Liverpool MD suggests per-team TV deals.

[DanH84]

Liverpool are the fourth most popular English team abroad behind Manchester United, Chelsea and Arsenal and the seventh most followed in Europe, according to a global fan survey published yesterday.

A separate confidential club-by-club analysis obtained by The Times shows that United have nearly five times as many overseas supporters as Liverpool and more than twice the figure for the next popular club.

The Barclays Premier League champions command a following of 354 million, ahead of Chelsea’s 135 million and Arsenal’s 113 million, according to research by the Sport+Markt business consultancy. Liverpool’s foreign supporter base of 71 million puts them between AC Milan and Inter Milan in a European landscape dominated by Barcelona (270 million) and Real Madrid (174 million).

The figures emerged after Ian Ayre, the Liverpool managing director, voiced a desire to break away from the Premier League’s collective bargaining agreement for overseas television rights. Putting the Merseyside club in the same bracket as United for the power of their global brand, he asked why top clubs should share their international media value “just to be nice” to smaller rivals.

Pointing to the £136 million a season earned by Barcelona and Real Madrid, who sell their rights individually, he said that English clubs — who are earning nearly eight times less — should be free to do the same to keep pace with their Spanish rivals.

His comments provoked widespread outrage as Liverpool’s closest rivals distanced themselves from the idea — the first time that a Premier League club have challenged collective selling since 2003, when Peter Kenyon, the United chief executive at the time, was defeated on the issue by 19 votes to one.

Yesterday, United, Manchester City, Arsenal and Chelsea backed the status quo in which the top 20 clubs divide equally the £1.4 billion received from foreign broadcasters under the 2010-13 deal. Each received £17.9 million last season. While United have the most to gain from a breakaway, the Sport+Markt data, based on a survey of 1,000 people in each of 36 countries, shows that even if Liverpool were to be successful, they would be far from second in the pecking order.

Many clubs are said to be irritated that Ayre raised the subject in media interviews before Saturday’s match between Liverpool and United instead of behind closed doors at a Premier League shareholders’ meeting.

While this game used to attract the biggest international audience of any on the Premier League fixture list, it has been eclipsed in recent years by matches between United and Chelsea, the most widely watched pay-per-view game last season.

This weekend’s North West derby also marks a year since John W. Henry and Tom Werner, the principal owners of the Boston Red Sox baseball team, took the reins at Anfield. The main motivation for the takeover by Fenway Sports Group (FSG) was the untapped commercial potential of Liverpool’s overseas popularity, especially in Asia, and Henry’s belief that the club should be more free to exploit it.

“We realise we are part of a league, but we feel the burden on the top clubs is higher than appropriate,” he says in an interview in The Guardian today. “We feel we deserve the fruits of our labour.”

Henry confessed that he and Werner had barely heard of the club before their purchase, although they “certainly knew” about United.

Henry’s comments, coupled with those of his managing director, who has experience of doing business in Asia and was promoted by FSG from commercial director after the departure of Christian Purslow, add to the feeling that Liverpool are stirring the pot on overseas rights to detract from problems closer to home.

There remains the issue of a bigger stadium as United continue to earn substantially more at the gate, while the failure to secure European television income for this season has put even more financial distance between the clubs.

Andy Green, a football finance analyst, said that the real issue was not the constraints of the collective agreement but Liverpool’s performance on the pitch.“The gap in media income with, say, Bolton over the last five years is already £159 million, how much more does he [Ayre] want?” Green said.

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/sport/football/premierleague/article3192868.ece

A link to the Andersred article it references at the end.
http://andersred.blogspot.com/

 

[DanH84]

It's also worth pointing out that for all this 'German way is the right way' talk There is a bigger proportional gap in what their top and bottom clubs earn through tv rights than their is in the Premiership.

 

[BaZ87]

Liverpool are the fourth most popular English team abroad behind Manchester United, Chelsea and Arsenal and the seventh most followed in Europe, according to a global fan survey published yesterday......

All these survey's are bs. Just the other year there was a survey that claimed Liverpool were the most supported side in Europe. They only thing that counts are hard facts such as television viewing figures which paint a very different picture.

edit: The exact same people that claim Utd have 300m supporters, claimed in 2009 that Utd had 30m supporters. That's some growth.

 

[BaZ87]

It's also worth pointing out that for all this 'German way is the right way' talk There is a bigger proportional gap in what their top and bottom clubs earn through tv rights than their is in the Premiership.

Shared revenue like they have in the US and 51% fan ownership & rules on profitiability as they have in the Bundesliga =

I'm know it's not that simple but the principle would work.

 

[Alpherah]

As great as it is to watch the likes of Real and Barca, it is some what pointless in terms of watching a competition. It's not a case of if they're going to win but by how many they'll win by.

Maybe its because I'm not spanish, but even outside of Real and Barca, i find the spanish league to be much more competitive and entertaining (through the style of play and flair) then most teams in the PL. Hell i would rather watch Atl Bilbao v Getafe then any random Chelsea game for example.


-edit-
Im response to that quote about media income, about 95% of the gap is through sponsorships and partnership deals, not TV revenue differences. Bolton could market themselves better and close the gap. If Ayre could increase our marketing income like 80% even with those clowns bleeding us dry, then there's room for everyone to improve.

 

[Weebull]

edit: I've said before that I'd be in favour of some sort of system similar to what they have in the US (shared revenue etc) however that would have to be implemented throughout Europe or as Ayre talks about, we won't be able to compete with the likes of Real.

I agree, I'd love to see a similar system, which is why I dislike the current setup too. Frankly though, I'm not sure I could care if it makes us weaker in Europe though. Alpherah can go off and watch Barca or whoever's winning if he wants, but I support the club I do because they're my club, no more, no less. I think league wins would be much more important in a more competitive league anyway.

I'd love to see a system whereby all teams in the league had exactly the same amount of money to outlay every season. Make success entirely down to who can put together the best team within the budget, and not just how much they can spend. Any money for finishing positions goes straight to player/staff bonuses. Any income from extra revenue, hell, let the owners and shareholders fill their boots with that, I don't care.

 

[Alpherah]

Thats a bit of a silly thing to say in all honestly Weebull, suggesting I'm some kind of glory supporter, who's supported Liverpool since, well, since i can remember. Remind me how great we've been at winning things in the last 20 years?

Its not about supporting who's winning, its about entertainment. If you read my post properly you'l see i said to basically disregard the top teams in Spain, but look at the other teams down the league and each one of them i find substantially more entertaining to watch then most the teams in the PL. The style of football in the PL has been absolutely terrible lately.

I'd love to see a system whereby all teams in the league had exactly the same amount of money to outlay every season. Make success entirely down to who can put together the best team within the budget, and not just how much they can spend. Any money for finishing positions goes straight to player/staff bonuses. Any income from extra revenue, hell, let the owners and shareholders fill their boots with that, I don't care.

Me too, but only if its rolled out world wide/Europe wide. Honestly i would hate to see our clubs become insignificant in europe because, like it or not, the CL is the best competition in the world because fans want to see the best players.

 

[Shamikebab]

I'd love to see a system whereby all teams in the league had exactly the same amount of money to outlay every season. Make success entirely down to who can put together the best team within the budget, and not just how much they can spend. Any money for finishing positions goes straight to player/staff bonuses. Any income from extra revenue, hell, let the owners and shareholders fill their boots with that, I don't care.

The problem is then it would favor the teams in the London area, they would be able to attract better players due to location.

 

[DanH84]

All these survey's are bs. Just the other year there was a survey that claimed Liverpool were the most supported side in Europe. They only thing that counts are hard facts such as television viewing figures which paint a very different picture.

edit: The exact same people that claim Utd have 300m supporters, claimed in 2009 that Utd had 30m supporters. That's some growth.

Really?
Do you have a link to the 2009 survey or the viewing figures?

 

[BaZ87]

Really. I'll find the links to the various surveys when I have time. As for the viewing figures, there was a bit of a debate around the time of the Real - Barca matches last year over whether it really was the biggest match in the world, and the stats showed that the global viewing figures of your average Liverpool or Utd game were considerably more than any other games (including Real - Barca). Although tbf, one of the main reasons why viewing figures of Liverpool or Utd are more than Real - Barca is because the Premier League is far more accommodating to overseas broadcasters; it's not a coincidence that Liverpool - Utd is a lunch time kick-off (prime time in the far east) and play more often than other sides at that time, where as Real and Barca nearly always play in the evenings which would be the middle of the night in the far east.

How many people 'support' club x is meaningless unless it translates into money (from the clubs point of view) and you only have to look at shirt/merchandise sales, commercial agreements etc to see how this support translates into money, and Liverpool are only 2nd to Utd in the Premier League.

edit: Just found the '09 survey and it was Europe only. It was 2am to my defense

 

[drunkenmaster]

The problem is then it would favor the teams in the London area, they would be able to attract better players due to location.

Well, not strictly true, why do some top NFL players go where they go, its not for location Very few top players choose Arizona or Alabama over LA/New York/Miami, the top teams simply can't afford all of the top players.

In the NFL you have a team wage cap, meaning if you've got, 100mil for wages then you can't afford 25 guys on 10mil a year each, you can maybe have 2, and everyone else in different pay scales.

But thats the thing, Arsenal say have location and support, but in terms of "stars" we could only afford 1-2 guys on 200k a week, which would spread out the "top" players amongst all the clubs. Some years people will risk a few less players for one more "star" player on a high wage, other teams will forego a star player for more strength in depth.

Barca simply couldn't afford to keep all their players, they'd pay messi, and xavi, and Fabregas, Valdes, they'd keep maxwell and keita, maybe Pedro, Puyol on decent but not insane wages, but they couldn't afford to pay Iniesta 150k a week to sit on the bench.

Mostly it would mean most players simply have to accept lower wages......... which maybe there would need to be a rule that meant if profits were over maybe 20%, then ticket prices get reduced. Right now we supposedly have ticket prices rising due to rising wages and costs of running a club, if you drop those costs significantly, that will just be turned into massive profit for a lot of clubs, but it would be fairer/better to see ticket prices returned to "normal".

 

[Weebull]

Thats a bit of a silly thing to say in all honestly Weebull, suggesting I'm some kind of glory supporter, who's supported Liverpool since, well, since i can remember. Remind me how great we've been at winning things in the last 20 years?

I'm only teasing . We all know over-hyping your teams chances of winning is practically as good as doing the deed for Liverpool fans anyway.

Me too, but only if its rolled out world wide/Europe wide. Honestly i would hate to see our clubs become insignificant in europe because, like it or not, the CL is the best competition in the world because fans want to see the best players.

Frankly I'm not too sure I'd care. The achievement of winning the league amongst a much more level playing field would be a greater achievement than winning the CL, imo. And if other countries wanted to join our system, heck, we could have our own competition. Sod the rest.

The problem is then it would favor the teams in the London area, they would be able to attract better players due to location.

As DM said, the whole point of a salary cap is that you CAN'T have all the best players at your club, as you won't have the money. So even if the London appeal was enough to win over players on its own, that would only give the capital's teams first dibs on maybe two players each. If your lot proved anything last year, it's that you don't necessarily need the marque names to win things.

 

[DanH84]

If your lot proved anything last year, it's that you don't necessarily need the marque names to win things.

Darron Gibson says 'what?'

 

[BaZ87]

Frankly I'm not too sure I'd care. The achievement of winning the league amongst a much more level playing field would be a greater achievement than winning the CL, imo. And if other countries wanted to join our system, heck, we could have our own competition. Sod the rest.

Like I said last night, you'd need to have some sort of Bundesliga style supporter ownership model to go along with the shared revenue.

As it stands, if you told Kroenke, Glazer, Henry etc that you've got to share your revenue with Bolton, they'd tell you to stick it and the idea of a European Super League might become a reality. In fact, even without implementing a shared revenue system, I suspect that it's only a matter of time before there is a European Super League (whether it be 2 years time or 20 years time). There are too many outside investors in football now that have no interest whatsoever in the sport.

 

[mehuk]

For the fan, imo, teams should be able to sell their own rights. Id rather pay x amount to be able to watch all my teams games, rather than having to pay x to see them what 6-10 times tops? and then the other weeks get to have the chuff games on the box.

HOWEVER, this should be controlled by the Premier League, so all revenue generated via this is split.. so even if say United sell 1 million subs, and Wigan sell 23 subscriiptions.. the still get the same amount of cash. The big teams wont be happy, but the league needs some equality to survive, especially without a salary cap in place.

Something similar to MLB.TV should be put in place, you pay an annual fee to be able to watch all games and then the League divides that up. At the minute the way TV coverage is in England is a shambles and archaic in its approach.

 

[BaZ87]

That's a completely seperate issue to what Ayre's talking about. He's talking about the overseas rights where there are no restrictions on how much of each team can be shown. For example there's a Scandinavian broadcaster that shows all 380 Premier League games per year.

The reason why Sky (or any UK broadcaster) can't show all 38 Liverpool games (for example) is because of the effect it will have on attendances of local, lower league clubs; if Liverpool and Tranmere are playing at the same time and the Liverpool game was on TV, the argument is that people would stay at home and watch Liverpool rather than watch Tranmere live.

The obvious solution to that would be kill off Saturday 3pm kick-offs so there are no clashes with lower league games. However from what Nial Quinn has said, allowing every match to be broadcast live wouldn't just effect lower league clubs but it would effect the attendances of all but the biggest clubs in the country. He claimed that Sunderland's attendances are already being harmed by the amount of Sunderland fans choosing to watch the match via foreign satellites in pubs rather than go to the stadium.