The Premier League is, arguably, one of
the most financially successful leagues in the world; it made £2.4 billion at
the end of the 2012-13 season, a reported 1 billion more than their closest
rival, the Bundesliga in Germany.
My aim in this article is to find out
just how this worldwide phenomenon was influenced in its creation, by the likes
of broadcasting companies such as, ITV, BBC and the group in charge, the
Football Association. .
The Premier League was first founded in
1992 and was labelled the ‘Super League’ by many fans and pundits. Ever since
the beginning of England’s top tier of football, television has been one of the
key aspects in its success, providing money, marketing and the chance for fans
to get a real look at the life of a footballer as well as an insight into the
technicalities of tactics etc. through pundits.
Although no one had even thought of
what was to become the Premier League, live football was still on the agenda
for numerous TV broadcasters.
The Beginning:
In 1936, BBC organised a special
friendly match that was held at Highbury between the Arsenal first team and
their reserves that would prove to be a warm up to the first international
match ever to be broadcast, just two years later.
This match was between England and
Scotland on the 9th April in 1938, held at the infamous Wembley in which
Scotland came out 1-0 victors. Just 21 days later on April 30th,
the FA Cup final between Huddersfield Town and Preston North End became the
first FA Cup match ever to be televised.
The match ended in drama, giving the
neutrals in the audience either at home or at Wembley something to get excited
about when, George Mutch slotted home a penalty for Preston, just seconds after
BBC commentator, Thomas Woodrooffe, famously said,
“if there's a goal scored now, I'll eat
my hat”
True to his word, he did in fact, eat
his hat.
In October 1946, the first live
football match was broadcast on television after the BBC gained permission from
the Althenian Football League, the first organisation to allow their matches to
be televised, as Barnet took on Wealdstone at Barnet’s home ground, Underhill.
But, only 20 minutes of the game were televised in the first half and just 35
minutes of the second half because it had become too dark to see.
The commentator for the game was Edgar
Keil and the event was deemed a huge success despite the coverage cutting short
due to the poor lighting. Brimming with confidence, the FA (Football
Association) were asked by BBC if they would be able to broadcast selected FA
Cup matches despite the limitations they had with technical issues that made
broadcasting out of the London area an impossibility.
However, the coverage of live football
on the television didn't expand. Over the next two decades, the only fixtures
BBC screened were FA Cup finals. The only international matches available were
matches between England and Scotland.
Charlton Athletic and Blackburn Rovers
took part in the first televised FA Cup match that wasn't a final on 8 February
1947.
Live Football’s first movements:
In 1960, on September 10th, 13 years on
from BBC’s first movement within football, an attempt to show live ‘Football
League’ matches was broadcast for the first time when a brand new TV company,
ITV thought that showing live football would be the only way they could attract
some of their rivals audience (BBC).
ITV made their bid for regular live
football, costing them £150,000. To start off their new era of live
football they aired Blackpool playing host to Bolton Wanderers at Bloomfield
Road. This match kicked off at 18:50 and the broadcast started at 19:30. The
eagerly anticipated match was being labelled as ‘The Big Game’ but when fan
favourite Stanley Matthews was ruled out through injury, it was a major blow to
the TV moguls as he was the ‘face’ of the fixture. The game was a
disappointment to most fans, as well as ITV as it ended 1-0 in front of a half
empty Bloomfield Road stadium.
ITV were quick to withdraw from their
new campaign after two high profile teams, Tottenham Hotspur and Arsenal, both
refused ITV permission to cover their games against Newcastle United and Aston
Villa, respectively.
During the late 1960’s, the BBC had a
fierce battle with the respective football teams in the Football League, almost
campaigning for the rights to watch the countries favourite teams. At the
beginning of the 1967-68 season, BBC offered a large sum of money, around the
region of £780,000, a figure that smashed any other amount of money the BBC had
ever paid on a sporting contract.
This bid, if successful, would have
entitled the BBC to broadcast 35 live Thursday night fixtures but it was given
yet again, a resounding 'no' by all the clubs in the league, with Burnley
chairman Bob Lord publicly sharing his opinion on the matter:
“Television is a possible cancer on the
game because it has the effect of keeping people away from the matches
themselves.”
Live Football, Take Two:
The demand for live football grew
drastically during the 1970’s and 80’s, it became more of an inevitability and
wasn't up for debate, the money that the clubs and the league were offered was
just two good to turn down.
This began the start of a new era in
the world of football and it was, in particular, the 1983-84 season that marked
the start of a new beginning for live football when, ITV and BBC struck a two
year deal with the FA and the Football League, granting them permission to
broadcast seven league matches each, costing them around £5.2 million pounds.
October 2nd marked the start of this
new broadcasting campaign as the first live league match was broadcast on ITV
between Nottingham Forest and Tottenham Hotspur which was then followed by
BBC’s first live fixture which also featured Tottenham Hotspur again but this
time they took on, Manchester United.
The late 1980’s sparked a big increase
in the value of live TV coverage, £5.2 million seemed like pocket change in
comparison with the figures later paid in 1988 by the ITV who splashed out £44
million on a four-year exclusive contract entitling only them to the privilege
of broadcast. This agreement made sure that there would be live football showed
every Sunday afternoon from November onwards.
BBC remained in possession of the FA
Cup broadcast rights so when the weekend came for the tournaments fixtures, the
football league was not played.
The FA’s proposal for a new league, The
Premier League:
The FA had come up with a new idea in
the 1990’s, it was an idea that was supposed to push the England national team
to the apex of “footballing excellence” (as said in an article in the Guardian
by David Lacey in 1992). The league would be in place of what was
currently known as the English first division.
The way the FA would go about this was
by making the league smaller, so cushioning the wear and tear on players with
fewer games. The idea of making stadiums safer, seated and a lot more
qualitative with their motto being ‘It’s about qualitative stadiums, not
quantitative’. These initial rules and regulations required all Premier League
Stadiums to have a minimum capacity of 20,000 seats.
This could have seen Graham Taylor's
(England manager at the time) preparations for the upcoming 1994 World Cup
flawed as they had already arranged numerous opportunities for the national
team to get their friendly matches in.
An argument to go against the FA’s
proposal could be the fact that the Taylor report suggests that all first and
second division stadiums will have to be seated after the Hillsborough tragedy
of 1989. The final obstacle that stood in the way of the FA was when the clubs
in the second, third and fourth division spoke of their feelings towards the
possibility of being cast away from the top flight clubs (a big gap in
standard, money and less opportunity of getting a chance).
The FA and the Football league both met
up to discuss the proposal and share each other’s views. The Leagues Arthur
Sandford and the FA’s Graham Kelly led talks and after an hour of discussing
and negotiating they found no common ground.
In an attempt to overcome the new
Premier League revolution, Sandford went around to all of the first division
clubs (most of whom were in favour of the new ‘Premier League’) and spoke to
them, explaining the restructuring plan the League were considering and wanted
their support rather than moving onto the Premier League.
When speaking to the Guardian’s David
Lacey, Sandford explained his action plan:
“I showed the FA our own proposals for
restructuring the league and retaining the 92 or 94 club format. Now I will
contact the first division clubs for their reaction. If they do not accept the
proposals, the only alternative seems to be a breakaway”
In typical fashion the FA’s spokesman,
Graham Kelly, squashed Sandfords attempt when speaking to Guardian’s
David Lacey:
“I don’t think it was a very productive
meeting” he said “Arthur Sandford, has tried to present, in response to our own
proposals, something that will meet the wishes of the First Division clubs but
I suspect it will fall well short of what they are looking for.
“I don’t think the commercial benefits
the game needs will be achieved to the fullest extent by his proposals. The
thrust of the FA Premier League's proposal is to unite those commercial
benefits open to football under the one banner.”
For teams to be able to announce their
departure from the football league it was deemed that they would have to give a
three year notice but the FA claimed that the older rule of a six month notice
was the important one in this case.
At that moment in time it was unclear
for teams in the four divisions whether relegation or promotion was worth
fighting for with no structure being put in place of yet.
This was not a problem as the Premier
League was formed in 1992 when the 22 First Division clubs resigned from the
Football League and created their own league in order to attract greater
revenue from television. This event was called the ‘Big Bang Moment’ and will
go down in football history.
This always kept alive the cynical
audience of football fans who expressed their views, claiming that the only
reason clubs have created this whole new league/business is to get a bigger
piece of the cake.
How the ITV and BBC influenced the FA’s
creation of the Premier League:
The BBC and ITV has raised footballs
profile since the start of their campaign in the late 1930’s, making live
football a common thing at the weekend. The value of football broadcasting
rights has rocketed up since the first live match was broadcast in 1938.
The commercial side of the sport has
become something bigger than anyone anticipated, seeing the rights to live
football shoot up from the value of £10 million to when, just four years later,
ITV paid out £44 million.
In what some fans were referring to as
a ‘business plan’ the FA brought the brand new and improved ‘Premier League’ to
football fans across the nation.
For the start of the premier league
era, there was another change, a broadcasting change which saw TV company,
BSkyB (now known as Sky), quickly snatch the rights from ITV and the BBC for a
fee of £191 million, a figure that has risen massively after their most
recent sale to both BT and Sky for £3 billion.
ITV and BBC provided a platform for the
Premier League and gave the FA a chance to pounce on the commercial side of the
game. I see the FA as the magnificent opportunists, in partnership
with Sky’s Rupert Murdoch, they took a risk 22 years ago that has absolutely
paid off.
BBC and ITV showed what can be done
with live Football but after BBC were seen to be a little complacent with their
air time of football, ITV were battling for every minute and saw it as a real
way to pip other competitors such as BBC.
After the long battle BBC had with
numerous football clubs in the 70’s, they have come through victorious, simply
summed up by former Burnley Chairman Bob Lord who initially spoke of the live
football broadcasting in a negative way in the late 1960’s.
“Television is a possible cancer on the
game because it has the effect of keeping people away from the matches
themselves.”
He took back his comments in Ian
Ridley’s book (There’s a Golden Sky) when he said:
“I didn’t know what the hell I was
talking about” he said, smiling ruefully. “A lot of Sky money has been spent on
stadiums. There is a breed of businessmen running clubs now and running them
well”
BBC,
ITV and the FA were the foundation of what is now something special, they each
played a key role in the growth of broadcasting and English football. This
multi-billion pound industry is the result of the BBC, ITV and the FA’s hard
work and graft, although neither BBC nor ITV broadcast any live football, they
can at least say they played key roles in this everyday phenomenon that will
continue to grow for many years to come.
