New TV rights deal

[Adester]

If they actually gave a chuff about football, they wouldn't just pass it all on to the big clubs, they would ring fence a small amount, say £1 Billion (one fifth or so) and plough it into schools, academies, local football soccer centres etc. Can you imagine what could be done with 1 fifth of that cash!

Call it an investment into the future, trickling a few scraps to the poor just isn't good enough when there is that amount of cash sloshing around, they should be ashamed of themselves.

[gruff1]

5 billion or 5 million or 5 quid. Couldn't give a hoot about that prima donna haven of so-called world-class players whose main attributes are cheating the ref.

League One is where it is at and short of promotion/relegation, that is where my interest will remain.

Once the TV money dries up and the PL bubble bursts, clubs will be unable to pay their 1m-per-week darlings; I can see a day when 25-50% of the current top flight 'do a Portsmouth' and sink without trace.

And who will be there to fill the void? Those with a more solvent model based on, oddly-enough, football rather than business. Yes of course there will be a knock onto lower leagues, but so long as we live within our means I don't worry about the future of clubs like ours and quite frankly don't care about the future of clubs in PL.

[itwasin]

It will all end in Tears and Boom and Bust

[out0lunch]

Well the cat is out of the bag. The premier league exists to line the pockets of players, chairmen,managers and agents.

I thought the reason the Premier League was formed was to help the England team get success. Next came soccer academies to help England along with the expense that brought.
Even then some lower league clubs had the audacity to continue with their academies so the Premier clubs started to ask for more expensive add ons eg all weather pitch. But still these lesser clubs kept trying.
Next you must have a gym an indoor centre.

Still some clubs persisted and were still producing good players that the Premiership had to pay money for.
How do they overcome this?
Let’s invent the EPPP, that should finish them off and we will say it is for the benefit of the England team

Scudamore and his cronies should realise every business must have a good base but they are destroying it.

Since the start of the Premiership, what have the England team achieved?

Zilch.
The Premiership ha

[somersetcrewe]

Maybe his yacht will sink with him onboard.

[AstonAlex]

Excellent article in today's Guardian about 5 things that the PL could do now they are even more awash with dish. Top of the list reducing prices for spectators, especially away fans (given the range of kick off days and times), and introducing safe standing. Also to pay all staff, and subcontracted staff, the living wage.

The usual stuff about community action and engagement and helping grass roots football, of course, and increasing the trickle down of the cash to the rest of the pyramid to more of a flow.

I won't hold my breath, especially on the latter, but if the rest of the Prem can't follow Chelsea's example and pay their cleaners, ground staff, stewards and so on the living wage then it's a damn poor show. Something I'd like to see the Mighty Alex do as well.

[lestiverton]

Excellent article in today's Guardian about 5 things that the PL could do now they are even more awash with dish. Top of the list reducing prices for spectators, especially away fans (given the range of kick off days and times), and introducing safe standing. Also to pay all staff, and subcontracted staff, the living wage.

The usual stuff about community action and engagement and helping grass roots football, of course, and increasing the trickle down of the cash
to the rest of the pyramid to more of a flow.

I won't hold my breath, especially on the latter, but if the rest of the Prem can't follow Chelsea's example and pay their cleaners, ground staff, stewards and so on the living wage then it's a damn poor show. Something I'd like to see the Mighty Alex do as well.

Here's a way to put pressure on Premier League clubs to pay the living wage to all their staff. The campaigning web site "38 Degrees" has set up a petition to ge

[DGFG]

Everything has been covered in all of the excellent posts above really but would just like to add the following thoughts:

1. The EPL is not fit for purpose - it is not sufficiently competitive (only 5 different winners in 20+ years), it does not produce the requisite quantity and quality of players to support a successful England National team and, based on the performance of Spanish and German clubs in Europe in recent years, the product is of inferior quality to La Liga and the Bundesliga and therefore it does not represent good value for money.

2. The point about ticket prices is a good one - I believe some lip service was paid during the media briefing about the new TV deal with a statement to the effect that full stadia enhance the product - well, it would be a start if away fans required to endure ludicrous kick off times for the sake of TV (12.45pm Sat, 4pm Sun, 8pm Mon) were actually given their tickets free of charge to compensate for the inconvenience - obviously it would n