Premier League Part 1- Origins

The Premier League Part 1: Origins

In the 70 and the 80's English football was going through a boom period as they ruled the European Football clubs such as Liverpool, Nottingham Forest and Aston Villa where a few of the teams that.enjoyed European success,also domestically the game was getting more and more popular,also the rise in TV meant fans can follow their team from their own home and football become a very popular and valuable TV commodity.. However, in the late 80's English football had hit a recession as stadiums began falling apart and facilities were poor, also the rise of hooliganism was another major concern as it caused many fans to stay away which affected match day revenue because of the constant brawls between rival fans which also meant that their was an increased police presence. Also England's dominance of European football come to an end because of the Heysel disaster which saw England banned from Europe for five years and The Football League was far behind the
much more advanced Spanish La Liga and Italy Serie A and most top English players moved to these countries.

However, fortunes began changing in the 1990's as England reached the World Cup and the ban on England clubs in Europe had been lifted also the plans had to been set in motion to create a brand new league to breakaway from the current Football League. This breakaway league was to become known as the "FA Premier League" unlike the Football League revenue mad by the FA Premier League would only be distributed to clubs participating in the competition where as the Football League would only distribute it to all the clubs.

The first signs of a breakaway league came in 1988, when negotiations took place to renew TV rights, 10 clubs threatened to leave and create their own league but were persuaded to stay. After England's success in the 1990 World Cup their was a renewed interest in the sport and the problems of hooliganism were being tackled and a new report name the "Taylor Report" was published in which it stated that all grounds should become all seaters and improve facilities, of course this was going to cost a lot of money and TV was becoming a bigger part of football clubs revenue and clubs were desperate to capitalise as they needed the money to improve stadiums as well as try and compete with clubs across Europe.

In 1990, the first foundations for new league were being put in motion when Greg Dyke the managing director of LWT,met with the nations top 5 clubs which included the like of Tottenham and Liverpool. This is where the concept of breaking away from the Football League and creating your own league was born. In this meet Dyke stated that it would be more beneficial and more lucrative if only the bigger clubs were shown on TV, it also meant that revenue from TV grew as many networks were desperate to get a piece of the footballing pie and were willing to pay substantial amounts of money for it. The five clubs were all in agreement that this was a good idea but knew they needed the FA backing for the project to have any credibility. The task of convincing the F.A was to fall down to the Arsenal chairman David Dean, who presented the concept to the FA who were open to the idea, as they didn't enjoy a very healthy relationship with the Football League so on the 20th February 1992, it was announced that a new league will be formed and come into effect the following season it would consist of 19 clubs that avoid relegation this season as well as the three newly promoted teams.

So the bidding began with ITV and BBC launching huge bids to secure rights, ITV were offering close £200m for the rights but it was eventually won by Sky Sports a brand new sports channel who had struggled to introduce their new pay to watch sports concept for them this was one of their last chances to make it a success. A man who paid a key part was Alan Sugar who sold satellite boxes to Sky was already very familiar with footballs popularity knew that if Sky won the rights then fans had no choice but to by the Sky satellite system in a telephone conversation with Rupert Murdoch he was quoted as saying "blow them out of the water." In reference to winning the football rights, Sky won with a bid of £180million bid to secure the rights and got exclusivity to 60live games for the next five years, which meant Sky paid around £660,000 per game as well as the Sky money, the Premier League also sold highlights to the BBC and other sponsorship brought in £304million for the Premier League which fuelled a summer of huge spending and the revolution in football began. The drama of the season began in the summer when clubs splashed out their newly acquired fortunes examples saw player such as David Rocastle move for £2m to Leeds and Man Utd sign Dion Dublin for £1m and saw Blackburn break the British transfer record signing Alan Shearer for £3.5m.