‘It’s a whole new ball game’: thirty years of the English Premier League

Introduction

Since 1992, the English Premier League (hereon EPL) has emerged as a global institution in the world of sport and beyond. Televised across the globe, the current day EPL encapsulates the core features of ‘globalisation’ processes with its in-and-out flows of, inter alia, players, managers, staff, and capital.¹ Over the last 30 years, the EPL has undergone a series of dramatic and significant transformations. The league is now commonly considered the best and most popular football league in the world.² The league itself, meanwhile, is firmly ‘embedded within a European and international marketplace’.³ Nevertheless, the EPL has also been significantly impacted by wider developments, such as the Bosman ruling, the global financial crisis of 2008, Brexit and most recently, the Covid-19 pandemic, to name a few. These have all influenced how the league is consumed, organized, played and managed.

The 30-year history of the EPL has proved extremely eventful, insightful, and controversial. Indeed, scholars have been responsive to this, and academic work on the social, financial, political, and cultural facets or impacts of the EPL has subsequently grown considerably. However, we – the guest editors of this special issue – would also argue that the 30th anniversary of the EPL requires and, in fact, provides an important space for reflection. Moreover, it also allows for attempts to tentatively envisage what the future might hold for the EPL, the communities surrounding the clubs, and indeed, English and world football more broadly. As such, this special issue seeks to do precisely this. Collectively, this special issue aims to further the understanding of the EPL’s developments, the current state of play and, importantly, the future challenges that lie ahead – essential for a league, closely followed by millions of fans and commentators each week, both domestically and transnationally. The individual papers in this special issue explore the EPL’s past, present, and future.

‘It’s a whole new ball game’

In order to understand the present-day EPL, it is also necessary to engage with the socio-political context under which the EPL became a reality. Following the crises of the 1970s and the turbulent clashes of the 1980s, the early 1990s ushered in a quieter period for British politics. Some saw it as an era of consolidation for the neoliberal hegemony previously established by Margaret Thatcher’s government before the arrival of Tony Blair’s New Labour.⁴ The 1990s witnessed some dramatic political events (such as IRA bombings, the poll tax riots and divisive debates on the future of Britain’s relationship with the European Union). Nevertheless, it was still perceived as a relatively stable period, particularly considering the extensive geopolitical positioning that preceded it following the end of the Cold War. In Britain,1992 was a pivotal year, as Labour’s election defeat helped give impetus to the radical policy changes overseen by New Labour.⁵ It was also when the EPL was formed, its inception triggering a revolutionary reformation of English football. In response to the growing market-led capitalist systems, it was operating under, the English Football Association (The FA) published their ‘Blueprint for the Future of Football’ in 1991, proposing and giving rise to the new division.

This followed a tumultuous decade for English football, oscillating from triumphs to tragedies. English clubs had won seven out of eight European Cup finals prior to the Heysel disaster at the 1985 event. Combined with the Bradford fire tragedy 18 days earlier, 95 fans were killed at these two matches. The 1989 Hillsborough disaster claimed 97 lives. These tragedies reflected significant issues at the heart of the English football industry, notably concerning facilities, safety protocols, infrastructure, crowd management, and, in the case of Heysel, fan disorder. The Taylor Report that followed Hillsborough made 76 recommendations, which helped restructure the football industry. For instance, the requirement for stadia renovations and reconstructions helped provide a safer and more welcoming environment for fans. This would eventually see a broadening of the demographic makeup of EPL supporters. The five-year ban from European competitions following the 1985 Heysel disaster had restricted English clubs. However, the subsequent period provided more significant opportunities, which both clubs and broadcasters of the EPL sought to capitalize.⁶

The revelation of the appetite for and untapped potential of the broadcasting of English football could be traced back to the final game of the 1988–89 league season. Arsenal’s dramatic, last-minute, title-winning goal at Anfield saw them wrestle the trophy from previous champions, Liverpool. This inspired Nick Hornby’s book (and later a film) entitled Fever Pitch. Also, propelling the shift in broadcasting towards a subscription pay-per-view model instigated by the newly formed (and somewhat failing) satellite broadcaster BSkyB. The marketing strategy focused on the notion of the EPL as a ‘whole new ball game’.

The EPL, as it would come to be known, formed a corporation governed by the 20 member clubs (there were 22 between 1992 and 1995), who would act as its shareholders. Despite its separation from The FA, the EPL maintained an open structure with a promotion and relegation system, connecting it to the English second tier (now named The Championship) which formed part of the English Football League (EFL), along with League One and League Two, as they are now known. Currently, between August and May, EPL clubs compete in a round-robin structure playing each other club home and away, creating a 38-gameseason.

The desire to exploit emerging commercial opportunities and market growth served as a key rationale for the breakaway EPL. Many businesses sought to capitalize on sponsorship opportunities such as purchasing naming rights to the new league, Carling first, followed by Barclaycard and finally Barclays. The decision was made in 2015 to cease pursuing naming partners, given that more revenue can be generated using their own (EPL) brand. BSkyB secured the first broadcasting rights for EPL games, matches that had traditionally aired on terrestrial TV. This was the first of many deals between broadcasters and the EPL, which has generated substantial financial and global growth, albeit with numerous consequences.

The EPL and English football, in general, has undergone an unprecedented change. Whilst the EPL is arguably the most-watched sports league globally, technology is radically reshaping the football sphere. Recently, altering the officiating of the game (such as through VAR) and changing the way we consume it (such as on mobile devices and via social media). Therefore, this offers a timely moment to take stock of the EPL’s monumental rise and examine four broad aspects of the EPL during the past 30 years. This special issue focuses on the changes, understanding the global marketplace, analysing the current practices, and identifying future challenges.

Current trends and directions

As stated above, the EPL was born out of the drive to exploit commercial opportunities and several growing markets. In many ways, this has continued throughout the 2000s, 2010s and the early 2020s. Arguably, one of the EPL’s most defining features and trends over the last 30 years has been the post-2003 influx of overseas ownerships. Following Roman Abramovic’s takeover of Chelsea in June 2003, several overseas companies and investors have become owners of EPL clubs.⁷ As Ludvigsen shows, in the 2018/19 season of the EPL, more than half of the EPL’s clubs were under overseas ownerships. However, the successes of ‘foreign’ owners of the EPL have varied significantly concerning their teams’ on-the-pitch results and achievements and popularity.

In some cases, the inroad of ‘foreign’ owners have led to enormous sporting success (such as in the cases of Chelsea and Manchester City). Whilst other owners have been actively resisted and even protested against by fans and local communities (i.e. Manchester United, Liverpool’s first set of American owners, and Blackburn Rovers).⁸ As mentioned, the overseas ownerships, as a consequence of the EPL’s globalization and commercialisation, represent a characterizing feature of the EPL. At the time of writing (October 2021), a consortium consisting of PCP Capital Partners, Reuben Brothers and the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia have completed their takeover of Newcastle United in a £300 million deal.

Furthermore, in April 2021, several EPL clubs, including Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City and Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur, signed up for and agreed to join the proposed ‘European Super League’ designed to become a rival of the current UEFA Champions League. Whilst comprehensive academic analyses of the rather short-lived ‘European Super League’ are likely to emerge over the next few years, the clubs’ intentions, in short, proved extremely controversial and backfired. Within hours, the EPL clubs had confirmed their intention to withdraw from the ‘Super League’ following much criticism from other clubs, experts, commentators, academics and of course, the large-scale supporter protests outside (and even inside) some EPL stadia. While the takeover of Newcastle and the European Super League naturally serve as two recent high-profile examples, they demonstrate the ‘neoliberal drive and desire to maximise profit’ which has been and remains the core of the contemporary EPL and global sport more broadly.⁹ Though, as the next section provides a breakdown of, this special issue is not merely focused on the consequences of increased commercialism or globalization processes. Trends covered in this Special Issue also speak to trends concerning how the league is consumed, branded and organized, and its financial standings. Further, the paper’s of this special issue how the capacity to speak to wider changes in the representation of football in popular culture.

Outline of the special issue

The articles of this special issue seek to showcase why the EPL remains such an important site for scholarly analysis from a variety of academic disciplines. The articles broadly cover globalization and commercialisation, players and officials and business and finance.

Then, in the hyper-commercial spheres of the EPL, Ireland et al. takes a case study approach to the marketing techniques of three different EPL partners in the 2019/20 season. As they argue, in line with intensified commercial activities, unhealthy brand marketing has emerged as a consequence that exploit the socio-cultural dimensions of the EPL. In this context, this paper hence provides insights into themes such as contemporary branding, public health, brand engagement and ‘responsibilisation’. Directly analysing the changing landscape of the EPL’s exploitation of commercial opportunities, Beek and Derom reviewed the longitudinal trends in shirt sponsorship. Within a corporate community involvement lens, they provide some remarkable patterns over three decades of changing landscapes, as well as identify five sponsorship industry eras, and four sponsorship globalization eras.

Owonikoko and Rookwood analyse the modes of consumption and relational dynamics of English Premier League supporters in Nigeria. Their work traces the emergence and expansion of support for English Premier League clubs in a specific region of the country and considers the simultaneous decline in support for local and domestic clubs in Nigeria. The framework for this study is located at the theoretical and conceptual intersection between consumer behaviour and social identity and the research examines the emergence of broadcast technology and the pioneering exploits of African footballers as well as the causality of consumption and expansion of EPL club fandom in Nigeria.

Jeffrey Kassing’s paper examines the efforts of American broadcast network NBC to cultivate a US-based audience for the English Premier League through a television programme based on and named after the fictional American soccer coach Ted Lasso, which debuted shortly before the network’s inaugural coverage of the Premier League began. The research analyses American exceptionalism and the indifference to soccer and the role of fictional entertainment in shaping sporting culture in the U.S.

Webb, meanwhile, focuses on the evolution of referees in the EPL. In his article, he analyses how structural changes and the growth of the EPL has impacted referees. This includes technologies that are implemented to assist referees, such as VAR and Goal Line Technology. As such, Webb sheds an important light on some of the challenges that referees are currently faced by in his article.

Two articles explore the identification of talents and skilled athletes. Elliot argues that, over the last 30 years, the EPL have won the ‘war for talent’ situated within professional football. Meanwhile, Thomas et al. highlight the importance of relations, networks and ties in the wider talent identification of English football.

As mentioned, the EPL has become synonymous with in-and-out flows of people. This includes mobilities of tourists and the article by Tobar and Ramshaw explores football tourism in the context of the EPL. They explore the types of tourism activities and behaviours that can be situated within EPL and also offer some insight on the potential tourism-related challenges of Brexit and Covid-19.

Meanwhile, Parnell et al. focus particularly on the ambiguous role of Sporting Directors in the EPL and professional football more widely. Based upon rich empirical data, the authors provide a range of recommendations for practice and future research and shed a light on the strategic benefits of Sporting Directors.

Plumley et al. examine competitive balance in the top tier of English football. Using 56 seasons between 1964/65-2019/20 they demonstrate that competitive balance has declined since the inception of EPL, and it has become dominated by a select number of clubs. They reflect on the implication this may have on the product in the risks it presents in the EPL’s future sustainability. Focusing on financial sustainability, Cox and Philippou analyse financial accounts between 1993 and 2018, to investigate the financial resilience of football clubs through wider economic shocks. They show only one club is regarded as resilient out of the big six clubs, and demonstrates the need for better understanding of the EPL’s sustainability, especially through economic shocks. Telesca focuses on the period between 1980s and 1990s and the financialization of the EPL and argues that the football crisis, including clubs going into administration is not due to English football’s financialization but traditional characteristics like excessive wage costs.

Finally, in the current day EPL, all teams have specific social media teams and are present on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. So, McCarthy et al. examine social media strategies of EPL clubs. Drawing from interviews with key stakeholders, this article provides fascinating empirical insights into how clubs are employing social media in order to maximize their reach in the global league.

Concluding remarks

With its unique papers, we believe this special issue significantly extends the existing knowledge base on the EPL and English football more widely. As such, we hope to lay down a significant marker in the scholarly study of the EPL and English football. Simultaneously, we hope this special issue as a whole can inspire, encourage and even provoke further work in the area, especially beyond academic spheres. We would argue that the individual papers of this special issue can resonate well with both practitioners and general readers who are interested in or just passionate about football. So, to conclude, as the last 30 years, as well as the current trends discussed above, demonstrate: the EPL remains – and will remain – an incontestable rich and valuable site for researchers interested in football’s management, business, sociology, and history. The papers of this special issue serve to reaffirm exactly this.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Millward, The Global Football League.

2. Goldblatt, The Game of our Lives.

3. Parnell et al., ‘Football Worlds’, 20.

4. Plehwe, ‘Neoliberal Hegemonry’.

5. Bevir, New Labour.

6. Rookwood and Hughson, ‘A History of the English Premier League’.

7. Lee Ludvigsen, ‘The Premier League-Globalization Nexus’.

8. See Millward, The Global Football League.

9. Lee Ludvigsen, ‘The Premier League-Globalization nexus’, 42.