Phil Redmond: The global game

Feb 15 2008 by Phil Redmond, Liverpool Daily Post

PLANS. Whether best laid or not. We all love them, don’t we? Especially other people’s. So we can pick holes in them.

Considering that football is supposed to be a game based on plans, the Premier League’s latest plan to add an extra “foreign fixture” to the Premiership season seems to be so full of holes that it resembles more football net than strategic web.

Of course, like all good movie plots, themselves based on story plans, they need to have both a conspiracy and a Mr Big lurking in the background somewhere. It came as no surprise then to find a trail leading back to one of media’s greatest planners, Rupert Murdoch, he of News International and Sky Sports.

Long known for viewing the world from the seat of a jumbo jet, it is also no surprise that the biggest bankroller of football’s largesse should be linked to yet another plan to pump up the value of sporting rights.

Whether this turns out to be no more than further media speculation time will tell, but it was not so long ago that News International was thwarted in acquiring Manchester United. At the time, the conspiracists were muttering about it being the cornerstone in the bigger plans to create the European Super League.

Perhaps, or perhaps not, but what has often been overlooked is that the then purchase price of £650m would have paid back in approximately 10, yes 10, global pay-per-view games. That was then and media outlets have expanded since. So, what price would the extra nine pay-per-view “foreign Premiership games” command now? As plans go, not a bad one?

One day, whether we like it or not, the dominant league will be internationally-based.

Flying from Liverpool to New York is no different than New York to LA, especially from the seat of a jumbo jet. Especially for media owners who run Hollywood Studios who can see that gate receipts, like cinema admissions, now only contribute about a third of total revenues.

Worried about fatigue? Simple, reduce the amount of domestic games. It’ll only impact on a third of the revenues which will be more than compensated by the scarcity value increase in media rights.

Of course, as the Premier League is discovering, it won’t happen overnight and it won’t be without a rear guard fight, which will make the EFC Kirkby move seem like a disagreement over whether to have chicken or prawn sandwiches in the directors’ lounge; as it will require a real shift in culture.

Perhaps as huge as embracing international players? It would be interesting to see how even the People’s Club would vote given a chance of playing Inter, Real or Ajax every week, instead of travelling to Sunderland and Portsmouth.

No doubt it’ll all be in the plans.