leffe186

Total now exceeds the domestic per year: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-10500065/amp/Premier-League-overseas-rights-pass-value-domestic-deals.html That’s, what, £1.8bn a year. Sub-Saharan Africa was less than a tenth of that. US was £2bn over six years so let’s say 333M, roughly double the “African” rights. Looks like “APAC” is comparable to the US deal: https://media.sportbusiness.com/2022/08/premier-league-defies-trends-to-increase-value-in-asia-pacific-outside-china/

If we’re looking at what “Africa” might pay for the Saudi league, it would be more instructive to know what they pay for other leagues tbh.

https://www.sportspromedia.com/broadcast-ott/media-rights/premier-league-supersport-south-africa-2025-tv-rights-deal-extension/ Only figure mentioned (don’t know about the details) is £168M per year for the whole of sub-Saharan Africa - that was in 2017. Not insignificant. Current domestic deal is roughly 10x as much though. Looking at the domestic deals on Wiki, the closest comparable deal in terms of value is probably what Brazil pays for its own league (£171M per season).

I mean, you’d have to be sure they wouldn’t, if you think the below… So presumably they (1) ditch the foreign player restrictions (2) ditch the smaller, provincial clubs and (3) create a handful of new clubs? So players and brands are even more interchangeable and meaningless and the supporters in the ground are even less engaged? I’m not convinced.

How much top talent though? There are 18 teams in the league. Four were promoted last year. Currently they can have 8 foreign nationals each. So that’s a max of 144 foreign nationals. I don’t know how many teams are paying the big bucks. Someone can enlighten us. But last year only four teams had average attendances of >10K. Only one team was >18K. With the changes it looks like there are six top teams now (just based on attendance). That’s 48 foreign nationals. So that’s max 48 top talent foreign nationals playing for six clubs. And a ton of small clubs with a handful of fans, many playing in more obscure parts of the country. Maybe they ditch some of the smaller clubs and increase the number of foreign players. Then there’s a handful of clubs playing each other again and again with interchangeable players and brands. I’m not convinced.

Just to clarify though, what do you think is going to transpire?

Dave Mackay I presume. Graham Roberts wouldn’t be too far off.

We have so many players available for the Saudis

Nope. Kudus to West Ham though.

It’s interesting reading all the above in the Youth thread and then: …in here. You cannot have it both ways, lads

Tend to be on the individual clubs’ sites. Twitter has the goals from this weekend’s game if you want me to link them.

The speed up is mint.

When you came out of your mother’s womb, Mike, like everyone else.

Was gonna say. Next step is leaving the atmosphere.

Everton tale as old as time.

I was hoping so but thought they looked decent for a lot of that first game. Guess there’s still hope.

Yeah, there really is. Sadly

Not sure why Shearer et al are so vehemently defending McAllister either. I mean, as the Bournemouth manager implied it felt like an orange card - could have gone either way. Ultimately he full-on studs the guy in the shin.

We did it by playing the Conte/Mourinho way and having Son and Kane. Not complicated . I suspect we might have have actually got into their heads too. It won’t happen this year.

Finally watching Match of the Day. Any particular reason why Alisson wasn’t sent off at 1-0 and Szoboszlai wasn’t booked for diving for the penalty?

We’ll be fine once we have a striker too.

I was thinking about this and in all seriousness I realized the last four Man U players I liked were Eriksen, Berba, Carrick and Sheringham

That turned around quickly

Spurs are losing Pape Matar Sarr as well, which is very significant alongside Bissouma.

Lolz re: Levy. I think that would be extraordinarily unlikely. Range of predictions from Spurs fans generally seems to be anywhere from 4th to 8th. Ange has had a truncated pre-season and his best player sold, plus a significant amount of squad turmoil that is ongoing, with a couple of glaring issues. Promising beginnings, but it’s going to take a while and we’re going to concede a fair few. Likely top 9 is (in no order) Man City, Arse, Man U, Newcastle, Liverpool, Chelsea, Brighton, Villa, Spurs. Then a couple that might break in (West Ham? Brentford?). Of those, Arse and you guys are in the ascendancy and City are in pole position. Man U, Liverpool and Chelsea are curate’s eggs - who knows how they will settle out? Villa have Europe now and have already picked up a couple of injuries. Brighton have sold a lot of players but should do well again. IMO it’s wide open. AFCON, injuries and Europe will have a dramatic effect, just waits to be seen on who.