The End of the Satellite Era: Premier League Plus and the DTC Broadcasting Shift

The Athletic FC Welcome to the Athletic FC podcast with me, Ayon Akimolero. The Premier League is launching its own direct-to-consumer streaming channel in Singapore for next season. So, what will it look like and could it be a sign of things to come in the UK? Alright, in with me in the studio we've got Adam Levintel, it also got Matt Slater as well. Gentle, let's get into this because, look, Matt, the English top flight is going direct to consumers for the first time with their service Premier League Plus. Now, we'll get into what that could mean for broadcasting later on, but firstly, can you just take us into the deal that's been struck with Singapore? Well, we don't know all the details, we don't know the numbers, for example, but what we do know is what Richard Masters told us last week, Premier League CEO, he kind of dropped it in. He was speaking at the Financial Times Business of Football Conference, which is one of the best football business conferences going, and he's been asked all sorts of questions about the future of the league, Mancetta, you name it. And he kind of just sort of almost casually announced this, and I was sitting in the audience and I was thinking, well, I don't know why at the Winter Olympics, have I missed this announcement just because the way he delivered it was very sort of kind of, oh, by the way, I was doing this thing in Singapore, if I missed this story and I couldn't see anything about it, in fact, the only thing I could see was the stories that me and loads of other journalists wrote that it might happen about six years ago, which is when the idea was first floated, and then he finally finished talking, and there were some questions from the floor, and the very first question from the floor was from Martin Ziegler at the time to say, that thing you just said in Singapore, is it you, and he basically said it again. So it was the only piece of news of the day, and here's what we know. So starting from next season, the Premier League in conjunction, so it's a joint venture with this existing broadcast partner, a Singapore, called StarHub, six-year deal, it's going to go direct to consumer. So this is the thing that people have been talking about, many people, many fans, many people that respond to our comments on pods and written pieces, really, really seems at once, have a direct relationship with the Premier League. So that means the Premier League, for the very first time, not going through, though it is a joint venture, these are the details we don't know, it's going to be handling churn, pricing, marketing, not through a third party, not through Sky Sports or NBC, the Premier League is doing it. So that's why it's so new, and it is really interesting. Other leagues, other sports have dipped their toe in this water, and we're going to get into, I think, some of the examples later on. But for the Premier League to do it is really, really interesting, because they are the apex predator. They are doing really, really, really well out of the existing broadcast model, which you've had for a very, very long time, where you have auctions and you basically sell your rights to partners on a kind of territorial basis, and they do all the heavy lifting. They answer the phone when you say, it's not working, they're the ones that kind of make you off as when you say, I'm leaving. They're the ones that market, spend money, that they have call sensors. So the Premier League has basically sat there counting the money for 30 odd years, but now it's going to get into that game. And I think it is really, really interesting, but I know we're going to get into this. It's an experiment. It's an experiment in a small market, very strategically chosen for reasons that I can happily expand on, and we shall see how it goes. Adam, we'll talk about this experiment more a little later on, but I want to talk about an experiment you did, actually. Way back in November, you released a documentary on illegal streaming in football in particular. Now I've looked at the comments on that, and fans were quite heated about it. Can you just tell us a little bit more about that, but also the appetite for fans for the service? I think there's a huge appetite for a service like this, and we spoke to people within the documentary. We also did a survey within it, and then after it as well. And overwhelmingly, people want a place where they can watch all the Premier League games, whenever they are, including the Strypy and Blackout, which I'm sure we'll go into as well. What I found interesting going back to what Richard Masters was saying, and the position of this link-up and this partnership, is the fact that it's in Singapore, and actually I was sat alongside Matt when we were at the leaders conference back in October, another sports conference in the UK, and he said that that Singapore office that the Premier League have is principally, not exclusively, to do with piracy. So it isn't surprising to me that they have started this in a country, but also in a region that has been causing them so much grief in terms of piracy. And ultimately, what fans want is the opportunity to pay less for more and for more accessibility. And yeah, look, if it comes down the line for the Premier League to do this in the UK, then they'll be happy. And I think that lots of stakeholders, including the fans, will be watching how this trial goes in Singapore, because it's game-changing, ultimately. One of the things I found really interesting about that documentary was that we talk about Singapore, but this is a global thing. The UK, the various territories, was there anywhere else where you saw it that was most prevalent? It was interesting to see how multi-jurisdictional this is, and you can have a big operation like Stream East, for example, which a lot of people listening will be familiar with. It's a big sort of US-based brand, but it is a brand, and it is replicated in various different markets and regions, and we looked into one of the cases where they were able to take down a proportion of Stream East via going to Egypt and getting hold of a couple of guys that were running things there. So I think that it's clearly an issue that is felt by not only the Premier League, but La Liga, Liga, or all the big Lee City, and they know, ultimately, that they can't end it, but they want to disrupt it as much as possible. But also, this is a cause and effect situation. The reason why we're getting a direct-to-consumer platform, or they are becoming more prevalent, obviously, we've got this trial in Singapore, is because the leagues need to get a grip on it, because it is a little bit of a runaway train, because of piracy. It's not the only issue, but it is a big issue, and it's an issue that they talk about a lot. Matt, why do you think the Premier League has been reluctant to go direct-to-consumer in the past? I think there are two big reasons, and then sort of some smaller reasons. So the two big reasons, I think, one is structural, so if you think about the way the whole football industry is structured, clubs need to know how much money they've got to spend, right? That's what drives player recruitment, the transfer market, etc., etc., and the biggest check that they have received has been the central distribution from the Premier League, and they sell their rights on a sort of three-year basis. They're going slightly longer now. The three-year basis was very much a kind of competition issue dictated by the European Union. Longer terms in the States, because broadcasters want longer terms, and we're moving to that, so it's four or five years now, and we've been doing six-year deals internationally too. But anyway, the crucial point is the Premier League goes out, sells its rights around the world, to NBC, Sky, etc., and the clubs know the clubs have certainty, and they get a big, big old check from the Premier League. Off you go, there's your budget. By going direct to consumer on a more kind of monthly and whatever it is basis, you don't know. You could have a good idea. You know the size of the market, and you sort of think, well, that's what Sky we're getting. I'm just picking them because they're the obvious one. I kind of know the size of the market. We should be able to replicate that. We might even grow it, because it might be able to reduce the price. You never know. People might really, might prefer to buy directs from the Premier League. They might think that connection with their club is closer, as opposed to a third party, a private company. Who knows? These are all the things that we're going to find out. You have an idea, but you don't have certainty. You don't have that upfront direct payment. That's one thing. That looks kind of structural issue. I think these are things that sport, if it goes in this direction, and everyone's been predicting it, is going to go in this direction. There's just been massive disagreement about how quickly, how do you bridge that? Do you have to go, do you have to get a great big bank to almost overwrite the underwrite, sorry, that kind of payment you were getting from the broadcast there? Do you have to effectively borrow it to give to the club? Sort of the club have to budget in a completely different way. We shall find out. That's that structural issue. The other one, I think, is cultural. The Premier League has been a competition organizer. It's been really good at it. It's commercial role has been this running auctions stoking interest. Now it's got to be consumer facing. It's got to have a direct interface to you and I. That's just different. One, you got to load more stuff, but you got to be a slightly different organization as well. That's why they've been quite happy to let Sky and NBC do that. You guys are good at that. We'll sell it to you. You sell it to them. You're skipping a stage now. So I think those are the two big reasons. Then I would throw things like they've been waiting for the technology to catch up everywhere because they're very worried that, certainly if it's you, your name's on the product and there's lots of latency. Let's see. The TV pictures are two minutes behind the radio or it's buffering all the time. You're picking up the phone and moaning at the Premier League. The Premier League doesn't want that. So there's been a waiting game for the rollout of 5G and a good Wi-Fi everywhere to kind of catch up to where we want to. So it's a good product. So I think those are probably the main reasons. Oh, and I suppose I should also add that like I said, the Premier League has been doing really well out of the old model. So it hasn't needed to do this. Yeah. They've basically been kicking the can down the road as much as possible, haven't they? And if we've if we've been candid about it. Yes. So when when Masters made his announcement, I was sort of running around at the back, kind of chatting to people about it. And yeah, we all wrote this. Several of us, all the kind of major, all the normal outlets, had a sit down with him in 2020 where he talks about this because I think they just gone some market with some international rights. And apparently this provision was in their contract in the deal they just done with star hub in Singapore. We could do this at some point, probably with you. So we're not going to completely stiff you here. But it was in their thoughts. And I remember he kind of talks about it. And we would do an experiment. We're not on any rush to do it. It's something we're interested in. And some of the trade press had actually written about it maybe a year or so before that it's part of the conversation at some point because the Netflix was just everyone for sort of things. The Netflix has been around forever. You know, cast your mind back a bit a decade or so. The this idea of like a streaming platform and having kind of these monthly subscriptions with a Disney plaster paramount, whatever it might be. This is all relatively new back then. And I remember at the time, you know, it took a long time for Netflix to be profitable. They know they're the gold standard now. But for years and years and years, the story was when an earth and Netflix going to make some money. Anyway, that was the conversation back then. And I remember him specifically talking about things like we've got to wait for the kind of the technology to catch up for this product to be good. So you're right, they have been kicking the can down the road. I do think that I should probably also mention a few other things that have happened to make this make sense. And they've been preparing the way. They've been rolling the pitch, the Premier League. So there was a big sports business story about a year or so ago that the Premier League took in house. It's overseas content production. Now that sounds a bit awkward. Well, nothing's talking about. This is Premier League productions. They had a 20 year deal with IMG, massive sports agency that basically ran the overseas operation stuff, all that shoulder content, the highlight stuff, the, you know, what they were selling around the world. So, so I don't know, Kenya, Tanzania, South America would basically take a package of Premier League stuff that IMG was making for them. And I think they were doing it. Adam, you probably know this better than me. You probably worked for them at some point, haven't you? I worked for them now. Exactly about this deal. So Premier League productions basically makes a whole heap of programs, including match day stuff as well, by the way, live match day. And basically it's shipped out globally. And you're looking at super sports in Africa, for instance, or start sports in India or those parts of Asia. And that is now all going in house with the Premier League. So IMG are fundamentally what you pass as the production company. And that is now going all in house to the Premier League. Exactly. So and that story, that kind of that partnership was part of the Premier League's success, right? Because it was a really high-polished product that you could almost sort of say off the shelf, here you go, broadcaster in Tanzania or wherever. Here's a really, really fantastic package of stuff, the games, the pre and the post, a nice little kind of documentary for the runger in the evenings, got a lot, right? And it's all going to look good. And we are she and our sheen of quality is on this. So the Premier League has taken that in house, probably hiring a load of people that used to work for IMG and Premier League productions and putting it in a sort of state of the art new place in Olympia in West London. So now the Premier League has got into the production business and is now actually getting into the consumer facing, you know, it's doing the lot. So these things have been, have been happening behind the scenes, it's going to give the Premier League a load more control. And I think at some point it's going to give them, you know, commercial advantage as well. This is the Athertic FC podcast with I.O. Akimolera. So the Premier League's current domestic broadcast deal, which runs until 2020, is worth a record 6.7 billion pounds. As previously mentioned, CEO of the Premier League Richard Masters was speaking about the deal with Singapore at the recent Financial Times Business of Football Summit. Here's a snippet of what he had to say. We spent two days with the clubs very recently. The first day we spent looking into the future, looking at growth, looking at opportunities. And half that discussion was about our approach to media right sales. So we're aligned with the clubs what we want to do in that in that respect. And I think the what we're doing at Premier League plus in Singapore is really about learning as well as building a business. If it goes well, it may be replicatable. But you don't want to predict further than that, I think, at the stage. Here Adam, we've spoken about kicking the can down the road and waiting for the right technologies to land. I'm thinking about broadcasts like Sky, TNT. I mean Sky, their model is based on Premier League football fundamentally. What does this mean for their future? It's interesting because it sort of made me think about when I was at Sky, I was there from 2003 to 2019 before the athletic. And you would very much know the importance of football to Sky, because you would sort of hear the murmurings all the new rights deals are up for grabs. And then you would, as we've seen, get the news, we've got the deal for the next four years. And everyone would just sort of relax a bit and think, right, cool, we're good for the next four years. And that's been happening over, you know, a number of years since 1992, 93. So I think that there is always uncertainty for whatever broadcaster is involved in the deal with the Premier League. But the fact that we now know that the Premier League is going into a relationship with one of two broadcasters in Singapore and going for a direct to consumer model, it will mean that there is a need for a redesign, not only for the Premier League, but also for Sky. And what does that mean? That means that, yeah, they are not going to have to pay billions for the rights, but they're also not going to be having the money coming in from customers. So what I think is interesting in terms of a partnership is that will we see that in in the UK? Will Sky become a supplier of their services to the Premier League? And you could argue now that that is the sort of equitable relationship that they have already, but it becomes more of a, I mean, we've already talked about D to C, you know, now we might talk, you know, B to B business to business. That sort of relationship, whereby Sky supply the services, there might be a little bit of a recalibration in terms of how much money obviously the Premier League can make. Also, how much Sky would need to make from that relationship? But I suppose, you know, a good example of where it's sort of already happening is the product which Sky already have. And I don't wear for Sky anymore, I'm not promoting it. But, you know, now TV is ultimately the platform that the Premier League would actually like. So I think that there is, there are a lot of things that Sky are doing at the moment, which shows that the relationship with the Premier League, they've probably known that this is coming. And it's about how they can recalibrate both of their business models to work together. But it's a fluid situation because obviously, you know, TNT, we thought we're going to be taken over by Netflix. It's now paramount. It's now going to be paramount. So it is very fluid and, you know, emerging companies, massive organizations can come into the, come into the conversation, especially when you have these long rights deals arrangement. So yeah, it's very interesting, but obviously Sky watching with interest, but I think behind the scenes, they will be having detailed discussions of, right, how do we survive this? How do we move into a new era and continue that relationship? Matt, Adam makes a really good point because, you know, for Sky, football is their thing. I know they have the tennis and they have the cricket, but the audiences they're getting for the football. Oh my goodness, me. I mean, it's incomparable. The Sky Premier League relationship over the last 30 years has been one of the most successful in sports, entertainment, really, anywhere in the planet. The two have grown hand in hand together. It's been a fantastic relationship for both of them, which is why I don't see it being broken anytime soon. I think Adam phrased it really nicely when he was talking about that kind of that tension that even within Sky, oh, we're going to get the rights. Oh, we're going to get the rights. Oh, yes, we have. Right. So that's the secret. That's the secret source of the Premier League have perfected that competitive tension in their market, in their, in their auctions. And we've seen the big leaps over the years, over the decades, whenever someone's come along and you mentioned, it's coming to the market to challenge Sky. That is when Sky had been forced to dig deep, too deep at times. There's been, you know, there's been pushback when St. Nancy came along, when BT first went, right, we're going to take you on over over home Wi-Fi and we think over home broadband and we think football is the, is the battleground. You know, so we've, Sky's been through these, these, these wars. Okay, we're now kind of sort of peace at the moment. And what's happened, the domestic rights are plateaued. So that is why what the Premier League are doing here is a fantastic hedge. Right, it's a great, sort of defensive move, move as well. It's basically saying to any market, we can create the tension. If there isn't a big battle for, you know, eyeballs in the Nordics or Canada or South America, we'll do it. Right. So don't think that you can just sit there on your hands and go, you can have the same as you had last time. Guys, take it or leave it. You know, you know, you haven't got a rival here. You know that Apple's not going to arrive. The zone's not going to do it. It's us. Right. No, the Premier League can now say, not only can we make the stuff, we've got our own state of the art studio. We're doing it in Singapore. We've learnt a lot over there. If you're not going to, if you're not going to enter this auction properly, good faith, we'll do it. So that I think is the really sort of clever bit that no one's really trying to sort of sang out loud yet. That's what's going on here. Let's say that it does come to the UK in whatever shape or form. Adam, what does this mean for the three PM blackout here in England in particular? I'm a lot of our American viewers or global listeners might not realise that here in the UK, if there's a match at 3 PM, we cannot watch it. Whereas if you're in the United States, there's a plethora of games all for you to watch. What does that mean for this market in particular? I think it's essential that we move beyond the 3 PM blackout as soon as possible. And I mean, that's my personal opinion. But I think that that's also judging from what Richard Masters said on stage at the FT. It was almost a throwaway comment about the 3 PM blackout. He basically sort of said, yeah, we're the only ones that can't watch it and everyone else can. I think they know on the, you know, in the piracy debate, that has to change because people know that there are ways that you can go and watch those 3 PMs, which are so easy. When we spoke to people, we surveyed them. We spoke to them in interviews as well. 64% said that they wanted the blackout. Gone. And obviously, there is a big debate over whether that then harms attendances at lowly grounds. Is that realistic in this day and age? Well, if Southampton are planning the championship, I want to watch Southampton. I don't want to watch Manchester United versus Arsenal if I'm a Southampton fan. Well, yeah, I mean, there is the argument that in some areas, I don't know, say if stockpork are playing at home and you've got Manchester City, Manchester United and it's on the telly, then that might actually, you know, lead to people going off. It's wet and windy out there. It's bound to be. It's up there. You know, I don't want to go to the game. I want to watch you on the telly. So there is that argument. But I think and Matt will probably know far more than I do about this. He's got, he's got something I can see that it's. I'm looking out the window. I'm in Maclosio. It's glorious. That's glorious. Well, yeah, of course. But in terms of the money that is made by football clubs at a lower level, it's the the solidarity money that's tripping down from the Premier League, which is all part of a of a debate at the moment. And the regulators getting involved in that, the regulator will get certainly get involved on the 3 p.m. blackout that those lower league clubs need those solidarity payments, rather than maybe a slight decline in attendances, which at the same time, the EFL is saying our attendances are stronger than ever. So the argument for the 3 p.m. blackout doesn't really hang true anymore. It's vital that we move beyond it, I think. You're listening to the Athletic F.C. podcast with I.O. I. Can we layer a? Let's learn more about some other countries across Europe that are actually doing things a little different, especially when it comes to direct to consumer. We need to talk about League Earth Matt, and we've spoken about it on this podcast as well. I mean, they were sort of forced into the sort of direct to consumer based on collapse broadcast deals with DeZone ETC. Is that an interesting model to look at in terms of how you can take control and potentially make it a success? Well, yes and no. I mean, obviously you'd look because they are a big league that have gone direct to consumer. Look, yeah, league on plus. So there's definitely a kind of people like that synergy here. They've got, sorry to interrupt Matt, but they've clearly been working with the same marketing firm. We've got FIFA's platform, FIFA Plus, Premier League Plus, what, you know, come on. Some agencies make a little money out of that, please. Well, I'm not saying Premier League, the master's announcement was rushed out. I'm not going to say I'm under the bus here, but when he said it, and I started writing my story on my laptop, I need to tell, well, is it Premier League PLUS word or is it plus? Is it Premier League Plus symbol without a space in between or with a space? So I just started what's happening Premier League staff and I got different answers, right? So they haven't really worked it out. It is, by the way, symbol with a space in between, which is, I think, I might have this wrong. I think league earns is with a symbol without a space in between. So I don't know. But anyway, yeah, not, not that, not that offensive. Not that offensive. I think F, F1's is called F1 TV. NFL have got game pass, something though. So look, there's a few things you could have done. But anyway, they've gone for Premier League Plus. Look, the thing they can learn from League and this is where the Premier League is doing it from a position of strength, right? France have got themselves backed into a corner that had a series of collapse deals that go right back a decade to media pro, Amazon there that they didn't collapse. It was more, they weren't, they, they all decided they'd bid too much and they just weren't getting the money. They were getting the subs to justify the up front payments they've made for the rights. And they were constantly trying to chip away at League and there were various court cases going on. It was ludicrously complicated. And they just basically said, we need, we have no choice. So what have they learned? Well, the TV income that the clubs receive has crashed, crashed. It is championship levels. I can't remember. I think PSG are going to get about 10 million. PSG don't care because they have enormous commercial revenues and they get loads and loads of money from the FIFA Club World Cup in UEFA. But for everybody else, it's a massive problem. On the flip side, various people predicted it would be another embarrassing failure. Well, it wasn't an embarrassing failure. In fact, the numbers of subscribers have been pretty good. There's definitely room to grow. The product hasn't fallen over. There were some teething problems. Of course, there'd be teething problems. But by the end of the season, no one was moaning about the service anymore. And like I said, people weren't quitting. The issue that League earn would have, or any rights hold, or any, any league that chooses to do this is what you're doing the summer. Right? The football finishes. Does everyone just immediately ditch their contracts? How do you stop that churn? And this is why another reason why the big leagues rights holders have always been quite happy to sell them to third parties, because Sky will then fill it with cricket and golf. And they'll stop that churn, movies, whatever, Game of Thrones. They will keep their customers. That's their problem. It's not the Premier League's problem. League earn have had this issue. And they tried to fill it with quite a clever deal with some well-cut rights. Of course, they then got big-footed by being. So watch this space, how they cope with churn during the summer. But I think the Premier League can learn frenzy from League earn's experience. It's quite helpful that someone else has gone first, right? We'll watch their mistakes, watch their things that work. What League earn need to do is probably raise the price a bit and grow the customer base. They need to get more French people watching League earn. Okay. Well, let's move on to another country doing things a little bit differently. And that's Germany. They've experimented with their Friday night football broadcast as well. Our German football correspondent, Seb Saford Blur, has been following the story. He's what he had to say. Back in August 2025, the Bundesliga announced a new broadcasting rights agreement in the UK. The most attention-grabbing aspect of that was the rights package for Friday nights, which saw the live-game shown across three different platforms. So the BBC via their Red Button service in the UK and Ireland, but also to YouTube channels, the Overlap and also that's football, which is hosted by Mark Goldbridge. The reason for this is fairly obvious. The relative to the Premier League, the Bundesliga cannot command overseas audiences in the same way. It doesn't have the same amount of stars. The League is dominated by one club. Obviously, it's a lot harder. In addition to which, the average age of a Bundesliga fan in the UK, according to research, is just over 40 years old, whereas, of course, the average audience age for the two YouTube channels is considerably younger. So the strategies become easier to find, become more available, put yourself in front of younger people, broadcast free-to-air. It all makes sense. And as part of the article, I got to speak to Pam Nalbot, who is the CEO of Bundesliga International. It is very interesting. We talked about some of the performance, which is really encouraging. The cumulative audience this season is up 15 times, or when it was last year, and in addition to social media interest, is a lot higher engagement with ancillary products, like a little bit of content, tactical analysis. These things, that's a lot higher, too. And it follows a lot of the younger players who eventually will migrate towards the Premier League one day. So that's a good thing. But he was also stressed that this is not a one-year approach. It's not let's do it for 12 months, evaluate it, and then make a decision. He said, it's something we want to do over three to five years. It's a test and trial approach. And he said, I'm not in a position to tell anybody it's a success, or to say that this is exactly the right formula that everyone other than the Premier League should be applying. But it says, it's absolutely the right thing for them to be trying now, for them to be creative and innovative, and try new solutions. And the thing he didn't want to do, the stress was, you don't want to just go through the same old procedure. Again, didn't want to just go to a streamer or a traditional broadcaster once every three or four years, sign a contract for the same amount of money, and watch the audience dwindle over time. So very interesting experiment. It is an experiment with some really interesting results. And it's great to talk to a pair now, but also to Mark Goldbridge, so known as Brent Dichisserry. And some of the people from the overlap, you've been working on the Bernanseek of the season. So really, really interesting. Yeah, cheers for that, Seb. And this is a fascinating one, just in football, and the way it's consumed in general, I'm thinking about younger audiences. Matt talks about, you know, people still want in that live experience, but we know that younger audience is out coming to live matches the same way, perhaps their parents were. Is this necessary? This idea that you can go to streamers, you can also go to YouTubers and people like Mark Goldbridge to try and bolster the product? Yeah, you have to, you have to diversify, don't you, because people have different consumer habits now, and you have to ensure that you're part of the conversation. Even if you, you might have the live rights, you also then need to provide that shoulder content as Matt was saying, I remember being at Sky, and on the walls often you would see it's only live once. And that's their big motto. So you still have an attractiveness for the live action. As Matt was saying, people going to games, but also watching it live, but the highlights, the clips, the alternate ways to watch, we were talking about Liga before I saw a clip popped up on LinkedIn. One of the associated parties of Liga had posted how you can watch the game in more of like a, people in the UK will be familiar with Sky Sports News, the on-screen graphics, but also that the names of the players will pop up in real time. It will bring up data as the games going on. So people want that sort of stuff now, and there's an expectation, especially with the growth of eSports, which is the fastest growing sport in the world, that people have different consumer habits. I mean, you could argue sometimes, and I've had this this moment, sometimes with, with my son, you're watching a bit of a drab-premially game, and at half time you go, should you have a game of FIFA or EA or whatever, and you think, yes, this is actually more fun. This is actually more fun. So you're competing against that. One example comes to mind that if you're not being talked about, you do disappear. James Horncastle will kill me for saying something like this, but obviously, Siddiab became so popular in the UK because of Gazette of Football Italia, James Richardson, who we know very well here, the host of Totally Football, when that disappears and you don't have that additional content, you lose the conversation, and I suppose Siddiab will probably say, well, it'd be great to see the data of consumer habits in the UK after Gazette went, and that's what everyone now needs to do, even if you're just giving away something at times, speculate to accumulate rather than- What do you mean for free instead of charging? Yeah, and if it's highlights and if it's clips, at least you're still being talked about, you make your big money from your traditional broadcast deals, and yes, we're discussing that that is changing, but give away a little bit, and you might get the fans in the future, and that's what they have to look at. Let's speak about the dominance of the Premier League in many respects because, you know, we've spoken about giving something away in particular, but we're talking about leagues like Germany and France that aren't as big as a Premier League, and look, Premier League TV money is at an all-time high and way above their rivals in European leagues. There are nine Premier League teams now through to the knockout stages of UEFA's major tournaments this season. When we talk about competitive balance, and I'll come to you first, Matt, please follow on Adam. Is this a little worrying for European football? Yeah. And they've been worried about it for a while. Yeah, yeah. Look, again, you mentioned James Hallcastle. This is a great big bug there. We've got to stop talking about the big five leagues. It's one league and some big teams, and it's almost got to the point now where we have a big eight, whatever. It's the big six plus probably Newcastle and Villa, and even, you know, clubs like Crystal Palace, West Ham, they're not far off if you just look at their kind of turnover. The Premier League is very deep, has a lot of money because it's got a lot right. You know, Matchday revenues are great. Full stadiums, good stadiums. That's very much Italy's problem. Great commercial revenues. And again, because the commercial revenues follow the eyeballs, no league, even the NFL, which is the gold standard, you know, just because in terms of its utter control, its domination of North America, you know, the world's biggest economy. No, no, no one is making as much money from overseas rights as the Premier League. It's an amazing story. So well done then. But yeah, it is a worry. If I was, if I was the best, you know, one of the best teams of Portugal, the Netherlands, Italy, France, that isn't PSG. Yeah. Yeah, you're seeing yourself routinely now outbid, outspent by teams that they would have been thinking, what, Bournemouth, Brentford, sorry, who, what division are they in? Crystal Palace. Yeah. Has it, has it crept up on us? I mean, I've crept up to some people, but this has been coming in some ways. It's, is it incompetence, bad luck? I don't know. The nature of how intense, football is in the Premier League. It's taken a while to get here. People have been waiting for this, you know, the, the two mongers on the continent have been like, oh my god, if we're not careful, the Premier League's just going to out, that they're financial advantages. How do we, how do we deal with it? Yeah, it's been coming. So yeah, I think it, I think it is a concern, concern for your wafer. Your wafer, what your wafer can almost do is, the reason we have these big clubs in other leagues is because they are getting guaranteed almost entry to the Champions League, almost now guaranteed entry to the FIFA Club World Cup. That is what enables them to go eyeball to eyeball with man United, a man city and Liverpool, you know, Real and Barcer still do really well in the Deloitte lists. It's, it's, it's what happens underneath them. They are moving away from their domestic rivals and making things worse at home and compounding the problems. In terms of what the other leagues are saying about the Premier League, I find that really interesting and Matt will have listened as well at that FT conference that we heard Richard Masters at, Javier Tebas, who is, is not backwards in coming forwards about all sorts of different things. It was very entertaining to watch, you know, you're speaking earlier on in the week about financial fair play and new rules and, you know, Chelsea making a massive loss and all that sort of stuff, you know, the financial rules, he believes that the Premier League are pushing away and basically don't care about the rest of them. And he would say that everyone needs to have the same rules. You could argue that you wafer obviously their rules for, you wafer competitions, then there is some equilibrium there. But then at the same time, each league has its own interest, you know, the Premier League clubs, Richard Masters is only really answerable to the shareholders and they're the clubs. Those clubs are answerable to their owners, you know, their owners and their hedge funds and things like that. So his job is to make as much money for the Premier League as possible. And for as long as he can do that, he will do it. And it's also interesting from, from Javier Tebas, he will have beef with Nassau Caliphi, who's the, you know, president of Paris Saint-Germain, but also has, you know, controlling interest on being sports in Qatar as well. So he'll say that there's a conflict of interest there. That's all part of the, the conversation. But then at the same time, whilst he says, you know, we need equilibrium amongst all the leagues, he's also arguing, well, I want to be able to take La Liga games to, to the United States to make more money for my league, whereas other leagues will go, well, we're not going to do that. But I do just find it really interesting that they're all, they're all competition. They're all in business. Each of them wants to be the top dogs. And they're all basically a bit jealous of the Premier League. The interesting thing for me to sort of take it back to the, the piracy issue and having to sort of recalibrate the finances. And we discussed this in the, in the documentary, if anyone wants to go back and, and listen to it, it was raised by one of the, the speakers that we had in there, that there is a shock absorber within the game. If you need to recalibrate the, the finances from replacing broadcast revenue to a fluctuating subscriber model, and it's your wages. So wages can go down. Players don't have to be earning, you know, I mean, my son always, like, enjoys telling me how much Christiana Ronaldo earns, you know, per minute, all this. And it often leads into a conversation about pocket money. But, you know, they can earn less. And what interests me, what Richard Masters said in that speech, where we all started on this episode, is that they are having discussions with the clubs. It almost sounds to me that the road map is there. You know, we've got our new financial rules in for the, for the Premier League. You're just going to need to cut your cloth accordingly, a little bit. There might be a little bit of pain down the road, albeit our overseas rights are grown by 27%. But we're recalibrating. You might need to recalibrate as well. So it's an interesting time. Okay. Well, let's have a little palette cleanser then before we sign off, because something exciting to finish on today's podcast. There are officially a hundred days to go till the World Cup, obviously hosted in Mexico, USA, and Canada. Now, a hundred of our writers have picked a player they're most excited to watch at the tournament. So, you know, I'm going to ask you, Jens, who are you most looking forward to seeing at the World Cup, Adam? Well, we were, you know, we were sort of urged to not go for the obvious ones. And I sort of reverted back to my Watford fandom. And I thought, right, who's going to the World Cup from Watford? So I picked Nestery Irankunda, right? Look at that. Australian attacker, winger, fast box of tricks, and he can take an amazing free kick as well. So look out for him, and he's a lot of fun. And I think that's what it's about, isn't it? At the World Cup, you discover a player that you've never heard of, or you've never seen before, and you think, wow, I'm really, really glad that I watch this random game. All of these, you know, thousands of games that we've got the World Cup. I'm glad I watched it because he's just done something crazy. All right. Matt, come on in. Well, I mean, I'm going to make my excuses right now in that I think I was about the 98th or 99th person to fill the form out. And I did, I did like a controller to say, oh, yeah, he's gone. He's gone. He's gone. Oh, oh, dear. So I went for Frank Kessie. And the reason I went for Frank Kessie, of course, is captain of Ivory Coast, is that it's the first game I'm going to cover Ivory Coast Ecuador. So I'm very excited. I'm excited about the World Cup. And for the reasons that Adam just outlined, I don't, you know, I'm going to watch Frank Kessie, but you know, it might be the right back I've never seen before, the Winger or some player from Ecuador. But I like Frank Kessie when he was playing in Italy. And I'm also slightly intrigued because he went to Saudi Arabia three years ago. He was the kind of player that you would maybe think might go to a Premier League club. But no, he's played for, he's played for Al Ali and he's doing really well there. But I wonder if it's taken the edge off. I wonder if it's any any impacts on him. I don't know. So yeah, but the honest answer is probably Harry Kane. All Harry Kane to score seven goals and I want eight goals and I want England to win the World Cup. Well, that's, I mean, at least you're honest. At least you're honest. All the other journalists are pretending to want to watch a niche player. You just want to go to the World Cup, don't you? That's the reality. Look, I'm just, I won't even say player. I'm looking forward to seeing Haiti in the world. Oh, yeah. Like, you know, I mean, this is the joy of it. I know people talk about the extended World Cup and the amount of teams that are played, but this team haven't qualified for the World Cup since 1974. I mean, that's the joy of it is that in a weird way, not just the players, but we get to see niche teams and we don't even know half of that Haitian team with any of that Haitian team or where they play. So just to see them even represent their country, honestly, I'm so, so looking forward to it. All right, let's leave it there, Jent. Honestly, we could talk World Cup all day. Adam, appreciate your time. Matt, thanks for joining us and also thank you guys for joining us as well. We'll catch you soon. You've been listening to the Athletic FC podcast. The producers would guide Clark, Mike Stavrew and Joe Beale with editing by Paul Eiliff and Nick Thompson. The executive producer is AD Morehead to listen to other great athletic podcasts for free, including our dedicated club shows, search for the Athletic wherever you get your podcasts. You'll also find us on YouTube at the Athletic FC podcast, so make sure you subscribe. The Athletic FC podcast is an athletic media company production.