Sports stories without the shouting
This week has seen an inordinate amount of articles and analysis about where Lionel Messi will be playing next year, with more interest on his release clause value than the fact that the contract was pretty clear that he wasn’t going anywhere. This did lead me to wonder, if this is the season for outlandish …
Continue reading “What would one billion euros get you in the current football market?”
Comparing Premier League shirt sponsors at the start of this season with those twenty years ago gives an insight into how the league has expanded into new territories, both geographic and industry type. The most commonly discussed change is probably the emergence of gambling sponsors, with five teams now advertising online. However, football sponsorship has …
Continue reading “Modern Premier League sponsorship and the two G’s – Gambling and Globalisation”
It is a general rule of thumb in professional sport that the teams that pay the biggest salaries are the most successful. Looking at the final Premier League standings this year supports that trend, with the top four in the table also having the biggest payrolls*. However within the top four, some teams got more …
Continue reading “Which Premier League clubs got what they paid for?”
Horse racing was one of the first sports to restart in the UK after the lockdown, and looking at the TV viewing figures, it seems to have taken advantage of the empty playing field. The figures for three of the biggest events in the racing calendar (the 2,000 Guineas, Royal Ascot, and the Derby) shows …
The current lockdown has seen the growth of a new type of eSports. This is where Sports and teams have used the existing professional gaming infrastructure to provide entertainment for fans starved of anything to watch. For example, the Formula 1 eSports Challenge brought together current and retired drivers, along with celebrities and professional eGamers, …
Continue reading “Lockdowns, eSports and an experiment in football management”
When BT Sport acquired the rights to show German Football in the UK they never thought they would end up with the hottest ticket in town. But for one week in May that was the case. The graph below uses Google Trends to show the popularity of searches for “Premier League” and “Bundesliga” in the …
Continue reading “The week the Bundesliga reigned supreme in the UK”
When Victor Lodorum won the Poule d’Essai des Poulains this week, the first French Classic for colts, it reconfirmed his two-year-old form following a disappointing appearance at the start of the season. After the win connections mentioned how the horse had needed his prep run to get him ready for the main event. Comparing the …
One way to think of the current lockdown is that it is a period of ‘accelerated evolution’. People have been forced to dramatically change their way of life (a mutation) and if these new habits are useful when things get back to normal then they will become trends, with less useful mutations being resigned to …
Continue reading “Has the lockdown changed the future relationship between sport and eSport?”
Could the Premier League’s New Normal offer a glimpse of hope for Norwich? Anyone who has had a football bet on a Saturday afternoon will be familiar with the old adage that towards the end of the season upsets happen as teams fighting for survival are more motivated than mid-table secure teams. Of course if …
Analysis of the outcome of different ways to end the 2019/20 Premier League season suggests some clubs might have very different objectives for upcoming talks on restarting football. As the Premier League meets to find a resolution to the season, almost everyone is hoping there can be some way to finish the remaining games of …
Continue reading “Will sporting integrity outweigh Premier League club self-interest?”
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