2017-18 Premier League: Welcoming Fatboy and Picard

dirtynine

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Dec 17, 2002
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Philly
The fixture list is out, so it seemed like a good time to kick this off.

defending champ
Chelsea FC, in a return to predictability after Leicester City's shocking title in the prior campaign.

new faces
Newcastle United, Brighton & Hove Albion, and Huddersfield Town join the league. Newcastle, you know. Ashley, Rafa and the gang are back. I'll be chiming in about Brighton a bit and dropping Fatboy Slim references a plenty. Huddersfield has Sir Patrick Stewart as a celebrity supporter, as well as American manager / Klopp protege David Wagner.

you'll be... missed?
Hull City, Middlesbrough and Sunderland have been relegated to the Championship.

likely contenders
As of this writing, both Manchester clubs are favored to win the title ahead of Chelsea. The usual suspects fill in behind.

2.96 Man City
4.30 Man United
4.90 Chelsea
11.00 Tottenham
14.50 Arsenal
14.50 Liverpool

opening weekend is August 12-13
Arsenal v Leicester
Brighton v Man City
Chelsea v Burnley
Crystal Palace v Huddersfield
Everton v Stoke
Man Utd v West Ham
Newcastle v Tottenham
Southampton v Swansea
Watford v Liverpool
West Brom v Bournemouth
 

dirtynine

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Dec 17, 2002
8,394
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jkempa, we've both been waiting for this! The odd-but-dynamic Brighton/Palace rivalry comes to the Premier League! One of many interesting storylines and subplots that will lend some unique flavor to this campaign.
 

Titans Bastard

has sunil gulati in his sights
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SocrManiac

Tommy Seebach’s mustache
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Apr 15, 2006
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Oh, fuck off, NBC. It's not servicing the cord cutters, it's double-dipping. Now you need cable and their subscription.

The current content model is badly, badly broken and headed in the wrong direction.
 

Jimy Hendrix

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Jun 15, 2002
5,846
Well, that sucks.

I think I might actually be more annoyed by the over-complication of it than by the price gouging. If I understand correctly, it goes from having one app where all the games are to two apps that you need to double-check and you now actually need to pay attention to what's airing where.
 

PedroSpecialK

Comes at you like a tornado of hair and the NHL sa
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Dec 12, 2004
27,164
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Wow, that is a fantastic way to get folks like me back on /r/soccerstreams

Sadly, it makes sense for them financially. If even a handful per thousand viewers switches over to the $50 subscription, NBC gets back the CPM of that banner ad and the Chevy ad, the cost of streaming the games, and then some.
 

the1andonly3003

New Member
Jul 15, 2005
4,371
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idk, I had X1 without HD, so couldn't watch any Extra Time games on TV...had to resort to the small screen anyways. Wished they treated every 10am time slot like Championship Sunday and showing them on linear tv (that would be a big F U to Fox and Bein), $50 was something NBC had to do after doling out nearly $1billion for this 6 year contract.
 

SocrManiac

Tommy Seebach’s mustache
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Cable providers and networks have enjoyed their monopoly for so long that they can’t conceive of its collapse. Every move like this is another confirmation that they have no clue what the new business model should be.

It’s funny, all they have to do is ask the cord cutters they’re attempting to reel back in. A la carte service and don’t be a dick to your customers when they call. It’s really simple.

They'll get a good number of subscriptions, I’m sure. They’ll also educate a new group of streamers who are few up with this model.
 

candylandriots

unkempt
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Does anyone know how to go about purchasing the Premier League Pass? When I follow their link, I get taken to purchase some motorcross package.
 

soxfan121

JAG
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Does anyone know how to go about purchasing the Premier League Pass? When I follow their link, I get taken to purchase some motorcross package.
Stop ID'ing yourself as a Crystal Palace supporter. They probably programmed it to reject those as "joke" signups.
 

InstaFace

The Ultimate One
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Sep 27, 2016
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Nearing the halfway point of the EPL season, and all 3 of last season's promotees - Huddersfield, Brighton and Newcastle - are currently out of the relegation zone. Though Newcastle only by a point. A 2016 promotee, Burnley, is currently 9-4-4, in a Europa League spot at #6.
 

swiftaw

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Jan 31, 2009
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I think it's only happened twice before in the premier league that none of the promoted sides got relegated.

In 2001/2002 the 3 teams joining the premier league having been promoted were Blackburn, Bolton, and Fulham. They finished the season in 10th, 16th, and 13th respectively. The 3 relegated teams were Leicester, Derby, and Ipswich.

In 2011/2012 the 3 teams joining the premier league having been promoted were Swansea, Norwich, and QPR. They finished the season in 11th, 12th, and 17th respectively. The 3 relegated teams were Wolves, Blackburn, and Bolton.
 

Infield Infidel

teaching korea american
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Premier League TV rights price falls

https://www.ft.com/content/30b67970-10e9-11e8-940e-08320fc2a277

The auction invited broadcasters to bid for 200 of the 380 fixtures each season between 2019 and 2022. The 200 games were split into seven packages with no single buyer allowed to win more than five. By Tuesday evening, Sky had secured four packages with BT winning just one. The Premier League said the value it had realised at this stage of the process was £4.464bn — significantly less than the £5.1bn secured for all the matches in the last rights auction.
I wonder how this will impact transfer fees going forward, since they've made a big jump over the past year. Also on club values if any clubs are sold
 

OCST

Sunny von Bulow
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Jan 10, 2004
24,483
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Sports generally have peaked imo due to the fragmented audience and competition from other activities as discussed in the NFL viewership thread. PL, NFL, MLB etc are in for a reckoning.

PL’s revenue growth will come from USA where it’s increasingly popular.
 

InstaFace

The Ultimate One
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Sep 27, 2016
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At the 3/4ths mark of the season, with 29 games played and 9 to go (for nearly everybody):
  • West Brom are a smoldering ruin
  • Only 3 points separate Stoke in 19th (at 27) from Swansea in 13th (at 30). Wide open relegation race.
  • Last season's promotees, Brighton (34), Huddersfield (30) and Newcastle (29), all look in decent shape to remain. Has it ever happened that not one promotee was one-and-done?
  • Burnley, in its second top-flight season, are in 7th, 3 points clear of Leicester, and only 5 behind a quite vulnerable Arsenal for a nearly guaranteed Europa League spot. Due to the diversity of PL teams in the FA Cup quarterfinals, 7th place is not nearly assured a spot in Europe.
  • Man City's goal differential (+63) is nearly double that of 2nd-place Liverpool (+35), and at 25-3-1 they may threaten for the PL points record of 95 held by the 04-05 Chelsea team, who were 29-8-1. A finish of 6-0-3, or 5-3-1, would do it.
  • As of right now, the big 6 clubs have positive goal differentials (and the top 6 league places), and everyone else (even Burnley at -2 and Leicester at -1) has a negative goal differential.
  • Having sold their one world-class player in Van Dijk, Southampton may well go from "in the Europa league, beating Inter" one season to relegated the next. They are out of 18th by only a single point.
  • There is little drama in the Champions League race, as well - although Liverpool, United and Spurs are all within 2 points of each other, 5th place Chelsea is 5 back, and Arsenal 8 back of them even if someone ahead of them wins the European title. Barring a miracle, Arsenal's only way back into the big league is to win the Europa League tournament, and they got a rough draw with AC Milan this Thursday and next.
The real excitement in the league is for the bottom clubs, not the top. Meanwhile, the real excitement for the top clubs is that all five of them are somehow alive to make the QFs of the UCL, either leading big (City, Liverpool) or level (Spurs, United, Chelsea) after the first leg. This isn't the thread for that news, but there is a not-crazy scenario where Arsenal win the Europa League, the 5th-place team wins the Champions League, and 4th place gets its spot revoked.
 

Infield Infidel

teaching korea american
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the last time the 3 promoted teams stayed up was 2001-02. Before this season the betting odds for all three to stay up was 900-1. But seeing as 8th place last year was 46 points, there were a lot of bad teams and Newcastle and Brighton were head and shoulders best in the Championship.
 

MiracleOfO2704

not AWOL
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Jul 12, 2005
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the last time the 3 promoted teams stayed up was 2001-02. Before this season the betting odds for all three to stay up was 900-1. But seeing as 8th place last year was 46 points, there were a lot of bad teams and Newcastle and Brighton were head and shoulders best in the Championship.
I’ll have to look back, but I thought it happened a LOT more recently than that. Like, last couple of years recently.

And the Guardian says 2011-12 is the winner:

Although, in 25 years of the Premier League there have only been two seasons in which all three promoted clubs have stayed up – when Fulham, Bolton and Blackburn survived in 2001-02 and, a decade later, when QPR, Norwich and Swansea stayed up in 2011-12.
 
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Infield Infidel

teaching korea american
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Saw this on the interwebs, a list comparing the league table to each club's transfer value per transfermarkt



What jumps out to me
- The bottom five are woefully underperforming, at least 6 spots worse than their transfer value.
- Bournemouth and Burnley are placed way above their value. By transfer value Burnley would be one place above relegation. Brighton and Huddersfield also punching above weight
- As much stick as Wenger gets, Arsenal are placed bang on their transfer value.
- Everton with -14 GD is 9th. Crazy. Last year 9th was -12 and I didn't think it would get worse. Some team might finish -15 GD or worse in the top 10
 
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CodPiece XL

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Mauricio Pellegrino out with Southampton 1 point above the drop


So... who has managerial experience in the EPL, is out of a job, can be hired quickly and probably on the cheap side? Has any manager managed two different teams in the same league that were relegated the same season? Yes, I'm thinking about you... Leslie M Hughes.
 

dirtynine

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That chart should comfort me as a Brighton supporter, but it kinda does the opposite. Just enough possibility to be scary.
 

candylandriots

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That chart should comfort me as a Brighton supporter, but it kinda does the opposite. Just enough possibility to be scary.
You guys have some tough matches on paper coming up. For your sake, I hope some of them are letting up at the end.
 

candylandriots

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Never in doubt!
Houghton really has done a good job. On paper, they just don’t have the same talent as even Palace (setting aside the plague of injuries this season). I know I’m supposed to hate Brighton-and I guess I do, but I without being around for the history, I probably personally dislike Watford and Bournemouth as much or maybe more.

Congrats on staying up. Hopefully I can get to the derby next year - and it goes the same way as it did at Selhurst :)