The transatlantic path toward "English football glory has become well-trodden in the past decade, with America’s richest hungry for the prestige of owning a top-flight club," according to Callum Jones of the LONDON TIMES. Money "has been flowing into Premier League clubs, and sides in the lower leagues with a shot at joining them, from America, and more recently from China, for some time." Sources predict that "much more is on the way." Last week, a U.S. consortium paid about £100M ($142M) "for a controlling stake in Swansea City." Interest in such takeover deals has "spiked in China since Xi Jinping, the country’s football-loving president, took office three years ago." But "why would anyone want to invest in the Premier League?" One of sport’s "most exhausted jokes explains how to become a millionaire: you start out as a billionaire and buy a football club." While "this crack serves as a testament to the notoriously unprofitable nature of many major sides, things recently turned something of a corner." A '12 "bidding war" to broadcast live coverage of Premier League matches in the U.K. "proved to be a game-changing moment in its 24-year history." Sky and BT agreed to pay £3B between the '13 and '15 seasons. With an estimated audience of 2 billion in 900 million homes worldwide, "the cost of overseas rights is also rising fast," raising £2.23B ($3.2B) in the past three seasons. Sports business consultancy Square1 Chair David Bick said, "You’ve got a whole clutch of clubs now seeing revenues that they couldn’t have dreamt of a few years ago. What other business model do you know where in theory you could finish bottom of the league with no points in every game and get a cheque for £100 million?" Despite its high stakes, the Premier League’s appeal among the world’s richest investors "appears to be increasing, perhaps because club revenues are forecast to do the same." Deloitte has calculated that Premier League clubs generated £3.6B ($5.1B) in revenues during '15-16. Deloitte Senior Consultant Adam Bull said, "This will likely spark a new wave of investor interest, with clubs viewed as genuine, profitable propositions rather than simply trophy assets" (LONDON TIMES, 6/13).
