Top official calls time on Premier League career
The successor to Richard Scudamore as Premier League chief executive will come under pressure from the 20 clubs to investigate ways of staging competitive league games overseas, after La Liga in Spain became the first of Europe’s top five leagues to announce it would do so.
The Premier League has no immediate plans to follow its Spanish counterpart and stage selected single league games outside the country – announced yesterday by Liga officials as part of a major push to give its competition a greater profile in North America. Nevertheless, Scudamore’s successor will have to be mindful of the competition given that international rights are the major area of growth for broadcast revenue when the league next goes to market for 2022-2025.
La Liga has agreed to stage competitive games overseas as part of a 15-year deal that will take its teams to the United States and Canada.
There were no details as to when the first game would be played outside Spain, or how many, but the next Spanish football television deal runs from 2019 to 2022 so it could well be within that cycle.
Scudamore, who will quit this year, ruled out the possibility of moving competitive matches overseas when he announced his departure at the end of last season. With demand from Premier League club owners for increased broadcast revenue there will be pressure to keep their league as the world’s pre-eminent competition and not be seen to fall behind. The Premier League is interviewing candidates to be Scudamore’s successor, one of the most high-profile and influential jobs in the English game.
Scudamore’s proposal in 2008 of a 39th game, played overseas as a competitive addition to the regular fixture list was one of the few misjudgments of his reign.
La Liga president Javier Tebas is under pressure to raise revenue for the 20 clubs in his division. They are expected to bring in around £1.5billion a season for their collective domestic and overseas rights from next season. The Premier League’s next run of domestic and international rights for 2019-2022 are worth £4.55billion over three years, excluding what Amazon Prime has paid for its rights package, and the total including international rights will take it to well in excess of £8.3billion.
In an attempt to gain a greater following around the world, La Liga has signed deals in a range of Asian countries including Pakistan and India where the league will be shown free-to-air. It is not clear whether the Clasico between Real Madrid and Barcelona will ever be staged overseas, with Tebas having ruled out that possibility in the past.
Like many European leagues, La Liga has been investigating ways of making itself a global phenomenon. The Italian Supercoppa, the equivalent of the Community Shield, will be played in Saudi Arabia in January. It was first played in China in 2009 and has since been played outside Italy six times, including further games in China and in Qatar.
Tebas said: “We’re devoted to growing the passion for soccer around the world. This groundbreaking agreement is certain to give a major impulse to the popularity of the beautiful game in the US and Canada.”