcast all Premier League football highlights is likely to remain the same.
Does our national game depend upon this revenue too much to produce high quality football as opposed to concentrating on English grass roots?
The Football Association and other bodies have a responsibility to preserve our nation's favourite sport. Ensuring that player behaviour on the pitch is part of this because in recent years footballers have huge popstar like status. Football has strong links with the working class and should be there for kids to seek good values - keeping fit, being a team player and taking part in activity that is fun!
Football for all is a great Scottish based charity whose aim it is to address racial discrimination, drug/alcohol abuse, homelessness and then promote inclusion in our beautiful game at a local level. This is an important part of the system and ensures that if there is talent out there that everyone gets to play football.
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