Football finances
Interesting
charts (scroll down for more) on relative financial measures of the European football leagues. I had no idea (bottom chart) the French league had such high wages until 2000/2001, matching the English premier league (if the chart is labelled correctly and that isn't actually Italy).
In terms of income, England's relatively high attendances and very high ticket prices means it receives far more income from matchday performances than any other league. It's worth also remembering that England has quite a bit smaller population than France, Italy and especially Germany; if you added the Scottish premier league (i.e Rangers and Celtic) in as well it would be far ahead.
For EJH...attendances in Italy and England
Labels: Football
Premier League in China
Daniel Finkelstein says
here and
here that 30m people in China watch the UK premiership on TV, 10 times more than in the UK, and this is one of the reasons why he isn't completely opposed to having games overseas. I think the idea is bonkers, but ignoring that I think those figures are wrong too.
I'm always sceptical when sporting events (or other blockbuster events) quote global viewing figures. Often these are massively over-inflated by sponsors, sometimes even just referring to the number of TV Sets that could - if they wered tuned in to it - pick up the event. When I investigated, for instance, the Boat Race's claim of 400m viewers, I found that it could be as low as 5m (outside the UK), but might be as high as 80m.
Anyway much the same is true for Premiership football. Some claims have been 100m to 300m viewers, which just has 'made up' all over it - that would be a huge proportion of the population. There is more support for the 30m, in fact I would go as far as saying I think some matches probably did get that many viewers. However it should be noted that this was when it was free-to-air, something that isn't true in the UK. Since the start of this season it has been on subscription, and according to this story audience numbers have
fallen to 20,000.
That clearly underestimates the number of fans in China; some simply won't be able to afford it whilst many more will watch the PPV service on the internet. But it perhaps suggests the financial case for playing games outside the UK is no better than the sporting case.
Anyway, I'd also like to say that someone reading this post is my 150 millionth reader!
Labels: Advertising claims that on the face of it seem bold, Football
Compensation after football sackings
Steve McClaren has been sacked, but will get £2m as a payout. This is not uncommon in football, although it seems rather silly.
I presume it is something to do with labour laws on unfair dismissal. Is the point something like you can only be sacked for gross misconduct, and given one goal more or less last night would have meant England qualified, that can't be shown?
Labels: Employment, Football
England caps
Does anyone know how much England players get paid to appear for the England team? Google is no help, as far as I can see.
Labels: Football
Football Fans
I imagine it's only a small minority [1], but there is a small minority that seem remarkably unpleasant. And vocal. At tonight's Manchester United game, one of the supposedly more decent (small d) set of football fans seemed keen on booing someone who was clearly injured as he was stretchered off. Why would you do something like that?
[1] I was once in a pub that was attacked and trashed by a bunch of football fans. That wasn't too nice either.
Labels: Football
