The PL's Financial Clout
- Thread starter Frogfish
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First observation: look at the potential for growth in China and India.
This whole thing's really only just got started.
This whole thing's really only just got started.
Football is very popular in China, however not just the EPL, and currently there are now only 1 or 2 channels showing EPL on terrestrial TV (probably due the the EPL's financial demands), and that's out of ca. 130 channels broadcast to each household. Rather most people can find it on satellite packages, though as a % of the population those that can afford, and buy, satellite packages (from Singapore, Malaysia or Thailand) is very small. Maybe 20 years from now China will be a huge market (it is for events such as the Olympics and the World Cup) however it's not there yet. I'd imagine the Indian market is quite similar.
The potential is there but it may be a long time before it arrives.
But surely those same things apply to most foreign markets (lots of channels, rival interests, relatively poor populations). What matters is the underlying demand - if that's there, broadcasters will find a way of tapping it. Is there any reason that underlying demand should be so much lower in China than, say, Burma (2p per person compared to 41p per person, with Burma presumably having a significantly lower per capita GDP)?
It's probably misleading to think in terms of population / price per person, though certainly China is a much more affluent country, because I'm not sure who is buying the rights and who is actually watching. That said I'd say that the Burmese are far more enamoured with football than the Chinese. Burmese being like Thais in that regard.
The Chinese sporting interests being far wider than say the Thais or Burmese, and with many sports that China is actually good at, or that the population can play themselves (meaning cheap and space restrictive), pre-eminent ; table tennis, badminton & running topping that list. Though there is now huge interest amongst the affluent in golf, tennis and car racing. I don't know many (any) Chinese who have any interest in football to be honest, exempt when the World Cup or Euro Championships comes around.
Probably the same economic issues affect most Asian countries; high population, low relative income. I can only assume for Burma that those paying for the football are part of, or have strong connections with, the government because (as in China) many people in towns don't watch football (or even TV in general) at home but at communal watering/eating holes. In the countryside they are unlikely to even have a TV so obviously the target audience are city-dwellers. For China though that bodes well as the government is driving the country's urbanisation.
I've just checked and China's GDP per capita is roughly 6 times bigger than Burma's. Combined with the 20 times higher revenues per person, that suggests interest in the PL is something like 120 times greater in Burma than China.
Whether that's a true picture or not isn't really the point. It's that interest in China can remain very low AND grow hugely at the same time.
Whether that's a true picture or not isn't really the point. It's that interest in China can remain very low AND grow hugely at the same time.
Oh I don't disagree with that and I'm sure it will over time. One of the keys being the growth of the Chinese Super-League (corruption riddled, which people know and despise it because of that) and the national team.
It's gone backwards over the past 2 seasons though, there used to be 5 matches shown concurrently/consecutively each Saturday/Sunday on Chinese terrestrial TV, and all the Monday matches, this year it's down to only one on a Saturday and one on a Sunday, I'm sure cost being the reason, To grow the EPL in China they really should be offering it at a discount to develop a strong foothold before other leagues do.
It's gone backwards over the past 2 seasons though, there used to be 5 matches shown concurrently/consecutively each Saturday/Sunday on Chinese terrestrial TV, and all the Monday matches, this year it's down to only one on a Saturday and one on a Sunday, I'm sure cost being the reason, To grow the EPL in China they really should be offering it at a discount to develop a strong foothold before other leagues do.
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