Very weird to see someone systematically devalue how unique it is to have 4.5 professional football leagues all connected and relevant in the same country. How it helps in terms of youth academies, playing time, football fandom. The Premier League has intrinsic value based on the dream that a club in League 2 over 10 years can get it all right and one day make it to the heights of the Premier League. This sort of thinking is how we get the Super League, one of the most soulless propositions ever the grace the game of football.
I’m just trying to speak strictly in pragmatic terms of what makes English football so good/important in the modern era. As an American, having a pyramid linking effectively every single team in the country is an incredibly cool concept that’s, unfortunately, all but a pipe dream here (we have hundreds of college football and basketball teams here with diehard fanbases and rich histories— it’d be amazing if they somehow had a competitive link to the NFL and NBA, for example).
My point is only that, while we all love a Leicester story, the dream of an underdog isn’t what brings in the foreign dollar, euro, etc. year over year (after all, Leicester is one of only two titles won by a non-Top Six club in the ~30 year history of the PL). The accessibility of the league to most of the world language-wise and fandoms associated with the top end of the league are why people keep tuning into the PL rather than the others. The Premier League is an English League rooted in English culture, but at this point it’s a global media enterprise funded (and, I don’t have numbers in front of me, but perhaps even owned) in majority by foreign sources.
That’s wholly inaccurate though because you’re not just looking at winning the title when you have the chance at European play. You don’t get Wrexham or Luton or Ipswich without the promise of making it to the Prem.
Very weird to see someone systematically devalue how unique it is to have 4.5 professional football leagues all connected and relevant in the same country. How it helps in terms of youth academies, playing time, football fandom. The Premier League has intrinsic value based on the dream that a club in League 2 over 10 years can get it all right and one day make it to the heights of the Premier League. This sort of thinking is how we get the Super League, one of the most soulless propositions ever the grace the game of football.
I’m just trying to speak strictly in pragmatic terms of what makes English football so good/important in the modern era. As an American, having a pyramid linking effectively every single team in the country is an incredibly cool concept that’s, unfortunately, all but a pipe dream here (we have hundreds of college football and basketball teams here with diehard fanbases and rich histories— it’d be amazing if they somehow had a competitive link to the NFL and NBA, for example).
My point is only that, while we all love a Leicester story, the dream of an underdog isn’t what brings in the foreign dollar, euro, etc. year over year (after all, Leicester is one of only two titles won by a non-Top Six club in the ~30 year history of the PL). The accessibility of the league to most of the world language-wise and fandoms associated with the top end of the league are why people keep tuning into the PL rather than the others. The Premier League is an English League rooted in English culture, but at this point it’s a global media enterprise funded (and, I don’t have numbers in front of me, but perhaps even owned) in majority by foreign sources.
That’s wholly inaccurate though because you’re not just looking at winning the title when you have the chance at European play. You don’t get Wrexham or Luton or Ipswich without the promise of making it to the Prem.