A Premier League Bubble?
Sat, 15 August 2009More on Premier League finance:
For the first time annual revenue is expected to exceed £1bn, with much of this success fuelled from abroad.
Matches will be beamed into 575m homes in 211 territories around the world and a total of 90,000 hours of action will be broadcast.
The current overseas deal runs from 2007 to 2010 and is worth £625m, equating to about a third of the total television revenue the Premier League receives.
But chief executive Richard Scudamore admits overseas revenue could soon exceed the amount received at home, a belief which is backed up by the one deal to have already been wrapped up.
The Abu Dhabi Sports Channel is believed to have paid a whopping £194m for the rights to broadcast the Premier League in North Africa and the Middle East, which is almost three times the £73m that Showtime Arabia paid last time round.
I suppose Premier League clubs incurring large amounts of debt is okay then. After all, what happened to the world economy isn’t going to happen to football is it?
That’s the thing about bubbles – those blowing it never think it will burst.
[...] Blowing the Premier League bubble. [...]
Comment added here:
More on the state of football finances here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/robertpeston/2010/01/can_man_utd_spend.html
See also:
- http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/mattslater/2010/01/fergies_bond_is_a_bind_for_eve.html
- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8451848.stm
- http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/eng_prem/8453337.stm
- http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/jan/12/manchester-united-finances-glazer-family
[...] increases in future revenue are far less certain than over-extended clubs need, with the risk of a future implosion in the European football market as great as ever, notwithstanding UEFA’s financial fair play [...]