The Rising EPL

The English Premier League is the top division of football in England, it is quickly becoming a the global envy of sporting competitions In a few short decades, there has been a sea change in the English footballing scene, it has changed from the dangerous abode of raving hooligans to a multi-million dollar industry.

This is thanks to a systematic three-pronged approach – ending hooliganism, increasing income from their homeland, expanding to foreign shores – led by the Football Association. This has led to great success at home but most noticeable was the global appeal of the EPL, take for example Asia, an estimated 54% of Manchester United (an English football club) fans are based in Asia. This vast penetration in Asia has brought its own benefits to the clubs, sponsors are willing to pay a lot more to buy that prime location on each players’ chest, the benefits are reaped by the sponsors as well, they have instantly bought into a global advertising agenda.

The success of the EPL has brought many rich investors to invest in English clubs, in recent years many big name clubs in the EPL have undergone a change at the helm, with new owner bringing their deep pockets to the EPL. Many of these new owners come from America and have already tasted success at home with a local sporting club before they buy into the full blown experience of the EPL.

But there are problems with management to the fastest growing league, the revenue is not equally shared among clubs, the dividends seem to be shared based on a popularity ratio, with big clubs getting the bigger slice of the pie. There is also no wage-cap and thus players are commanding humongous paychecks, there is also an instability of finances when clubs are relegated from the top flight. There have been solutions suggested to alleviate the aforementioned problems, but seeing these solutions come in place will be years from now.

I believe that if other sporting leagues can learn from the success and the mistakes of the EPL, then there would be radical change in the world of sports, and it could be solution to some other problems that are troubling the world such as obesity.