Reborn Almighty Life

With a huge victory over visiting Sporting Lisbon at home at Old Trafford, Manchester United has qualified for the UEFA Champions League group stage for two consecutive years, and has extended its UEFA Champions League winning streak to 19 games, which is impressive.

In addition, Manchester United's winning streak and unbeaten record have been further improved. Every step forward that Manchester United takes is breathtaking.

Sporting Lisbon was not too depressed after losing, because Roma defeated the visiting Shakhtar Donetsk 2:1 at home. While qualifying smoothly, it also indirectly helped Sporting Lisbon finish third in the group and win the next round of the UEFA Cup.

Qualification for stage competition.

Therefore, Sporting Lisbon's coaches and players accepted interviews with the media with great interest after the game. They accepted the defeat in this game and admitted that Manchester United was too strong and they had tried their best.

In fact, the feeling of Sporting Lisbon is the true reaction of most teams in Europe after playing against Manchester United. No matter how hard they try, they feel powerless in the game against Manchester United and cannot shake Manchester United's dominance at all.

Of course, those European giants still don't recognize Manchester United's dominance, because this Manchester United has not yet established a real dynasty.

Last season, Manchester United's opponents in the knockout rounds of the Champions League were Ligue 1 Lille, Serie A Roma, and AC Milan. They defeated Chelsea in the final. Although they showed strong dominance, they did not encounter teams such as Real Madrid and Barcelona. Their dominance

It has not been recognized yet.

Perhaps, only if Manchester United wins multiple Champions League titles and establishes a true dynasty in the next few years can Manchester United be able to scare European teams.

…………

Qualifying from the Champions League group does not mean that Manchester United can breathe a sigh of relief. Although the knockout rounds of the Champions League will not start until February 2008, the Premier League is about to enter the Christmas and New Year's Day schedule, and Manchester United has already entered the full preparation stage.

stage.

After the European League enters December, there will be a short winter break except for the Premier League, so that players can take a breather; but the Premier League not only does not have a break, but also includes the League Cup, FA Cup and other competitions will start around New Year's Day

The normal sequence of games ultimately puts players from various Premier League clubs under tremendous pressure.

The winter break, as the name suggests, means that Europe is too cold in the winter. In order to protect the health of the players and the turf of the stadium, the European Football League stops football matches in the winter, allowing the players to spend a warm Christmas at home.

The Premier League is known as the most competitive league in the world, and fans naturally watch it with gusto, but while players enjoy high salaries and high exposure, they are also gritting their teeth and persevering.

Entering December, the Premier League is about to start the most terrifying Christmas and New Year schedule. This is the most enjoyable time for Premier League fans, and of course the most punishing time for players.

In the Apennine Peninsula, the Imbian Peninsula and the vast plains of Western Europe, which are not far apart, the other four major European leagues have entered the winter break, but the Premier League is about to enter the most intensive stage of the year.

England's Christmas schedule is closely related to the holiday. Although there have been changes, it has continued to this day. This is what attracts us to English football, and it is also the basis for supporting the Premier League to become the first football league, just like the NBA's Christmas game.

As we all know, the UK is the birthplace of modern football. As early as the 19th century, football was popular in the UK. During Christmas, the British spend a happy Christmas by playing football games.

In addition, during the First World War in 1914, Britain and Germany fought fiercely on the battlefield on the Western Front in Europe, resulting in heavy casualties on both sides.

But on Christmas Day, British and German soldiers declared a one-day truce.

They all came out of the trenches to spend a happy Christmas by playing a football game.

Players who play in the Premier League, if they don't know this tradition, may complain about why the Premier League does not have a winter break. In order to make money, the health of the players may even be sacrificed.

In addition, although the winter in England is also cold, in comparison, the temperate maritime climate has a small temperature difference between the four seasons and is still warmer than that in continental countries such as Germany. Moreover, British stadiums are equipped with advanced equipment and generally have geothermal systems, so there is no need for them at all.

Winter break.

In addition to participating in the Premier League, each team in the Premier League also has the FA Cup, the EFL Cup, and even the Champions League for the strong teams. The Europa League needs to be taken into consideration. After a season, basically every team needs to play.

There are many competitions, and if the winter break is arranged, the schedule will be very intensive in March and April every year.

The Premier League team has one more English League Cup than other teams in Europe. Although this is a tasteless event, many teams are unwilling to give up this honor. For the sake of honor, they can only grit their teeth and persist.

Of course, the reason why Premier League teams are so keen on intensive competitions is simply driven by interests.

During the Christmas and New Year periods, most fans are on holiday. They have extra time to go to the stadium to watch games, which will increase their income. In addition, the Premier League has become more and more commercialized and has already extended to the television broadcast industry, because even if you don’t go to the stadium to watch the game,

Fans can watch football matches in the warmth of their homes, which will bring considerable revenue to television broadcasts.

Today, the Premier League is the most competitive and highest-rated professional football league in the world. Its annual broadcast revenue is the sum of La Liga and Bundesliga. In the face of such huge revenue, the players' protests seem insignificant.

Only by understanding the ins and outs of the establishment of the Premier League can we understand why the current Premier League has such a huge broadcast revenue?

In 1990, Greg Dyke, the director of the British ITV sports channel, invited the heads of the five major English clubs to have a dinner (Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal, Tottenham, Everton). During the meeting, Dyke proposed that the British

The idea of ​​League One selling broadcast rights independently. At that time, the broadcast rights of the top four leagues in England were sold in packages. Dyke’s proposal could allow the English League One teams to get more money. The five major clubs thought this idea was good, and soon they

An application was made to the Football Association.

Since the FA was in an internal fight with the League Management Committee in charge of the top four leagues at the time, in order to reduce the power of the latter, the FA readily agreed to the proposal of the five giants without even asking for a penny.

Thus, the Premier League proposed by the five giants for broadcast rights was born.

Interestingly, ITV, as the chief architect of the Premier League, ultimately failed to obtain the Premier League's first broadcast contract.

In 1992, ITV made a five-year broadcast offer of 165 million pounds to the Premier League. However, the then owner of Tottenham Hotspur was the business partner of media tycoon Rupert Murdoch, and he leaked the offer to Murdoch on the spot.

Rupert Murdoch's Sky Sports put a broadcast offer of 190 million pounds over five years on the table of representatives of the Premier League teams, and also proposed a distribution plan that would be basically divided equally among all clubs.

With the support of Tottenham and a group of mid- and lower-tier clubs, Sky Sports' offer was adopted with a vote of 14-6, which also established the principle of distribution of broadcast fees that the Premier League still abides by today.

The domestic and overseas broadcast rights of the Premier League have always been separated. The broadcast rights obtained by Sky Sports were limited to England, while a British company called "CSI" won the broadcast rights of the Premier League in Asia from 1992 to 2001.

right.

Chinese TV stations first started broadcasting Premier League games in 1995. At that time, local stations in various places could obtain the broadcast rights of the Premier League from CSI for only a few hundred thousand dollars. Of course, this price has been rising. By the 1990s,

By the end of the year, it had risen to US$800,000. However, it was the heyday of the television media, and such a price was just a piece of cake for these TV stations.

In 2001, the broadcast rights of the Premier League in Asia changed hands, and ESPN drove away CSI for 100 million pounds per season. It was also from this time that Mr. Zhan Jun began to join ESPN and became the ace commentator of the Premier League in Asia.

At that time, viewers in some areas of southern my country could directly receive ESPN's signals, while some local stations reached an agreement with ESPN Asia to broadcast the station's programs around the clock. Local sports stations. TV stations that have not signed an all-weather broadcast agreement with ESPN can actually buy the Premier League broadcast rights separately, but ESPN bundles its own TV advertising, so most TV stations are not willing to buy it in this way.

At the same time, online broadcasts began to rise. Since online copyrights have not yet been taken seriously, fans who cannot watch the Premier League on TV can easily find free Premier League broadcast sources on the Internet.

Gu Fei remembered that at that time, if the TV station did not broadcast Premier League games, they would watch the online broadcast through the Internet. Although it was affected by network delays and there were some lags, they still watched it with gusto.

After Gu Fei took over Manchester United, China Television made a decisive decision and introduced the Premier League broadcasting rights at a price of US$50 million per year, becoming a Chinese television media that directly competes with ESPN.

Facts have proved that China TV Sports Channel’s heavy bet was extremely good, because Gu Fei led Manchester United to sweep across European football. Every Manchester United game attracted hundreds of millions of fans to watch. Just the sponsorship fees from various advertisers.

Let China TV Station make a lot of money.

Some time ago, the accounting firm Deloitte in England recently produced a set of statistics for the European Football League from 2006 to 2007. In this "statistical table", the Premier League topped the list with a total revenue of 2.4 billion euros and player income of 1.5 billion euros.

Absolutely European.

This is a late figure, and while Deloitte is still cautiously assessing the impact of the financial crisis on European football in its own report and expressing concerns about Premier League clubs maintaining advertising fees, selling high-priced tickets and soaring player wages, the new statistics show that , the Premier League clubs have received considerable benefits from television broadcast revenue in the 2007-2008 season; and fan support has become the best footnote that the Premier League is still strong during the economic downturn.

There is a calculation formula for the Premier League's TV broadcast sharing. Based on the total revenue from Premier League TV broadcasts in the 2006-2007 season, each club can equally share 13.9 million pounds in domestic broadcast fees and 12 million pounds in overseas TV broadcasts, sponsors and licensing fees. . However, the Premier League also stipulates that for every game broadcast domestically, the club can receive an additional 480,000 pounds in revenue, and each club must broadcast at least 10 games a season.

Manchester United is of course the biggest beneficiary of this differential distribution. In the season that just ended, Manchester United broadcast 25 games live on TV, earning them an "extra" income of 12 million pounds; while only 10 games were minimally broadcast. The eight clubs have only 4.8 million pounds in revenue.

But even so, this past season, Premier League clubs' television broadcast revenue was at least 30.7 million pounds, which does not include the broadcast revenue from cup competitions such as the FA Cup, ticket revenue, and income from business development and peripheral product sales.

Perhaps the simplest reason can be used to explain why the Premier League has a unique scenery despite the economic downturn, that is, they have the largest number of fans in the world. More than 200 million regular viewers watch the Premier League pay TV live broadcast every year, which is an astonishing figure. number.

Among the audience pool of the Premier League, the Chinese market is undoubtedly the largest emerging market. Whether it is the broadcast fees paid by China National Television to the Premier League itself or the advertising share generated from the TV broadcasts, it is enough for the Premier League teams to win. Huge amount.

As a result, the Premier League giants have entered a virtuous cycle of development - when the club has money, it can buy many star players. With stars, it can achieve good results and attract more fans; people who are willing to spend money to watch football If there are more, the box office is guaranteed, TV broadcasts are coming, the market is booming, and with it comes a lot of money.

Another important reason why the Premier League does not have a winter break is the huge income from the Champions League, which makes the Premier League teams desperately complete the EFL Cup and FA Cup in December and January, and wait for the Champions League knockout rounds in February. the beginning of.

For the Premier League giants, the Champions League is another "cash cow". There are more than 170 countries around the world broadcasting the UEFA Champions League in more than 40 languages. The huge benefits brought by this platform are really too tempting.

According to the latest statistics from UEFA in the 2006-2007 season, the revenue earned by the top four Premier League players from participating in the Champions League has doubled from three years ago. This season, Manchester United received as much as 100 million pounds in prize money and TV broadcast fees from domestic and intercontinental competitions. British pounds, of which 33.7 million pounds came from their income from reaching the final of the Champions League; even Arsenal earned 73.4 million pounds, while Everton, fifth in the Premier League, who did not qualify for the Champions League, only had 49.5 million pounds. .

According to the distribution principle of the Champions League, as long as you can participate in the main match, even if you don't win a game in the group stage, you can still get a guaranteed bonus and appearance fee of more than 10 million euros, plus TV broadcast dividends, ticket revenue and sponsor contracts, then

Absolutely astronomical figures.

Under the incentive of huge funds, Premier League teams and players can only grit their teeth and persist. Only after the season is over can they enjoy their holidays.

Now, fans all over the world are focusing on the Premier League, waiting for the start of the devilish schedule!

－－－－－－Digression－－－－－

PS: Thank you everyone for your support! Have a nice weekend