Business practices in the EPL are unlike what many American investors, like the Glazer family, are used toGETTY IMAGES
The Wall Street Journal’s JOSHUA ROBINSON wrote the book on the business of the English Premier League…literally. He and co-author JONATHAN CLEGG wrote “The Club: How The English Premier League Became The Wildest, Richest, Most Disruptive Force In Sports” after they realized no one else had told the story of how the league went from being defined by its hooliganism (the EPL was at one point banned from European competition for fear of its fans’ behavior), to being one of the most lucrative sports businesses in the world. Robinson spoke with THE DAILY to give an insider’s perspective on the EPL, how it can be tricky for American investors and what its future may hold.
Q: What are some of the differences in the experiences RANDY LERNER had with Aston Villa vs. STAN KROENKE at Arsenal and JOHN HENRY at Liverpool?
Robinson: What you'll find in common with all those guys when they arrived in England is that they were all shocked initially to find it really was a wild west. You ran into hucksters and charlatans at every turn because the business practices were not what they were familiar with and how they dealt with that was instructive. Randy Lerner got burned at Villa with a manager that didn't share his philosophy and spent money in a way that he didn't agree with, and lost interest and ultimately got caught in this awful spiral that led to Aston Villa’s relegation and Lerner selling the club at a huge loss. John Henry’s reaction to it has been maybe the best because he was flexible enough in his approach that he realized, ‘we're not going to outsmart them in the strict orthodoxy of moneyball because there are too many other factors here, but we're going to handle it as smartly as we can and we're going to have to spend money because that's the only thing that truly makes a huge difference.’ Stan Kroenke, certainly like the Glazers with Manchester United, felt the ire of the fans, which is something that you're not always prepared for coming from the States.
Q: How can we learn from those examples and predict what's going to happen with SHAD KHAN at Fulham?
Robinson: Shad Khan is in a tough spot now. He's already had some hard lessons in England. One was over the sale of Wembley, which he made a very generous offer to buy last year. He seemed to have a deal with the FA only to be undone by an obscure council, which was mostly worried about English soccer selling its crown jewel more than anything else. So that’s what I mean when I say they’re sometimes not prepared for how business is done in English soccer.
Q: There was a recent report that the EPL was looking to do its own streaming service. What do you think that could look like?
Robinson: The Premier League is so spread out around the world they’d have to test it in a few markets first, and everything would have to be geoblocked, but they already kind of do that. There would be demand for it. Especially as we’re seeing sports become unbundled from everything else the way they used to be as a driver of cable subscription. Talking about the U.S., that’s an interesting one because the Premier League has benefited so much from just being present and accessible on NBC.
Q: La Liga recently had a failed attempt to hold a regular season game in Miami. Could you see the EPL trying to do something similar with a regular-season game in the U.S.?
Robinson: We know it’s something they would like to do. They talked about a decade ago about a 39th game, which would be one extra round of regular-season games that they could take around the world, and that was shouted down by pretty much everyone involved. But that idea has not gone away. We know that there have been tentative discussions between the Premier League and NBC about taking a game to the United States. We know that the organizers of the ICC, people like (Relevent Sports Exec Chair) CHARLIE STILLITANO, would raise their hand immediately to help organize it. If all the parties could agree, I think they’d do it in a heartbeat.
Q: You called relegation perhaps the “most draconian punishment in sports,” could you ever see anything like it introduced to the American sports market?
Robinson: I highly doubt it, because American sports operate like cartels and the lack of relegation is what makes it so attractive. Once you’re in, you’re in, and you don’t have to win; you can be 0-16 every year in the NFL and still make money. The prospect of relegation is something that so freaks out a lot of the American owners (in the EPL) that they even have brought up in the past the idea of scrapping it, so I don’t think that you’d ever get the owners in America to agree.
