Preview

A Study of the English Premier League’s Current Globalisation Strategy

Powerful Essays
Open Document
Open Document
2464 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
A Study of the English Premier League’s Current Globalisation Strategy
A Study of The English Premier League’s Current Globalisation Strategy

The English Premier League (EPL) is the fourth most lucrative sporting league in the world, behind America’s NFL, NBA and Major League Baseball. It is a corporation owned by the 20 participating football clubs and currently has revenues of £1.8billion a year and television rights deals worth over £2.7 billion. It is already one of the UK’s most successful and recognisable international brands. The EPL’s top four clubs, Manchester United, Chelsea, Liverpool and Arsenal are global brands in themselves, occupying four of the top eight of Deloitte’s football money league places and commanding combined revenues of £714.1 million last year. (Deloitte Sports Business Group, 2008)

Earlier this year the EPL publicised plans for each club to play one extra game in the season in foreign cities against other EPL teams. This proposed strategy for global expansion was specifically intended to raise the international profile of the league and react to similar successfully executed expansion strategies by America’s most prominent leagues. In contrast to reaction in America, however, these plans have been angrily dismissed by the international football governing body FIFA, by potential host countries and by the clubs’ fans. This essay will examine the FA’s globalisation strategy, or ‘Game 39’, so called because currently 20 clubs each play each other twice, resulting in 38 games played per season. It will argue that, like other global businesses, the EPL faces intense international threats that need to be combated and opportunities that need to be realised.

Richard Scudamore, Chief executive of the EPL, proposed that each team would play another randomly selected team during one weekend in January. Two games would be allocated to each of five cities around the world following a bidding process from potential host cities. The games would be financially beneficial to the city, as the NFL game in October



References: ASIAN DEVELOPMENT BANK (2008) Asian Development Outlook 2008 [internet]. Available at: http://www.adb.org/Documents/Books/ADO/2008/ [Retrieved 20/04/08] AFP (2008) Japan to reject Premier games. The Australian [internet]. Available at: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23246146-2722,00.html [Retrieved 15/04/08] BBC (2008) London to host Saints v Chargers. BBC Sport [internet]. Available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/other_sports/american_football/7194603.stm BBC (2004) Arsenal name new ground. BBC Sport [internet]. Available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/a/arsenal/3715678.stm [Retrieved 17/04/08] BOND, D. (2008) Sepp Blatter: Premier League abusing football. The Daily Telegraph [internet]. Available at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/main.jhtml?xml=/sport/2008/02/15/sfnfro215.xml [Retrieved 17/04/08] DELOITTE SPORTS BUSINESS GROUP (2008) Football Money League 2008 [internet]. Available at: http://www.deloitte.com/dtt/article/0,1002,cid%253D193357,00.html [Retrieved 20/04/08] KIRKWOOD, A. (2007) Personal interview. Available at: http://www2.sportindustry.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=967&Itemid=26 [Retrieved 15/04/08] OLIVER, G. & GILLS, B. (2007) Games without frontiers. The Guardian [internet]. Available at: http://sport.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,2200765,00.html [Retrieved 15/04/08] POWELL, J. (2008) Demon Blatter knows 39 is the devil 's number. The Mail On Sunday [internet]. Available at: http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/pages/live/articles/columnists/columnists.html?in_page_id=1951&in_article_id=513486&in_author_id=260 [Retrieved 15/04/08] SPORTSBUSINESS (2007) Premier league media rights worth £2.7billion. Sportsbusiness.com [internet]. Available at: http://www.sportbusiness.com/news/161074/premier-league-media-rights-worth-2-7-billion [Retrieved 14/04/08]

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Powerful Essays

    Super Bowl

    • 7074 Words
    • 29 Pages

    References: Advertising Age (2009). Super Bowl 2007 - Advertising History: 40 Years of Prices and Audience. http://adage.com/SuperBowlBuyers/superbowlhistory07.html; accessed November 15, 2009. Baade, Robert, Robert Baumann and Victor Matheson (2008). Selling the Game: Estimating the Economic Impact of Professional Sports through Taxable Sales. Southern Economic Journal, 74: 794-810. Baade, Robert and Victor Matheson (2000). An Assessment of the Economic Impact of the American Football Championship, the Super Bowl, on Host Communities. Reflets et Perspectives, 30: 35-46. Baade, Robert and Victor Matheson (2006a). Padding Required: Assessing the Economic Impact of the Super Bowl. European Sports Management Quarterly, 6: 353-374. Baade, Robert and Victor Matheson (2006b). Have Public Finance Principles Been Shut Out in Financing New Stadiums for the NFL? Public Finance and Management, 6: 284-320. Coates, Dennis (2006). The tax benefits of hosting the Super Bowl and the MLB All-Star Game: the Houston experience. International Journal of Sport Finance, 1. Coates, Dennis and Craig A. Depken, II (2006). Mega-Events: Is the Texas-Baylor game to Waco what the Super Bowl is to Houston? International Association of Sports Economists, Working Paper Series, 06-06. Coates, Dennis and Brad Humphreys (2002). The Economic Impact of Post-Season Play in Professional Sports. Journal of Sports Economics, 3: 291-299. Davis, Michael C. and Christian M. End (2009). A Winning Proposition: The Economic Impact 25…

    • 7074 Words
    • 29 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Nfl Business Model

    • 5631 Words
    • 23 Pages

    Introduction In March 2010, Roger Goodell, the Commissioner of the National Football League (NFL), announced an aggressive goal for his business: $25 billion in yearly revenue by 2027.1 To put that figure in perspective, the countries of Panama, Jordan, Ghana, and Iceland all had nominal GDPs less than $25 billion in 2009.2 For the NFL to reach Goodell’s lofty target, the league will have to quickly build on what Business Week has already called, “one of America’s best-run businesses.”3 During the 2008 season, the NFL made an estimated $7.6 billion in revenue and $1.0 billion in operating income. The average team value was $1.04 billion.4 The Economist wrote in 2006 that, “[the NFL] remains the most popular of the four big American sports on almost every measure, from opinion polls to television ratings.”5 A comparison of 2008 financials for the NFL, Major League Baseball (MLB), National Basketball Association (NBA), and National Hockey League (NHL) is displayed in Appendices 1 and 2. The conclusion is clear: with the highest revenue, income, and value, the NFL leads the American professional sports business. This paper will take a critical look at the NFL business model. Specifically, it will investigate how the NFL has constructed a sports empire in the United States. How does the league generate its revenues and earn profits and how has it popularized and stabilized demand for its product? I will demonstrate that the NFL’s noticeable profit…

    • 5631 Words
    • 23 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Nfl Globalization Strategy

    • 2060 Words
    • 9 Pages

    The 2010 Superbowl achieved 106 million views making it at the time, the most watched American TV broadcast of all time. However, only a few million people watched the game outside the U.S. And when you compare the number of Superbowl viewers to the FIFA World Cup, which draws upwards of 700 million views globally, the Superbowl doesn’t seem so “super’’. The NFL has failed to develop an effective strategy in order to expand its market globally relative to MLB and the NBA. This report will discuss the various threats and opportunities that the NFL faces in the globalization of the sport, and evaluate strategic options in regard to these threats and opportunities.…

    • 2060 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Best Essays

    9) Nafziger, James A.R.. (2008). A comparison of the European and North American models of sports organisation.. Available: http://www.thefreelibrary.com/A+comparison+of+the+European+and+North+American+models+of+sports...-a0212546233.…

    • 2137 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Best Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In a recent article on Forbes, Mark J. Burn explains how Major League Soccer has entered a new height in American sports. MLS revenue, attendance, social media, television ratings, and net worth of clubs have set a new threshold for the league. American sports are no longer four major leagues, but five. It is fantastic that every measure of growth in Major League Soccer is actually growing, but one thing is missing and it can’t be measured on a graph. A super star.…

    • 568 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Are Footballers Overpaid?

    • 525 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Another way of looking at it is by calculating the total revenue that the Premier League makes then dividing it between all the players. By doing this, we can find an average value that a premier league player should be getting in a year. In a year, the premier league gets a total of £2.13 billion. There are 300 players in the teams in the premier league (each team has 25 and there are 20 teams). If you divide the total revenue by the number of players, you see that each premier league player should be earning £7.1 million every year. If you look at the actual statistics for how much each player earns on average, it is £1.2 million every year. This means that players should earn 7 times more than they do in the premier league and all this excess money is going to the owners…

    • 525 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Soccer or Football, as it is known in the rest of the world, is the world’s most popular sport and is played by 209 countries around the world (FIFA). The most prestigious international soccer tournament is the FIFA World Cup that takes place once every four years. At the club level, there are several domestic and international leagues around the world, most prominent of which is England’s “Barclays Premier League”.…

    • 1293 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Money Football

    • 912 Words
    • 4 Pages

    One main part of this money being in football is due to a lot of clubs having foreign ownership. It all came about in 2003 when Roman Abramovich bought Chelsea FC and since then he has put in hundreds-upon-hundreds of millions of his own money into the club Chelsea have since won nine major trophies including three Premier League titles and most recently the UEFA Champions League. Proof that wealth can indeed buy honours in the world of football. Since then half of the 20 Premier League clubs are now owned by foreigner investors. Those clubs are: Arsenal, Aston Villa, Chelsea, Fulham, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, QPR, Reading, Southampton and Sunderland. Perhaps the most spectacular of them all is politician and member of the ruling family of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan of Manchester City. Since he has bought the club in 2008 he has spent over £425 of his own money to buy first team players for the club.…

    • 912 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Best Essays

    Urbach On Csr

    • 3982 Words
    • 16 Pages

    Legal and regulatory updates The lessons learned from football: Sponsorships, contracts and ‘right of first refusal’…

    • 3982 Words
    • 16 Pages
    Best Essays
  • Better Essays

    Man Utd - Swot and Pest

    • 1536 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Bibliography:  Andrews, D. L. (2004) Manchester United: a thematic study. Routledge: UK. Barthold, D. 2009. The Business of European Football. GRIN Verlag, (3). Pp 36-38 Masterman, G. 2009. Strategic Sports Event Management: Olympic Edition Hospitality, Leisureand Tourism Series. Butterworth-Heinemann, (2). Pp 65-67 Manchester United. 2008. The Official Manchester United Annual 2009 Official Manchester…

    • 1536 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Beautiful Game

    • 1185 Words
    • 5 Pages

    In the first month of 2010, football threw up many surprises that have shocked the English game. From Leeds United’s outstanding victory at Old Trafford, to the John Terry saga that has reared its ugly head over the last week, football’s ability to keep players, fans and particularly agents on their toes is unlike any other sport.…

    • 1185 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Best Essays

    Corruption in sports has been present since historic times. The first documented case of corruption in international sports is attributed to the athlete Eupolos of Thessalia who successfully bribed three of his competitors in the fist combat tournament at the Olympic Games of 388 BC, among them the reigning Olympic champion. (Maennig, W; European Sport Management Quarterly, June 2005). Corruption in sports in recent times has been highlighted very frequently. With cases of athletes refraining from achieving the level of performance required to win and paving the way for competitors’ victory or sporting officials consciously carrying out their duties with variance in moral affecting the result of the game for financial advantage coming to light over and over again, entire image of sport being symbol of purity is threatened to get tarnished. On one hand, competition judges and other officials are increasingly becoming involved in corruption, whilst, in contrast to previous eras, athletes and trainers are directly involved less frequently. On the other hand a tendency towards an increased number of cases of management corruption in sport has also been observed (Maennig, W; IASE/NAASE Working Paper Series, August 2008). These events eliminate unpredictability from sports thus threatening its basic fundamental or nature by making it orchestrated and more of an entertainment. The massive commercialisation in sports has not only brought massive amounts of money but has also opened the floodgates for corruption. This essay studies the extent of corruption in the business of football and explores the threats it presents to present and future of the game across the world.…

    • 4610 Words
    • 19 Pages
    Best Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Club football is now truly globalised. Clubs are no more small community based which are known in that locality, they are now huge organisations owned by the richest businessmen’s of the world. The transfer spend of each club is increasing at a mind boggling pace. Every year clubs are breaking their transfer record fees. The increase in this expenditure has led to clubs being debt laden, with some of the biggest clubs in the world having debts which in normal business prudence would be suicidal. Thus the need for new revenue streams. Thus English premier league clubs set out all over the world to find out new revenue streams, and thus they found and fell in love with Asia.…

    • 536 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Premier Leauge

    • 398 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The Premier League is a corporation in which the 20 member clubs act as shareholders. Seasons run from August to May, with teams playing 38 matches each, totaling 380 matches in the season. Most games are played in the afternoons of Saturdays and Sundays, the other games during weekday evenings. It is currently sponsored by Barclays Bank and thus officially known as the Barclays Premier League. Outside of Great Britain it is commonly referred to as the English Premier League.…

    • 398 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Sports Economics

    • 515 Words
    • 3 Pages

    In the article, “The Economics Of Professional Football: The Football Club As A Utility Maximiser”, Peter J. Sloane (1971) identifies a lack of a tenable theoretical framework when analysing the economic characteristics of the football industry, and endeavours to provide such framework.…

    • 515 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays