Crap. It’s a very reductionist view and there is no reason, just because from your myopic short term American lens that this looks plausible today, that we are destined to go this direction ‘over the next 50 yrars’.
If there’s an economic incentive for the club/owners, and there’s demand for it, the ingredients are there for it to happen.
To the degree football is about the local fans, it will be resisted. But I think, on a sliding scale, football has been growing beyond that at the highest level for years. The local fans are the heartbeat, and rightly so, and at a team like LFC there’s a sense in which the fans are a crucial part of the ‘product’ too, as the game goes around the world and people get caught up in the romance of it all. We have something special - not always perfect, but definitely different to other clubs. It’s hard to define, but let’s use the word soul. It is helping to grow our global fan base.
So at some point, you would have to think that global fans will likely be thrown a bone to be able to see a proper game and not just preseason or TV, especially if there is an economic incentive for the club and there is demand for it.
For sure. The issue is the local fans are part of the “product” that the international audience consumes.
I think another part of the perspective is that a lot of the people driving this come from a background where sports are closer to sports entertainment than classic sport. When a legit dynasty team like the Spurs reach the NBA finals people don’t tune in to watch a fantastically well drilled and effective side try to win another one, they roll their eyes and say “can’t we have LeBron in the finals instead?” It’s why there is so much anger at the modern “load management” because arguments that keeping a key player fresh is their best chance to win a title get shouted down with cries of “I dont care. I paid my money now put the stars on the court (in this relatively meaningless games, because you’ve created a product that has lots of meaningless games).” You can only promote this sort of nonsense with the fixtures if this is the sports landscape you come from, and this is what the Prem would turn into with fixtures played all across the world.
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@ me in 2074.
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Maybe it is a little reductionist, but I think it is an accurate summary of the forces acting on the game. Capital requirements have been allowed to escalate to an astonishing degree - in relative terms mid-table Championship sides today are akin to First Division teams in the 1980s. Capital controls have in the main failed, the English game is now dominated by a club that is entirely a creature of foreign capital. Revenues and expenses are now staggering by comparison to a generation ago, and there is no pathway evident to unwind that. The PL is heavily dependent on importing talent, any attempt at reduction in expense will run right to the level of play and likely revenues. Revenue has to continue growing.
However, I think it is reasonable to say the English footy consumer is close to tapped out. Broadcast/streaming and matchday revenues probably cannot be increased much. The revenue sharing model means that for the big clubs, growing their domestic revenue is incremental now. Big clubs with big international fanbases see the obvious solution, capture more revenue from that support.
The international regulatory bodies (FIFA, UEFA) are far more concerned with squeezing out their own margin from players’ bodies than the health of the game, with UEFA having more or less been stymied in efforts to rein in the petroclubs. UEFA’s reaction to the European Super League has been to alter the structure of their competitions to appeal to a wider set of big clubs, which is logical enough but will continue to weaken domestic leagues.
Throw in the populist bent of the ‘football regulator’ idea, and for a PL club the idea of putting a league match in a 110k stadium and charging three times the rate for tickets is an obvious course of action. Seems only a matter of time before a midtable side like a Fulham offers to play a ‘home’ game against a club like LFC or ManU at somewhere like Michigan Stadium. Instead of selling 25,000 seats at £80, they could be selling 110,000 at probably double that. That’s a difference to matchday revenue of 8 extra matches, damn near half a home league season. Even if they just do it in Jacksonville 67k, but same owner) they add about 3 extra match equivalents.
It is all very depressing, but the PL is nowhere near as healthy as it was 15 years ago.
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The irony is that in England, popular interest for the PL will gradually diminish if it comes to this. Honestly, who would be interested to see a PL game in Michigan? Nobody, apart from the local US consumers. although I’m a bit stunned that they’d be ready to throw away their money like that. £80 is already an eye-watering amount of money to watch a football match, but £240? 
It beggars belief to be honest… have these people nothing better to do with their money?
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Hah, I’d do it for a league fixture in a heartbeat. Think of how much the away fans spend for a typical trip, and many of them do it 10+ times a season. No flight costs, no jet lag, and a real event. Seeing an Anfield match would be a $3k+ expense for me. I mulled over heading for the Texas game there this September, that is a $300 ticket.
You are not wrong about the slow decline that the PL will see.
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The scarcity makes it valuable. No one is paying $250 if you’re asked to do it 30 times a season, but NFL tickets average over $300 a ticket because there are only 8 home games a season (less if your team has an international fixture to fulfil) and away games are typically not feasible to get to. If you get one game in your entire country and it’s a doable trip for you, there will be no problem selling out a 100k stadium at that ticket price
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I understand the difference in cost for an American between going to Anfield and going to a US game. But it’s not the same, isn’t it? 
Its not the same, but for the ticket going crowd still potentially worth it. The big issue is the impact on the broadcast. That is not what NBC paid $3billion for.
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Doesn’t have to be the same to fill 110,000 seats. Just needs to be attractive in its own right. If LFC can fill that stadium for a meaningless exhibition game playing mostly kids for tickets as high as $250, a real match with points at stake will have no problem at all. It wouldn’t be the same, but filling the Big House with Reds for a real match would be a once-in-a-lifetime event. The noise of an enthusiastic crowd in there is unreal.
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My guess is that NBC would absolutely love it. I can just imagine the nattering from their talking heads, special promos, etc.
Imagine the fan fest!
Did you know Seamus is a Liverpool fan? [/sarcasm]
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It is absolutely one of those things I really don’t think should happen, yet would eagerly throw my money into supporting.
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Ok lads, your arguments are sound and you have convinced me. It will happen then, sooner or later… 
I hate it, but it’ll happen. The various stakeholders trying to make it happen are like velociraptors testing the fences. The first time the idea was floated the push back was intense, but they just keep floating it to test the reaction, understanding that eventually the push back will die down under the weight of tired resignation to its inevitability. And then once they reach a level of push back they think is manageable…
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… and fsg are very much a part of these velociraptors I’m afraid…
Werner is clearly interested, and FSG’s success in summer tours with LFC has to have them thinking. But I suspect it will start with Fulham(Jacksonville) and moving one of their marquee home matches, Khan has already explored it once.
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It’s absolutely bollocks , home match in the English premier league being played abroad…seriously the premier league would lose any credence (not that they have much left anyway) but if turning the domestic league into a football version of the Harlem Globetrotters just to appease foreign audience, then they may as well just allow city to continue cheating and also allow Saudi Arabia to really unlock the purse strings.
Like most shit with American sports, it wouldn’t be long before some idiot (Werner would fit) decides to relocate Liverpool football club to Boston.
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Look at how many NFL games are being played in London, the idea has now been completely normalized. Seems only a matter of time before PL owners want some of the same, Werner just said the quiet part out loud.
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