Why do so many more people watch The English Premier League over other European football leagues?
Posted Mar 6, 2016, 11:06 PM UTC
2260
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quality of play
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accessibility
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clubs with decent marketing skills
20
"Quality" of play.
Maybe I'm watching too much Spanish football.
10
You mean, ballet? Barça is a great team, for instance. But can they really do it on a wet and snowy Wednesday night at Stoke? And that's what make a difference.
16
Barca wouldn't stand a chance against the mighty Leicester
3
Also the English clubs have a lot of foreign players from many different countries.
4
If you want quality football you watch other leagues. You get exciting games in the prem because the quality is of the team is pretty poor. Especially the so called top teams have bad games every 2nd week.
3
Related: why are British musicians more popular than other European countries' musicians?
7
I would imagine that's just down to language. I think there is more at play when it comes to the EPL being more popular than the rest.
2
In the Netherlands, many people follow the Dutch league of course, but also the English, German and Spanish leagues, because they find them very interesting because of the competition. Plus, the fact that there are and have been several Dutch players and coaches/managers in those countries helps a lot to bring more appeal to those leagues.
6
It's the same here.
2
Same in Poland.
2
If Claudio Ranieri wins the Premiership with Leicester he should get an Italian Knighthood. I wonder if he's well known for what he could achieve in Italy.
2
La Liga is more popular than any other foreign league in Turkey.
6
Interesting, why do you think that is?
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My money is on Messi and Meymar.
1
But that isn't the case for the sweeping majority of countries, so why is Turkey different?
1
Arda Turan maybe?
3
In Denmark english football has been shown on television since the early 70's, you will find lots of fans of smaller clubs, or clubs that where great back then. BTW screw you Alan Pardew and Cristal Palace, cause we are Liverpool!
5
Same here, we copied the format from the Swedes in the late 60s/early 70s. My dad has said that families would listen and watch the English football show together every Saturday.
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Very fast, direct styles of play. Defenders are more mistake prone which leads to more goals. More foreign players too, which draws in more foreign viewers. Smaller teams have more of a chance with the revenue distribution (look at Leicester). Plus English is so widely spoken.
4
This. Personally I find the style of play incredibly dull, but it does allow small teams to have a chance against big teams.
2
To be fair, it is quite international, a wide variety of international players in teams with long standing backgrounds (to get in to the franchise) and interesting football. Before 2015 I didn't have 'my' team, but still watched games, the real thrillers or for player development.
The only thing I hate about the Premier League are the snobbish fans, that say that every other league is utter shit, e.g. La Liga (I'm a RM fan) is only a 3 horse race and BPL is the only interesting one in the world.
4
But LA Liga really is only a 2 horse race and it makes the league boring as shit. The revenue distribution is also heavily skewed in favour of RM and barca so severely just reinforces the lack of excitement.
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La liga is a 3 horse race because atletico madrid are better than real madrid. The revenue distribution system will be the same as the premier league distribution in 16/17.
3
It won't be the same as the PL but it will be a lot better than it used to be.
2
English language, players from all over the world, good quality, accessibility.
Most non-English speakers, especially young people nowadays will try/want to learn English. If they are a football fan it's only natural they'd be attracted to the league.
If Italian was the defacto language like English is, it would be Italy that was the most popular, same with Spanish, same with German.
In overall quality these days, Spain and Germany are higher, Italy used to be but isn't really that great these days in comparison to the 90s/early 2000s.
English = accessibility, more than Spanish, Italian or German.
And then having players from all over the world also gives people a reason to be invested in it.
4
That's just not true though. Italian football is incredibly slow and boring compared to English football. On holiday on Italy I watched some mid table games on TV. Incredibly slow. I think it might be partly to do with how hot it is.
German football has one team so far ahead financially who buy the best players of their competitors
If you're downvoting me it's because you hate the truth. No one actually thinks Italian football is anywhere near as entertaining as English football
Stay jealous
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Italian football is incredibly slow and boring compared to English football. On holiday on Italy I watched some mid table games on TV. Incredibly slow
Like West Brom-Man U yesterday? ;)
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Irrelevant whataboutism
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Preposterous
-1†
Dont get me started on Superleague Greece man.
Its fucking disgusting, hooligans, bribes, owners using the fanbase as a political capital, team debt. Literally everyone wants a reform, but no minister had the balls to get them in line. Also 70% of the goals come from fauls or corners, its not a great spectacle.
The Greek Cup was cancelled a few days ago because PAOK fans entered the tarmac after losing 1-2 to Olympiakos, so maybe SYRIZA will do something about the problem, although I dont have much hope.
Bonus after pic showing the destruction.
4
To be honest the two main reasons are that the Premier League is pretty old compared to other leagues and they also started promoting themselves in other countries (first Europe then the world) before others.
3
I agree with everything Vertitto said. I mean, I knew Man United way before I was even interested in football at all (aside from playing). David Beckham and Nistelrooy where names everyone knew. The Bulgarian league sucks completely, so it's not worth watching tbh.
2
We don't really watch football at all.
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What country?
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Latvia! :)
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Latvian Marian Pahars is a legend in southampton
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Well, the results are not know beforehand, unlike most of the other ligas. It helps a bit.
Clubs with name attrack more attention, players with name too. Teams usually play to win instead of playing not to lose, which provides a bteer spectacle.
1
English league is faster, players have to fight all the time and quality of play is better. I compare this with my local team in Polish league - it is a different world in quality of passes, shoots and how much they have to run during game.
1
There are more teams that might be worth following. Most European leagues have two dominant teams, but even during the "Big 4 dominance" of the last decade, fans had a choice of four decent teams to support.
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Real footbal, real fans. Ref shrugs at fair duels that cause outrage and debates elsewhere just because they're hard. Players actually seem to like what they're doing, and the fans aren't half asleep by half time.
It reminds me of watching football as a kid, back when there was more game and less business on the field.
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Rose tinted glasses. The stadiums are pretty quiet compared to other leagues. 10 Chelsea players surrounding the ref is common .. no outrage and debates, come on. I doubt you even watch any other league. Everything you list sounds so cliche.
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Real footbal, real fans
We are talking about the EPL, not the Bundesliga
1
High quality of play plus always an exciting season.
Spain pretty much is Barca, Real and sometimes Atletico. That's it. There's a huge chasm between those three and the rest.
Bundesliga kind of depends how Bayern is feeling that year. If Bayern is feeling under the weather, the Bundesliga is great because you have like 8 teams who could win it. If Bayern turns up ready to go, it's a whitewash and a snoozefest.
Italian league...not what it once used to be.
French league...who gives a shit? (srry, Frenchies)
Portugese, Scottish, Dutch, Belgian, Swiss, Austrian, Scandinavian leagues...way too small and low level to be interesting for non-natives.
1
High quality of play
Tbh most Spanish and German teams (even those who are not Real Madrid/Barça/Bayern/Atlético) could wipe the floor with most Premier League sides. More exciting? Yes, because the team quality is more equal. But German/Spanish clubs are technically superior to English teams.
And also one more thing I may add: Marketing. The BPL has successfully sold itself as a brand, while the Bundesliga brand is scarce and Liga BBVA has no brand at all. It's all about Messi, Neymar, Suárez, Cristiano Ronaldo, Real Madrid and FC Barcelona. That's why I'd say Liga BBVA is incredibly underrated and overrated at the same time.
1
But German/Spanish clubs are technically superior to English teams.
Barca and Real can be utterly amazing and are without a shadow of a doubt clubs in the absolute European top, with Atletico rubbing up against that. Sevilla and Villarreal are solid European subtop. But outside of that? Are Celta de Vigo and Eibar to be feared that much? Is Bilbao so much better than West Ham?
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The premiership has been excellently marketed around the world since its inception. Clubs have realised that merchandising is worth pursuing in the far east and the big teams send their squads on publicity tours there. I remember traveling in Burma and seeing entire villages gather around one big TV to watch a premiership game being relayed by the state broadcaster. However other the Italian and Spanish leagues have a far greater following in latin american. However the English experiment can be replicated and China is the one to watch as a future destination for the best players.
1
From what I gathered from some friends who like football, The Premier League is more entertaining than "La Ligue Un", in France, because there are more action overall. They told me that tha ball move more, the player also and they don't "just play it safe" for the sake of not losing points. I'm not into footbal myself, so this is just some things we talked about around a beer in a pub in Wales during a trip.
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Thanks you sir.
You guys are great at Austrian too.
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>implying football players can speak good English
You continentals and your American centric view of everything :P
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The Allies :)
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Actually poor Wayne is not so good at American
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