I found this topic on Twitter and thought i'd share it here. Apologies if this has already been mentioned.
In short, it's about football, an insight into the revenue discrepancy between the Premier League and the other top leagues in Europe, as well as the Champions League in recent years, and what the imbalance and concentration of money and talent in just a few locations mean for the sport's future.
Only posting a link to the thread itself wouldn't do justice and probably fewer people would read it, so pretty much copy-paste but it's definitely worth a look. You can find the full thread
here.
All credits go to John Burn-Murdoch, a data scientist from England, you can follow him on Twitter if you like
@jburnmurdoch.
Source: https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1530523036545335296"For decades the sport has been quietly having its "frog in a pan of water" moment, and it feels like we're approaching boiling point."
"Let's start with a chart:
Premier League clubs' revenues have been higher than other leagues for decades, but the size of the gap is now vast.
Today the gap is more than €2bn, allowing English sides to comfortably outbid most of their continental rivals on transfers and wages.
Most of the difference is caused by the Premier League's much higher broadcast revenues. This season EPL 🏴 booked £3.1bn for TV rights, vs £1.8bn for La Liga 🇪🇸
Next year the La Liga 🇪🇸 package will dip to £1.6bn, while EPL 🏴 will rise to £3.4bn, according to
@Football_BM Some club-by-club examples are ... eye-opening. When Inter won the Italian title in 2021, they made around €85mn from Serie A TV money (via
@SwissRamble)
That same year, Sheffield United received around €115mn for finishing 20th in the Premier League.
While the bulk of the Premier League's financial advantage comes from its vast TV deals, commercial revenues also play a big part.
Since the mid 2010s both broadcast and commercial incomes have skyrocketed, far outpacing the other big four leagues.
Now you might look at all that and say, "okay so some football clubs make a lot more money now. So what?"
The issue is, this money ? and who has it ? has *completely* transformed the competitive balance of the game, and it's glaring wherever you look.
Let's start with the Champions League. In the early 1990s, clubs from all across Europe routinely reached the semi-finals.
We had 13 different countries represented in the semis across 5 years, including clubs from Serbia and Romania. Today? It's virtually a closed shop.
It's now exceptional when a club from outside the big five leagues reaches the last-four, and when they do their stars are gobbled up by the superclubs
In a typical season, *three quarters* of UCL semi-finalists now come from just six cities, let alone countries (HT
@KuperSimon)
Here's another view of the same data.
In the 5 years ending 1987, *18* different clubs reached the semis, including Steaua București, Dundee United, IFK Göteborg & Widzew Łódź.
Today, it's a safe bet that 2-3 of this year's final four will be in next year's semis, too.
This is the metaphorical frog in a pan of water. There have been few overnight black-and-white transformations, but after years of incremental increases in inequality,
the experience of supporting the average football club in 2022 is unrecognisable from the same in the 70s or 80s
And of course the Premier League is not alone here.
The gap between top and bottom of every one of Europe's big five leagues is far wider today than in decades past.
(And looking at the shape of that Ligue 1 line, it's a wonder French fans aren't on the brink of revolution...)
Here's the same thing over time. Two decades of increasing competitive inequality in almost every league.
And no coincidence that the biggest gaps and steepest climbs feature clubs owned by nation states, whose budgets are essentially limitless.
We celebrated last year when the European Super League collapsed, but the current model is only superficially better.
Sure, at least with the current formats there's a *theoretical* chance of a superclub dropping out of the elite. But really...?
Let's be honest: the structures of European club football today are *far* closer to the protectionist,
plutocratic model of the Super League than they are to any kind of "socialist" model that was supposedly at risk from the Super League."
