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- [00:01]
The Athletic Host
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- [01:52]
The Athletic Host
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- [03:14]
Ayo Akimolere
The Athletic FC welcome to the Athletic FC podcast with me, Ayo Akimolere. Fancy watching a La Liga match in Miami? That's what Villarreal and Barcelona pitching, and it's been approved. So why do La Liga want to go stateside and how serious is this possibility? All right, with us today, Adam Crafton and Matt Slater as well. Adam, let's get into this. Bring us up to speed on this situation. What are the chances of this La Liga match going ahead in Miami in December?
- [03:51]
Adam Crafton
Well, we've been here before, you know, these games have been suggested and then, you know, you hear very positive noises that things could happen, that they're close. But I do think this one will happen, actually, because some of the biggest obstacles appear to have been removed in terms of, I think the opposition of U.S. soccer. The National Federation of the United States has been kind of swept aside by a very long legal battle that's now being settled, which in turn, I think means that MLS are probably going to have to be on board with it to a certain extent as well. The Spanish league wants it to happen. The Spanish FA have approved it. I think there still needs to be UEFA approval, so a confederation approval on the European side, possibly a CONCACAF approval as well, as they will be hosting the game within their confederation and then also FIFA themselves would need to pass it through, so there's a few more hoops to jump through. But I do think this game is going to take place in Miami between Barcelona and Villarreal. And you know, it will be the first competitive Spanish league game to take place in the United States.
- [05:04]
Ayo Akimolere
Yeah, we'll talk about the fallout a little later on, Matt. But you know, as Adam said, this isn't anything new. La Liga first declared its intentions to hold a match in Miami in October 2018. Why? Have attempts to stage a La Liga match or La Liga matches in the US failed before this?
- [05:21]
Matt Slater
Yeah, no, no, this is a long running story, this one. It's a proper saga. Well, as Adam noted in his answer, and I completely agree with him, I think this one is going to happen for pretty obvious reasons. Mls, if you like the sort of host domestic league, feel very threatened by this. Now, you could argue there's a little bit of sort of hypocrisy there because of course US sports leagues have been playing games abroad for 15, 20, 25, 30 years in some cases if you include pre season games. But they've been playing competitive games abroad for years. All of the major sports leagues, the NHL, NBA, mlb, NFL. So you know, they don't mind exporting their regular season games abroad. I think the difference there though, of course, is all of those leagues are the best leagues in the world that know sports. And it's pretty clear the issue of course with MLS is it's not the best domestic soccer football league in the world. And everyone knows that. So the idea of one of the bigger, better leagues coming over, pitching their tent and kind of showing everybody, very physically showing everybody, you know, this is the best has always been a concern. Swim or less. There is this sort of worry that it would cannibalize the market. It would kind of very, very literally sort of show where MLS stands in the pegging order. So that has been the worry. And I think also there are kind of reasonable more general concerns around. Well, hold on a minute. This would create chaos, right? You know, domestic football sort of by definition should take place within, you know, the borders of that country. Within the borders. That's the whole point, right. We have cross border football, you know, in Europe and all the other confederations as well. And we have international football. So we do have cross former football. Domestic club football should be played at home, right in front of your best customers, your match going fans. So there is a sort of, there have been these sort of specific concerns. MLS and of course its FA being US Soccer Federation and more kind of general concerns that sort of FIFA and the other confederations have had around. Well, you know, if we do that there and where does this end? Right? If, if we sort of allow the Premier League, La Liga, the big boys to go around the world kind of playing, you know, kind of like this sort of traveling circus, we're going be damaging domestic football all over the place and it just becomes chaotic. And then we also have kind of issues with our own competitions. You know, if you'll be thinking, hold on a minute, we do cross border football, not you. So lots of reasons. Stopped it in 2018. It kind of spilled into 2019. The company that was trying to do it and I think we're going to talk about them. A lot was relevant and of course, a lot of these names keep coming up again. It was going to be in Miami, it was going to be at the Hard Rock Stadium. It was stopped. U.S. soccer, MLS kind of stopped it. FIFA, they dragged FIFA into it. It was stopped Relevant. The company actually then tried to do an Ecuadorian game, an Ecuadorian league game, I think, involving a team called Barcelona as well. I might have that wrong, but not the Barcelona. And that was stopped as well. So nothing really happened after 2019, apart from the beginning of a five year legal battle.
- [08:39]
Ayo Akimolere
Let's talk about FIFA's stance on this currently. Adam, where are they? Where do they sit?
- [08:45]
Adam Crafton
That's a very good question because FIFA don't tell us much at times about what they really think about some of this stuff. And they did that thing that it's a bit like what governments or politicians do when they're not really sure where they want to take something. They made a working group. In fact, the first stage of that was to announce they were going to make a working group. And that was probably now, I mean, definitely over a year ago, maybe 15, 16 months ago. And this was after they actually came to what was a pretty awkward settlement with Relevant, because it was a settlement. I always get it mixed up, whether it's with prejudice or without prejudice, but basically it's the one where it meant Relevant could reopen the case against them if the rules that were made weren't the rules that they would like. So as a result of that, it puts FIFA in a very weak position because if you don't come up with a set of rules that relevant, like they'll just, they can just sue you again. So they then decided, we're going to make this working group. Then it went really, really quiet. And if you Remember last year, towards the back end of the year, you had all these suggestions. All of a sudden it was October, kind of October time. There's going to be a game in Miami, Barcelona against Atletico Madrid. Now, I think we probably did a podcast on that at the time, and I was pretty skeptical that that game could actually happen. And that was because it just seemed far too tight to turn it around in the time. Because I think if you're going to deliver a game like this, you want a real Runway to deliver on marketing and sponsorship and ticketing and get everyone, or get the people you're selling tickets to, very, very excited about it. My feeling at the time was it might be kind of a genuine, in the sense of, if we can pull this off, great, but also a little bit of we want to shake FIFA into getting moving on this. So the working group kind of came about and the working group has representation from lots of the people you'd expect. So there's representation from, I think, all the different confederations. You have representation from the European Clubs Association. So they're back again. They're like this body that represent clubs who are usually competing in UEFA competition. So that's Champions League, Europa League, Conference League. But there was also representation. And this is where it gets quite interesting, from an organization called the World Leagues Forum. And their job is to balance the interests of all the different domestic leagues in the world. So that meant. And what was funny on this working group was you had Javier Tebas on this FIFA working group, so he's representing the kind of extreme, we want to take games abroad option. But then you also had this guy, Mark Abbott, who was formerly the deputy commissioner of the mls and MLS traditionally have been in. We want to keep you out. So if you're the World Leagues in that situation, you're like, oh, we're somewhere in the middle of this, trying to balance these competing interests. And then I think FIFA also, maybe they had a slight interest in delaying this so that the club World cup was the first club football from Europe to actually being played in the United States as well. So that's now out of the picture. But. But the long and short of it is, I think as part of this settlement, Relevant can effectively do what they want from a FIFA perspective. I don't think FIFA can come in and say, you're not doing this without being at major risk of facing another legal action. So unless people very high up at FIFA just decide or get sufficient lobbying from, you know, people that will come to, like Real Madrid and Florentino Perez, who are opposed from this to basically say, no, we're not going to do it and if you don't like it, you can sue us and we'll take whatever comes with that. I think FIFA, I'm not sure they can intervene at this point. Do you? I don't know. Sorry, Matt, do you agree with that or.
- [12:44]
Matt Slater
Yeah, I agree with all that. Yeah, no, no, no, that's absolutely fine. I completely agree with all that. Yeah, the direction of travel here is pretty clear. You know, fans, domestic fans, hate this. You know, you know, legacy fans, whatever you want to call them. Right. Hate this. We can get into that in a bit, but I'm afraid the, the winds are blowing in One direction here. Wish I knew some One Direction songs and I can make a gag about One Direction, but I don't. So this is. This, this is all gonna happen, I'm afraid. Sorry, that's not a song, is it? No.
- [13:16]
Adam Crafton
Yeah. You know, someone else did In One Direction mashup that you were going for.
- [13:23]
Ayo Akimolere
Do you know what, Matt, though? You've both mentioned the name Relevant and I think we should just clarify who Relevant are and actually who is behind Relevant, but also how key they are to the movement on all of this.
- [13:35]
Matt Slater
Well, I can have a stab of that. I think Adam. Adam knows them pretty well too. They're an interesting bunch. They're owned by this guy called Stephen Ross, who is a billionaire real estate billionaire philanthropist, NFL owner. He owns the Miami Dolphins, he owns the Hard Rock Stadium. We've mentioned that a few times. Relevant is a. Started off as a kind of competition organizer. I think most English fans will remember things like those summer tour competitions, a couple of. They call the. What were they called?
- [14:08]
Adam Crafton
Intercontinental Cup, International Cup, International Champions Cup.
- [14:12]
Matt Slater
That's it. I missed the champions bit. You know, they weren't all champions. Someone's champions, not official champions anyway. And they did pretty well. They have since grown in. In size and significance. They are pretty significant players now. They're just a big sports agency. What they cleverly did, you know, having kind of cornered the market in friendly tournaments in North America. They are like the go to agency now for European leagues that want to do stuff in North America, like sell CV rights, sell commercial rights, you name it. And they have basically hoovered up the lot. La Liga, very close relationship. Bundesliga, English Football League and then the really, really big one. Quite surprising one as well last year was when they became UEFA's partner, not just in North America, unlike most of those other deals globally. That was huge. They basically broke up this Incredibly tight relationship between UEFA and this sort of partner they'd had for years and years and years. So that has just catapulted Relevant to this, a new relevance in international sport. So they're pretty big players and their CEO is. Stephen Ross is in his 80s, like I said, he's made a fortune in real estate, affordable housing offices, loads of massive developments in Manhattan. He went to University of Michigan, he's from Detroit. The business school at U of M is named after him. Anyway, he's a. He's a very interesting guy. He owns the, he owns the venue for the Miami Grand Prix. I come with it. I think it's a temporary one. He's just outside the Hard Rock Stadium anyway, but anyway, he's got that deal secured till, you know, 2040 or something like that. The CEO of Relevant now is his son in law who worked, who came through U of M, worked for his real estate company, married. His daughter runs Relevant. Right, that's the story there. They are big, big players now.
- [16:20]
Ayo Akimolere
Well, let's find out how this news has gone down in Spain. Let's hear from our Barcelona correspondent, Po Bolus on this week's totally football show European Edition.
- [16:31]
Po Bolus
It has raised controversy, Dramata really against it. It was sort of expected because Real Madrid and La Liga and Javier Tevas are not in the best place in terms of relationships. So any idea that is pushed and promoted by Javier Tevez, pretty much you can count that Real Madrid is not going to be in favor of it. But of course there's this sort of tance that it doesn't help the fair competition, that in a way Barcelona will spare one of the toughest trips in the season by playing a game in Miami, which pretty much will mean that Barcelona will play home because they have way more fans than Villareal in Miami and in the US in general. A lot of managers have spoken about that. I would say that the general feeling and I've heard that from a couple of managers in La Liga, from Minigo Perez, Andrea Vallecano saying, for example, that yeah, it's not nice, it's not something that they like to see, but in a way that's the circus that they are in, that's the industry that they are in and that they are getting loads of money to get this job. And football has gone so far in that direction that they can hardly complain now because they are already in the circus. We've seen the players association in Spain, the iafe, complaining about this, saying that they were not notified, that they didn't know that this was going to progress, but in the same time, barely anyone can be surprised in Spain because La Liga and Javier Tevas had been pushing for that for over a decade.
- [17:49]
Ayo Akimolere
Yeah, and Matt Paul mentions the word circus and I don't know if this is that, but Real Madrid have obviously chimed in regarding how they feel about it. And you know, Real Madrid also, if you think about it back the Super League, Club World cup in America. Any hypocrisy here?
- [18:05]
Matt Slater
Oh, just a tiny bit. Look, I think poll described it perfectly, right. So, you know, whatever Javier Tebas suggests, Real Madrid are gonna, are gonna be on the other side. Okay. Even if it is, you know, counter to what they've been trying to do. You know, they've been basically sort of telling the world they think they're bigger than La Liga and they think they're bigger than Spain, so. And of course they are probably secretly quite excited about the prospects of this. I think Paul makes a perfectly reasonable point and he's absolutely right. There is a competitive integrity issue here. You know, going to Villareal is a tough fixture and that game in Florida is going to be effectively a bus and a home game in terms of the crowd anyway. So, you know, I totally understand in a two horse race that La Liga is real going. Yeah, I don't like that idea. But I like, I say, you know, and you framed it really nicely in your question. Yeah, it's a bit hypocritical. You know, Real are still pushing hard for the Super League. They absolutely love the Club World Cup. They are, I think the only still club that has sort of a kind of official partnership relationship with FIFA. FIFA was giving, gave them an award a few years ago. So they, you know, they're making a fuss over this particular issue and I do understand it, I do understand the competitive integrity issue, but the idea of taking Real Madrid games abroad, taking the great Real Madrid brand, yeah, they'd be up for that.
- [19:35]
Adam Crafton
I do think the Real Madrid element is very interesting just in terms of how FIFA respond to it. So you saw even at the end of the Club World Cup, I mean you had Real Madrid like thanking Gianni Infantino by name on, I think it was on Twitter and Instagram at the end of the tournament, which I think was probably far less about Gianni and Fantina and far more about their relationship with La Liga and Javier Tevas, where it was almost making a point of, oh, thank goodness these people have put together a competition that's designed purely for us to benefit. Whereas La Liga, I mean, Tebas is This hugely spiky, controversial character in some ways, but he does have a kind of a noble goal of growing the league rather than just growing Real Madrid and Barcelona. And that, I think, has been at the heart of this idea to take, you know, whether you like this idea of growth or not, but this idea of taking the league to North America and essentially, like, it's not. The other thing to remember here is it's not La Liga usa, it's La Liga North America. And what they've been really trying to do is tap into the Hispanic soccer economy of the USA and Mexico. And that's a big part of their television deal, you know, over here as well. But what he's trying to do in order to grow the league is leverage the brands of Real Madrid and Barcelona, because he knows they are by far the biggest two teams. You know. You know, if you. If you ask a football fan in Mexico who's your team, they might say to you, Guadalajara, Chivas. But then they'll say, but my second team is Real Madrid or Barcelona, you know, and Tebas knows that, and he knows that, you know, these games, you have to take one of Barcelona or Real Madrid, plus Villarreal or Sevilla or whoever it happens to be that you want to grow. But. But the interesting thing with Madrid is they have genuinely been opposed to this from the start. This isn't just actually a reaction this year. I've spoken to people who were trying to bring these games 2018, 2019, and Madrid just weren't biting on it. And I said, was that just a kind of La Liga Tabas is trying to do it, so we don't want to do it. And he said, no, the president of Real Madrid is genuinely opposed on this football integrity argument that, you know, you could get to the end of the season, and there's one point in it, and a team has had an advantage by being in a stadium that is not on away stadium. And they do seem. I know it's hard to take Real Madrid sincerely at times, but I think there is a degree of sincerity on this occasion on this specific argument. So I'm not sure how they get around that, but it is going to be really interesting to see the amount of pressure that Infantino comes under from his new best friend, Florentino Perez. And also, you have to remember, Infantino has taken a lot of heat from La Liga, from Tebas as well. I'm sure FIFA and Infantino would say, you know, the president won't have any part in this decision making, that it'll be the working group and whatever. But I do think that that is the one element that has the potential to make the plan unravel in some way.
- [22:55]
Ayo Akimolere
Okay, well next let's dig a little deeper as to why La Liga are so keen for matches to be played in America.
- [23:09]
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- [23:28]
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- [24:03]
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- [24:48]
Ayo Akimolere
Adam, the location of this is interesting. Miami specifically and not Saudi Arabia where obviously the Spanish cups have been played. Why Miami?
- [24:57]
Adam Crafton
Well, I suppose the answer's in the answer that Matt gave earlier about Steven Ross, who is the owner of the Miami Dolphins, the owner of Hard Rock Stadium. I think that's why they want it in Miami, because the venue is their venue and it gives you a lot more freedom. I think we also saw during the Club World cup you have this huge soccer economy in Miami. It's where Lionel Messi's playing. It's where David Beckham's bought a team with Inter Miami and also we saw during the Club World cup, you know, that huge kind of Argentine fan base in particular really turn out for Boca Juniors and Bayern Munich in the end, you know, many of the games involving big teams there did really well. Just don't try and. Just don't try and get in and out of the stadium because it's a nightmare that. That was also one of the experiences both of Copa America last year and, and also the Club World cup this year. But. But it's a great venue. You know what if you're actually in it, once you're in it and on. On tv, it also looks fantastic. So that's, that's why. In terms of why. I suppose the broader question of why the United States. Well, it's. It is this kind of. European clubs view it as this unlocked treasure trove of. Of potential revenue. You know, you've got this population of over 300 million people, and if you could just get a few million of them to support your team or your league or to take some of them away from watching the Premier League on a Saturday and watching La Liga instead, then it unlocks great revenue. I am curious to see what the occasion itself, the individual event actually brings in from a revenue point of view, because if you think about it, the international TV rights have already been sold. We've not seen the contracts that ESPN in the States have with La Liga. So I don't know, maybe there's some sort of bonus if there's a game in the States, but I'm purely speculating there. But you can't sell a new package just for this game in the United States. So you're then basically brought into. And all the global sponsors are already sold for La Liga, I would imagine. So you then basically get into event day, shoulder programming, so you get into ticketing and you get into maybe local sponsorship. So I don't think this event will necessarily bring in a huge, huge, huge amount of revenue for the two teams involved, because I'm not sure La Liga can get to a place where they're, you know, bunging Barcelona $20 million just. Just to play in this game and the rest of the league doesn't benefit. There'd then be a big redistribution argument, particularly in a world where there are financial limits not just within UEFA, but also within. Within La Liga itself. So that's going to be really interesting. It was curious last week you heard the Villareal president saying that they would fly out and pay for kind of, I think, season ticket holders to go to the game or give them a 20% discount on their season ticket, which makes you think they've either been promised a lot of money or they're going to lose money. And therefore, I think La Liga view this more as a growth project and the clubs involved will be viewing it as how much income do we immediately get project. And I think that's another element that Real Madrid will be worried about if Barcelona are about to get a wedge of money. Now, the flip side of that is Barcelona weren't in the club World cup, so. And Barcelona have been, you know, a bit of a financial basket case for years, so Real Madrid should probably worry a bit less about that. But they're Real Madrid, so they're never going to stop worrying about that.
- [28:36]
Ayo Akimolere
But that was my first thought really on this one, especially with Barca Matt going, is that financially we've spoken about Barcelona, you know, till the cows come home, really. But the reality is, who's going to win out of this? Is it La Liga? Is it Villarreal, is it Barcelona? That. Where's the cash coming from?
- [28:55]
Matt Slater
It's a big old stadium, so they'll sell a lot of tickets. Americans don't mind paying top dollar, quite literally. They'll sell a lot of merch and burgers and nachos and the rest of it. Look, Adam is absolutely right. This one game on its own isn't really going to move the needle. This is about first mover advantage, right? So we talked about how the wind has been blowing in this direction, right? The US sports have been doing it for a long time. European leagues have been playing friendlies abroad. Everyone kind of knows that overseas broadcasters, overseas sponsors, overseas fans, which have all become so much more important, would. Would want this. They do. They do want this. We see it in the comments to our stories. You know, it's very binary. You know, it's. It's legacy. UK fans saying this is the worst thing ever. And it's, let's be honest, North American fans saying, really, is it, Is it that bad? What's wrong? It's only one game. Calm down. Can you not share it a little bit? You know, I love the team as much as you do. La Liga has been pushing. Why La Liga, as Adam points out, big Spanish speaking population over there, lots of fans of their big brands over there. But most importantly, the Premier League is moving away. It's moving away financially. Every year, the gap is growing. The Premier League now earns twice as much as La Liga, twice as much every year.
- [30:24]
Adam Crafton
Right?
- [30:24]
Matt Slater
So he's got to do something. And look, as Adam said, Tabaz is a very interesting character, you know, much maligned at times, but for about a decade he's been very consistent. I want to grow this league. I kind of need to rein Real and Barca in because they are slowly killing the league. But I need them, too. I need them to be the engine to drag us along. To catch the Premier League up is a balancing act that he's not done too badly at. Okay. He hasn't changed the dynamic of his league so much. It's always a two and a half horse race. But he has changed. He's made collective selling of TV rights. Barstow and Real didn't like that. At least we had to sell their own TV rights. He has shared the TV money a bit better. He is applying their version of financial fair play, and he is hitting Barca in particular.
- [31:20]
Adam Crafton
And.
- [31:20]
Matt Slater
Okay. And I suppose, you know, that's the, that's the stick. The carrot is. All right, Barca, I'll. I'm going to help you grow. Yeah, I'll, I'll, I'll help you play your game in the, in the States, in Real. If you want to start pushing against me, I'll probably let help you, too. So he is trying to grow the league. His rival, if you like, is the Premier League. So that's what's going on here. It is fascinating, though, about who's on whose side at times and why. So, you know, it's a fascinating picture, but I do think that what they're really trying to do here is if we don't do this, someone else will. The Premier League, probably. And then we are truly buggered.
- [32:03]
Adam Crafton
Right.
- [32:04]
Matt Slater
We've been trying. First, let's get this done. Adam's absolutely right. TV deals are done. The next TV deal, the jargon is they talk about these sort of tent pole moments, right? So the next time they go to market, they can say, do you know what? We've already. We've done it.
- [32:22]
Adam Crafton
Right.
- [32:22]
Matt Slater
The others have talked about it. We've done it. We've brought games to you. We'll bring two, three, four. I don't know. How many do you need?
- [32:29]
Adam Crafton
Yeah, just to jump in on that. That's going to be one of the really interesting questions because obviously U.S. soccer have had to settle their part of this case that relevant brought, which was kind of an antitrust lawsuit, basically saying, you can't stop us right, from competing on this territory. Now, I think the point that the US side would want the FIFA working group to get to is to basically say, look, the world's changed a bit. We recognize that. We recognize we can't keep this in a bottle forever. But what we do want is some kind of protections, some kind of controls. So that might mean, you know, it's not coincidence, for example, that this game, I think, will happen in December outside of the MLS season, right? So it's not invading, you know, when the MLS playoffs are going on, for example, you know, it's not going to la, just at the point where there's another big, big game going on there with LA Galaxy and LAFC or whatever. So I think what you're going to see is a push, and it'll be interesting to see where FIFA come down at this because they will also be aware that, you know, there could be a potential risk of another antitrust lawsuit if you make too many restrictions. But I think the push is going to be to limit the number of games that a competition can play in a specific territory per season. So the number of games that La Liga can play in the US it might be as little as 1, it might be 2. I don't think it's going to be 4 and 5. I don't think it's going to. They're going to allow 4, 5, 6, 7. Because the reality here is, and by the way, the push will not just be for the number of games a specific league can play in the territory, but also the number of games that a team can play. So say, for example, La Liga do a game and then UEFA see it and think, oh, that's a good idea. And La Liga have done it now, so we can get away with it. So we'll take Barcelona as well. So next season you could have Barcelona against Sevilla in Miami in December in La Liga, but you could also have Barcelona against Chelsea in the Champions League groups phase. I think that's where there's going to be a push to say only one of these competitions can bring this team once per season. Now, whether that then triggers a whole new antitrust lawsuit, because people get ambitious and a little bit greedy with it, maybe. But the thing that people always forget here, because we always look at it from a very what do European fans think about this point of view? The thing MLS are worried about? It's not the odd La Liga game. It's not the odd Premier League game. They don't want it here every week. What they're really worried about, and they will always deny this, by the way, is the Mexican league. That's what they're Worried about. It's the Mexican league, it's the Argentine League, it's the Brazilian League, even the Ecuadorian league, because you have the. As we saw during the Club World cup, and this is what saved the Club World cup, attendance wise, is you have these huge diasporas of the United States. That is the United States. It is a country of immigrants and diasporas. Like, we may all have forgotten about that over the past. Over the last year or so. The past year or so. But that is the kind of beautiful story of the United States, right? Like the Club World cup, we saw this incredible turnout from Argentine fans at Chelsea. Fans, I think I saw more Ecuadorians there just because Moises Caiceda was playing than I ever imagined the Brazilian Fans. You had 50,000 go and watch Palmeiras against Porto in MetLife Stadium. That, I think, is the risk to MLS that you end up having four Argentine games, four Mexican games, four Brazilian games, four Ecuadorian games, four English games, four Spanish teams. Then all of a sudden, you've got 50 to 75 games on your territory per season. Now, it's not just about taking people into the stadium and potentially not attending MLS games because there may not be a big overlap between those fan bases. There's a lot of people who live in the United States. Where it becomes an issue is if sponsors and TV companies start to become more interested in spending their money and cannibalizing that market share. That's, I think, what MLS are legitimately justified about. So I think the US Side want to get this to a point where they say, look, you can have six to seven games in total on our territory per season. And I think that would be an okay compromise. And then also you get a bit of a bit of a race every year to see which leagues can actually get it done quickest. What they can agree, get the promoter, you get a bit of competitive tension, and then you can use it as a way to promote soccer in the United States, something to entice fans into the sport rather than threaten the development of the sport.
- [37:26]
Ayo Akimolere
Okay, well, let's move on, because coming up, we'll ask whether the Premier League could follow suit in wanting matches to be played abroad.
- [37:41]
The Athletic Host
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- [39:14]
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- [39:42]
Ayo Akimolere
So La Liga could become the first European top flight league to stage a match abroad. But could the Premier League follow suit? Adam, what are your thoughts on this one?
- [39:54]
Adam Crafton
We have no current plans I think is the stock answer.
- [39:59]
Ayo Akimolere
I listen to the word current. I'm listening to the word current.
- [40:02]
Adam Crafton
No, they give a very good answer to this is it's not in our plans at the moment, not at this stage. It's not something we are particularly looking at particularly interested in. But it's never will never do this. You know, it's never as hard as that. I think that's probably smart From a politician's answer point of view, you don't want to be the person that the Clips turned out in four years time saying, you promised we'd never do this. I think clubs, you know, you have to remember the Premier League is, is the clubs, you know, it's not Richard Masters in HQ deciding xyz. The Premier League have done a kind of halfway house of this new summer series that they've done a couple of editions of in the United States with NBC. It's pretty effective. You know, they get decent turnouts for that. It's a decent way of taking, you know, this summer they took Manchester United, Bournemouth, Everton, West Ham. Most of the fans, I have to say, were there for Manchester United. They did it as a double header where you might have Everton vs. West Ham first, where the stadium's kind of half full, quarter full, and then by the time the Manchester United game comes on, it's full. So then you can say, you know, we came close to selling out the occasion. It's a bit like what the US team do when they do double headers and they play, they play first and then Mexico play after and it fills out for the Mexico game. How's the club, the clubs, if you speak to a lot of them privately, I think a lot of the owners, you know, there's a lot of American owners now really like the idea. They really like the idea, you know, that particularly in a PSR world where they're all looking to unlock fresh revenue and they're being told, we can't spend this, we can't do that, we can't do that. I think they do like it. There's also some that don't want to do it or at least have come to a viewpoint that it's not workable and therefore say they don't want to do it. So, you know, I spoke to Bournemouth's president of business, Jim Frivola, a few weeks ago and he was pretty clear that the Bournemouth owner and American guy, Bill Foley, you know, I mean, he's, it's anything but against disruption. I mean, he owns a hockey team in the desert, for God's sake, right? So he is not someone who is scared to do different things, but they're not interested in it. I think there's other, there's other teams, you know, Liverpool, I think that, you know, their, one of their executives did a piece with the FT last year, a piece that went down incredibly well, probably from a corporate point of view overall, until he let slip right at the end of the piece oh, by the way, we wouldn't mind doing this, you know, taking the game elsewhere, out of the uk. So I think it's like anything. Some people will really want to do it, others think, not sure we want to do it, and others think, I'd like to do it, but not sure it's workable.
- [42:46]
Ayo Akimolere
I mean, this is the impending one, isn't it, Matt? Premier League stakeholders, US stakeholders, growing stakeholders. There's a hunger there for sure. Commercially, I can understand it. It's not something we can rule out, is it?
- [42:58]
Matt Slater
No. Adam's explained the situation perfectly. Right. We need to say that the Premier League tried it.
- [43:05]
Adam Crafton
Okay?
- [43:06]
Matt Slater
They tried 2008, the 39th game. Younger listeners, you know, we were arguably there first. Not quite first, because as I said, US teams have been doing it for a while. Richard Scudamore, the former chief executive of the Premier League and a very powerful figure who'd actually worked in the States, knows the American market really well, did a great job of selling Premier League to U.S. broadcasters. You know, he liked this idea and he also had a kind of, at the time and still actually kind of novel solution to that competitive integrity point. His idea was a 39th game. So no one, you're still playing home and away, pairs of home and away. But we would have a 39th game and he was going to share it around the world. You know, I think it, you know, I think it was the BBC in the end that broke it and, you know, they had this sort of idea that we'd have this sort of 39th match week and I don't know, three or four of them would be in North America, there'd be one in Japan, there'd be one in, I don't know, Manila or Hong Kong, et cetera, et cetera, right? And we would sort of almost cover the globe for a weekend. Very ambitious. Went down like a bucket of sick. Government hated it, fans hated it. And it was sort of like, we will never talk about that again. It absolutely, in terms of the institutional memory of the Premier League, it was like, look, Jesus Christ, we just cannot talk about that ever again. You know, we have the scars on our back. So, you know, when Richard Masters did his pre season chitchat with journos last week, you know, he gets, he gets the question because it's in the news, La Liga, trying to do it. And he says, no, it's not in our plans. Right, perfect answer. Don't forget, importantly, the Premier League don't need to be the first mover, right? They can, they can, their Top dog at the moment. Their international. You know what the things that he wanted to talk about was they've just done their. We're into the next TV cycle, 2025 to 2028, they're up 20%. Best part, 17, 18% that they're doing all right. Domestic deals flat, basically. And to remain flat, you have to give away more games. So you could argue in terms of per game, it's going down. But the Premier League, for whatever reason, and we've done pods on that, you know, the English language, the strength of the brand, you know, where it sits in the world time zones, et cetera, et cetera. Doing well. He does not need to rock the boat at the moment. Now, La Liga do this, Serie A do it. Psg, whoever other leagues do this, the Premier League will take a view. And you know, we all know there are loads of Americans around the table and we all know post World cup, you know, hopefully American interest in soccer is going to be even bigger. Canadian interest, Mexican as well. Next is already there, you know, so North America will continue to be the ATM of global soccer with the Gulf. But I think the Gulf is. I don't think people necessarily want to go to the Gulf for domestic games in the foreseeable future, but North America, absolutely. So I think this will come around again. And don't forget, the two most important broadcast partners the Premier League has right now are the domestic one, Sky, I'd say the second is probably NBC. That U.S. tV deal is growing importance and every single cycle sorted out to 2028, who knows when they go back to market in a year and a half's time, they might be saying, do you know what? Do you need a game? What could we do for you? Could it be our Super Cup? A bit like the Italians and Spanish have already done? Do we need a regular season game? And then we get into the whole conversations of. Adam has already perfectly explained around how does it sit with FIFA, how does it sit with mls? Could MLS and Premier League make nice? They get on pretty well, they always have. Could there be some sort of kind of bilateral deal, shared marketing, you name it. There's ways around all this. So look, my personal view is club football should be my town versus your town and we should be playing it here. My personal view is not, I'm sorry to say, not really that relevant anymore. This is happening. Football has globalized. The Premier League is in the vanguard of the globalization. This is going to happen.
- [47:18]
Ayo Akimolere
How do you feel about that, Adam? Manchester United, Liverpool, Florida next season. Would you Go.
- [47:24]
Adam Crafton
I. I would definitely go because I live here. So I'd be pretty upset. I'd be pretty upset at this point if James Pierce got the ticket ahead of me for that game. But to be fair, I think there is one protection and I need to check what the final draft of the football governance bill that's going to become this regulator. Because there was a clause in the football governance bill, at least in April last year, that said the proposed regulator must be informed when there is a reasonable prospect that a team could enter into arrangements to play at a location other than its home ground. So this is the British government, the UK government regulator that is now likely to be introduced that the Premier League will have to abide by, which would mean that you would need the approval of the regulator before playing one of these games, potentially, because there's two factors that would come into play. One is that it wouldn't undermine financial sustainability. Well, I don't think it would do that. But the second one, which is a lot more subjective, is it would not cause significant harm to the heritage of the club. Now, this was pushed for by the Arsenal Supporters Trust, who saw this coming down the train tracks as a potential discussion and threat. Now, good luck to the independent regulator to judge whether Manchester United playing, I don't know, West Ham in a Premier League game causes significant harm to the heritage of the clubs. I mean, you will get some people who will say, yes, absolutely, and you'll get others saying, it's one game, don't be so ridiculous. But that is just one little potential protection that, you know, I'm sure fan groups will seek to implement. And the other bit, you know, to remember is politicians got a lot of, you know, hay out of the Super League. You know, ultimately, you know, once Boris Johnson was coming out saying, we're going to drop a legislative bomb on the Super League, you know, I know people now like to romanticize the role of the fans in ending the Super League threat. And I think there was a bit of that, but I think a lot more of it was actually the UK government coming out saying, this is not happening. Now, how open they were to it in the first place is maybe a different question.
- [49:51]
Matt Slater
Having had the briefing a few weeks before, said nothing. Yeah, saw the fan reaction.
- [49:55]
Adam Crafton
Yeah, exactly. But once government comes out and says that, I do think it's pretty difficult. But at the same time, I think the government, and this is the argument that you'll hear people like Steve Parish and Richard Masters, et cetera, making. There aren't as many brilliant exports global exports that England has produced as the Premier League. And I think at times we do forget that this is a global league that happens to be played in England. How much of this product now is really English? You know, most of the players aren't English, most of the coaches aren't English, most of the fans aren't English. Owners, owners aren't English.
- [50:36]
Matt Slater
Just us journos.
- [50:37]
Adam Crafton
So it's just us holding the flag, flying the flag. And how long before they go out and get the biggest and the best.
- [50:47]
Matt Slater
From around the world?
- [50:50]
Ayo Akimolere
It'll all be AI gents worry about that.
- [50:52]
Adam Crafton
It's not even you. Sorry. It's actually it's the journos and it's the refs.
- [50:55]
Matt Slater
Yes.
- [50:56]
Adam Crafton
And it's the, it's the, it's, it's the one thing I can, I can't believe the Premier League has never done.
- [51:01]
Matt Slater
I'm retraining.
- [51:03]
Adam Crafton
Yeah. Is. Is go out and get the best refs from around the world.
- [51:08]
Matt Slater
Yeah, true as well.
- [51:09]
Ayo Akimolere
All right, well, let's leave it there, gents. Honestly, really appreciate your time. Adam, Matt, and also thank you guys for listening. We'll catch you next time.
- [51:20]
Matt Slater
You've been listening to the Athletic FC Podcast. The producers were Guy Clark, Mike Stavrou and Jay Beale.
- [51:25]
The Athletic Host
The executive producer was Aimee Moorhead.
- [51:27]
Adam Crafton
To listen to other great athletic podcasts for free, search for the Athletic on Apple, Spotify and all the usual places. The Athletic FC Podcast is an athletic media company Production.
- [51:45]
Matt Slater
Foreign hey folks, it's.
- [51:51]
The Athletic Host
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- [52:40]
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- [52:59]
Adam Crafton
Hello, my name is Matthew and I'm the founder of Saltcaravan.com if you love having the best food experiences on the road while traveling, then this project may be of interest to you. We are currently putting together a group of eight foodies to go explore the hidden corners of Japan. Many of these experiences are just not available to the general public, so if you are Interested, go to SaltCaravan.com, sign up to our email list and we will be announcing our debut trip at the end of August 2025 exclusively to our email subscribers.