The whole point of these things is that the big teams break away.
This is the thesis. I am Liverpool. I have made a significant investment (and in Liverpool’s case about to float with an investment from a special purpose vehicle). These investments need to pay back better. Unfortunately, the way football is structured currently, there is value leakage for the owners of Liverpool (and United, Arsenal, Villa, Roma etc). First, the PL foreign TV deal is split equally. But foreign fans only care about 5 or 6 teams. So they are being cheated by Sheffield Utd, etc. Second, the entire value of the deal is deflated by the fact that only a quarter or so of the games are actually “super Sunday” quality. Thirdly, there is leakage to the lower leagues via parachute payments. Finally, time spent playing community shield and Cup games is an opportunity cost on global tours in Dubai and New York.
So the solution is to break away. First prize is a continental league of purely marquee games. Second prize is a domestic league where via your voting rights you kill all the above leakage.
As I said, this is the inevitability that comes with opening your league to NFL owners. They come from a cartel. They will bring that same cold brutal thinking to this institution. The fact that Liverpool has not been ostracized for suggesting Project Big Picture suggests to me that they have achieved objective 1: seed the ideas in people’s minds and make it acceptable to discuss this. They should’ve been marked as pariahs but they aren’t, and that suggests they have struck a great negotiating blow.
