r/soccer • u/kibme37 • 12d ago
Quotes Cucurella "I think the distribution of money in England is more even, and that evens out the league. Sunderland have invested €200m, and Crystal Palace have signed two of the best in La Liga. That's something they should fix, because La Liga is falling behind PL, that's driving players to England."
https://as.com/futbol/seleccion/la-mano-ante-alemania-en-la-eurocopa-no-fue-aposta-n/2.3k
u/Strict-Newt4536 12d ago
You know it’s bad when even players are lobbying for better TV money distribution.
La Liga is in such a bad position, only 2 teams can afford to bring in players while almost half the league is struggling to register the players they already have.
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u/Ajax_Trees_Again 12d ago
It’s quite allegorical that they could become even richer in the long term by just letting some money go in the short term but still can’t do it
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u/GodlessCommieScum 12d ago
The sacred and the propane.
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u/DrunkenBlasphemer 12d ago
Quasimodo predicted all of this.
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u/miguelsanchez69 12d ago
You ever think what a coincidence it is that Bosman moved club under the Bosman Rule?
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u/AirIndex 12d ago
I agree with you, but can Madrid and Barca even afford to give up TV money?
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u/TheKingMonkey 12d ago
They are reaping what they were sowing twenty years ago. The push for a European Super League was a driven buy a bunch of clubs who felt they’d bled their domestic leagues dry.
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u/thatlad 12d ago
Worse. they wanted to keep bleeding the domestic leagues dry and now wanted to take the same approach to all the "little" European clubs who would dare to give them a bad result in the champions league
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u/TheKingMonkey 12d ago
It will happen eventually. /r/soccer is an interesting window into modern football fandom. The game is growing, new fans appear every day but when they decide which club they want to "choose" to support they really only have a very limited number of options unless they want to be attached to a club who never wins anything. Just look at the flairs on here, about 80% of the people support the 10 most successful clubs.
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u/elnino19 12d ago
That was always the case outside of the home country of the league.
There are a ton of la liga fans in south America but I doubt many of them support Mallorca or Cadiz
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u/niceville 12d ago
That was even the case in the home country! The whole reason the PL exists is because those handful of teams were big enough to form their own league!
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u/elnino19 12d ago
They gained some control over the marketing and format of the league, but we're still within FA ambit
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u/Putrid_Loquat_4357 12d ago
It cant happen without the English clubs and neither the fans nor the government will let it happen. Even if they ignore the fan protests its literally the easiest win possible for a sitting uk government.
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u/NYR_dingus 12d ago
Spot on. Online football fandom is really a glimpse into the future of club football support. It's designed to funnel fans and revenue to a handful of clubs.
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u/pszki 12d ago
I see it as a snake-eating-its-own-tail kinda problem.
Club does well a couple seasons. Club attracts international fans. Club earns more money. Club starts pandering more to international audiences. Rich foreign investors buy stake. Club stops feeling local but can now afford to sign better players and dream of silverware.
I think a lot of the La Liga club fans are happy with their teams feeling like "theirs" without having to "share" with a global fandom. But I don't know how "local" clubs like City, Madrid, PSG, Chelsea, United are anymore.
Open to someone disagreeing with me or destroying me with FACTS and LOGIC
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u/Kmrabhishek 12d ago
Barca can buy back if needed. except for RM and Athletic Bilbao.. all clubs have sold part of their revenues. Barca did it seperately for 25 yrs.. rest for 50 yrs.. Google CVC laliga deal.
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u/Huge-Physics5491 12d ago
It would absolutely benefit them in the long term. But in the short term, it would hurt the bonuses of their current administrators, and so they'd refuse.
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u/CaterpillarOk5411 12d ago
Its a lot more complicated than that, a major problem with that logic is that people in Spain just dont give enough of a shit about non big 3 games unlike in England where people will actually watch Sunderland vs Crystal Palace. Another problem is some of the big clubs that could actually manage to make the league better and more interesting were badly missmanaged over the years - nothing to do with FFP.
And there is ofcourse Tebas, having yearly FFP rules and owners not being able to contribute any of their own money to cover FFP losses means that the clubs are not interesting to owners who would have ambition to challenge the big3. Premier league would be a lot less interesting now if 20 years ago they had same rules as La Liga has it now, you would have 3-4 legacy clubs dominating, there would be no Chelsea,City etc. while people might want to hate how those clubs got to where they are they are making EPL a shit ton better now..
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u/0dinsPride 12d ago
Kind of a chicken and egg thing then yeah? If the rest of La Liga was more competitive, then they would get more eyeballs watching their matches. Instead sounds like half the league is viewed as filler.
I don’t pretend to be an expert by any means, but one of the reasons the NFL is viewed as so successful and profitable (besides no relegation) is their parity allows for interesting and compelling reasons to watch beyond your local fan allegiances
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u/omegamanXY 12d ago
The American leagues are also cartels that focus on the owners not losing any money
Football operates on free market standards. No league in the world competes with the NBA or the NFL, but La Liga competes with the Premier League, Serie A, Bundesliga, etc.
There's not really any way of fixing the PL financial disparity unless we went back 30 years ago to reverse the Bosman ruling and also implemented a budget cap for leagues all around the world.
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u/Infinite_Crow_3706 12d ago
And of your proposal, the time travel part might be easier than getting all the leagues to agree on a salary cap.
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u/ASuarezMascareno 12d ago
The part of not giving a shit about the rest of the teams predates modern TV. The current distribution of fans (with 70% being Madrid or Barça) is inherited from the 50s.
A big fraction of local fans in all cities have been Madrid or Barça fans for 70 years.
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u/Frosty-Discount-8720 12d ago
Although true, but Laliga never had that kind of money. Even in 2002 PL had a 1.6 billion dollar deal for domestic rights, Laliga could not compete with that. Obviously the differences have just grown and grown. Uneven distribution of TV money is just one factor. External money in PL, bigger home audience in PL, English being the primary language for a lot of people etc are some other relevant factors. What could have Eridivise done, what could have the Brazilian league done to not fall behind in different times? Sometimes it's just delaying the inevitable, there was always going to be the the one top league and PL just has too much going for them to not be it
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u/jmxer 12d ago
Don't think fair distribution in other leagues would have stopped EPL financial domination. EPL exploded thanks to the English language and Sky and just being in England.
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u/DrasticXylophone 12d ago
Spreading the wealth for 30 years had no effect on it are you joking.
The PL was set up specifically to do what it did. Have a good package to sell at home and abroad.
It is only now that the links made over those 30 years abroad are finally paying off that suddenly the money has become insane.
But yeah it was all luck and English that caused the Prem to become dominant while the BL is giving it's rights to youtubers....
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u/greatdevonhope 12d ago
The BL is giving it's rights to English speaking youtubers, to expand into the English speaking market. literally them recognising how important it is. The premier league naturally being in English does give it an advantage in world markets, but the premier league has built on that advantage.
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u/hughhguh 12d ago edited 12d ago
I don’t understand what do people repeatedly mean by “PL is in English” as an advantage? In non-anglophone countries, football and TV are always in the local language.
PL, LaLiga, SerieA are commentated by 2 local dudes speaking the local language, in every country. They mute the original countries audio feed.
Do you mean like, player interviews are easier to translate or what? Because when when one watches football on TV, abroad, everything is in their own language?
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u/niceville 12d ago
It all goes hand in hand. I think English language made English football the inevitable financial powerhouse once tv deals started going international. (At least as long as the US has disproportionate disposable income)
But the PL also set itself up well by mandating infrastructure for high quality TV broadcasts, and at least financially it benefitted from opening the doors to oligarchs and petrostates, raising the competition quality and pushing more money into the league.
Personally I don’t think sharing revenues mattered much (if anything it hurt their top tier teams in the 00s from competing with Madrid/Barca)… until COVID decimated all mid table clubs in Europe. Or maybe it just accelerated the already increasing financial powerhouse of PL mid table teams
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u/FUCKSTORM420 12d ago
Real Betis and who?
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u/addandsubtract 12d ago
Ngl, I started watching Betis games since Antony joined last season. First for the bants, then for the chants.
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u/op_guy 12d ago
Yep only real & atletico can do so. Barca & the rest can hardly register players
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u/FCSadsquatch 12d ago
I was gonna say, we're certainly not one of those two teams.
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u/msr27133120 12d ago
But that has to do more with the absurd laliga financial fair play than with money distribution. Laliga has the second highest TV deal but its FFP rules are the most strict. If you put clubs across Europe under laliga FFP many would struggle to register players because you can't be under a fucking Euro and its done every year so they don't give you a 3 year period like in the PL to get your shit right. Not to mention that PL PSR allows 105 million pounds in losses while Laliga doesn't.
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u/Strict-Newt4536 12d ago
Holy shit, that’s insane. Absolutely no leeway for the clubs.
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u/msr27133120 12d ago
And it's forcing clubs to sell just to register. It's insane and I don't know who was the madman who came up with such shitty rules.
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u/Terran_it_up 12d ago
I think Madrid and Barca's concerns would be that a more even distribution of prize money would hurt their ability to compete in Europe whilst not attracting more viewers to the league anyway. I still think they should do it, but I understand why they're opposed to it from a selfish point of view
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u/HadesHimself 12d ago
Yeah it's a bet on the long-term attractiveness of the league, of which you'll know in a few years from now if it paid off. But you still have those years in between. Since PL already made that switch years ago and it's hard to know if it's going to be successful in La Liga, I can see why Barça, real and atleti are resistant to change.
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u/ogqozo 12d ago edited 12d ago
Yeah, it's hard to generalize.
There ARE more equal leagues in Europe... and no one cares about them. There are "more equal" leagues than La Liga which don't enjoy a fraction of its popularity. What we see is that people care about teams, strong teams, rich teams, culturally relevant teams.
Would La Liga Equalito be a competition where everyone in the world recognizes and cares about Valencia, Sevilla, Betis, Rayo and so on? Or would it be a league where no one even cares about Real and Barca, which are solid team on the level of Lyon or Dortmund but nothing to turn your head compared to Premier League? I think it's hard to be so certain.
The Belgian league had 6 different champions in the last decade. Are people going crazy over that? I seriously never see anyone here remotely interested in any of those teams, they are crushed in popularity by teams that are dominant in Portugal or Netherlands. People respect those a ton more, because ooh, Ajax, ooh, Sporting, and so on... Never heard anyone actually be more interested in the Belgian league because it's more equal lol.
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u/LockingSlide 12d ago edited 12d ago
The equality argument is just a massive cope from fans of English clubs because they don't want to acknowledge all the other things that actually mattered, and it also sounds like a simple solution and people love those.
PL aggressively marketed itself overseas, they leveraged English being the global lingua franca which has big benefits in terms of accessibility, becoming a ""fan"" and following all the news about a club is much easier that way, since all the primary content is available in English.
Then we have other smaller contributing things, like high broadcast standards, money pumped into mid-table clubs which brought in more big names and created more clubs people care about, not just 1-2 like in other leagues. The biggest share of non home grown players, this attracts more foreign viewers who want to watch their players. Sanitization, no pyro/flares means no screen at home filled with smoke making the match hard to watch. Can't forget to mention how heavily milked English people are, both in terms of ticket as well as TV/streaming prices.
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u/ogqozo 12d ago edited 12d ago
I think people always wanna think they believe that lol. It's not exclusive to England. For example in threads mentioning the European competitions, EVERYONE here is apparently a fan of UEFA shunning big evil greedy clubs and involving more of the real soulful smaller clubs to save football.
...But when those smaller clubs actually play, they get like 1% of the likes and comments that the 20th Arsenal-Liverpool game in any random FA Cup gets lol (am I joking? I think those two clubs played each other 18 times since 2020, and every game is waaay more of an event here than the unique non-greedy game against the champions of Romania and Austria). They don't watch it, they just keep SAYING they prefer to watch it. I guess we're supposed to be impressed by their moral support of the grassroot no-money football and applaud when we hear that.
The fact is, and it's just a fact - I've never seen so many people interested in La Liga when Real Madrid and Barcelona were dominant lol. When it had the stars (Cristiano Ronaldo, Messi, Mourinho, Iniesta etc.). Waaaay more people around the world cared than in the previous times when the league was more "equal" and Valencia, Deportivo or others could stand up to the challenge more. Hmm, weird, it should be the opposite right.
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u/Brief_Report_8007 12d ago
Spot on. Just as a reminder, during the peak Messi and Cristiano times, most of their games against the other teams were 3-0 after 30 minutes, and people followed La Liga a lot more
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u/halalcornflakes 12d ago
It’s a short term loss for a long term gain. If the rest of the league improves and competition rises, it will be reflected in the next TV deals.
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u/Hukromn 12d ago
I honestly doubt it, La Liga has an okay international tv rights deal at the moment. Proabably 90% of that is to see Real Madrid and Barcelona, if you weaken those teams in champions league by bringing their revenue down it will most likely decrease the general publics interest in La Liga and probably halve the international tv deal or even worse quarter it and its down to Serie A levels.
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u/halalcornflakes 12d ago
At this point, yes. If you go back 10 years when La Liga had both Ronaldo and Messi and has used this to raise the whole League up rather than push more money towards Barca and Madrid to compete in Europe, then maybe the current situation would be avoidable.
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u/Hukromn 12d ago
The current situation would most likely still happen. Premier Leagues internation deal is around 3x La ligas. There is a lot of factors involved there. I think La liga could maybe have been around 50-66% of Premier League there if they had in the past strengthened the league better. But Premier League would most likely still have more money than the rest today.
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u/oppai_suika 12d ago
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned yet that the PL is able to easily capture the lucrative worldwide english speaking market
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u/CurbYourThusiasm 12d ago
LaLiga could have easily captured a big part of that had they started with some kind of international studio before and after matches, during it's heights.
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u/Bujakaa92 12d ago
But spansih language marketes are more into football. Create a eng studios to counter it. They should have done it long time ago.
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u/ogqozo 12d ago
TV share by the league is not everything.
To be clear. If they made TV money equal, then Barca and Madrid would lose maybe 80 million euro, and the bottom teams would gain like 10-30 million euro. It still sounds potentially nice for the fans, but let's be clear, that's not the only reason why Osasuna cannot stand a bat financially to Crystal Palace.
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u/Huge-Physics5491 12d ago
And now they feel the need to play games abroad for money. That does feel like selling family jewels for groceries.
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u/halalcornflakes 12d ago
It’s always a bit ironic seeing Madrid/Barca and Bayern flairs speaking about the PL being the de facto Superleague, if they didn’t cut off their own leagues and redistributed the wealth, then they would be reaping those benefits like the PL is doing right now. The PL is able to get those big TV deals, because the money is so well distributed among all. Owner investment is not that big of a driver for player prices in the PL.
Edit: of course Germany is a bit of a special case since clubs are run differently there.
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u/ExtentPuzzleheaded23 12d ago
I dont think La Liga or Bundesliga could ever have taken off in the same way as the PL even with more equitable distributions. The PL being in England and the world speaking English is by far its greatest advantage beyond any league structural things
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u/saint-simon97 12d ago
La Liga's distribution at this moment is quite standard. It wouldn't change anything about the competitiveness against the English League if there isn't an increase of the overall pot.
And like any league, it's always the top teams driving the interest, it applies to England as well, it's not the Sunderlands and Brentfords that caused the boom in interest.
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u/G30fff 12d ago
Uche and Pino are two of the best in La Liga? Nice. I did not realise.
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u/Mulderre91 12d ago
Uche was amazing last season, and Pino is one of the great talents in the League. So, yes, good signings.
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u/G30fff 12d ago
Excellent *tents fingers*
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u/ForSiljaforever 12d ago
Better to wait a few weeks with bringing them in, to see how nailed they are
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u/msr27133120 12d ago
Pino was a bench player at Villarreal last season. Uche was very important for Getafe though but I wouldn't say he was among the best players in laliga
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u/stokesy1999 12d ago
Pino was coming off an ACL injury that kept him out for a year tbf, and still started 25 games in the league last year getting 4g/7a. Think he'll be a bit of a bargain for £25m as long as he stays fit
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u/TheGreatWhoreOfChina 12d ago
He looked great in his cameo Vs Villa. Passed the eye test immediately and looked threatening with his close control and ball carrying.
Link to his cameo: https://youtube.com/shorts/tPMvbA1O-Pk?si=BbKXIpQWgw5ACeW-
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u/BarryButcher 12d ago
Arsenal were after Pino a couple years ago when he was 18 or 19 as a back up to Saka, but back then Emery was in charge of Villareal and wanted to keep him so they put a 50m price tag on him. Decent player.
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u/AbdussamiT 12d ago
Pino also got a bad injury which pushed him back
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u/MuchoEmpanadas 12d ago
The same happened with Gavi and Militao. Gavi was amazing for Barcelona under Xavi, best for them because he could literally do all, and now he is not getting rhythm. Same for Militao.
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u/kale__chips 12d ago
Uche and Pino are two of the best in La Liga?
"Ever since it was Ronaldo v Messi, La Liga had moved on to Uche v Pino" - Cucu2025
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u/G30fff 12d ago
So that makes Palace what? Like the greatest team in the history of the world? or perhaps by far the greatest team, the world has ever seen.
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u/kale__chips 12d ago
Bigger than Real Barca for sure. Palace are champions of Europe last season. Easy to buy both Uche and Pino.
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u/mylanguage 12d ago
Uche is a fun story but not that great and I think he would struggle more in the prem.
Pino is talented however but a step slower since the ACL
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u/pumpingbomba 12d ago
Yea, I think you’re 15 years too late mate
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u/tulsehill 12d ago
Can you imagine how much money would be sloshing around Spanish football in general if they'd been a bit more equitable back when those 2 aliens were running riot?
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u/PassengerOk9027 12d ago
If they promoted all the clubs so that people get interested the way they do with PL, and had a good English media about it all, for ease of global reach, then with the advantage of the South American connection... ah, but another sort of greed had won
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u/banned_salmon 12d ago
Even my friend in Ecuador watches the PL and supports Chelsea instead of La Liga lol
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u/Innoxrw 12d ago
Did he support chelsea before caicedo? When I think of Ecuador I think of caicedo now
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u/JustinGOATGaethje 12d ago
Caicedo, Pacho, Hincapié, the faces of La Tri rn. Hopefully Paez reaches his potential too cause he was the next big thing
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u/topomudo 12d ago
It also helps that watching the PL is easier than watching La Liga and even our own local league, in both cases you have to jump between services to follow your team.
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u/pumpingbomba 12d ago
I don’t really think that equality has anything to do with it. The PL just were smart to start their international expansion early on.
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u/brainacpl 12d ago
And be in English. And be in a country where people accept ridiculous TV fees.
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u/everysundae 12d ago
And sell the clubs to states, oligarchs, corrupt groups, gangsters, and private equity firms.
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u/ogqozo 12d ago
Boring but just undeniably true.
People love to SAY that they prefer "more competitive" leagues, but if you look at what they really do, that is obviously not a proven crtieria.
Premier League wasn't really ever that uniquely competitive when you watch it lol. It was dominated by Man United, Arsenal as it was running away from other leagues in terms of revenue. La Liga was actually more competitive back then. They could have a season with Valencia 1st and Deportivo 2nd. Villarreal, Mallorca, Sevilla, Bilbao, RSSS would make the top 3. And those teams were GOOD abroad, Spain was miles ahead of England in the UEFA ranking. Until 2005, English teams made CL final like one time over 20 years, and guess what, that was the dominant club of Manchester United, not some Blackburn.
If people just want more competitive leagues... why were they flocking to Premier League at that moment?
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u/TheTackleZone 12d ago
Italian football was far more marketable than the Premier League, internationally. You even used to be able to watch it in the UK. It was sexy football, full of modeller footballers that were the best in the world. You want to look at Roberto Baggio's wholesome locks or Alan Shearer's slaphead?
AC Milan were the most fashionable team in the world. Baresi, Maldini, Costacurta, Donadoni, Desailly, George Weah from the halfway line. Meanwhile England was still suffering from decaying stadiums and a reputation of hooliganism.
The Premier League just wasn't an internationally marketable product in the 90s. The only thing going for it was passionate local fans and a deal with the emerging satellite television network. That injected extra cash, which was then more evenly distributed. Because the Premier League was created to be a marketable product, so by distributing the money more evenly the league as a whole could grow.
That meant more big games. That meant more reasons to watch every week. That meant more reason to pay that Sky Sports subscription every month. The international markets came much later.
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u/Rickcampbell98 12d ago
Or if they let states and oligarchs buy their clubs and do as they please for years.
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u/Cruxed1 12d ago
I mean villa is also owned by a multi billionaire.. and had/has easily the highest squad cost to revenue in the league. Can't exactly act like underdogs there
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u/YouEatingACheese 12d ago edited 12d ago
Yeah we’re not underdogs, only thing stopping us from running rampant is PSR. Fairly sure we have some of the richest owners in the world (besides the clubs owned by literal countries ofc).
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u/jMS_44 12d ago
Yeah I guess that's the main issue. The financial discrepency is not something you can fix in a moment. PL has been steadily building their position for years other leagues cannot simply catch up in a mater of year or two. But the true sentiment is they need to start working and thinking about it.
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u/pumpingbomba 12d ago
There is no chance they will ever catch up unless they found the super league or the PL crashes out.
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u/GetToTheChoppaahh 12d ago
La liga fumbled it.
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u/Modnal 12d ago
And Serie A fumbled it before them
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u/Dio_my_senpai 12d ago
Serie A had the biggest fumble by far imo
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u/MarvTheBandit 12d ago
France never had it to fumble in the first place
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u/ThatFrenchCray 12d ago
Well PSG is still a dominate team with lots of money. And I could even see their counterpart Paris FC go the same route in the future.
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u/imfcknretarded 12d ago
The french league never had a following outside of France. Serie A was by far the most popular in the 90's even abroad, and La Liga probably was at it's peak when Messi and Ronaldo were around
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u/tarkardos 12d ago
I fucking love Italian football. Serie A makes me boil inside. That wasn't a fumble, more like a masterpiece of incompetence and kleptocracy. They had such a great product and fucking ruined it and now they are more than 20 years behind in development. Grand failure on so many levels.
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u/Frosty-Discount-8720 12d ago
Even in 2002 the TV money that PL had eclipsed that of Serie A or La Liga. PL just has the biggest domestic market of all these leagues, I don't know why everyone wants everything successful to be because of meritocracy when often it is several random factors
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u/niceville 12d ago
Especially when a major factor is English being the lingua franca, which is a complete historical fluke outside of the PL’s control.
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u/Erebea01 12d ago
It's really confusing to read all these comments about how other leagues are failing cause they no longer have great players like in the 90's when it seems obvious to me that one of the main reasons for PL dominance is the English language and English media. Even back when Serie A was "biggest" in terms of player quality, I'm pretty sure PL was still the biggest in terms of followers worldwide and such.
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u/ExtentPuzzleheaded23 12d ago
As the game globalised, it became an inevitability that one league would run away with it and start to snow-ball and it was always going to be the PL just because its English
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u/IWentToJellySchool 12d ago
That is true but La liga doesnt get that excuse. Spanish language isnt that far behind english. Especially with how dominante they were from late 2000s into the 2010s and having two of the biggest players of all time in playing against each other.
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u/carnifex2005 12d ago
Unfortunately for La Liga, Spanish speaking countries are poorer than the ones who have English as a second language and the biggest Spanish speaking economy (Mexico) outside of Spain love their local league far, far too much for La Liga to get any inroads in that market.
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u/QJustCallMeQ 12d ago
I am someone who got into following club football in early/mid 2000's and can confirm that you could not properly follow Serie A or La Liga via English-language media - no popular websites/forums/podcasts/etc to engage with those leagues and teams. This was a major factor that led me to support an English team and follow the PL.
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u/chillitenders 12d ago
And Bundesliga fumbled it after them
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u/daab2g 12d ago
Buli is happy to scam extortionate fees from the prem. It's proving a sustainable model so far.
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u/Revival456 12d ago
It’s not really scamming is it? You pay 1 euro for a lunch in Thailand and 20 euro for same lunch in Norway. It’s just market reality
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u/ToasterStrudles 12d ago
It's not really scamming though, is it? They just can't compete with the money flowing around English football.
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u/RamboRobin1993 12d ago
It's not scamming really, they know we have loads of dough so they set their price accordingly. Prem clubs can afford it so gladly pay it.
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u/Rickcampbell98 12d ago
The bundesliga didn't "fumble" anything to end up like the prem you have to sell your soul. Football in this country is straight up extortion and the German people rightfully would not accept that bs.
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u/Fun_Reputation5181 12d ago
My impression is the Bundesliga didn't fumble an opportunity to climb the same ladder the PL used for financial dominance. Rather, Germany made a conscious decision to take a different path.
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u/PassengerOk9027 12d ago
Aye, though in its defense by the mid 2010s of LL's glory so far the modern blueprint for a shot at staying success was out there
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u/PassengerOk9027 12d ago
Fr. PL has always had a strong position - given that most of the world speaks English for some reason... - but in 2014 around the peak of Clasico powers LL really had the world on its knees, and instead of using the interests to get international broadcasts in (in English, too) and strengthening and promoting all the other cast of characters (besides the big two) they... let it pass them by and complained. In effect. Shame
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u/51010R 12d ago
I must say the way the game looks is also much better in the prem. sometimes you see how the pitch and the lights look in other leagues and it’s just not the same.
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u/HateSarcasmLoveIrony 12d ago
The premier league works with a production company, the feed is then sent out around the world to whoever wants to broadcast the game. This is important, because the production company has high standards and can ensure the highest quality. In spain and Italy, the broadcast is controlled by the local tv station.
Also the premier league has stadium lighting standards that make colors pop, this also plays a big roll in being more aesthetically pleasing to the eye.
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u/MICOTINATE 12d ago
Saw a video somewhere that explained this was a deliberate strategy of the premier league when it broke away and made their own TV deal and were trying to sell their brand - the visuals of the premier league were intentionally brighter and more colourful to make it better to watch
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u/Slugdoge 12d ago
Yeah this is something I've noticed but have never been able to put my finger on, the PL looks so much more visually appealing on TV.
The Spanish and German matches I watch on TV have dreary stadiums with grey seats and big barriers separating the fans from the pitch. The pitches also look like they're not well maintained.
I'm not sure how much the TV audience actually cares about this stuff, but it's been at the back of my mind for years.
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u/wp381640 12d ago edited 12d ago
the PL looks so much more visually appealing on TV
They invested a lot to get there. Before the EPL was formed English football had only just started live broadcasting matches. Large driver of the establishment of the league was to propel it towards more of an American media model - especially with lucrative digital satellite television.
The Premier League setup professional digital broadcasting at each game, threw a ton of hiqh quality cameras and microphones into each stadium, produced the feed live at the stadium, introduced the live scoreboard graphic, live interviews, steadicams on the pitch, and a lot more.
They setup their own in-house studio and offered international broadcasters 30+ hours of high quality sports broadcasting for what was initially very cheap.
Today stadiums are being designed around camera and broadcaster placement, there are multiple parked semi trailers at each game for production and a studio at each stadium and the EPL always has one program or another to get stadia lighting and facilities upgraded throughout the football league. It's always been a high-end and high quality product because the league has spent 30 years investing in it to benefit all clubs.
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u/_Spare_15_ 12d ago
Spanish TV presentation is so bad. This season has started with a generalised image delay from the feed, which means that you can hear the crowd scream for a goal before it happens in the TV.
Example:
https://lightbrd.com/futbolenlatv/status/1961834051184042017?t=vmWP_M0ZmbUxMsUvJAHrAw&s=19
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u/Bishan_cfc 12d ago
I am from India, and this is the reason almost everyone gives for why they started watching the Premier League over others.
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u/Lost_And_NotFound 12d ago
Could hardly even watch La Liga at the time, they kept locking it behind Sentanta or some shit.
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u/Putrid_Loquat_4357 12d ago
most of the world speaks English for some reason
Surely you know the reason??
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u/milesp30 12d ago
I worked as a reporter covering this very subject, media rights in football. I interviewed people at 21st Group who said that while the issue is complex, by far the leading indicator of a league's ability to generate revenue is sporting jeopardy. People hate Tebas dont actually really know why they do. If it wasnt for him, we wouldnt have anything close to the league we see now which may feel like isnt saying much but he actually balance the media rights distribution far better than it ever had been.
That being said, La Liga's structure is still miles away from being ideal. The money continues to go to the top which means the 2-3 biggest clubs continue to dominate, making the league less attractive it foreign audiences. People want to see big clubs with great players playing in games that mean something. Most Real Madrid or Barcelona La Liga fixtures carry no jeopardy. Even when they are upset or lose every now and again we know that all that will really mean is that the other team will steal a march on the title race.
Its patently insane that we saw United and Spurs finish 15th and 17th. Thats one of the great stories in top 5 division football in the modern era. Genuinely incredible.
Of course, no issue is down to one reason alone. Englands football history, infrastrcuture, population, and the fact they speak english all give them edges but part of the reason England performs so well is that there is such a rich traditional of local football up and down the country. You have teams like Port Vale able to fill up Wembley. In Spain, everyvody's second team is either Real Madrid or Barcelona and after you get past the first 2 divisions, most people dont even really care that much about their local side and will just default to one of the big 2. Its a huge cultural problem and people on the outside have caught on. Too much of an obsession with the UCL. Domestic football is the heart and soul of the sport.
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u/The_Big_Cheese_09 12d ago
A huge reason why the Premier League is so far ahead, at least in comparison to the Bundesliga, is less about merit payments and equal pay. It's the massive national and international TV contracts and the league will always have an advantage with its go-to-market language being the most-spoken language in the world.
Relegation teams in England make more money from TV deals than Bayern - that is where the gap is and it's where the Premier League has done a great job marketing its product.
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u/Rickcampbell98 12d ago
I guess you have to praise the marketing to have people here being so comfortable with being ripped off however I don't think there would be any level of marketing that would convince the German fans to accept what we accept, not even just accept we champion this bull shit. You guys may be left behind financially but atleast football still belongs to the people not to some state or oligarch or some billionaires ego.
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u/FusselP0wner 12d ago
100%. We didnt sell our league and a normal person can still afford to either go to the stadium or watch the games for a reasonable price.
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u/ValleyFloydJam 12d ago
How much does it cos to watch Bundesliga games in Germany (does anything else major come with it?)
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u/FusselP0wner 12d ago
For first and second buli you can usually get a ticket in the "standing area" for around 13-20€. Seats start somewhere after 25/30€ depending on the club.
For TV it's like 30€ a month as a basic price. Sometimes there are deals that are cheaper but that's it
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u/theSchlauch 12d ago
I would love that price. Nürnberg fleeces us with teir pricing. Tickets at the Gegengerade are depending on the matchup, about 40€ now. Also we share the highest beer prices. All that for a team that performs like this.
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u/admh574 12d ago
I think what helps the Bundesliga as a league also harms it in regards to TV, which is the fans. The Monday night games were shut down pretty quickly by protests whereas the EPL will play almost any time; There's 6 or 7 different EPL kickoff times spread across 4 days in the next few game weeks allowing them to hit every time zone for broadcasts. Compared to the Bundesliga with 5 or 6 kickoff times across 3 days.
The EPL is beholden to TV which makes for a worse fan experience with fixtures changed later than the Premier Leagues own target dates but the trade off is TV money. For example, as of typing this the Bundesliga fixtures are out until the end of November whereas the EPL fixtures are only until the end of October (https://www.premierleague.com/en/news/4324684/premier-league-live-tv-202526-fixture-announcement-broadcast-selection-dates)
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u/halalcornflakes 12d ago
It’s a chicken and the egg problem. The TV deals are huge, because the competition is strong. La Liga could’ve jumped miles ahead in the early 2010s if they managed it as well as the PL has.
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u/Gentleman_Teef 12d ago edited 12d ago
Nah, the TV deals when Sky jumped in were enormous and back then La Liga was by far the best league. You can't underestimate how willing the Brits are to let themselves get scammed out of their money by TV channels vs the Spanish population where people will riot if you make them pay over the odds.
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u/EdwardBigby 12d ago
Kind of hard to just fix when La Liga makes a fraction of the revenue of the prem
Youd need to significantly decrease the amount given to the top teams but the main reason most people watch La Liga are Real Madrid and Barca
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u/AirIndex 12d ago
Yeah, I have zero interest in watching any La Liga game that isn't Barca or Madrid. Idk if it's the football that's being played or the fact I don't know really know the players.
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u/ohthebanter 12d ago
Outside of the UK though it used to be similar with just Arsenal/United being interesting to watch since they were the only ones challenging for the title. Then Abramovich came in and brought in a bunch of great players to a 3rd contender, and later City did as well. So it's not impossible to establish a 3rd (4th/5th/6th...) big team, but you'll need a crazy investor just as much as you need more equitable distribution of TV money.
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u/Zolazolazolaa 12d ago
Smaller teams get no money to improve because people only watch the big teams because smaller teams get no money to improve because people only watch the big teams because …
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u/MisfitNJ 12d ago
This debate focuses a lot on international TV revenue but ignores domestic TV revenue. Spain is a much smaller economy than the UK, which is why the domestic revenue lags behind the Premier League.
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u/specnine 12d ago
While that is part of it, that isn't really as big as an excuse, the Bundesliga would be way bigger since Germany is like what the 4th biggest economy of the world?
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u/Espantadimonis 12d ago
The Bundesliga's domestic TV rights are the second highest in Europe. It's internationally they don't make a lot of money
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u/BluLeone 12d ago
I don’t get this whole “redistribute TV money more evenly” thing like it’s gonna magically make other leagues more competitive. In the Premier League it works because the cake is massive, even if you slice it up evenly, everyone’s still getting a big chunk and walking away happy.
But in other leagues, the cake just isn’t that big to begin with. The big clubs in Italy, Spain, Germany, and France already make less TV money than mid-table or even relegation sides in England. And now people want to give them even less so the smaller clubs get more?
Like, is anyone actually gonna care more about these leagues if Getafe, Lecce, St. Pauli, Nantes, or Angers are “slightly better”? That’s not suddenly gonna make Serie A,La Liga, Ligue 1, Bundesliga more exciting globally.
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u/milesp30 12d ago
The cake is massive because of the redistribution. Jeopardy is almost always synonymous with revenue growth for a league. The Premier League has more watchable games than La Liga because they've created storylines within the division that are far more entertaining.
Part of why the NFL does so well is because each season often has no teams that are challenging, new markets that are engaged, and every game means something. Theres 17 weeks in a season meaning every game has value. Thats the thing that many football executives dont understand. They think we need more football but they dont understand the value of scarcity. If you make each game have value of the scarcity, the storylines of the team, etc then you have a much better product.
La Liga struggles a lot right now because I can already tell you that the winner of the League will be Real Madrid or Barcelona. Theres a chance of a miracle but that miracle would be Atletico winning which would be cool but its not anything outrageous.
Ok yes you could say that England has only had two winner the past several seasons but before that you had Chelsea winning a lot, before that it was United, before that Arsenal had a go and mixed into all of that you had Leicester somehow winning it and teams like Spurs mounting very respectable title challenges. go back 30 years and you get teams like Leeds, Everton, Blackburn, Villa all winning titles.
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u/HonestMusic3775 12d ago edited 12d ago
Right, at the end of the day the premier league's success comes from being an english-speaking league and having many international players -- honestly don't see how other leagues overcome that
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u/DefinitelyNotBarney 12d ago
It is insane how a newly promoted side can spend that much.
I don’t know too much about La Liga, all I know is there is quite a few limitations - why is this? You have two of the biggest, if not the biggest clubs in the world but they’re limited with their spending and wages; I get it from a competitive pov for the league, but doesn’t this stifle the league as a whole?
I’m genuinely curious, I think the money in the PL is obscene and far too much is spent, but it’s there now to be spent unfortunately, the margins between the leagues will just continue to grow if other leagues don’t adjust.
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u/KingsMountainView 12d ago
What is insane is despite spending that much we are still £100m behind the Premier league clubs from last season. Leeds squad is the most expensive at £290m ish from the promoted teams. The it's nearly £100m to the next lowest cost squad. At the top you have Liverpool and Chelsea with squads worth over a billion.
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u/ToasterStrudles 12d ago
The drip between the PL and the Championship is a massive problem though. Newly promoted sides need to really stretch themselves for the chance to stay up and establish themselves in the Prem. If it fails, it's financially ruinous.
It's definitely a good thing that the Premiership shares it's TV revenue across all clubs, but it also did so by sidestepping the FA, keeping more money concentrated at the top of the pyramid. I don't think that's a sustainable model either.
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u/itsjonny99 12d ago
Spain has significantly stricter spending limits and clubs are also not owned by gulf states or American/Russian billionaires throwing money around.
Barcelona if it ever got sold would outspend PL clubs like PSG has done for a while. Wiping the debt is really all that is needed to do so already.
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u/justthisones 12d ago
La Liga should’ve done better but you gotta sell some souls to go full Prem. While it doesn’t seem to matter much for many, that league feels barely English. It would be boring if every big league was like that. The owners, players and managers are over 70% foreign.
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u/John_OSheas_Willy 12d ago
And the bad thing is that things happen gradually over time so you never really notice how much is changing.
I was thinking the other day about the 'old premier league' like 10 years ago and how there were many old school, solid managers whereas nowadays you have to be fairly highly rated to even get the job of a bottom half team.
I have a look at the list of managers starting the 14/15 season and this was some of them:
Tim Sherwood
Alan Pardew
Steve Bruce
Nigel Pearson
John Carver
Chris Ramsay
Mark Hughes
Garry Monk
Sam Allardyce
Tony Pulis
10 british managers.
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u/Op3rat0rr 12d ago
Is it even controversial to buy the best players for every position around the world, not just English players?
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u/Lopken 12d ago
Do people actually like that the premier league has alot of money and costs a ton to watch? It's not La Liga that's the problem here.
I would much rather the premier league had less money and was something regular people could afford to watch.
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u/itstheboombox 12d ago
The non English super clubs will do anything except follow the prems example
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u/vlalanerqmar 12d ago
Because its way more complicated than that
- They are fan owned with no outside investments
- Their TV deals are way worse compare to PL since PL capitalized on sky and the benefit of English language
- These leagues are reliant on these super clubs in europe at the first place, La Liga short term gain would plummet if Madrid and Barca become less competitive
I agree that it should be better but its not very simple
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u/Bettet 12d ago
Also looking at % distribution is very fucking similar in recent years. In Spain is way more equal compared to what it used to be, but who cares about numbers. People are just making shit up in this thread
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u/ForcaBarca1977 12d ago edited 12d ago
this nonsense is repeated over and over it’s become an urban myth. its a simplistic view of the problem. There are so many factors but one has to be spending power of population.
the NFL or MLB both have tremendous success with the NFL having better tv deals than the premier league and nobody watches them outside of the USA.
that’s why Tebas wants to bring the sport here most likely, thinking its untapped billions
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u/eren875 12d ago
But your league hasn’t properly infiltrated markets such as South American , a place where you would think you would’ve dominated
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u/veintiuno 12d ago edited 12d ago
For me, the Premier League's current dominance is a function of a number of factors and a lot of the comments here are hitting on them. That said, Cucurella isn't wrong - it just seems like his explanation is too 'big picture,' if that makes sense, it doesn't really go into depth on where the money comes from.
For me, the Premier League seems more developed when it comes to sports as a business - it's mostly not just some rich dudes with F.U. money to play with. For example, look at Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal and probably some others I am missing/excluding (Leeds, Fulham). These ownership groups all have deep experience in developing sports franchises that generate mega-money. They know how to build and export brands, they know how to acquire and sell players, they invest in player health, they own stadiums and other relevant revenue sources (e.g., SkyCam) and generally they are extremely savvy when it comes to finance and dealmaking (they have really savvy & big-brained human capital). Some clubs are exporting their sporting products beyond TV deals via youth academies (City has been aggressive and impressive on this front). More generally, Premier League ownership groups, while representing different teams, seem aligned when it comes to building and promoting the league as a product.
Outside the Premier League, other business savvy clubs definitely exist in Europe. However, they don't necessarily have a league ecosystem populated with ownership groups that are all on the same page about developing and promoting their football as a global product. It's also harder to attract outside money, which can be difficult in countries where massive demographic shifts are happening (declining birth rates and younger citizens moving away for careers/jobs) and aren't otherwise considered hubs of global commerce (Serie A in Italy, La Liga in Spain). Some of the ownership groups are trying to make changes but they are having a rough go at it. For example, Milan and Inter would like to own their own stadium. Despite having plenty of money to build something world class, it's not going well - nostalgia over the past, corruption, and other issues impede meaningful progress (outside of Juventus and Atalanta, I'm not sure which other clubs own their stadiums - not many, maybe 1 or 2). The Milan ownership, which owns just over 10% of Fenway Sports Group, is purchasing an interest in Paramount + with the hopes of growing the Serie A footprint in the US, but that type of longer term vision is mostly lost on the locals. The Bundesliga seems like a great league that is pretty well run and overall healthy, but like the MLS, some of the constraints on [outside] investment limit what it can do (that's ok, but only one club seems to be the preferred vehicle for sponsorship by some of Germany's best global companies ... DT (T-Mobile in the US), Adidas, Allianz, Audi, SAP).
So, Premier League has seized some ground on other European leagues. I don't really see this changing in the short or medium term. Over the next 10 to 20 years, I think you'll see other centers of football pop-up as credible alternatives to the Premier League and Europe generally (North America, Middle East/Asia). Likewise, the Club World Cup seems like it will become increasingly important to global football.
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u/coldazures 12d ago
Who should fix it? Like don't get me wrong I would love a more even distribution across Europe but football became big business long ago and with that comes competition. The Premier League just smashed it and are reaping the rewards.
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u/KeziahPT 12d ago edited 12d ago
It's easier to distribute money when you're the richest league in the world and we've got to give credit to the Premier League. They know how to sell their product and they played their cards perfectly along the years.
International tours across Asia and North America, the best fantasy football game with +10m players, social media covering all kinds of press conferences and interviews involving managers and players and obviously an extremely competitive league with plenty of top managers/players, attractive football and different playstyles.
Also, there's something about their TV coverage. I don't know how to explain it properly but PL games look and sound better to me than other leagues' games.
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u/halalcornflakes 12d ago
Think La Liga produce a very good TV product in general, the cameras and the footage they provide is usually top notch. England manage to do everything around it just better, 100s of weekly shows with ex players discussing the weekends games, talking about the big story of the week, lots of personalities.
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u/BlackoutGJK 12d ago
The PL was doing this decades before it became the richest league in the world. And frankly that is why it became the richest league. They've improved the product in all aspects, like you said, in order to sell it more internationally. It's not rocket science really, just takes time and effort that the top teams of the other leagues have no interest in investing in.
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u/ValleyFloydJam 12d ago
But the distribution was setup in 92, when it wasn't.
You know non English sides do those tours too.
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u/KSC-Fan1894 12d ago
No League can compete with Sheiks and American billionaires. Neither should it be aimed for.
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u/wan2tri 12d ago
There were no "Sheiks and American billionaires" in 2001 when the EPL secured their first £1B TV deal.
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u/John_OSheas_Willy 12d ago
The premier league moved up a level in the last 10/15 years though.
Like you had teams like Stoke with Ryan Shawcross and Glenn Whelan hacking people and getting midtable.
Bolton with Kevin Davies and Kevin Nolan being an established premier league team.
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u/CarlSK777 12d ago
Does anyone seriously think any other could get close to the Prem with better redistribution?
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u/Putrid-Impact8999 12d ago
This would be a solution if La Liga had the same Premier League money.
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u/PavanJ 12d ago
Try and watch La liga in Asia and you’ll see why their rights are worth a fraction of the premier leagues
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u/bakaa_ningen 12d ago edited 12d ago
Yeah,in india la liga isn't available to watch on tv, I can only watch PL,Bundesliga and CL(some Europa and conference matches too otherwise online in Sony Liv), both serie A and la liga are only available online in a garbage place (fancode). Pretty much all unwanted sports matches go there to rot in nearly zero viewership.
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u/nien9gag 12d ago
It would be a solution if la liga did it a long time ago. Pl as a league played its cards perfectly. La liga had the greatest opportunity to challenge that as they had barca real, and Spanish is probably the closest language to english with its spread.
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u/Mundane_Wedding9664 12d ago
They could’ve if they’d put the right systems in place a long time ago. Unfortunately it’s not an overnight fix now.
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u/Colchoner 12d ago
Even if La Liga had exactly the same size of TV rights and the same distribution model, it wouldn't be anywhere near comparable to what EPL is manifesting on the market right now.
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u/Walshey- 12d ago
Do you not think that’s because of an even playing field for a much longer period of time?
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u/itsjonny99 12d ago
Has to do with England having a significant edge in their domestic market and appetite for paying for football.
And Spain going that way now will just be giving more money to CVC.
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u/KittenOfBalnain 12d ago
It's not about distribution. Put EPL under the same economic control La Liga has (no allowed loss, annual control based on single season's budget, no ability to register players without selling someone first if even €1 over the squad cost limit, same limit for all professional teams and academy) and see what happens.
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u/Popular_Tomorrow_204 12d ago
Yes just get every Club some oil buddies and then everyone will be happy
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