The Premier League-globalization nexus: notes on current trends, pressing issues and inter-linked “-ization” processes

ABSTRACT

The English Premier League (EPL) has proved to be an incontestable rich site of analysis for the understanding of globalization processes in sports, and more specifically, football. However, the global forces in the EPL persist. These continuing forces compose the starting point for this article, which focuses on a number of tentative, but fruitful, scholarly directions for the continued social analysis of the EPL. Through an unpacking of recent developments and emerging trends in what Millward called the “global football league”, this study examines how inter-linked processes of globalization, commercialization and securitization perpetuate, and influence the ways in which the “current game” is organized, consumed and played. As we are entering the 2020s, the paper argues for an inter-disciplinary focus, which takes a bottom-up approach and asks critical questions about the steadily continuing global processes in the EPL, and how it affects supporters and the league more holistically.

KEYWORDS:

• English Premier League
• globalization
• networks
• securitized commodification
• consumption

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.