I watched in bemusement this summer as the Premier League clubs simultaneously claimed poverty and went on an Imelda Marcos-style spending spree totalling £875m in new transfers. And for most of the summer I couldn’t figure out how, or why, most of the clubs in the League were so buoyantly optimistic about the future that they would float on average £44m on transfer gambles at a time when clubs are claiming losses of £100m per month because stadiums are shuttered to fans.
There are always clubs which will spend huge because they are either backed by oligarchs or spin massive revenues on their brand loyalty alone. Chelsea topped the net spend table this summer with £154m in transfers. Man City’s search for a good defender continued as they spent £92m on transfers. And Manchester United “only” spent £62m on transfers this summer: they would have spent another £120m+ if they had a manager who would attract Jadon Sancho.
Those three clubs aren’t real. They don’t represent the reality of the Premier League where teams often live on the edge, spending only what they can earn in order to avoid bankruptcy. But even if you take those clubs out of the averaging, the League still managed to spent £33m per club with some clubs going absolutely bonkers in the transfer market.
If we remove the three nonsense clubs who don’t seem to adhere to rational rules on spending we are left with a net spend table that looks like this:
| Club | £m net spend |
| Leeds | 96 |
| Tottenham | 77 |
| Villa | 74 |
| Everton | 63 |
| Arsenal | 61 |
| Sheffield United | 57 |
| Newcastle | 35 |
| Liverpool | 34 |
| Fulham | 30 |
| West Brom | 16 |
| Southampton | 13 |
| Leicester | 9 |
| Brighton | 3 |
| Burnley | 1 |
| Wolves | 1 |
| West Ham | -1 |
| Palace | -2 |
Now, clearly there are a few clubs which have decided to be rational. We are in gravely uncertain times: revenue from football is way down, clubs are laying off players and mascots, and players are even stepping in to provide a salary for said mascot. When will fans be allowed back in the stadiums? Will players be able to keep playing? Will we even be able to finish this Premier League season? Not to mention the uncertainty surrounding European matches and so on.
In that context it’s wild that Leeds spent more than Man City, that Tottenham spent £90m when you factor in Gareth Bale’s absurd salary, that Aston Villa managed to lump £74m in transfers, that Arsenal and Everton both put up £60m each, and that Sheffield United* stumped up £57m. It all made no sense. Until the Premier League announced the plan to fleece fans for £15 per match today.
It’s long been an oddity of Premier League football that most people outside of England have more access to (legally) televised football matches than the fans do near the stadiums. One reason why Yanks, like myself, and others around the world enjoy so many more Premier League matches than the locals in England is that the clubs have supported a local blackout of all football matches at the traditional 1500hrs GMT kickoff time**. They do this because they believe it increases ticket sales come Saturday afternoon.
But with the pandemic putting a halt to all attendance at matches, the Premier League lifted the television ban and allowed the major networks to broadcast every single Premier League game. The ideas behind this were publicly noble: keep people at home, rather than going to pubs or gathering near stadiums in order to reduce transmission of the coronavirus; plus give people something nice to look forward to in these rather grey times.
But while they were publicly noble last month the true colors, the ignoble, come out this month as the Premier League has announced a resumption of the blackouts, coupled with a new pay-per-view service which will cost fans £15 per match.
As predicted here several years ago, streaming services have proliferated in the USA and UK. This hasn’t resulted in costs savings for the average fan but rather in cost multiplication.
Here in the USA we have multiple subscriptions if we want to watch every match live of our favorite Premier League team: you need a cable package of some sort (like YouTube TV or Hulu Live) which costs about $50-75 per month, then on top of that a $5 subscription to Peacock. That’s just Premier League. For the UEFA matches we need to have a subscription to CBS ($10) and for the FA sponsored cup matches a subscription to ESPN+ (costs me about $5 as part of the deal I do for Disney, Hulu, and ESPN).
I’m not complaining, much, because the folks in England have a similar situation: they have to have Sky, BT Sport, and Amazon Prime. Those three services cost roughly the same as mine (plus they have a TV tax) but now, if they want to watch every match again, they have to pony up £15 per game.
This price is entirely being driven by the Premier League teams. 19/20 teams voted for this package at that price and while come money will go to the broadcasters, the cast majority goes to the clubs.
And it’s incredible how much sympathy they have generated with some reporters. I heard many folks on Football Daily (BBC Live) both professional presenters and regular fans express the sentiment that they “understand because the League is losing so much money due to the pandemic.”
And it is true that clubs like Arsenal are losing revenue from the pandemic. So why did a club like Arsenal – who are notoriously cautious and whose owner is tighter than a whalebone corset – agree to invest nearly £100m in the signing of just one player (Thomas Partey) this summer? I think the clue is in the service.
Once started, this Pay-Per-View service will never stop. So, as we trickle back into stadiums and gigantic venues, risking illness and even death, there will still be huge numbers of folks in London who will want to watch the Arsenal live. And those folks will need to increasingly turn to pay-per-view to do so.
What has happened here is that the Premier League has cynically used the pandemic to push through a scheme which would have been categorically rejected two years ago. And leveraging sympathy around empty stadiums, whilst claiming poverty and threatening potential bankruptcy, the Premier League teams have managed to add an entirely new revenue stream.
If a club like Arsenal are able to sell 20 matches at £15 each to 60,000 people, that’s £18m in their pocket. There will be additional costs of course, but that’s the lure here.
Now, of course, this isn’t going to be an easy sell. There are a ton of illegal streams out there and most folks will turn to those but the League has been extremely diligent about stamping those out and they are often spotty in coverage and extremely problematic in terms of viruses and malware.
Other, smarter, folks will get a VPN in India and glom onto one of their cheaper services or find other ways to stream matches for much cheaper; for example, 10 people can band together to pay £1.50 for each match, sharing the costs and making game-day a more communal event again. But the broadcasters and clubs already know this stuff will happen and have (I’m sure) set the price at £15 because they assume that even in a pandemic folks will band together (6 people can gather legally, right?) and split the costs of matches.
The important thing is that the clubs have finally gotten one of their biggest wishes over the last decade, especially the big clubs like City, Arsenal, and Man U; they have convinced the government and broadcasters to let them have individual control over their previously unseen matches so that they can sell them back to the fans.
And that’s how clubs like Arsenal could afford to spend hundreds of millions of Pounds on transfers in a global pandemic.
*SUFC are owned by Prince Abdullah of the Saudi royal family but it’s very difficult to pin down his own personal wealth. He’s a prince but he’s not really in close with the current rulers – his brother actually murdered his uncle, King Faisal. As far as I can tell, he grew up wealthy and had leveraged that wealth into at least one major business but I can’t find a net worth more than £200m listed anywhere. Now, that’s a lot of money but it’s not billionaire wealth and certainly not enough to be blowing £60m on transfers.
**We are 7amkickoff because the 3pm kickoff in London is a 7am kickoff here on the West Coast.
I think everyone has a limit (or should) and I have reached mine when it comes to more after tax discretionary spending. I will not spend on Arsenal this year. Now if they were to hire back some of those laid off employees, I might be disposed to contribute to the club through buying some official merch but I’m done,
The two charities I support need my help, time and money more than the club ever did.
My thoughts as well
Right on. Love those priorities my man.
If you think all streams are buffering and malware you’re looking in the wrong place Tim..
I’m not going to blow my cover, but I have proudly never paid to watch a televised Premier League game in my life. And I certainly won’t until I can watch every game that I want to in one place. Like you say, a non-pirate existence can cost you the best part of £80 a month. That’s nearly a grand a year, which is completely unsustainable. You can get a physical Emirates season ticket for that.
And before you say your subscription directly funds the club, I would say not at all. The TV rights packages are run on advertising and advertising alone. A few thousand pay per views is a drop in the ocean compared to the price of a 20 second add in the half-time slot. The companies know this and the PL knows this; pirate or no pirate, you are still going to absorb the advertising. It is barely in their interest to stamp the streams out at all.
You may have doubts but I envy your North American model. I think NBC sports does a fantastic job with intelligent punditry and a half time goal roundup. Compare that to UK’s motley crew of mixed-metaphors: Rio, Owen, Joe Cole et al, where you somehow leave the programme with less knowledge than before. It’s night and day.
+1
I’ve got a season ticket in club level, which is eye wateringly expensive. Needless to say, I’m getting nothing for my money.
The very least they could do is offer me the televised matches for free. Will they though? Fairly easy from a technical point of view, I would have thought. I have a log in with a password to the club website, as identity.
I’ve a sneaking feeling they won’t, however.
I’ve spent decades pouring money into that club in one form or another. It will be interesting to see if they give me the same level of loyalty.
There again, I could go the same way as Gunnersaurus.
Mark can I ask are you receiving a full or partial refund for your season ticket? I don’t believe the club are planning to include TV coverage either free or discounted to ticket holders although that might change when they see the poor uptake figures.
We obviously lost out on the home matches at the end of last season. The club announced in May that we would get a refund in the form of a discount for this season. However, they had already sent out the season ticket reminders, which I’d paid. Quite where that leaves me, I have no idea. Out of pocket is my best guess. It also doesn’t indicate what will happen this season, going forward.
Of course, any sane man would give the ticket up, but I’m a football fan so that clearly doesn’t apply. It’s on the front row in the middle block. I’d never get another one in that location in a million years. That would rule out taking a sabbatical for a season or two.
The thing is, if I got a year’s free TV subscription to all the games, it would still be financially an appalling deal, but it would be something and I’d probably accept it. I could also kid myself that I am “seeing the club through difficult times.” As if!
The sad thing is, loyalty in football nowadays is a one way street. If you don’t believe me, ask Gunnersaurus. Straight from the dinosaur’s mouth.
This is utter nonsense from this club. They must treat the loyal fans with respect. Even if they just want to be a business, your best customers are the bedrock of any business.
Unfortunately not, Tim.
No idea how it is in the States, but loyal, established customers get second best treatment in a number of areas. We get worse interest rates at the bank, the most expensive deals with cell phones. The list goes on. Go to any company as a “new customer” and you can bet your life you’re way better off.
Of course, what you should do is “switch” on a regular basis, but who can be bothered to keep doing that? Life’s too short.
When it comes to football, switching simply isn’t an option and don’t the clubs know this! Would I get a Spurs season ticket, because it was cheaper?
I’d rather eat worms.
As a group, UK fans must boycott this PPV scam. We must not be tempted to use this ‘service’ out of loyalty to the club or as Tim suggests this will be the future. I am not a big fan of illegal streams for the reasons Tim indicates – I haveclearly never found the good streams. I have already learnt to live without my season tickets for a season so I can learn to live without games televised live. Who knows, I may even learn to live without the Arsenal. I might even save on my Sky and BT subscriptions if I can.
Rapacious exploitation like this really pisses me off. And just when Stan appears to have invested in the team. Heh!
This is the kind of stuff that sucks the joy out of football. It poses the age old moral quandary: are you guilty of perpetuation by participation? Which indirectly leads to another: What if nobody participated? Would we be better off? In other words, like FIFA or any other major corporation that is first and foremost out for itself, would the world be a nicer place if it didn’t exist?
For “Football Clubs” read “Billionairre Owners”.
This morning, the two biggest English Clubs, (Man United and Liverpool), have proposed cutting the EPL from 20 to 18 clubs. Why? For a bigger slice of the cake of course, at the expense of smaller clubs.
How long before you can’t get promoted to the EPL unless you have a 60,000 capacity stadium?
Or 60,000 subscriptions to PPV?
Yeah, I hate to say it, but we didn’t know how good we had it in the States a few years back. A decent level Comcast subscription got me PL, FA CUP, Champs and Europa.
Now to get all that, it’s several different separate fees, though nothing like the extortionate $20/match that’s been proposed in the UK.
I’m not entirely proud of it, but resorting more frequently to pirate streams these days.
Yeah it was good in America, a while back. You could get most games on NBC Sports, which seemed to be bundled in with most digital packages. Then there was NBC Gold, which didn’t seem to be too good a deal. ESPN+ for the odd cup game. The problem is they love chopping and changing. As soon as you think you’ve got it sussed, you have to completely rethink your strategy. Fox Soccer seems to have come and then gone. Peacock? WTF is that? Some used to work with a VPN. Sooner or later they don’t.
I feel for all the UK/London fans with memberships and season’s tickets and nothing to show for it but their own satisfaction of their hard spent loyalty. Good luck to you.
Does Warren Barton still get to present the football in the US? I remember him as the Wimbledon right back. Part of the “Crazy Gang”. Arsenal were looking at him at one point. A boyhood fan of the club, apparently. What struck me about his TV persona was how stiff he looked. Jacket, tie, bolt upright, white shirt. He’d obviously been told to look serious, address the camera and not wave his arms about. Always looked like a cross between a bank manager and a funeral director.
I haven’t seen him around much
I live in London and have Sky and find our games difficult to watch as they are, frankly, pretty uninteresting.
In the last 4 games, (I only saw part of the Liverpool loss) we have averaged 3 shots on target, that is 1 shot on target every 30 minutes and I cannot see any potential improvement on that in the near future.
I, certainly, would not be prepared to pay £15 to watch non-Sky games.
I think I would be relieved that I do not have to watch them.
I am not even sure that I am that interested to know the results, which is how far my lack of interest has become.
We can spend tens of millions on players that the richer clubs are not interested (do they know something that we don’t) and yet are happy to shell out many millions to a player who might make our games more interesting, but who they refuse to play. (for the sake of your sensibilities, I have not named him).
Football, like my profession, ( I am a solicitor, lawyer to you yanks) is destroying itself from the inside. The lemmings continue to hurtle towards the cliff edge, whilst the fans watch on in their rose-tinted glasses.
Just to follow this mass suicide, is more entertaining than watching the club that I have supported for nearly 60 years.
I decided post pandemic to reduce my cable subscription, and that means I see far fewer EPL live matches, including Arsenal’s. Fewer, not none. Im fine with that. If I still lived in London, I’d probably go back to season ticket attendance of games when that happens again, though Im not 100% sure. But PPV? No. There are more important things we can do with our lives. For me, you can call it a pandemic reality check, or a pandemic re-evaluation.
We have choice. No need to rail against the measure. We don’t have to if we don’t want to. AFC will be fine (other clubs won’t, unfortunately) without my PPV custom. I can support the team and not do that.
let me start by saying i don’t ever think i’ve heard the term “ignoble” before today.
i’m fortunate in that, about two years ago, i moved from directv to comcast and peacock is free on comcast. i don’t remember who asked it but peacock is the nbc logo and peacock streams a lot of nbc programs, including all of the premier league games. however, you can’t record them on a dvr and i don’t know if you can stream them if you don’t watch them live.
i do pay the monthly $5 fee for espn+ which allows me to watch dortmund and a few other leagues i’d only watch if i were bored. likewise, i miss la liga so i have a subscription to fanatiz, which is about $8 a month. with that, i’ve dumped the sports package, which was about $39 a month so i’ve made out pretty well.
with that, arsenal still show the games on the dot com if you can wait two days but it takes the excitement out of the game, already knowing the result.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/power-grab-led-by-manchester-united-and-liverpool-would-be-blocked-by-fa-s-golden-share-kbxjmx0nj
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/sport/operation-avarice-would-surely-leave-all-but-big-six-on-life-support-dct38dtcb?utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=newsletter_111&utm_medium=email&utm_content=111_10800733&CMP=TNLEmail_120923_10800733_111
See above stories. Not proud of club if this comes pass. (I got The Times 30 day free trial just to read these stories).
“Project Big Picture”? Don’t make me laugh! I wonder which PR executive thought that one up. Ostensibly, they’re looking to give support to the EFL teams. Fine, but they’ve carelessly slipped in the proviso that the “Big Six” have special “voting rights under the new regime. Did they think that people might not have noticed that bit? Shameless. A power grab, pure and simple. Can someone please tell Glazer and the Fenway people, that football has clubs and not franchises? All clubs are equal, even if some clubs are more equal than others.