Premier League - Title (and Top 4) Race

Zososoxfan

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 30, 2009
9,229
South of North
yeah that article is playing to a self-deprecating, always-nervous English audience. They have the best league top-to-bottom in the world. If you take each league by finishing place and pair up 1st-to-1st, 2nd-to-2nd down to 20th-to-20th, the EPL would probably beat La Liga and the Bundesliga (1-18) pretty soundly, and absolutely crush Serie A and Ligue 1, even if they wouldn't be favored in any of the 1st-on-1st matchups.
I'm hopeful that La Liga's growing TV revenue and improving revenue sharing will bring the middle and lower ends of the table up. La Liga expects a 20% increase in rights revenue for 2019/20 and as the revenue sharing system matures (sharing didn't begin in earnest until 2016-17) hopefully the clubs outside the top 3 can be shrewd in transfers. While there is a lot of talent in the EPL, I love Spanish football and think it is more skillful than the EPL generally. Of course the EPL's fitness and physicality can overcome skill sometimes, but if La Liga sees average club revenue get closer to EPL, the league could really flourish.

Step 1 in this direction is ditching BeIn (sorry Ray) and getting a contract with ESPN for US broadcasts. I love NBCSports but I think Liga and EPL on one network is too crowded. Fox does an OK job with Bundesliga (they have smart but boring commentators, not enough crowd volume in the mix). Not sure there's another sports network out there that could handle Liga. I also recall that Liga was trying to form it's own network to broadcast in the US. Who knows how that would go if they pull it off.