Taylor Swift

This will kill the premier league.

Like it or not, clubs have and will continue to be global brands. There are fans around the world who will spend a lot of money and time to watch football. Yes yes plastic Asian fans, blah blah blah. Clubs have become disconnected from their local city and institutions. I don’t think it’s possible to turn back the clock.

Look, I’m not in favour of the super league but I do agree in general that the champions league as currently structured and managed isn’t living up to its potential. It would be better for everyone involved in football if it were managed better. And yes, you can’t escape the fact that a lot of this is to do with money.

You can start games at 6pm instead of 7.45pm. In countries that have flexible working days, you can even start earlier at 5pm. Games can go 6pm, 8pm, 10pm. You can play Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. That way you get to broadcast 9 games per week, instead of two. The only reason champions league doesn’t happen on Thursday is because UEFA want to put on the Europa League, which is a shitty product that doesn’t get good until basically the semi finals. UEFA hamstring the champions league intentionally.

The NFL makes $11bn a year from their tv deal. The NBA is looking at $8bn for their next tv deal. The champions league makes $2.5bn/year. Important champions league games are watched by millions. The final is watched by 400m people, the super bowl gets 100m. UEFA are incompetent in how they manage tv rights for the champions league. There’s no reason why a more product-driven organisation couldn’t double or triple the amount of money that the champions league could generate. This is core issue. UEFA could stagger the start of games, they could play more afternoon or early kickoff games to get Asian audiences, can play late night games to get American audiences. All the talk about tradition and history masks a lack of effort in developing the product. Why does UEFA sell tv rights to individual countries? Why not group it and sell single rights for multiple countries or continent-wide rights?

Yeah, this is a nuclear war. If the rest of the teams in the league allow this to happen, they've surrendered a huge chunk of their future revenues and thus value.

Yeah, this is very true. No brand is going to want to be associated with this, especially given how much brands are displaying their 'progressiveness' these days. Either these teams turn around public opinion on this or it's a complete non-starter because brands won't want to be associated with this.

Perez is completely right in his diagnosis of the problem. The CL is only interesting from the quarterfinals onwards. He's completely right. Barely anyone watches the group stages except as background TV. His solution is wrong though, because it will dilute the product. They need to fix the CL by reducing teams, or making sure that only competitive teams enter the group stages. Maybe have bigger groups, as well, so you have more big teams playing together early on in the season.

The most likely scenario is that this is just a big bluff, and the leagues will attempt to call it, but they will reach a compromise where control of the CL is given over to clubs instead of being run by UEFA. More money will be redistributed amongst the clubs that qualify for it, and more matches will happen between the biggest teams. England ends up with 5 places instead of 4, Spain gets 5 instead of 4 etc, and the smallest leagues get squeezed out and have to qualify first, thus creating more teams of equal quality. This will end up distorting domestic leagues even more as the revenue source for the biggest teams will become more predominantly separated from their domestic competitors. Let's hope the takeover goes through soon or we will be in effect forever locked out.

I also accept the reality of the world that we live in and know that there’s no way successful teams and leagues will subsidise smaller, less successful leagues. So the only way to make the champions league more competitive is to fix the coefficients system to limit the entrance of low quality teams.

Why? Smaller leagues don’t generate enough domestic TV and ticket revenue. Why should other leagues subsidise them?

The team that finished bottom in the 8 groups of the CL this year got this many points respectively: 3, 6, 3, 2, 1, 1, 1, 3. Only one team was competitive. UEFA should redistribute at least 4 places to the better leagues.

If we could start fresh, that would be very fun. But the big clubs have a seat at the table and we can’t let perfect be the enemy of the good. The good solution to the problem of too many uncompetitive matches is to limit the participation of uncompetitive teams.

‘Sunday’s Novak Djokovic-Roger FedererWimbledon men’s final averaged a 2.4 rating and 3.83 million viewers on ESPN, up 118% in ratings and 133% in viewership from last year (Djokovic-Kevin Anderson: 1.1, 1.64M) and up 60% and 68% respectively from 2017 (Federer-Marin Cilic: 1.5, 2.28M). The five-hour match ranks as the highest rated and most-watched Wimbledon final in seven years, since Federer-Andy Murray in 2012 (2.5, 3.93M). Regardless of tournament, it ranks as the top tennis match since the Serena Williams-Venus WilliamsUS Open quarterfinal in 2015 (3.7, 6.0M).’ From here: https://www.sportsmediawatch.com/2019/07/wimbledon-mens-final-ratings-seven-year-high/ And also this for the Federer-Rafa match at the Australian Open in 2017: ‘Across Europe, it pulled as many as 11 million viewers on Eurosport and affiliated channels, including record figures for Spain, where it got as many as 1.3 million viewers. 800,000 watched in Britain, making it the second-most-watched Australian Open final in the country. The Spanish broadcast had as many as 1.3 million viewers, making it the second-most-watched Grand Slam final in the network’s history. National networks in Switzerland and France also had above a million on average for the five-set encounter.’

It’s not like tennis is continuously discussing how to make early round matches more competitive because viewership is too low. Hmm. Early rounds in tennis function as a warmup for the big players but it’s at least over in a week. Come the second week, matches are a lot more competitive. The group stages of the champions league drag on for months.

I’m saying use the coefficients system that they have, but further limit the participation of teams from countries that are uncompetitive. I’m not suggesting a revolution, just an evolution.

This ignores the reality of what happens in other sports. Viewership is highest in tennis when Federer, Nadal and Djokovic play each other in the finals of grand slams. It’s only through repeated competition do compelling storylines develop. You just can’t ignore these realities. People inherently prefer seeing the same names and same stars play each other in important matches.

All right, but it is for me. The other arguments ignore the reality of the average fan and what they’re interested in, ignores the reality of the average consumer and what they’re consuming.

It doesn’t. There are too many uncompetitive matches in the group stages.

I agree with this to an extent. I can see the argument that if Barca play Madrid ten times a year that it would dilute the importance of each match and dilute the product. It’s the only argument that makes sense, but it’s an argument against the super league concept, it’s not an argument against limiting non-competitive matches in the champions league group stages.

Is it unfair today that England gets 4 teams and Denmark gets 1? From what everyone is saying, it’s grossly unfair. We should reduce English teams to 1 or 2, and give more places to teams from Denmark, Ukraine and Romania. Teams from those countries should be allowed to compete. No? We should let the champions of Finland, Moldova and Albania automatic entry into the group stages. Because they deserve to compete. Never mind that they have no chance of qualification.

UEFA already limit things through the coefficients system and multiple rounds of qualification which the biggest teams are exempted from. This idea is just furthering something that they’re already doing.

For who? Ratings are always highest when it’s the biggest teams playing each other. Ratings are highest in any sport, any competition when the best teams play each other. Football is competing against other sports for TV time and thus for money.

Because the average fan doesn’t tune in to these matches. These clubs are gifted money that they’re not earning. It’s like if the NBA decided to include European teams who regularly get crushed. What’s the point? People tune in when things get competitive. Smaller clubs that don’t have any money are not competitive. It’s reality. Why deny it? Reduce the teams so matches are more competitive. More people will watch because the product is better.

The source of the problem is that the CL has too many teams and the group stages are mostly a foregone conclusion. It would be better if the best teams played each other more often, I think all fans would agree. It would also be better if we didn’t have a bunch of one-sided matches between Real/Barca/PSG and some Eastern European team. The logical solution is to reduce teams, particularly Eastern European teams that are never competitive. And then fill the gap with more matches between the best teams. UEFA need to accept this compromise. Why risk the entire system just to include teams from Romania and Ukraine?