will the national football league ever be as global as the barclays premier league

WILL THE NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE EVER BE AS GLOBAL AS THE BARCLAYS PREMIER LEAGUE?EXTENDED PROJECT LEVEL 3UNIT 1 DISSERTATIONFINN CAMPBELL 6514

Will the National Football League ever be as Global as the Barclays Premier League?

Picture 1 : Pre Match Entertainment for Jacksonville Jaguars v San Francisco 49ers at Wembley Stadium

3 Contents

CONTENTS

1. ABSTRACT

2. INTRODUCTION

3. THE EFFECT OF THE HISTORY OF THE GAME

4. THE DESIRE FOR A FOREIGN TEAM

5. NFL, ENTERTAINMENT OR SPORT

6. MEDIA, EXPOSURE OF THE GAME THROUGH NEW TECHNOLOGY

7. SALARY CAPS, CREATING FINANCIAL FAIRNESS FOR TEAMS

8. THE AMOUNT OF PARITY DUE TO GOVERNING BODIES

9. THE PROBLEMS WITH THE NFL BECOMING GLOBAL

10. CONCLUSION

11. EVALUATION

12. DATA SOURCES AND CITATIONS

13. BIBLIOGRAPHY

14. INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPTS


4 Abstract

ABSTRACT

The reason for doing my project came from a passion in economics and a love of sport. I wanted to see how these two combined together and acted as one. This lead me to wondering how influential certain aspects of sports were to their success and from this I decided that I would see whether a sports league can globally expand to be bigger than another sports league that is already massively popular globally. I came to decide that I would choose the biggest Leagues, in each of what I believe to be the most influential countries on sport. I hence chose the National Football League and the Barclays Premier League. From my original research, the consensus seemed that the Premier League was more global that the NFL so I decided to try and find out whether the NFL would ever be as global and why.

I went about researching this project primarily through the Internet and people with a lot of knowledge on the subject. There were books that I used to get background knowledge on the subject and have views on it, but many of the books quickly became out dated. I spoke to people such as Tim Leiweke, the man who tried to bring an NFL franchise to Los Angeles; Andy Mollett, the Chief Financial Officer at Fulham; Ian Holmes, the head of media rights for Formula One while being highly experienced in the effect of media on a sport and I also spoke to the Author of the book ‘Money Games’ David M. Carter, who is regarded as one of the leading academics on the combination of sport and business. Each of these people gave very insightful opinions on their respective areas of expertise and a lot of what they said was utilized in this project, either directly or through further research.

The result was that the NFL would not be as global as the Premier League. The complexities of creating a team abroad rules out the option of a foreign based team and the overall desire to watch NFL isn’t as great globally as it is in the United States. This meant that as the Premier League, was more relatable to, more people enjoy to watch it and hence it stays more global, although it does have some fundamental downfalls in its structure.


5 Introduction

INTRODUCTION

The National Football League is America’s largest sport and has a huge impact on their lives during the season. It is composed of 32 franchises, based all around America. These Franchises compete in two separate conferences, the National Football Conference and the American Football Conference. The conferences then have four separate leagues composed of four teams. The winner of each league, and the next best two franchises then play in playoffs in which the winner of the Conference plays the winner of the other

conference in the Superbowl to decide the overall winner of the National Football League.

It was in 2007 when the National Football League returned to Britain to play its first ever in season game outside the American Continent.1 It was then six years later in 2013 that the NFL decided that it would then have two in season games at Wembley2, and it was late 2013 when commissioner of the NFL, Roger Goodell announced that in 2014 there would be 3 games at Wembley3. This meteoric rise in the amount of games being played at Wembley seemed to be very unusual for a game that was strongly based in America. It started to make me question why the NFL was playing so much outside of America?

It was with this that I decided that I wanted to look into why the National Football League was expanding their game to the global

market but I didn’t want to just look at how it did it; I wanted to look specifically at how successful it could be when expanding itself into the global sporting market. So I thought I would look how much of a chance the National Football League would have in becoming a global sport.

I have also had a lot of experience of the Barclays Premier League, having been a follower of it from a young age. During this 1 http://www.nfllondon.net/international-series.html 2 http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2012/oct/16/nfl-minnesota-vikings 3 http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap2000000259165/article/nfl-to-further-international-growth-3-games-in-london-in-2014


Picture 2 : The NFL Playoff Bracket for 2014. The Numbers highlight the positions that they finished in their conference.

http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap2000000259165/article/nfl-to-further-international-growth-3-games-in-london-in-2014


http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2012/oct/16/nfl-minnesota-vikings

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2012/oct/16/nfl-minnesota-vikings

http://www.nfllondon.net/international-series.html

6 Introduction

following, I had noticed the amount that teams in the Premier League were followed around the world was extremely large. It was with this that I felt that the Barclays Premier League was the most global league in the world and wondered if the NFL is more global than it, and if it wasn’t then whether it would ever be as global as the Barclays Premier League. The Premier League provides a great comparison for the NFL’s global presence, as it is very similar to it in terms of the League.

Hence, in this project I am going to examine the extent to which the National Football League can be come a global sport, I am going to relate a lot of what I research to the Barclays Premier League as this is arguably the most global League in the world at the moment. I am going explain how the NFL first came to Europe and the effect that tat had on its ability to then return for the International Series. I am then going to see how much of a desire there is for a Foreign NFL team in Europe, and more specifically London, and try to relate this to the amount of desire there is in the world for Barclay’s Premier League teams to play. I am then going to look at three of the most important aspects of these leagues that effect its globalism, these being; Media in the modern day world; the use of Salary Caps; the ability to achieve and enforce parity; all three of these play a key role in achieving a globally popular sport. There will then be an explanation as to how NFL and BPL use entertainment in the modern day and its importance, this is a key area of research as it was said by Academic David Carter, ‘Sports and Entertainment have been converging since the dawn of capitalism, if not before’4 . I will then finally discuss the reasons that the NFL will struggle to become a global sport, if they have not already been mentioned in earlier parts.

From what I have experienced so far, I think that the Premier League is currently more global than the NFL but I hope to uncover the reasons behind how the NFL could become one of the most global sports in the world and then to see whether it has the capacity to become the world’s most global league.

4 Carter, D., 2011, Money Games : Profiting from the Convergence of Sport and Entertainment, Stanford, Stanford University Press. p.1.


7 The History of the National Football League Abroad

THE HISTORY OF THE NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE ABROAD

”The beginning is the most important part of the work.” Plato5

The NFL as it is today was formed through the merger of the two great football leagues of its time, the National Football League and the American Football League.6 When these two combined they retained the name of the National Football League and it stayed as it is today. This combination made the league bigger and more popular than ever before and added an event that can still be seen as the climax of American Sport every year. This climax is the Superbowl, but as time went on, they looked to expand the NFL beyond the 240 million population, and at this point they went to London.7 The American Bowl was the game that allowed the NFL to create the building blocks on which to create a fan base in the UK. 8These building blocks attracted many more fans to the game and caused a media frenzy in the UK at the time. 9 Its sudden input into the British Sporting Market came at a time when Britain’s most popular sport, Soccer, was in a sate of deterioration. All British Teams had been banned from the Champions League following the Heysel Disaster.10 This was a chance for a sport that was much more family friendly to enter the British Sporting Market, and just like that it did. It was through the American Bowl, a pre season game played between two NFL sides that this new sport came, and it then recurred for every season, in many different countries, until its termination in 1993.11 This was the start of the Global Expansion of the league and more games were played with NFL teams, but all around the world, with it ranging from Australia to Germany to Mexico12 and soon had more global prominence than it had ever had before. This original expansion of the game allowed many more people to be involved in the game than had ever been involved before.

5 http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/249055-the-beginning-is-the-most-important-part-of-the-work 6 http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/nfl-and-afl-announce-merger7 http://www.multpl.com/united-states-population/table8 http://www.profootballhof.com/history/2012/9/12/Pro-football-in-London-1986/9 ibid. 10 http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2010/may/28/heysel-disaster-25th-anniversary11 http://www.profootballhof.com/history/2012/9/19/NFL-football-in-United-Kingdom/ 12 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Bowl


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Bowl

http://www.profootballhof.com/history/2012/9/19/NFL-football-in-United-Kingdom/


http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2010/may/28/heysel-disaster-25th-anniversary


http://www.profootballhof.com/history/2012/9/12/Pro-football-in-London-1986/


http://www.multpl.com/united-states-population/table

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/nfl-and-afl-announce-merger


http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/249055-the-beginning-is-the-most-important-part-of-the-work

http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/249055-the-beginning-is-the-most-important-part-of-the-work


This global exposure of the National Football League was one of the ways that it first got itself onto the Global Market. The games that occurred around the world allowed more media coverage and talking about the sport than had ever occurred in many of these countries before. People in these countries would have been talking about the NFL match that was coming to their country and with this increased the amount of interest in it globally, it will have got more popular and more people would have watched it. The problem with this original global series was the quality of football. These games were all pre-season games, which means that they were less likely to be as competitive as the normal season league games. If people were watching pre season games, they were less likely to be interested in it; it didn’t have any effect on the League, the players wouldn’t have cared as much as they did for a league game and this meant that the overall quality of the experience would have been below that of what a normal NFL game was.

Hence, the NFL then created NFL Europe, a League that had teams throughout Europe and was backed by the NFL. This was an off-season League that allowed players who played for the best teams to play in the off season in Europe. It was more family


Picture 3 : Picture of the Programme from first American Bowl in 1986


friendly and was directed at the European sports market.13 It allowed high quality American Players to play in Europe as well as in America. The problem was that the league eventually became formed of mainly the reserve players of all the NFL teams, as they didn’t want to risk their best players in a league that had little relevance to the actual NFL season. This part of the history was key as it was an NFL league in Europe. They had expanded but this eventually ended after Roger Goodell came to power and instead the International Series at Wembley came to the front of the NFL’s attempt at expanding the league.

13 Jozsa Jnr., F., 2003. American Sports Empire: How the Leagues Breed Success. Westport(Conneticut): Praeger. p.25.


10 The Desire for a Foreign Team

THE DESIRE FOR A FOREIGN TEAM

‘Here is my first principle of foreign policy: Good government at home.’

William Gladstone14

For a sport to expand, there needs to be a desire to have that sport in a foreign country. One of the main ways that the NFL is planning on expanding is through creating a London NFL team. 15 For a foreign team to succeed though there needs to be a desire for it to exist in that country, and this is something that the NFL are trying to judge in Britain at the moment. The Commissioner of the NFL, Roger Goodell said, “Over the next couple of years we'll know whether there's a demand for a team that's playing more than a game or two here."16 This is something that will be key to the global expansion of the League. If there is a desire for a team, then a team in Britain could be created and this would take the league to Europe. This is something that was tried before with NFL Europe, they created a league in Europe that was an off season league but this ended in 2007 due to it not working. Matt Slater, journalist for the BBC said, “…NFL pulled the plug on NFL Europe it was made up of five German franchises and one on life support in Amsterdam. It was also losing £20m a season.”17 A league in Europe that was losing £20 million per year would suggest that the sport in Europe wasn’t working. Yet, as quickly as Roger Goodell had pulled NFL Europe, there was then another International Series game that occurred between Miami Dolphins and New York Giants at Wembley.18

The key difference between these two was type of game being played, NFL Europe had players who were third reserves for certain positions in the NFL squads and didn’t play for the teams throughout the season, but they then got game time in NFL Europe. The International Series was a regular season game though, it meant that the players on display were of the highest quality possible. This showed in the attendance of the games, the average attendance for

14 http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/w/williameg105477.html 15 http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/eye-on-football/24142624/roger-goodell-on-la-or-london-nfl-team-first-i-want-both, accessed 20.11.1316 http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/american-football/24687966 17 ibid.18 http://www.wembleystadium.com/Press/Press-Releases/2013/9/A-History-Of-American-Football-At-Wembley.aspx


http://www.wembleystadium.com/Press/Press-Releases/2013/9/A-History-Of-American-Football-At-Wembley.aspx

http://www.wembleystadium.com/Press/Press-Releases/2013/9/A-History-Of-American-Football-At-Wembley.aspx

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/american-football/24687966

http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/eye-on-football/24142624/roger-goodell-on-la-or-london-nfl-team-first-i-want-both


http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/w/williameg105477.html

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/w/williameg105477.html


the last season of NFL Europe was 20,020.19 The attendance for the International Game at Wembley? It was over four times that of the average for NFL Europe in its final season, it was a staggering 81,176. 20 It was also believed that this game had requests for over ‘half a million tickets’.21 This shows that there was a huge demand for the International series game yet a much smaller demand for the NFL Europe games. This shows that there is a desire for high quality American Football but not low quality American Football. This is very understandable, as you wouldn’t get the attendance figures that the Premier League gets in its U21 matches, which was in effect, what NFL Europe was.

Picture 4 : William ‘the Fridge’ Perry playing for the London Monarchs, an original NFL Europe Team.

The desire for a foreign team must also come from a lack of a sport similar to that in the sporting market that they are coming into. Firstly, the British sporting market is highly saturated, the Premier League has a huge following and can have large crowds every weekend which makes it difficult for another sport to compete every weekend. There is obviously an interest in the sport, the two games that were played this year had attendances of 83,518 and 83,559.22 This doesn’t just show that there is an interest 19 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NFL_Europe 20 http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/other_sports/american_football/7056755.stm , 21 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/othersports/article-455301/Dolphins-Giants-sold-Wembley-10-times-over.html 22 http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/american-football/24687966



http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/othersports/article-455301/Dolphins-Giants-sold-Wembley-10-times-over.html


http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/other_sports/american_football/7056755.stm


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NFL_Europe


in the sport but that there may be a sustainable interest in the sport. This would be very exclusive and this exclusivity would cause it to be more popular. There is a consistent crowd at all 20 teams premier league matches every weekend. The Premier League has a total of 380 games each season and with an average of 35,81623 there is then a total seasonal attendance of 27,220,502. The NFL would be able to have 8 games per season in Britain and assuming an average attendance of 83,53924 this would mean a total seasonal attendance of 668,312. This means that there would be 40 people watching Premier League for every 1 that could watch the NFL25. This is scarcity, the ability to watch an NFL game is much less that that of the ability to watch a Premier League game and with this, the supply is more likely to be met.

23 http://www.soccerstats.com/attendance.asp?league=england_2013 24 The average of the two 2013 games at Wembley from http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/american-football/24687966 25 The seasonal attendance of the Premier League is 40.73 times greater than that of what the NFL in Britain’s would be with the same numbers.



http://www.soccerstats.com/attendance.asp?league=england_2013

http://www.soccerstats.com/attendance.asp?league=england_2013


The Desire for a foreign team has been shown in many other American Based Leagues, but only in Canada at the moment. Canada currently has teams in the NBA26, NHL27 and MLS28 but not in the NFL. The CEO of MLSE, which owns all the Toronto based sports teams, Tim Leiweke said,

‘That said, the NFL is still only played in one country. It has not even been able to break into the Canadian market, unlike every other US major league. Talk of a world domination is pre-mature due to the lack of worldwide participation and a current business plan that only involves the teams representing US cities.’

Tim Leiweke’s point is one that is very relevant as the NFL are trying to create a desire in a country that is across the Atlantic yet they haven’t even tackled a market that every other league has been able to make an impact on. If there is a desire for the league then they will need to possibly see if the desire is there for a more local team before suddenly expanding it’s operations to Europe.

The desire for a foreign team can finally be caused through the playing of the sport. The NFL’s sport is Football (American Football to most) and the Premier League’s is Soccer (Football to most). These two sports are very different in their prominence around the world and this is very clear as the amount of national teams is very different. The participation in the sport would be key to creating a foreign team as they would supply many of the players who would play for these teams and hence having national teams are necessary to creating a desire to play not only for club but for country. If you use national teams as a basis for the desire for a league, you see that the desire for the NFL is inferior to that of the Barclays Premier League.

26 Toronto Raptors in National Basketball Association http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toronto_Raptors 27 Total of 7 Canadian teams in the National Hockey League http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/national-hockey-league/ 28 Toronto FC in Major League Soccer, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toronto_FC


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Chart 1 : The Number of National Teams for each of the sports played in the Leagues

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toronto_FC

http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/national-hockey-league/

http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/national-hockey-league/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toronto_Raptors

14 The National Football League, Entertainment or Sport

THE NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE, ENTERTAINMENT OR SPORT

[Referring to an NFL Game]

“It’s not just the game, it’s the bands and the drama and the pageantry.”

Mitchell Pritchett (Jesse Tyler Ferguson)29

American football has always been a sport that is immersed with entertainment. It gets to the point where you start to question whether you are a part of a sport or a show. One of the great attractions to many of the followers of NFL is the atmosphere at the game, the involvement of the crowd in the actual sport. But all of this isn’t what many in other countries would see as sport, sport

29 Modern Family, Season 1 Episode 5 ‘Coal Digger’


Picture 5 : David Tyree takes a catch on his helmet during Superbowl


to many is the game itself, the last minute goal to keep your team up in the dying embers of your teams league season, it could be the crunching tackle, the inept skill of your new signing or even the rare occurrence of a nil all draw.

The problem with the NFL for some people is what they believe to be the lack of sport, the all too familiar breaks that many soccer fans would see as unnecessary and time consuming. This is why some people can be put off the sport, they want a sport that involves athletes constantly running around and testing themselves constantly, action all the time, something to always be watching. What many fail to see though is that this ‘entertainment sport’ comprises of more action than most soccer matches ever played, but how?

If you ignore the breaks then you then you will work out that this is one of the most intense and athletically impressive sports out there. The NFL had in the 2010-2011 season a higher scoring rate


Standing Around

Replays

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Chart 2 : The Breakdown of the Amount of Time each separate category is Broadcast in an NFL Match


than the Barclays Premier League, with it having 2.10 touchdowns per hour, with the Premier League only having 1.87 goals per hour.30 This difference in the sports is something that is very distinguished by the two different markets. “Americans like everything to be big…”31 and this could be one of the reasons that they like the NFL more than other countries.

NFL as an entertainment sport has progressed throughout the years and the match day experience can clearly be shown to involve a lot of entertainment. As said in the book Money Games,

‘Sports venues have incorporated sophisticated and integrated audio systems to add to the fan’s entertainment experience. 360-degree sound systems now complement the video clips on the HD video displays and encourage fan participation, such as the often deafening and synchronized chant of “DE-FENSE! DE-FENSE!”’32

David Carter describes this as an entertainment experience33, and this is what a lot of NFL games can be about, the experience rather than the sport itself. This can then attract more people from abroad as they want to be entertained as well as watching sport, it can become much more of an experience if there is entertainment as well. This is because of family, some families will want to watch the sport, some will want a day out and NFL combines the both. When I asked David Carter about this subject he gave me the example of the Superbowl, he said:

“The Super Bowl is perhaps the best example of how the NFL has successfully blended sports and entertainment. What was once ‘just a game,’ has evolved into nothing short of a national holiday. Each and every element of the lead up to, and playing of, the game is marked by the intersection of sports and entertainment. Most notably, the half time show and the commercials aired during the game have helped transform the Super Bowl from a sporting event to a cultural experience. This optimal

30 http://iakobou.wordpress.com/2011/12/24/bpls-goals-in-comparison-with-mlb-and-nfl/ 31 ibid.32 Carter, D., 2011, Money Games : Profiting from the convergence of Sports and Entertainment, p21233 ibid. p212


http://iakobou.wordpress.com/2011/12/24/bpls-goals-in-comparison-with-mlb-and-nfl/

http://iakobou.wordpress.com/2011/12/24/bpls-goals-in-comparison-with-mlb-and-nfl/


blend of sports and entertainment has resulted in the game being the highest viewed TV event annually.”34

This is very true and there aren’t many events that have the Television audience that the Superbowl does, but the ones that do challenge the Superbowl, aren’t entertainment centralized. This differences in the match, could be one of the main reasons behind the difference in the Popularity. However much people enjoy the ability to watch a match, they may enjoy the ability to watch entertainment and the match more.

34 David M. Carter, see Transcript for Interview D.


18 Media, Exposure of the Game through New Technology

MEDIA, EXPOSURE OF THE GAME THROUGH NEW TECHNOLOGY

‘Whoever controls the media, controls the mind.’ Jim Morrison

Television is a very powerful tool in the world of sport; it allows people to watch matches when the capacity of that match is already at its maximum amount. Sports can often become successful due to their popularity on television rather than their popularity in real life, often things that would sound extremely boring can be made into something much more interesting when televised and this is why television now brings in big money, people have opted out of watching sports live and now choose to watch it on television instead. That isn’t the most important part though, what is more important is the amount of people that television is able to reach

and the affect that has on Global audiences, Global audiences mean global popularity and this is probably the best way to see and to improve the global popularity of a sport.

Chart 3 : Viewers for the last 5 Superbowls

This is one thing that you would often relate to the Premier League is these high amount of viewers around the world and the amount of countries that the Premier League is broadcast to. There are many countries where the Premier League is more popular than that countries league, and many Premier League clubs notice this as well as they will buy players to merely generate profit from


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the huge fan base in the areas.35 These huge fan bases are often the way that big clubs become popular, they rely on fan bases abroad rather than the attendances of home games to be popular.

A lot of this foreign fan base can be found due to those countries having a player of that nationality in the Premier League and as they have this player in the league, they can then watch them weekly. This diversification and the way fans can relate to players can cause a huge interest in a sport and this can be seen through many different sports. If someone of your nationality were on television then you would be more likely to try and support them and their sport than a sport that contains mainly other nationalities. This is why the premier league can often be very popular; there are now 100 different nationalities in the Premier League 36, and this means that you have a large amount of countries that will have a player involved in the premier league. When you then look at the NFL you see that the amount of players that are foreign is a lot lower than the Premier League. In 2011, there were only 28 countries represented by the NFL of which 97% of the players in the NFL were born in The United States of America. This large difference in the countries represented in the NFL shows how much more globally diverse the Premier League is in terms of players in it. 37

35 Shinji Kagawa was one of the first Players who was thought to have such a large Asian fan base that he brought in a large amount of shirt sales.http://sportwitness.ning.com/forum/topics/manchester-united-set-to-see-hike-in-shirt-sales-as-dortmund-reve 36 http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/interactive/2013/aug/22/all-100-overseas-nationalities-premier-league 37 http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-international-origins-of-nfl-players-2011-11


Chart 4 : The Percentage of Players in the League from each of the areas

http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-international-origins-of-nfl-players-2011-11


http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/interactive/2013/aug/22/all-100-overseas-nationalities-premier-league

http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/interactive/2013/aug/22/all-100-overseas-nationalities-premier-league

http://sportwitness.ning.com/forum/topics/manchester-united-set-to-see-hike-in-shirt-sales-as-dortmund-reve

http://sportwitness.ning.com/forum/topics/manchester-united-set-to-see-hike-in-shirt-sales-as-dortmund-reve


Television is very important for improving the ability of people to watch sport from places that wouldn’t usually be able to access high quality sport but for even more remote territories there has now become even more other forms of media that has allowed certain sports to get themselves known worldwide. In his Book, ‘Consuming Sport: Fans, Sport and Culture’, Garry Crawford says,

“Furthermore, the volume of sport coverage and sport related stories has also dramatically increased in other forms of mass media. An abundance of specialist newspapers, magazines, radio stations and shows, websites, and Internet based discussion areas have all developed in recent years, focusing primarily (if not solely) on sport. Even many general newspaper and radio stations have significantly increased their coverage of sport. For instance, up until the late 1980s in the UK, coverage of sport (particularly association football) was primarily associated with the tabloid press. Though the 'quality' press did cover sport (and at times, a much wider range than that covered in the tabloids), the quantity of sport related stories in these was usually significantly less. However, virtually all British national newspapers now feature sizable weekly or monthly pull-out sport sections or magazines and their daily pages feature a much larger volume of sport stories than that seen twenty years ago.”38

38 Crawford, G., 2004, Consuming Sport: Fans, Sport and Culture, p131. New York: Routledge.


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As Garry Crawford has said, the whole of the media sector has improved and now sport is much more available to everyone round the world, at the click of a button you can see all the scores for the NFL in any one week. This is even more important when you get to online viewing and how much this can cause a huge increase in the amount of foreign viewers watching the sport and it can spread the global audience extremely quickly. This has been exploited by the NFL who have created the NFL Game Pass which allows people to view all NFL games online, wherever they are in the World. This use of media is how there can be an increase in the amount of viewers.

The use of pay to view television could be something that allows the NFL to expand itself to more foreign territories and therefore increase the fan base that they are looking for. This increase in a foreign fan base could be vital to improving the amount that the NFL benefits from global popularity. Having their games watched regularly by people abroad will help it spread and the more people who watch then the more the market will start to adapt to the growing wants of those who watch the sport and even more viewing options will become available. These new options could be something such as bars and pubs showing NFL games, more online websites showing NFL highlights and more programs that feature analysis and round up of the games from that NFL week. This sort of media coverage can be vital to increasing the sports popularity in other territories as it means that people will be exposed to more of it and will therefore be more likely to take an interest in it.



The ever-increasing amount of technology will aid in the exposure of media to the public. Smartphones and tablets allow more of the population to follow sports and leagues such as the NFL with much more ease. The number of the devices that allow you to follow these Leagues is also on the increase as shown in the Deloitte Predictions for 2014 in Technology, Media and Telecommunications; they predict that in 2014 the total spending on Smartphones will be $375 billion.39 You can now get various different applications that will send notifications to your phone with ease about all the goings on for the relevant team, sport or league. With technology of this sort, following a team and league becomes much easier and with things being easier, more people will follow.

39 Deloitte Technology, Media and Telecommunications Predictions 2014, p.8.Available at: http://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/global/Documents/Technology-Media-Telecommunications/dttl_TMT_Predictions-2014-lc2.pdf


Infographic 1 : Chart showing the revenues from each of the technologies and the expected amount from 2013 - 2018

http://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/global/Documents/Technology-Media-Telecommunications/dttl_TMT_Predictions-2014-lc2.pdf



23 Salary Caps, Creating Financial Equality for Teams

SALARY CAPS, CREATING FINANCIAL EQUALITY FOR TEAMS

“People say the wages are too high, but it's a short career.” Sir Stanley Matthews40

“Everything has changed now. Money comes before football and money is the ruination.” Bill Nicholson41

The Salary Cap is one of the Key parts that differentiates the NFL from the Barclays Premier League. The Salary Cap in the NFL says that there are a limit that is placed on every team in the league for how much they can spend42 and that this limit cannot be exceeded. The point of this is that it limits the power of big spending owners to buy there way into the sport and hence create an unfair advantage to that subsequent team.43

The Barclays Premier League on the other hand didn’t have this cap and it meant that it is much more likely that a team could buy its way to success, for example Manchester City, who have taken themselves from mid table anonymity to wining the league in 2011. This sort of occurrence can either make a sport more endearing or will make it very unappetising to the fans. This has changed in the Premier League though with £52 million televison rights cap coming into play which allows there to be a limit on the amount that top clubs can spend on the wage budget, the problem is that they can still spend sponsorship and most importantly ticket sales revenue on the wages.44

40 http://ronaldoh.hubpages.com/hub/Great-money-quotes-in-football 41 http://ronaldoh.hubpages.com/hub/Great-money-quotes-in-football 42 The Salary Cap currently stands at $123 million for 2013 but changes every year. http://salarycap101.net43 http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1922377-7-biggest-problems-facing-the-nfl-in-2014-15/page/2 44 http://www.givemesport.com/354190-premier-league-would-a-salary-cap-work


http://www.givemesport.com/354190-premier-league-would-a-salary-cap-work


http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1922377-7-biggest-problems-facing-the-nfl-in-2014-15/page/2

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1922377-7-biggest-problems-facing-the-nfl-in-2014-15/page/2

http://salarycap101.net/

http://ronaldoh.hubpages.com/hub/Great-money-quotes-in-football





2001 2003 2005 2007 2009 20111

3

5

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15

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Pre Takeover

Post Takeover

Chart 5 : The positions before and after they were taken over by a Billionaire

One of the main things that the salary cap does is introduce the idea of the league being more balanced than any other league.45 By having a salary cap we have many different teams who could win it in any year and the amount of times that you have one team that is dominant for a long period of time is very low, compare this to the Premier League where you can often have teams dominating the league for long periods of time or even short periods of time.

So if we take the two most successful teams in the respective leagues in the last decade and then look at their final finishing positions then we can see how difficult it is to have a really dominant era in the NFL. For the NFL, the most successful team from 2000 to 2010 was, as the correspondent for the Bleacher Report, Joe Gill says, The New England Patriots, who are “Despised for their success.” 46 For the Barclays Premier League, we will use Manchester United who over the past decade had the best average finish of all the Premier League Teams.47 Once we take these two

45 http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/news-and-comment/james-lawton-nfl-could-teach-the-premier-league-a-great-deal-about-financial-fair-play-8451598.html46 http://bleacherreport.com/articles/323109-nfl-team-of-decade-the-new-england-patriots 47 They had an average finish of 1.8 compared to Arsenal who were second with 2.6.


http://bleacherreport.com/articles/323109-nfl-team-of-decade-the-new-england-patriots

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/323109-nfl-team-of-decade-the-new-england-patriots

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/news-and-comment/james-lawton-nfl-could-teach-the-premier-league-a-great-deal-about-financial-fair-play-8451598.html




teams and put their finishing positions in the past decade together, you can see the difference in the two leagues.

The point of this is that there isn’t a lot of continuity to teams final finishing positions and this can often be something that will attract fans to the sport and could make it global. Having a league that allows even the most dominant teams to get as low as 14th over a decade and only finish in the Top 5 six times out of ten, can often allow people to support it much more closely and therefore create a larger fan base and support for the league.

So, does this follow trend, do sports that have more competitiveness between teams attract more people to watch it and is this why the NFL could be a global sport soon? One of the best ways to look at the popularity of sports is the attendances for the games, and the average attendances for the whole league so we can gauge the overall popularity of the league.

If the Salary Cap does cause their to be more interest in a sport then the attendance figures for the games should be higher than those in the Premier League. More interesting matches should cause more interest than one sided ones.48 When you compare them you get this chart:

http://www.sportingintelligence.com/2010/05/17/manchester-united-top-‘league-of-the-decade’-as-blackpool-soar-to-10-year-high-170501/


2000

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Manchester United

http://www.sportingintelligence.com/2010/05/17/manchester-united-top-'league-of-the-decade'-as-blackpool-soar-to-10-year-high-170501/




2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 20130

10,000

20,000

30,000

40,000

50,000

60,000

70,000

NFLBPL

Chart 7 : Average Attendances for each of the Leagues over the Past 5 years (Premier League Figures for 2013 are as of 30.12.13)

This could be though because there are fewer games per season in the NFL than there are in the Premier League.49 Therefore it could be better to look at the percentage of the maximum capacity that is filled at each of these games and see how they compare. When we compare this we get:

48 Buraimo, B., Simmons, R., 2008, Do Sports fans really value uncertainty of outcome? Evidence from the Premier League. The International Journal of Sport Finance, p.14749 There are 38 in a Barclays Premier League Season and only 16 in the NFL season with a possible 3 more in post-season depending on the finishing positions in the actual NFL season.



2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 201390.00%

91.00%

92.00%

93.00%

94.00%

95.00%

96.00%

97.00%

98.00%

99.00%

100.00%

NFLBPL

Chart 8 : Average Percentage of the Stadiums Capacity Utilised in each of the Two Leagues over the Past 5 Years (Premier League Figures for 2013 are as of 30.12.13)

As we can see from these charts, there seems to be a much larger amount of support for NFL Games than there is for the Premier League and this is sustained across 32 teams compared to the Premier League’s 20 teams. There is another explanation for attendances which is a ‘blackout’ rule imposed by the NFL on local televising of games but this usually only means a few hundred tickets are bought by advertisers or other people who find it beneficial to have the game shown on television. It is also believed that this has little relevance in the modern day market as there is now high income from both attendances and television.50

So how much affect could the salary cap have on these attendances, does the fact that we have people being paid over £240,000 per week51 in the Premier League means that clubs must

50 http://articles.latimes.com/2013/dec/18/entertainment/la-et-ct-fcc-nfl-blackout-20131218 51 Sergio Agüero was paid £13.4 million last year, meaning £ 241,955per week. (The value of £13.4 million was current on the


http://articles.latimes.com/2013/dec/18/entertainment/la-et-ct-fcc-nfl-blackout-20131218



increase their revenue and then this must be earned through the customers, in this case the fans of the Premier League. But this isn’t actually that different from that of the highest paid NFL player in 2013, in fact it is more52 than the amount that Sergio Agüero earns53. The difference is in the amount of players who are paid this money, and this is where teams in the NFL can become more liked than those in the Premier League because they do pay their ‘star’ players high salaries but don’t then pay everyone similar amounts, this means that they stay under the $123 million salary cap and don’t have to charge the fans more than they have to pay and this increases the amount of support for the league. If this does carry on then you could see the NFL becoming more popular to watch as

well, this is because the amount that the Barclays Premier League is getting from television rights is rising, meaning that as a sport, it is getting more expensive to watch.54

publishing date so I have used the Exchange rate as of 01.01.14)http://worldsoccer.about.com/od/players/tp/Highest-Paid-Soccer-Players-2013.htm52 Aaron Rodgers, the Green Bay Packers Quarterback, is paid $22 million dollars a year (Equivalent of £255,914 per week, using the exchange rate on 01.01.14)http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/nfl/photos/1303/ten-highest-paid-nfl-players/1/53 http://worldsoccer.about.com/od/players/tp/Highest-Paid-Soccer-Players-2013.htm54 http://www.espn.co.uk/football/sport/story/237339.html


http://www.espn.co.uk/football/sport/story/237339.html

http://worldsoccer.about.com/od/players/tp/Highest-Paid-Soccer-Players-2013.htm


http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/nfl/photos/1303/ten-highest-paid-nfl-players/1/

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/nfl/photos/1303/ten-highest-paid-nfl-players/1/



29 Parity and Governing Bodies

PARITY AND GOVERNING BODIES

“As part of the NFL, things change every year.” Tom Brady55

One of the main differences between the Premier League and the NFL is how often certain teams become the champions. These two leagues are nearly as opposite as can be and the difference is the Parity, and the parity in the NFL caused the phrase from Bert Bell

“On any given Sunday, any team in the NFL can beat any other team."56

This is something that is so great about the NFL; the fact that anyone can beat anyone means that there is a league where fans will always have the possibility of their team winning. Think this isn’t so, well for the past two years (2012 and 2013) the NFL has been able to create a circle of parity, where every team has beaten

55 http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/t/tombrady561166.html 56 http://www.quora.com/When-did-the-phrase-Any-given-Sunday-emerge#step=6


Infographic 2 : The NFL's Circle of Parity for 2013

http://www.quora.com/When-did-the-phrase-Any-given-Sunday-emerge#step=6

http://www.quora.com/When-did-the-phrase-Any-given-Sunday-emerge#step=6

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/t/tombrady561166.html


another and they have beaten another and so on until we have a circle.

This Circle is extremely rare in the Premier League and this says even more as Premier League teams play 22 more games than the NFL teams in a season but it did occur after only 10 games in this Premier League season showing that actually, there is a lot more parity in the Premier League than previously thought. Creating Parity in leagues could be a way that they can become more popular as the matches will always be difficult to predict and will

more often be highly competitive..57

Infographic 3 The Circle of Parity in 2013 Premier League Season

The question is whether fans admire this parity or whether they like having a league that allows there to be teams that run away

57 Buraimo, B., Simmons, R., 2008, Do Sports fans really value uncertainty of outcome? Evidence from the Premier League. The International Journal of Sport Finance, p.147



with the title every year. This could be something that isn’t as wanted by fans, fans may prefer a team to be dominant whereas other supporters may want to have a team that fights for relegation or a team that just does better than the season before. The difficulty is that you cannot judge the amount that the fans want parity. Some may get bored by the Premier League whereas some may enjoy the dominance of teams for long periods of time. It is all very subjective.

Poll 1 Shows, opinions seem to be split, although this is only a small group of people so the data may be skewed one way or another. Even though, this does add to the point that maybe the Premier League has become predictable, there isn’t enough opportunity for an upset, teams who are often expected to win do so and those who are at the bottom of the table are expected to stay there. The NFL however doesn’t have this predictability and hence allows there to be much more chance for an upset,, the underdog can often win and this means that it is rare that anybody goes into a game saying that they will win this one, the assurance of a win is never there.


: On the Premier League's interest in


The most important way in which leagues achieve their parity is through their governing bodies and the structure of the governing body. When comparing the two leagues, the Premier League’s corporate structure puts the clubs in a more commanding position than the franchises of the NFL. This is because decisions in the Premier League are decided by the clubs, as they are the 20 shareholders who cast a vote towards decisions.58 The NFL is different as the commissioner takes more of a key role in decisions than the franchises do. This is highlighted in the constitution and bylaws of the NFL where the Commissioner has 9 pages of what he controls and has power over whereas the members (Franchises) have a mere 3.59 This control by the Commissioner allows the rules and regulations in the League to be more focused around the League benefitting rather than the Premier League’s style, which is where the clubs will generally benefit most. If the clubs have more control then they act for themselves, which will often lead to decisions where the clubs that are in a good position will often choose to enforce a law that will greaten the gap between them and their competition, as they want success.

58 http://www.premierleague.com/content/premierleague/en-gb/about/who-we-are.html 59 Constitutions and Bylaws of NFL , http://static.nfl.com/static/content/public/static/html/careers/pdf/co_.pdf


http://static.nfl.com/static/content/public/static/html/careers/pdf/co_.pdf


http://www.premierleague.com/content/premierleague/en-gb/about/who-we-are.html

http://www.premierleague.com/content/premierleague/en-gb/about/who-we-are.html

34 Problems Associated with Global Expansion

PROBLEMS ASSOCIATED WITH GLOBAL EXPANSION

‘If a man watches three football games in a row, he should be declared legally dead’

Erma Bombeck60

Making a sport go global isn’t easy, there are often many difficulties that come with it and cause it to be a lot more difficult than it is first perceived to be. Making a sport global can cause tax problems, problems with getting working visas, territorial law problems61 and many other problems. One of the main problems with expanding the NFL globally in terms of creating a foreign NFL team is that they would then be subject to that countries tax laws. If they were then to expand to London and create a team there then this could mean that those playing for the London team would be paid less than the teams in America as the salaries will be the same but the tax from the salaries will be higher in the UK.62 This means that there is therefore a reason for the NFL to stay based in America, as all of those who are based in America will get roughly the same tax rates.

Obviously, having a team in London or another city in another country would allow there to be a larger global interest in the game but it would cause many problems in terms of migration from one country to another. At the moment, 97.12 % of the players who play in the NFL are born in America.63 This means that creating a team in London would cause problems for those who are selected to play as part of the London team. This would be the same if there was a team in any other country rather than America, possibly barring Canada due to its proximity. This means that expanding globally could be unpopular from players as they won’t want to have to travel back and forth if they live in America.

Working visas are also a problem for global expansion. In a country like Britain, a working visa would be granted to a player who would benefit the British participation in a game.64 This could be easy for one player as it would be easy to argue that they could increase the profile of the game and cause a greater exposure to the British Public, as they would attract more news due to the 60 http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/e/ermabombec110676.html 61 http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/9716479/nfl-team-london-raises-legal-issues 62 ibid63 http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1641528-where-does-nfl-talent-come-from 64 http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/9716479/nfl-team-london-raises-legal-issues


http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/9716479/nfl-team-london-raises-legal-issues


http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1641528-where-does-nfl-talent-come-from




http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/e/ermabombec110676.html

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/e/ermabombec110676.html


profile of the player. It would be difficult though if the whole of the team were made up of only Americans, this would be a lot harder to argue that each individual in the team would create a significant difference to the participation of the sport in Britain. Hence meaning that not every player would be able to play if they came to Britain.


2001 2003 2005 2007 2009 2011

Manches-ter United

Man-chester CityBaltimore Ravens

New York Giants



97.12%

USAGermanyCanadaAfricaJamaicaAustraliaEnglandHaitiScotlandTongaBarabadosEstoniaItalyJapanNew ZealandPhillipinesPolandRomaniaSamoaSouth Korea

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aAf

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12Chart 11 : Expansion of the Foreign Nationalities in the NFL

Chart 12 : Nationalities in the NFL


Another reason that there may be no global expansion is because of the style of the game. The game is very different from the game of football and many of the supporters choose sports that , “…have an element of flow.” 65 The NFL is very different as it is much more staggered, being a game that has plays that are reset once anyone has their knee touch the ground.

It may be less about the British differences and dislikes of American Football, than it is about the dislike of American’s having their sport globalised. It has been shown that with sports such as football, that it was created in England, has been exported and globalised to other countries, and as with England, they soon fall behind in global rankings66, this could be something that America fear, a loss of dominance in the sport.

Some Americans don’t believe that there should be an International series, they have been quoted as saying, “They’ve got their football, why do they need ours?” and “They had NFL Europe and it failed, why should they have a second chance.”67 This was something that Tim Leiweke also mentioned as he said, “…but let us never forget the utter failure that American Football was with their Euro League.” There seems to be general consensus that American football outside of America isn’t something that everyone wants. This American view is an important view as there needs to be American backing to get the game to be globally successful. If it didn’t benefit the American population then they may start to dislike the sport and change their preference on which sports and leagues they watch, meaning that they can’t then get the domestic audience and viewers that they want. This is a very unlikely problem but it is one that could affect it.

A main problem that the NFL encounters is that it is a monopoly. This can be seen as a very fortunate position to be in as it means that if anyone wants to watch the sport then they will most likely, unless they are in to Canadian Football, watch the NFL. The problem posed

65 Quote by John Williams from:, http://keepingscore.blogs.time.com/2013/10/24/america-is-exporting-a-rotten-product-to-great-britain/ 66 England currently 15th http://www.fifa.com/worldranking/rankingtable/ 67 http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap1000000085949/article/nfl-in-london-a-british-fans-perspective


http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap1000000085949/article/nfl-in-london-a-british-fans-perspective


http://www.fifa.com/worldranking/rankingtable/

http://keepingscore.blogs.time.com/2013/10/24/america-is-exporting-a-rotten-product-to-great-britain/



by this is that it means that parity is often overused and it can be that the league over use their parity in certain situations as they know that the huge demand for NFL won’t be decreased by a change in the rules of the sport. This means that some of the laws and rules imposed by the board will benefit the league, as they do with the corporate structure of the NFL, but it may mean that popularity suffers. This was shown with a recent decision to ban ‘dunking’ the ball over the posts when scoring. 91.7% of the people who took an online poll on the Website Bleacher Report, said that they believed it was just the NFL using its administrative power unnecessarily. 68

There are also the problems that I have mentioned throughout this project, such as the effect of having a League that has a small amount of foreign players in it; the problem of having a salary cap, which can deter high performing players; the problem of there not being a desire for a foreign sport and also the problem of NFL not having worked outside of America before, as shown with NFL Europa. These are all problems that are just as relevant as the ones mentioned in this section, but they had already been mentioned. So have these problems hindered the NFL’s chance of ever being the most global league in the world?

68 http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2005406-nfl-bans-players-from-dunking-over-the-goal-post-in-celebration


Poll 2 : On the NFL using unnecessary Power

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2005406-nfl-bans-players-from-dunking-over-the-goal-post-in-celebration

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2005406-nfl-bans-players-from-dunking-over-the-goal-post-in-celebration

40 Conclusion

CONCLUSION

What I thought at the beginning of this project was that it was going to be clear that the NFL would never be as competitive as the Barclays Premier League. It seemed from my experience that the Premier League already had such a global influence that any other sport would struggle to ever get near the level which it was at. Throughout there has been mixed views on this, there has been some clear evidence towards the NFL being more appealing than the Premier League, hence making it have more of a chance of being global. Although there has also been a lot that implies that the Premier League is the globally dominant league and will continue to be.

What I have found that makes the National Football League more interesting and hence more globally popular is its structure, both corporately and for matches. The Parity that the National Football League has is one of its most alluring qualities. What I have found from my research is that many fans can get bored by a league that has eras of dominance that many Premier League teams have, and hence they want a league and a sport that allows teams to change positions every year. They want matches that will have an uncertain outcome. The NFL fulfills this quality and it creates more competitive matches through the use of a salary cap, to allow a fair roster to every team, and through the drafting system, which has the same effect as the salary cap. They also are able to create parity through their control, and the fact that they have a commissioner as the main decision maker, and not the 20 club shareholders that the Premier League has. This corporate structure has allowed them to control the League so that it benefits them and doesn’t just benefit the teams who play in it, which has been shown in the match day experience that is an NFL game.

The match day experience and entertainment is one of the main reasons that I have found that may make the NFL a more attractive and popular league around the world than the Premier League. The NFL has made watching a game an experience and they have allowed their matches to be attractable to more than the sports loving fans that are there for the action. There precise combination of action and entertainment has made the NFL match day experience unbeatable and makes watching the game live


41 Conclusion

something that gives this league an edge over all other leagues in the world. The other edge that it has is that it is the only high quality American Football League in the World. Its advantage of being a monopolistic league is that it has control over everyone who wants to watch American Football and also hence gets all the best talent without the need for over paid players, something that is a problem for the Premier League as highlighted by Andy Mollett as he said, “Top talent would go and play for teams in leagues without a salary cap.”.


42 Conclusion

What the Premier League has over the NFL is popularity and this is evident when looking into the desire for a team in a country, the Premier League has a massive worldwide following with many fans in countries such as China, Japan, Australia and many African Nations as well. This worldwide following is largely due to the prevalence of football in their society and due to this they watch the best football they can watch and this means they watch the Premier League. The Premier League also has the advantage of being a league that has a multitude of nationalities represented, this advantage over the NFL, which has 97.1% of its players American Born69, makes it much more interesting to those in the countries represented.

This bias towards homegrown players isn’t just the NFL’s only downfall when it comes to trying to become a global league. There are also many administrative problems with the league becoming global. These administrative problems can add to the difficulty of expanding the NFL to foreign shores and makes it less and less appetizing for both the League and Players. There are also problems with Broadcasting of the game which cause fewer and fewer people to watch the game abroad, studies such as the one done by the Wall Street Journal highlight the problem of a lack of action, with only 11% of the broadcasts over four games being action, and 59% of it being players standing around.70

So from my research I have found that the National Football League has good foundations on which to become the most global sport in the world, and a lot of what it offers in corporate structure and match day structure is superior to that of other leagues. Although it has this strong base on which to expand, it lacks the existing interest of foreign consumers while also having some key problems if it were to look to expand, which is one of the only ways that it could increase its underlying interest in the league. Hence, although the League is a great spectacle that has a very strong set of people running it, the original desire for NFL and its limited global exposure have hindered its chances of ever getting itself into less mature sports markets such as those in Asia and Africa, and this is why it will not be as global as the Barclays Premier League.

69 http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1641528-where-does-nfl-talent-come-from 70 http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052748704281204575002852055561406


http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052748704281204575002852055561406

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052748704281204575002852055561406



43 Conclusion


44 Evaluation

EVALUATION

I have learnt a lot from doing an Extended Project. I have acquired many new skills, which can be used in a variety of different situations while also enjoying what I was researching. However there were things that I didn’t excel at as much as I did with other parts of the project.

What I have learnt from the project is a whole new range of skills in many different forms from writing and researching to presenting. I have learnt to structure a project in a way which is easy to read and understandable. This is something which I will find very useful for essay competitions and for University. I have also learnt that time management is essential to any project. This should help me with other work as I will be able to structure the work in a way that will make the most of the time I have. Along with time management, I have also found that I understand the importance of early research much more than I had before. The importance of early research is something that I will take forward when doing more essays and competitions as researching while writing can often lead to a project that seems very patchwork. In terms of presenting a project, I have become more adept at standing in front of a group of people and speaking. I have also learnt the importance of visual aids to a presentation, how they must highlight points but also be interesting, and not just to list a large piece of prose. This being something that I have found vitally important as I am hoping to go into a career that will require a lot of selling ideas and presenting results to other people.

I found keeping to deadlines more difficult than I first thought it would be. Many deadlines that I created were done on the assumption that I would end up doing certain sections of the project under the title that I originally thought of, which is eventually not what happened. My indecisiveness on the title and exact areas that I was going to research meant that I was less able to set out a defined set of deadlines. It is showed by the change in my title from the one I proposed at the beginning of the project. It also meant that my research spanned a much longer period than first thought, which meant that I often had to research the project while also writing it, meaning that making the different sections combining was more difficult. I also felt that I could have got more comprehensive views on my topic, I got the views of many people but I was only able to get short snippets, as the people I questioned


45 Evaluation

didn’t have much time to answer a long question. This was annoying as it meant that I couldn’t get as much information from them as I would have liked. I also could have used more books although it was difficult to find ones that were relevant to my project, I looked online and in local libraries and had no luck due to the nature of what I was researching. This meant that I relied a lot upon websites, and articles. This wasn’t great as many of the websites I had to use were rife with bias towards certain aspects of the NFL and Barclays Premier League. One of the main problems that I encountered was the time management, and mainly writing the sections. I found that I often over-estimated my ability to write a section of my project, and didn’t envision the amount of unexpected difficulties that I would face. This meant that my expected amount of sections to be written went from 10 to 7 very quickly, as I worked out that I was running out of time.

So what do I think I did well? I thought that my research was good and that the amount of opinions and views that I found on the Internet was voluminous. The wide variety of people that I got short bits of opinion from was very good. The caliber of these people was also very good and I often found that the sources I used didn’t give me irrelevant information but instead gave me concise and informative overviews. I also think the amount of cross referencing between sources was one of the better points of my project, as I would often use the information in one source to clarify is credibility through searching it up and getting other independent sources quoting the same facts and data. I also think the structure of my project was good. I feel that I linked the different parts of my project in relevantly without going from one section to another with a drastic change in topic, hence I think that I have been able to grasp how to make a dissertation flow better, which I think has made it easier to read. I also think that the choice of sections to do the topic on was very relevant to the topic and I didn’t stray from the title as much as I could have. This meant that most of the information I wrote about was completely relevant to what I was researching and that I didn’t relinquish myself to different and interesting information that I found.

If I had the chance to do this project gain then I would do a lot more research at the beginning, as one of my main problems was only having a basic knowledge of what I was doing at the beginning and hence I didn’t have a title that I actually wanted to research. I would also include more reasons for and against the National Football League’s global popularity. I would mainly look at


46 Evaluation

the popularity of the sport to be played and it effect on people watching it and being selected for the NFL teams. I would also look at more of the reasons for the Barclays Premier Leagues current global popularity as I didn’t look specifically at it’s reasons. I may have also looked a bit more into why people think sports are popular and hence have another section on that. If I were to do another EPQ then I would base it on whether another American League such as the NBA is more global than the NFL and if it isn’t, would it be able to become more global.


47 Citations and Data

CITATIONS & DATA

PICTURES

1 http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1429514/thumbs/o-WEMBLEY-NFL-facebook.jpg

2 http://intangiblesports.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/nfl-playoff-picture-2014-dates-times-schedule.jpg

3 http://s2.photobucket.com/user/forrest2911/media/Wembley1986.jpg.html

4 http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/70735000/jpg/_70735599_londonmonarchsamericanfootball_getty.jpg

5 http://media.nj.com/giants_impact/photo/giants-david-tyreejpg-6af076095fbe885c.jpg

CHARTS DATA FROM:

1http://ifaf.org/countries/federation_listhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_men's_national_association_football_teams

2 http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/Comparing-Four-NFL-Games.html

3

http://espn.go.com/nfl/playoffs/2012/story/_/id/8913211/http://www.theguardian.com/media/2012/feb/07/super-bowl-2012-tv-ratings-recordhttp://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2011/02/07/super-bowl-xlv-poised-to-break-viewing-records-ties-1987-with-highest-overnight-ratings-ever/81684/

4http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1641528-where-does-nfl-talent-come-fromhttps://www.google.com/fusiontables/DataSource?docid=1M8IUP87TX4FEll9NDhIkNOISrkZv5CNSt45CEA8

5 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Manchester_City_F.C._seasons

6

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_NFL_Drafthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_NFL_Drafthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_NFL_Drafthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_NFL_Drafthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_NFL_Drafthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_NFL_Drafthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_NFL_Drafthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_nfl_drafthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_NFL_Drafthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_NFL_Drafthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_NFL_Drafthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Manchester_United_F.C._seasons



CHARTS DATA FROM:

7

http://www.soccerstats.com/attendance.asp?league=england_2009http://www.soccerstats.com/attendance.asp?league=england_2010http://www.soccerstats.com/attendance.asp?league=england_2011http://www.soccerstats.com/attendance.asp?league=england_2012http://www.soccerstats.com/attendance.asp?league=england_2013http://www.soccerstats.com/attendance.asp?league=englandhttp://espn.go.com/nfl/attendance/_/year/2008http://espn.go.com/nfl/attendance/_/year/2009http://espn.go.com/nfl/attendance/_/year/2010http://espn.go.com/nfl/attendance/_/year/2011http://espn.go.com/nfl/attendance/_/year/2012http://espn.go.com/nfl/attendance/_/year/2013

8

http://www.soccerstats.com/attendance.asp?league=england_2009http://www.soccerstats.com/attendance.asp?league=england_2010http://www.soccerstats.com/attendance.asp?league=england_2011http://www.soccerstats.com/attendance.asp?league=england_2012http://www.soccerstats.com/attendance.asp?league=england_2013http://www.soccerstats.com/attendance.asp?league=englandhttp://espn.go.com/nfl/attendance/_/year/2008http://espn.go.com/nfl/attendance/_/year/2009http://espn.go.com/nfl/attendance/_/year/2010http://espn.go.com/nfl/attendance/_/year/2011http://espn.go.com/nfl/attendance/_/year/2012http://espn.go.com/nfl/attendance/_/year/2013

9https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AonYZs4MzlZbdHNtcUVKRktZMUNfZEtDMmNCZGpNWWc&usp=sharing#gid=0

10

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_NFL_Drafthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_NFL_Drafthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_NFL_Drafthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_NFL_Drafthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_NFL_Drafthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_NFL_Drafthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_NFL_Drafthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_nfl_drafthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_NFL_Drafthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_NFL_Drafthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_NFL_Drafthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Manchester_United_F.C._seasonshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Manchester_City_F.C._seasons



11 http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1641528-where-does-nfl-talent-come-from

12 http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1641528-where-does-nfl-talent-come-from

INFOGRAPHICS

1 Deloitte, Television, Media & Telecommunications Predictions 2014 p.6.

2 http://i.imgur.com/N5XcgzS.png

3 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2487073/Premier-League-graphic-shows-beat-anyone.html

POLLS

1 http://bleacherreport.com/articles/639788-premier-league-is-the-top-flight-becoming-boring

2 http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2005406-nfl-bans-players-from-dunking-over-the-goal-post-in-celebration


51 Bibliography

BIBLIOGRAPHY

BOOKSA. Edexcel, 2009. Student Guide : Level 3 Extended Project. 1st ed.

York: Pearson.This Book helped me understand the style of project that I was doing and the way to set about doing it.

B. Jay, K., 2004. More Than Just a Game: Sports in American Life since 1945. New York: Columbia University Press.This book has a useful chapter highlighting how American football made for good visual entertainment and had good figures on the viewing figures that came with it in the 1950’s and 1960’s.

C. Jozsa Jnr., F., 2003. American Sports Empire: How the Leagues Breed Success. Westport(Conneticut): Praeger.

This book was interesting and useful as it gave me more knowledge of the History of the NFL. It also explained the reasoning behind NFL Europe while also giving an insight into the way NFL changed to modern ways.

D. Markovits, A. S. & Hellerman, S. L., 2001. Offside: Soccer and American Exceptionalism. Princetown(New Jersey): Princetown University Press.

This book talked a lot about crowding of the American sports market and how the NFL used television to expand its American reach

E. Oriard, M., 2010. Brand NFL: Making and Selling America's Favorite Sport. Chapel Hill(North Carolina): University of North Carolina Press.

This books had very useful parts which gave more information about the subject but as like many of the other books, they lacked the relevant up to date information.

F. Sandvoss, C., 2003. A Game of Two Halves: Football Fandom, Television and Globalisation. 1st ed. New York: Routledge.

This book had certain chapters that were useful for understanding the fans view on Football and why they watch it.


52 Bibliography

G. Quinn, K., 2012. The Economics of the National Football League : The State of the Art 2012 ed. Vol. 2 p7-31 New York: Springer.

This part of the book was very useful for understanding the structure of the League. It helped me understand the centralized structure of the NFL and lead to me looking at the Constitution and Bylaws of the NFL.

H. Crawford, G., 2004, Consuming Sport: Fans, Sport and Culture, New York: Routledge.This book was helpful as it explained some of the reasons behind sports fans watching sport in different ways.

I. Carter, D., 2011, Money Games : Profiting from the Convergence of Sport and Entertainment, Stanford, Stanford University PressThis book was very beneficial towards my project as it was on one of my main topics, sport and entertainment. Many of the chapters had useful information on the combination of entertainment and sport and more specifically towards the use of entertainment in the NFL.

J. Callaghan, T., 2007, The GM, New York: CrownThis book was very useful for understanding the different sectors of the league that the General Managers of each franchise have to control. It gave useful information on drafting and the salary cap.

K. McCambridge, M., Shields, B., 2004, America’s Game : The Epic Story of How Pro Football captured a Nation, New York: Random HouseThis book helped me to understand the background behind the NFL’s rise to fame but due to its publishing date, much of the information that was enclosed within it become out of date and hence it acted as more of a source to help with understanding of the League’s history.

L. Rein, I., Kotler, P., Shields, B., 2004, America’s Game : The Epic Story of How Pro Football captured a Nation, 2006, The Elusive Fan : reinventing Sports in a Crowded Marketplace, United States of America : McGraw-HillThis book had a useful Chapters on Connecting with fans while using a sporting brand which can be applied to the NFL


53 Bibliography

WEBSITES

1. Isola, F., 2013. Celebrating the similarities between the English Premier League and NFL. [Online] Available at: http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/soccer/isola-ready-futbol-article-1.1428427[Accessed 22 September 2013].This source is an advertisement of the EPL (Barclays Premier League) being on NBC but does include interesting information about why Americans may watch NFL such as for the gambling opportunity.

2. Jones, D. et al., 2013. Deloitte Football Money League. [Online] Available at: http://www.deloitte.com/view/en_GB/uk/industries/sportsbusinessgroup/sports/football/deloitte-football-money-league/04b2e2eb8d24c310VgnVCM1000003256f70aRCRD.htm[Accessed 22 September 2013].This source wasn’t extremely useful as it was mainly an overview of their full publication so lacked any useful analysis and is now outdated.

3. NFL.com, 2013. NFL to FurtherInternational Growth; 3 Games in London in 2014. [Online] Available at: http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap2000000259165/article/nfl-to-further-international-growth-3-games-in-london-in-2014

[Accessed 22 September 2013].This source allowed me to see the effect of the NFL on increased participation and viewing of the NFL in Britain since the beginning of the game coming to London.

4. Tjarks, J., 2011. The Drastically Different Economics of the NFL and European Soccer. [Online] Available at: http://www.policymic.com/articles/2087/the-drastically-different-economics-of-the-nfl-and-european-soccer[Accessed 22 September 2013].This source showed the incredible differences that cause parity and fairness in the NFL yet also showed why europeans don’t enjoy the parity and choose a free-market system.

5. Gregory, J., 2011. BPL’s Goals in Comparison with MLB and NFL. [Online] Available at: http://iakobou.wordpress.com/2011/12/24/bpls-goals-in-comparison-with-mlb-and-nfl/[Accessed 23 September 2013].This source was useful as it meant that I could see the relationship between the quantity of scoring that occurred in the NFL in comparison with the NFL. It allowed one of the key things that makes a sport interesting to be compared. Its only drawback is that it could be opinionated.


http://www.policymic.com/articles/2087/the-drastically-different-economics-of-the-nfl-and-european-soccer

http://www.policymic.com/articles/2087/the-drastically-different-economics-of-the-nfl-and-european-soccer



54 Bibliography

6. Wilson, B., 2007. NFL: Vikings owners see bright future in new stadium. [Online] Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24286155[Accessed 2013 September 28th ].This source was mainly based on stadium expansion in America which isn’t relevant to my project but there is a part where they praise the use of equal distribution of television rights.

7. British Broadcasting Corporation, 2013. NFL looking to build fanbase in United Kingdom. [Online] Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/american-football/24274376[Accessed 13th October 2013].This source has confirmed for me that the NFL in America is already at its peak popularity and that the NL believe that international expansion is necessary for the expansion of the league..

8. Conway, R., 2013. Why the NFL matters to Wembley Stadium's financial future. [Online] Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/american-football/24227296[Accessed 13th October 2013].This source was useful as it showed that it isn’t just an American saturation of the game that could cause globalisation, but a need from foreign countries.

9. Yahoo Answers., 2008. Whats the difference between the nfc and afc?(sic.) [Online] Available at: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081127144718AAFTP4H[Accessed 2013 October 31st].This source allowed me to understand the structure of

the NFL better.10.Yahoo Answers., 2010. How does the NFL season work? [Online]

Available at: http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110508141300AAglJUp[Accessed 2013 October 31st].This source allowed me to understand the structure of

the NFL better.11.Berman, M., 2013. How the NFL is America’s Business? [Online]

Available at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-berman/how-the-nfl-is-americas-b_b_3179962.html[Accessed 2013 November 4th ]This source was useful at showing how the NFL is a well run business and hence makes a large amount of revenue which it can spend on self-promotion which can lead to globalisation.

12.Wikipedia, 2013. National League Draft [Online] Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Football_League_draft [Accessed 2013 November 12th ]This source was useful as it improved my knowledge on how the NFL Draft occurs.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Football_League_draft

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-berman/how-the-nfl-is-americas-b_b_3179962.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-berman/how-the-nfl-is-americas-b_b_3179962.html

http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110508141300AAglJUp

http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110508141300AAglJUp

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081127144718AAFTP4H

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081127144718AAFTP4H

55 Bibliography

13.Slater, M., 2013. NFL International Series: Roger Goodell seeks to conquer Britain [Online] Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/american-football/24687966 [Accessed 2013 November 20h ]This source had good information on why there could be a British/European NFL team and the comments section below also allowed some interesting insight to public views on the issue.

14.Wikipedia, 2013. History of Football in England [Online] Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_football_in_England [Accessed 2013 November 20th ]This source allowed me to see if there suddenly became a gap in the British Sporting Market in the 1980’s due to the firms and hooliganism.

15.Lawton, J., 2013. NFL could teach the Premier League a lot about financial fair play [Online] Available at: http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/news-and-comment/james-lawton-nfl-could-teach-the-premier-league-a-great-deal-about-financial-fair-play-8451598.html [Accessed 2013 November 20th ]This source was useful as it showed me that the NFL could be successful as it will be sustainable into the future whereas The Premier League Clubs may suffer as they have losses every year.

16.Brinson, W., 2013. Roger Goodell on LA or London NFL team first : ‘I want both’ [Online] Available at: http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/eye-on-football/24142624/roger-goodell-on-la-or-london-nfl-team-first-i-want-both [Accessed 2013 November 20th ]The source showed Roger Goodell’s desire to have a foreign team in London which could cause globalisation.

17.Wikipedia, 2013. Heysel Stadium Disaster [Online] Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heysel_Stadium_disaster [Accessed 2013 November 20th ]The source expanded my knowledge of the Heysel Disaster, which meant British clubs were banned from Europe and a gap in the market opened up for NFL.

18.Reynolds, N., 2012. Football in the UK: 1986 American Bowl [Online] Available at: http://www.profootballhof.com/history/2012/9/12/Pro-football-in-London-1986/ [Accessed 2013 November 20th ]This source highlights the importance of the American Bowl in 1986 and how it ‘whetted the appetite for NFL’.

19.Reynolds, N., 2012. Football in the UK: Whetting the Global Appetitie [Online] Available at: http://www.profootballhof.com/history/2012/9/19/NFL-





http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heysel_Stadium_disaster







56 Bibliography

football-in-United-Kingdom/ [Accessed 2013 November 20th ]This source provided an insight into what happened after the first American Bowl and how it showed there was still a desire for NFL in Britain.

20.Reynolds, N., 2012. Football in the UK: Hall of Famers at Wembley [Online] Available at: http://www.profootballhof.com/hof/2012/9/26/football-in-the-uk-hall-of-famers-at-wembley/ [Accessed 2013 November 20th ]This source showed Famous Players at Wembley, it was only slightly useful as it highlighted how the games were popular due to the players start status.

21.Reynolds, N., 2012. Football in the UK: “Real” NFL games [Online]

Available at: http://www.profootballhof.com/history/2012/10/3/football-in-the-uk-real-nfl-games/ [Accessed 2013 November 20th ]The Source explained how important it was to have the First International Series Game in 2007 and was also useful for figures.

22.Wikipedia, 2013. The Beautiful Game [Online] Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beautiful_Game[Accessed 2013 November 20th ]Source used as reference for where the term ‘beautiful

game came’ from23.Wembley Stadium.com, 2013. A History of American Football at

Wembley [Online] Available at: http://www.wembleystadium.com/Press/Press-Releases/2013/9/A-History-Of-American-Football-At-Wembley.aspx [Accessed 2013 November 20th ]This source was useful for getting a detailed history of American Football at Wembley.

24.NFLuk.com, 2013. Whole Site [Online] Available at: http://www.nfluk.com [Accessed 2013 November 21st ]This website wasn’t as useful as first thought; contacting them was difficult and it was more for selling the British NFL Game than for providing information.

25.Wikipedia, 2013. 1986-87 Manchester United F.C. season [Online] Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1986–87_Manchester_United_F.C._season[Accessed 2013 November 21st]This source was used to confirm a Manchester United Dominance at this time.

26.Various, 2008. What are the eras of pro football? [Online] Available at: http://www.pigskin-fever.com/index.php?s=b6010b0ea8ffd39cc2e5a55d353b99f8[Accessed 2013 November 21st]


http://www.nfluk.com/

http://www.profootballhof.com/history/2012/10/3/football-in-the-uk-real-nfl-games/

http://www.profootballhof.com/history/2012/10/3/football-in-the-uk-real-nfl-games/


57 Bibliography

This source had information of eras in the NFL as to allow the parity of the two leagues to be compared along with the parity before and after certain restrictions.

27.Brooke, T., 2013. How does the Salary Cap Work in the NFL? [Online] Available at: http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1665623-how-does-the-salary-cap-work-in-the-nfl[Accessed 2013 November 21st ]This source helped my knowledge of the salary cap and its significance to equality.

28.Wikipedia, 2013. XFL [Online] Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XFL[Accessed 2013 November 28th ]This source was on a rival League to the NFL, it helped to show its dominance in the American Sports market as this league didn’t last a long time. The League itself wasn’t useful.

29.Howstuffworks.com, 2013. How does the NFL’s Salary Cap Work [Online] Available at: http://www.howstuffworks.com/question644.htm[Accessed 2013 December 3rd ]This source aided in the understanding of the salary

cap.30.Schefter, A., 2013. Cowboys will be $31 million over cap [Online]

Available at: http://espn.go.com/dallas/nfl/story/_/id/9854353/dallas-cowboys-projected-31-million-salary-cap-2014[Accessed 2013 December 3rd ]This source showed that the salary cap can be manipulated to allow years of larger and smaller caps.

31.Wikipedia, 2013. Salary Cap [Online] Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salary_cap[Accessed 2013 December 3rd ]This source gave an overview of the Salary Cap.

32.Rosenthal, G., 2010. 20 questions about the uncapped year [Online] Available at: http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2010/03/03/20-questions-about-the-uncapped-year/[Accessed 2013 December 3rd ]This source allowed me to understand the implications of the uncapped year which was in 2010 when the CBA (Collective bargaining Agreement was being drawn up)

33.Various, 2013. An In-Depth Explanation of the NFL’s Salary Cap [Online] Available at: http://www.reddit.com/r/nfl/comments/187x86/an_indepth_explanation_of_the_nfls_salary_cap/[Accessed 2013 December 3rd ]This source explained certain aspects of the salary cap

in more detail.


58 Bibliography

34.SalaryCap101.net, 2013. The NFL Salary Cap [Online] Available at: salarycap101.net[Accessed 2013 December 3rd ]This source was an overview of the salary cap and

everything to do with it.35.Dosh, K., 2013. NFL in London raises legal issues [Online]

Available at: http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/9716479/nfl-team-london-raises-legal-issues [Accessed 2013 December 8th ]This source outlines some of the problems with expansion to the UK and possibly abroad,. It is mainly based on financial and political subjects.

36.Wesseling, C., 2013. NFL sets 2013 salary cap at $123M, up for $120.6M [Online] Available at: http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap1000000146046/article/nfl-sets-2013-salary-cap-at-123m-up-from-1206m [Accessed 2013 December 29th]This source was useful for seeing the Salary Cap

increase.37.Wikipedia, 2013. Manchester City F.C. [Online]

Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchester_City_F.C.[Accessed 2013 December 29th ]This source ended up not being useful for me, it didn’t explain enough about Manchester City’s takeover.

38.Wikipedia, 2013. Manchester City F.C. Seasons [Online] Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchester_City_F.C._seasons[Accessed 2013 December 29th ]This source provided data on how Manchester City changed position over time.

39.Wilson, J., 2013. The Question: Just how competitive is the Premier League? [Online] Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2011/oct/19/the-question-how-competitive-premier-league?commentpage=1 [Accessed 2013 December 29th]This source showed how the Premier League isn’t competitive an that there isn’t much Parity in it.

40.Wikipedia, 2013. Manchester United F.C. Seasons [Online] Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchester_United_F.C._seasons[Accessed 2013 December 30th ]Used to determine the best eras of Manchester United and their finishing positions for Manchester United.

41.Gill, J., 2010. The NFL Team of the Decade: The New England Patriots [Online] Available at: http://bleacherreport.com/articles/323109-nfl-team-of-decade-the-new-england-patriots[Accessed 2013 December 30th]This source showed me that the New England Patriots are the best NFL team over the past decade.


59 Bibliography

42.Sears, B., 2010. Manchester United top ‘league of the decade’, as Blackpool soar to 10-year high [Online] Available at: http://www.sportingintelligence.com/2010/05/17/manchester-united-top-‘league-of-the-decade’-as-blackpool-soar-to-10-year-high-170501/[Accessed 2014 January 1st ]This confirmed that Manchester United are the best Premier League team over the past decade.

43.BBC.co.uk, 2013. Viewpoints: Is a salary of £300,00 a week too much? [Online] Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23931053[Accessed 2014 January 1st]This source shows different viewpoints on the subject of salaries, which are possibly too extreme, this isn’t the important part though. What is more important is their beliefs on the league, and the fact that ticket prices are rising while the clubs are still in debt, this can then be compared to the NFL which doesn’t have this problem.

44.Harris, A., 2013. Highest Paid Soccer Players - 2013 [Online] Available at: http://worldsoccer.about.com/od/players/tp/Highest-Paid-Soccer-Players-2013.htm[Accessed 2014 January 1st ]This source provided me with an idea of what the highest paid soccer players were so I could compare with American Football Players.

45.Sports Illustrated, 2013. Ten Highest Paid NFL Players [Online] Available at: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/nfl/photos/1303/ten-highest-paid-nfl-players/1/ [Accessed 2014 January 1st ]This source showed me that although the overall salary of NFL clubs is different, the top players are paid the same amount.

46.Badenhausen, K., 2011. The NFL signs TV Deals Worth $27 Billion [Online] Available at: http://www.forbes.com/sites/kurtbadenhausen/2011/12/14/the-nfl-signs-tv-deals-worth-26-billion/[Accessed 2014 January 4th ]This source was useful for seeing the effect that Television Rights has on the NFL.

47.Badenhausen, K., Ozanian, M., Settimi, C., 2013. Football’s Most Valuable Teams[Online] Available at: http://www.forbes.com/nfl-valuations/#page:1_sort:0_direction:asc_search:[Accessed 2014 January 4th ]This Source showed that there still isn’t complete parity between all teams in the NFL as some are more valuable than others.

48.Ozanian, M., 2013. The Most Valuable NFL Teams[Online] Available at:


60 Bibliography

http://www.forbes.com/sites/mikeozanian/2013/08/14/the-most-valuable-nfl-teams/[Accessed 2014 January 4th ]This Source expanded on the reasons for teams becoming more valuable than others over the past few years.

49.Wilson, B., 2012. NFL continues American Football export drive to UK[Online] Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20049783[Accessed 2014 January 4th ]This source highlights how the NFL is pushing harder and harder to export its league to the UK

50.Wikipedia, 2014. List of Premier League Broadcasters [Online] Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Premier_League_broadcasters [Accessed 2014 January 10th ]This source shows the different broadcasters of the premier league, it allows me to see how global the television coverage is.

51.Sport Witness, 2012. Manchester United set to see hike in shirt sales as Dortmund reveal Kagawa effect[Online] Available at: http://sportwitness.ning.com/forum/topics/manchester-united-set-to-see-hike-in-shirt-sales-as-dortmund-reve[Accessed 2014 January 10th ]This source shows how a player can increase the global interest in a team and hence the league.

52.Sedghi, A., 2013. All 100 overseas countries represented in the Premier League [Online] Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/interactive/2013/aug/22/all-100-overseas-nationalities-premier-league[Accessed 2014 January 11th ]Shows the amount of different Countries that have players playing in the Premier League which will show its global interest.

53.Hogan, R., 2013. NFL getting more “Intenational” All The Time [Online] Available at: http://proplayerinsiders.com/nfl-getting-more-international-all-the-time/[Accessed 2014 January 11th ]This source is really useful for seeing not only how the NFL is expanding globally in terms of playing matches but also in terms of the players in the league.

54.Dorset, K., 2013. The 2013 Circel of Parity is Complete [Online] Available at: http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1864887-the-2013-nfl-circle-of-parity-is-compelete[Accessed 2014 January 11th ]This source showed how the Circle of Parity for the NFL had been completed for a second year in a row. I used the circle in the actual dissertation.


61 Bibliography

55.Sharpe, B., 2008. Change the Record: A Premier League Parity Plan [Online] Available at: http://bleacherreport.com/articles/49935-change-the-record-a-premier-league-parity-plan[Accessed 2014 January 11th ]This source is an opinionated article on how they would change the Premier League to make it fairer.

56.Drayton, J., 2013. Proof that anyone can beat anyone in the Premier League this season [Online] Available at: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2487073/Premier-League-graphic-shows-beat-anyone.html[Accessed 2014 January 11th ]This source showed the circle of Parity in the Premier League after 10 games of football, a rare occurrence in the Premier League.

57.Lackner, A., 2012. Salary Cap FAQ [Online] Available at: http://www.askthecommish.com/SalaryCap/faq.aspx[Accessed 2014 January 12th ]This source just reinforced some the already known information on the Salary Cap, hence making it less useful than it would have been if I hadn’t looked at the other sources.

58.Starkey, C., 2011. Premier League: Is the Top Flight Becoming Boring? [Online] Available at: http://bleacherreport.com/articles/639788-premier-league-is-the-top-flight-becoming-boring [Accessed 2014 January 12th ]This source was useful for its poll which showed that it was a split view on the Premier League becoming too predictable.

59.British Broadcasting Corporation, 2010. Champions League Final Tops Superbowl for TV Market [Online] Available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/europe/8490351.stm [Accessed 2014 January 21st ]This source showed how the Superbowl hadn’t had the highest viewing figures for the first time which shows that it may be expanding slower than European Football. This is slightly useless as it is the Champions League and not the Barclays Premier League.

60.Ashby, K., 2013. Wembley final proves global pulling power [Online] Available at: http://www.uefa.com/uefachampionsleague/news/newsid=1957523.html [Accessed 2014 January 21st ]This source highlighted the global pull of the

Champions League Final61. Spicer, N., 2010. Why do you Watch Sports? [Online]

Available at: http://bleacherreport.com/articles/348181-sports-why-do-you-watch [Accessed 2013 February 28th]


http://bleacherreport.com/articles/348181-sports-why-do-you-watch

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/348181-sports-why-do-you-watch

62 Bibliography

This source was meant to explain why some people did so but it didn’t help me as I was looking for a source that focused more on the viewing of sport, this was more on brand loyalty.

62. Stewart Palmer, I., 2013, Premier League’s Salary Cap Confusing at Best [Online]Available at: http://www.ftbpro.com/posts/ian.stewart.palmer/142113/premier-league-s-salary-cap-confusing-at-best[Accessed 2014 March 2nd ]This source was useful as it shows how the Premier League are using a salary cap to lower the amount clubs have.

63. Peck, J., 2013, Premier League: Would a salary cap work? [Online]Available at: http://www.givemesport.com/354190-premier-league-would-a-salary-cap-work [Accessed 2014 March 2nd]This source explained how the salary cap and financial fair play measure that are coming into effect in the Premier League.

64. Sale, C., 2013, Premier League agree new financial cap and teams will face points deduction if they breach new rules. [Online] Available at: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2274957/Financial-Fair-Play-Premier-League-agree-financial-cap-clubs-face-points-deduction.html [Accessed 2014 March 2nd]This source has shown me that clubs like Manchester City and Chelsea would be affected by the Salary Cap on the Premier League but the cap imposed wouldn’t actually effect them as it isn’t stringent enough.

65. Knox, K., 2014, 7 Biggest Problems facing the NFL in 2014-15 [Online] Available at:http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1922377-7-biggest-problems-facing-the-nfl-in-2014-15 [Accessed 2014 March 4th ]This source was useful for showing some of the problems that are occurring in the NFL and which could be intensified over the next year.

66. ESPN Staff, 2013, Premier League tickets continue to rise [Online] Available at: http://www.espn.co.uk/football/sport/story/237339.html [Accessed 2014 March 4th ]


http://www.espn.co.uk/football/sport/story/237339.html

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1922377-7-biggest-problems-facing-the-nfl-in-2014-15

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1922377-7-biggest-problems-facing-the-nfl-in-2014-15

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2274957/Financial-Fair-Play-Premier-League-agree-financial-cap-clubs-face-points-deduction.html





http://www.ftbpro.com/posts/ian.stewart.palmer/142113/premier-league-s-salary-cap-confusing-at-best

http://www.ftbpro.com/posts/ian.stewart.palmer/142113/premier-league-s-salary-cap-confusing-at-best

63 Bibliography

This source has shown that although ticket process for many of the British leagues have fallen, the Premier Leagues are still rising.

67. History.com, Unavailable , NFL and AFL announce merger [Online] Available at: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/nfl-and-afl-announce-merger [Accessed 2014 March 4th ]This source has helped explain the merger between the AFL and NFL to form the two conferenced league that exists today as the National Football League.

68. Wilson, P., 2010, Heysel was the worst thing imaginable says Phil NealAvailable at: http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2010/may/28/heysel-disaster-25th-anniversary [Accessed 2014 March 4th ]This source helped me to understand the effect of the Heysel Disaster on Football in England.

69. Gaines, C., 2011, Sports Chart of the Day: International Origins of NFL Players [Online] Accessed at : http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-international-origins-of-nfl-players-2011-11 [Accessed 2014 March 8th ]This source was useful for seeing the international origins of many of the NFL players while also seeing the percentage of American players in the NFL. The only problems with this source is that it is from 2011 meaning the data is 2-3 years old.

70. Kacsmar, S., 2013, Where does NFL Talent Come from? [Online] Available at : http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1641528-where-does-nfl-talent-come-from [Accessed 2014 March 8th ]This source was very useful for up to date data on the nationality of the players in the National Football League. It also provided valuable data for a chart used in the project

71. Gregory, S., 2013, America is exporting a rotten product to Great Britain [Online]Available at : http://keepingscore.blogs.time.com/2013/10/24/america-is-exporting-a-rotten-product-to-great-britain/ [Accessed 2014 8th March]












64 Bibliography

This source helped me understand that there may be a decreased desire for NFL in Britain .

72. Hodgson, H., 2012, NFL in London: A British Fan’s perspective [Online]Available at: http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap1000000085949/article/nfl-in-london-a-british-fans-perspective [Accessed at 08.03.14]This source provided an interesting insight into how American fans view the expansion of the NFL abroad, mainly to Europe. It also talks about British fans view on the want for a team.

73. Wikipedia, 2014, NFL Europe [Online] Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NFL_Europe [Accessed 2014 March 9th]This source gave basic background facts and knowledge about the NFL league set up in Europe.

74. Gough, M., 2007, Giants beat Miami at Wet Wembley [Online]Available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/other_sports/american_football/7056755.stm [Accessed 2014 March 9th]This source provided some information on the first International Series Match in Britain

75. Daily Mail, 2007, Giants and Dolphins could have sold out Wembley 10 times over [Online] Available at: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/othersports/article-455301/Dolphins-Giants-sold-Wembley-10-times-over.html [Accessed 2014 March 9th]This source showed the demand for tickets to the first International Series Game at Wembley.

76. Flintt, J., 2013, FCC wants to eliminate sports blackout rules [Online] Available at: http://articles.latimes.com/2013/dec/18/entertainment/la-et-ct-fcc-nfl-blackout-20131218 [Accessed 2014 March 24th ]This source added some information on the FCC’s views on the blackout rule which can effect attendances. I didn’t use a lot of this website as much of it wasn’t relevant to what I wanted.








http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NFL_Europe



65 Bibliography

ARTICLES

i. Blackshaw, I., 2009. Money Laundering and Tax Evasion in Football. The International Sports Law Journal, July - October, Issue 3-4, p. All Pages. This source shows how the Barclays Premier League’s structure may struggle to control things such as wages and hence theer is a large amount of tax evasion and money laundering.

ii. Cressman, D. & Swenson, L., 2007. The Pigskin and the Picture Tube: The National Football League's First Full Season on the CBS Television Network. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, September, 51(3), p. All. This source was useful for the History of Television and the NFL but had a lot that wasn’t relevant to the modern day NFL.

iii. Davis, M. & End, C., 2010. A Winning Proposition: The Economic Impact of Successful National Football League Franchises. Economic Enquiry, January, 48(1), p. All Pages. This sourec was useful in seeing that the parity and unknown success of the league could cause a better local economy. This would imply that NFL victory would be desired and hence a British Team may be desired for that reason.

iv. Field, H., 2013. Throwing the Red Flag: Challenging the NFL's Lessons for American Business. Journal of Corporation Law, Winter, 38(2), p. All. This Article was useful at the beginning of the project as I was questioning whether to go deep into the business structure of the NFl but eventually veered away from it and hence this sourec became less relevant to the final project, although it did give me some original guidance.

v. Pritchard, A., 2011. Caught between a Base and a Foot Place: The First Year of Operation of the Indian Premier League. International Journal of Sports Marketing & Sponsorship, January.p. All Pages.This source was one I looked at when deciding what to do my project on, it now has little relevance.

vi. Buraimo, B., Simmons, R., 2008, Do Sports fans really value uncertainty of outcome? Evidence from the Premier League. The International Journal of Sport Finance, p.146-155This source was very useful for seeing whether parity endeared people to matches more than if there was a large quality gap between teams.

vii. Deloitte Sports Business Group, 2014, All to Play for : The Football Money League , p. All


66 Bibliography

This source gave interesting and useful information towards how Premier League clubs make their money and how affluent they are because of certain


67 Bibliography

INTERVIEWS

a. Durant, K., 2013. NBA star Kevin Durant on starting pre-season in Manchester [Interview] (2007 October 2013). Availble at : http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/basketball/24439431

b. Leiweke, T. (CEO of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment & and Former CEO of AEG) The importance of the governing bodies set up and how it effects the LeaguesThis Interview was extremely useful. Tim is a very reliable and useful source as he tried to bring an NFL Team to Los Angeles. His answer explained how before becoming global, it must first try to do the same as the other Major Leagues and tackle the Canadian Sports Market. [Reply Below]

c. Mollet, A. (CFO, West Ham Football Club) The effect of a salary Cap on the Premier LeagueThis Interview was very useful as it made me think of the difficulties faced by clubs which have more than one league of the same sport, on a similar popularity, but that aren’t governed by the same body. The answer in relation to the salary cap also provided a useful example. [Reply Below]

d. Carter, D. (Associate Professor of Management and Organization & Executive Director of the Sports Business Institute at USC Marshall School of Business), How does NFL show the integration of sport and entertainmentThis Interview allowed me to get a comment on how entertainment and the NFL are linked from one of the leading experts in the field of sport and business. [Transcript Below]

e. Wilson, B. (Journalist, Primarily for British Broadcasting Corporation) , Comments on whether the Premier League will be as global as the NFL. This interview was helpful although Bill Wilson wished that his comments were only used internally, hence meaning that they can’t be used for this external dissertation. This is annoying but I was able to use his thoughts to expand the research that I undertook. [Transcript below]

f. Holmes, I. (Head of Media Rights for Formula 1) , Effect of Television on availability of informationThis interview was very useful as Ian highlighted how much television can aid with the watching of sport, his mentioning of other devices being used a lot in modern day society also makes his reply very useful. [Reply Below]


http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/basketball/24439431

68 Bibliography


69 Bibliography

VIDEO

I. 24sports, 2013. NFL returns to London! YouTube. Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGsApWFGRHQ

This source was interesting as it talked about the hype of the NFL returning to London.

II. asmithproduction, 2013. NFL Eyes China for International Expansion. YouTube. Available at: http://www.y outube.com/watch?v=Hjgw_quT4yA

This source showed me how the NFL want to aim for an expansion in China as they see this as one of the main ‘untapped markets’

III.CNNInternational, 2012. The NFL’s Global Strategy. YoutTube. Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0epH4wjCQAThis source was helpful for understanding what some of the NFL’s main aims of the NFL’s expansion plan.

IV. WEBN-TV Boston, 2012. Manifest destiny for NFL?. Boston: YouTube. Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gf3gmu9NXOM

This source was Roger Goodell talking about the NFL’s destiny and it is very interesting to see that he would expand the League by 2 teams and also is aiming to play in South America.

CONSTITUTIONS

01. Constitutions and Bylaws of the NFL, Available at: http://static.nfl.com/static/content/public/static/html/careers/pdf/co_.pdf This source was very useful for understanding the corporate structure of the NFL. Its information is unbelievably reliable as it is issued by the NFL and is what they use to define the roles of people in the organization.

02. Collective Bargaining Agreement, 2011




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gf3gmu9NXOM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gf3gmu9NXOM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0epH4wjCQA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0epH4wjCQA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hjgw_quT4yA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hjgw_quT4yA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGsApWFGRHQ

70 Bibliography

Available from: http://nfllabor.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/collective-bargaining-agreement-2011-2020.pdfThis source was very useful as it gave me more of an insight into the way players were paid after 2011. It was very reliable but it was difficult to find the relevant information from the document.


http://nfllabor.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/collective-bargaining-agreement-2011-2020.pdf

http://nfllabor.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/collective-bargaining-agreement-2011-2020.pdf

71 Interview Transcripts

INTERVIEW B. REPLY

I have not included the question in this email as the question was asked by my father as he was the one who was able to get the contact details of this person, as they are not publically available, I asked for the question for him to ask him to be:

How Important is it that a league like the NFL is controlled centrally in the way it is verses the Premier League set up?

The response was:

Would love to help Finnish as he is still my favorite food critic of all time. So here it goes;

The brilliance of the NFL, like the NBA, is that the best players in the world for American Football all play in one league. Thus the NFL has a total monopoly on the sport worldwide. Not the case with the EPL. There are at least three other football leagues that have the same kind of following. Economics and status as EPL, LA Ligue, Serie A, Bundistleague. In addition, there are another dozen leagues that have massive followings in their home countries. EPL is the best and most followed football league in the world, but it has massive competition worldwide. The NFL does not.

That said, the NFL is still only played in one country. It has not even been able to break into the Canadian market, unlike every other US major league. Talk of a world domination is pre-mature due to the lack of worldwide participation and a current business plan that only involves the teams representing US cities.

As the NFL has proven in London, there is interest in the sport outside of their current footprint, but let us never forget the utter failure that American Football was with their Euro League.

Hope that helps. Sounds like all is well with you and the family. Will be in London in the fall for a sports conference. Guess they want to hear how we over paid DaFoe. Would love to catch up. Best to all. Cheers

Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the Rogers network.



INTERVIEW C. REPLY


Do you think a salary cap would be beneficial to Premier League clubs, or would it be detrimental? Plus, do you think it would it effect the popularity of the sport?

The response was:

Finn,

Here's my answer-I hope it's expert enough for you!

A salary cap would be detrimental as it would place the PL at a disadvantage to other leagues, especially European ones. Top talent would go and play for teams in leagues without a salary cap. The talent drain would impact on the attractiveness of the PL to global broadcasters, sponsors and fans.

The PL would become less popular without the highly-paid stars and if the PL is impacted, inevitably the rest of football in the UK would also be impacted.

There is already a mechanism in place with the Fair Play Rules to force clubs to restrict their Player costs, the additional restriction of a salary cap is not required.

Best regards

Andy



INTERVIEW D. TRANSCRIPT

Subject: Questions due to Reading of Money Games

Dear Mr. Carter,

I am currently doing a Qualification as part of the British Education System and I have been recommended your book by my father, David Campbell, whom you interviewed for it. My Qualification involves a dissertation, which is on the global expansion of NFL. One of the sections in my dissertation is titled ‘Is The National Football League as much about entertainment as it is about the Sport?’ Due to the nature of your book, I was wondering if you would be able to give me a short quote based on this title, which I would be able to include in my Dissertation, any information would be kindly appreciated.

Kindest Regards,

Finn Campbell

[email protected]

+44 7512 198 050



FIRST RESPONSE

Finn,

Great to hear from you; thanks for reaching out.

So, you are looking for a quote from me that describes how I believe the NFL represents the intersection of sports and entertainment? How long would you like it to be? A few sentences?

David M. Carter

Principal

Sports Business Group

www.sportsbusinessgroup.com

Executive Director

USC Marshall Sports Business Institute

www.marshall.usc.edu/faculty/centers/sbi



E-MAIL REPLY

Dear David,

Thank you for your quick reply. A quote, a few sentences long, on how you think the NFL shows an intersection of sports and entertainment would be perfect for me.

Kind Regards,

Finn Campbell

RESPONSE : E-MAIL REPLY

“The Super Bowl is perhaps the best example of how the NFL has successfully blended sports and entertainment. What was once ‘just a game,’ has evolved into nothing short of a national holiday. Each and every element of the lead up to, and playing of, the game is marked by the intersection of sports and entertainment. Most notably, the half time show and the commercials aired during the game have helped transform the Super Bowl from a sporting event to a cultural experience. This optimal blend of sports and entertainment has resulted in the game being the highest viewed TV event annually.”

David M. CarterPrincipal

Sports Business Group

www.sportsbusinessgroup.com



Executive Director

USC Marshall Sports Business Institute

www.marshall.usc.edu/faculty/centers/sbi

INTERVIEW E. TRANSCRIPT

ORIGINAL E-MAIL

Subject: The Business of the Premier League

Dear Mr. Wilson,

I am currently doing a qualification that requires the writing of a dissertation and for this dissertation I have come across a few of your articles for the BBC on sport and business. Would it be possible for you to give me your own personal opinion, in the form of a short quote, for one of the sections of my project, that I can then include with you being accredited. The project is on whether the NFL will ever be as global a league as the Barclays Premier League which involves a large amount of sport and business which you seem to be well experienced in.

Kindest Regards,

Finn Campbell

RESPONSE:

Hello Finn,As long as it is for internal college consumption 71 only then that should be ok. Also to clarify that the views are my own and not those of the BBC, and I would be happy if you could mention that.

71 Reason for non-publishing of Bill Wilson’s Response



Yours sincerely,Bill Wilson


“The NFL and Premier League are both at the forefront of sports series which are looking to establish themselves as global brands. In some ways the NFL has stolen a march of the Premier League by hosting ‘full season’ matches outside its home base, in the shape of the annual game(s) staged at Wembley Stadium.

“However, given the fact that professional American football is played mainly in the USA and does not have the same global heritage and presence as soccer, then I think it will struggle to overtake with the Premier League globally, particularly in the emerging markets such as China and south-east Asia.

“However the NFL does have an opportunity to make inroads into mature sports markets, particularly Europe.”

Removed by Request of Bill

Wilson


INTERVIEW F. REPLY


In today’s world, how important is TV coverage of sport to those who would have originally not have been able to experience the sport first-hand and has this increased the numbers that follow those sports?

The response was:

Dear David

Good to hear from you. I hope you are well.

Things are pretty manic here as you can probably imagine with Melbourne starting in a couple of days but to be quite honest, we have been extraordinarily busy since about October last year. Still, I guess that’s a good thing. I would be more worried if I was sat here twiddling my thumbs!

Regarding Finn’s question…..

The simple answer is that Television (although the word Television is a little out-dated now on the basis that sports content is increasingly consumed on numerous connected devices) is an incredibly important medium to showcase a sport. If you take Formula One’s approx. 450 million individual viewers only a tiny portion of those people will have ever had an opportunity to actually attend an event. Addressing the NFL question specifically I personally do not believe that it will ever generate the sort of global interest that the English Premier League does (or La Liga and Seria A for that matter). It is too inaccessible, US focus and has no real culture or history outside of the USA.

I hope the above is of some help. It doesn’t feel like much……



Let me know if you ever arrange those beers with Duncan, maybe I will tag along.

Kind regards

Ian
