A History of The Premier League
Not only is the Premier League the world’s most watched football division, it is also the most financially rewarding – and has been so since it started back on 15 August 1992.
The Premier League emerged out of the ashes that was 1980s football in England. Decrepit stadiums and rioting fans were the stereotype of the nation and disasters such as Heysel and Hillsborough did not help bolster the reputation of the country. The world’s top foreign players headed straight for Italy or Spain rather than risk ruining their reputation in England.
The first signs of a revolution came in 1989, in the aftermath of the Hillsborough disaster which killed 96 supporters. Lord Justice Taylor proposed a radical transformation of football stadia in the country, which heralded the beginning of all-seater grounds.
Restructuring of the top division
By 1988, the situation had become so bad that ten top clubs were on the verge of breaking away from the league structure to earn more money from television revenue.
These fears were eventually appeased on 17 July 1991 when the Founder Members Agreement was signed – this established the basic principles of forming the new Premier League. The main selling point was the ability of the new division to be commercially independent from the Football League and FA.
Initially, Sky TV paid £191million to televise Premier League games for the first 5 seasons. The success of the league is highlighted by the amount Sky and Setanta had to pay for 2007 to 2010 – an astonishing £1.7billion.
Development of the Premier League
The Premier League has also had huge commercial success from a sponsorship perspective. In 1993, Carling paid £12million to sponsor the division for 4 years – by 2007, Barclays paid £65.8million for a 3 year sponsorship deal.
The clubs felt the increased revenue and this has allowed them to attract the world’s top players to these shores, many of them on the biggest wages in world football. Foreign players have also been increasingly nurtured by foreign managers and the success of the likes of Arsene Wenger, Gerard Houllier and Ruud Gullit in the late 1990’s has helped spawn an increasing reliance on overseas coaches.
Since 1994/95, there have been 20 clubs in each Premier League season and by 2009/10 a total of 43 teams had played Premier League football at some stage.