[Football] Is the EPL to Europe what the Big 6/7 are to Brighton?

[Zeberdi]

On the RDZs Juventus ‘links’ thread, in response to a ‘anxiety posts’ about RDZ, I suggested we shouldn’t underestimate the strength of the EPL to attract and hold on to international coaches (including ex Serie A coaches like RDZ) because of the money, competition and level of football in the EPL compared to European Leagues and I think would take that as source of encouragement personally.

I also think there are parallels here between how the EPL is seen by other European leagues and how we see the Big 6 in relation to us. Many of the complaints we have against the Big 6 are echoed by European Leagues struggling to hang onto top players whose heads are turned by the EPL:

This is an excellent article by Oliver Kay is definitely worth a read and illustrates the levels of frustration in European League football at EPL spending in the context of the January window:

'It's madness': How Premier League transfer spending is viewed in Europe

Europe's other leagues are consumed by fear, loathing and a sense of opportunity as England's top flight continues to flash the cash

theathletic.com

Chelsea look like complete dickheads of course for their £290m January spend in a desperate thrust to improve on their season‘s performance and compensate for their Moyse mark II manager - However, the big spends were not confined to or even included all the Big 6/7 - Spurs and Man U spent nothing while the Saints spent £56m and the Cherries £50m for example. Overall, EPL January spending tripled from last season at a figure of £815m compared to the combined total of all the 4 top tier leagues in Europe of £220m (that’s La Liga, Serie A, Bundesliga, Ligue 1 clubs all combined!) - (skewed obviously by Chelsea’s spend)

We may be sick (and get even sicker) loosing key star players (or even coaches) to much richer clubs but Brighton are still 6th in the richest, most watched, most competitive football league in the World which may be bad news for Europe but for us, IMHO, we will always attract quality ’replacements’ for players we sell on to Big 6 clubs and stand a good chance of retaining internationally sourced managers - provided we don’t change our policy of letting them develop and move on to further their careers with our goodwill when they are ready and at a fee that is acceptable for us. (Obviously I prefer we sell on to European league clubs so our ex-stars don’t help our competitors in the PL but realistically that won’t happen as a rule )

Feel free to jump in, agree, disagree- it’s just an opinion/starting point for discussion

 

[Triggaaar]

While I take your point about the EPL as a whole, the fact is that teams like Real Madrid and Barca outspent PL for decades

 

[macbeth]

fact is none of those league have a product that's as watchable as the PL. Neither in terms of quality (though I appreciate that comes with money), but mostly through the fact that the PL having a mega and well structured TV rights deal generates the cash. the TV rights in other leagues aren't run the same way, take ligue 1 for example, where the lfp tenders the rights out every four years, and look at the meltdown that happened there with canal+ fairly recently. there just isn't the same level of infrastructure and efficiency which is why the PL has so much more money, as a lot of other stuff like sponsors come off the bigger TV deals. the pl product is now so well established that it will be very difficult for other leagues to overcome that financial gap, unless every multi billionaire in the world decides they want in.

appreciate that the PL spending is lunacy, mostly driven by the big six, and (most of) the other clubs have to spend to keep up but at the end of the day there's a reason a tiny club with a 10k stadium on the south coast, bournemouth, for example, can lay down £30M plus on players and clubs like lille or villareal can't.

 

[Triggaaar]

fact is none of those league have a product that's as watchable as the PL. Neither in terms of quality (though I appreciate that comes with money), but mostly through the fact that the PL having a mega and well structured TV rights deal generates the cash. the TV rights in other leagues aren't run the same way, take ligue 1 for example, where the lfp tenders the rights out every four years, and look at the meltdown that happened there with canal+ fairly recently. there just isn't the same level of infrastructure and efficiency which is why the PL has so much more money, as a lot of other stuff like sponsors come off the bigger TV deals. the pl product is now so well established that it will be very difficult for other leagues to overcome that financial gap, unless every multi billionaire in the world decides they want in.

appreciate that the PL spending is lunacy, mostly driven by the big six, and (most of) the other clubs have to spend to keep up but at the end of the day there's a reason a tiny club with a 10k stadium on the south coast, bournemouth, for example, can lay down £30M plus on players and clubs like lille or villareal can't.

I think one of the things that makes football the greatest sport on earth is that underdogs have more chance than in other sports, and the fact that the TV rights are more evenly split in the PL than in other top leagues mean that our underdogs (which includes us) have a better chance against the Man Citys of this world, which in turn makes the PL better to watch than alternative leagues.