THE BREAKDOWN: The Champions League Is Back With BIG Money, Pietersen’s Miracle England Job, & The NFL’s Global Tour (E36)

28:04Compromise is holding back the sport. It needs clarity of direction. Okay, so a question I always feel like a member of the audience in these segments which I quite enjoy because I learn a lot. It's been about six months just under since you started covering this and we laid out those challenges. As of today are you saying that it's moving in the right direction where there is far more hope and the sport is looking like it has the brighter future that you want it to have not yet not yet not yet right so the effectively the fixture list for 2027 was recently published by the british horse racing authority and it included no reduction in fixtures whatsoever right and um despite all the evidence that that is what is desperately required by everybody other than the small race courses everybody else needs a reduction in fixtures now in the meantime it's becoming increasingly clear that the burnham government in this country is about to try and milk even more money out of the gambling industry and that is going to lead to more betting shops closing down and that is going to lead to less money coming into horse racing through the levy board and therefore even less money to get spread around these 1 ,500 fixtures that British racing currently puts on.

29:16So as Jim Mullin quite correctly says, the problem is getting worse, not better. The issue is that to solve the problem, the underlying structures of racing need to be totally rebooted so that by the time it comes to determining the fixture list for 2028, by that point, Ascot and the Jockey Club need to be in a position to drive this. And that's what's happening at the moment, is they're gradually getting the ducks in a row to make sure that when the moment comes, they can say, okay, this is the direction we're heading in. And that means getting that block vote out of the British Horse Racing Authority and reformulating the whole thing.

29:51Understood. There we go. There's a cricket match going on right now. The final test, England, Pakistan. I've actually just got a notification. So sorry, we're recording this Wednesday afternoon. Pakistan are all out for 133. Well, did quite well to get there. Not bad going considering they were, what, 25 for four? and about 50 for six. First time, I think, this is right, someone can check, but I think they said it's the first time ever the top five have gone out for single figures in England as a touring test team. So not a good performance. However, it is good for England cricket because it means we've been winning test matches.

30:27And we talked a couple of weeks ago, I think it was, about the start that Joe Root had had and how important it was that no matter who we were playing, England got some wins on the board. you can only beat what's in front of you even though Pakistan are in some big trouble themselves we were we were positive we were positive about Joe Root's leadership the start of it and a new dawn we then you well you then sent me a video this morning of an interview that Joe Root had given the BBC which I think it's fair to say threw up a few more concerns uh than than any more positive thinking what do you make of it oh um are concerning because what Joe Root essentially was saying in this interview was that the good work that had gone on in the last few weeks, i.e.

31:09winning a couple of test matches against the lowest ranked test team, was in no small part down to the work that Brendan McCullum and Ben Stokes had done in their tenures as coach and captain of England cricket. And we mustn't forget that. We mustn't forget that. And specifically, I think he referenced it three times, but the actual wording which I wrote down, he said, we wouldn't have been able to play the two games, by the way, without all of the work those two did. Don't undervalue the impact those two had on England cricket. They deserve a lot of credit for the last two performances. So what do I think about that?

31:40Well, let's put this into perspective. Would you be expected to beat Pakistan at home, whether Brendan McCullum and Ben Stokes had been there for the last 10 years? Yes. Would you be expected to beat them if you and I were coaching them? Maybe. So this insinuation that they have achieved something great off the back of the leadership of two people who are now no longer there and they're continuing this great work, worried me, Charlie. Do you remember I said about two months ago, Charlie, that England cricket under Brendan McCollum reminded me of a religious cult? Yeah. And I think I specifically said that one of the most interesting things when you're studying the end of a cult, the demise of a cult, and the leader of the cult is led away in handcuffs because he's been doing dreadful things.

32:25And then the video remains on the remaining members of the cult who you might expect to be delighted about being released from being part of this cult but actually they just wander around looking a little bit lost and often cry because they've now become so inculcated into the cult that they can't really imagine what life could be like without being in inside the cult no matter how ghastly conditions were inside that cult you've just read out words from joe root but i'd encourage anyone out though who's got the time and the willingness to do so to actually just google it and actually watch the interview joe root looks like a cult follower who's lost his cult leader and he's saying things which make no sense unless you view it in the perspective of he would actually much rather the cult was still there so in other words when he says we owe so much of what we've been able to do in the last two matches to what happened over the last four years well let's just pick that apart a little bit right so those two performances against pakistan from an England perspective were patchy.

33:29There were two or three players who had outsized impacts and Pakistan did not have the equivalent on their side. Now it's worth pointing out, the two players who have been England's player of the series so far, Ollie Robinson and Jordan Cox, were specifically disbarred from this cult. Ollie Robinson, despite having the best test bowling and county bowling averages of any England bowler throughout Brendan McCullum's time in charge, was barely given a match by McCullum. McCullum couldn't stand the guy, right? He wouldn't pick him even when Robinson was on top form and when there were bowlers in the England side who couldn't take a wicket.

34:05He still would not pick Ollie Robinson until right at the end in the New Zealand series. Oh, shit, I've got to win a match or two here. Better call him Robinson and Robinson gets nine wickets, okay? So you can hardly paint Robinson winning matches for England as being a clear example of how great Bazball was. And Jordan Cox, who's about to turn 26, was never given a chance at all, despite averaging almost 50 in county cricket. He'd never given a chance at all under Bazball. And the innings that he's played this summer would be the types of innings which would have seen him thrown out of the team under Brendan McCullum.

34:38So this is not to go back and relitigate the failures of Bazbo and the failures of McCullum. That's in the past now. That's gone. It's just very, very worrying when you see the person who's meant to be leading this effort for the next year, two years, three years, wandering around like a lost sheep, himself trying to relitigate and basically talking absolute rubbish. You're right. I think so much comes from that interview by watching it, not reading it. You have to watch it. So do you? I mean, we'll put a link out. He's almost in tears. He is almost in tears. He's almost in tears. He looks broken.

35:06He's just won a test series and he looks like a broken man. Yeah. And that, if we're looking at Joe Root's previous captaincy, is the concerns that I think fans would have. It's never about his ability to perform on the pitch. It's about the environment that he's able to control to an extent, but also just create around the team. If that is still in their thinking, there's a huge amount of work that Fleming's got to do when he gets into that dressing room, because you cannot keep looking back. Certainly not when basically there's nothing about what you're doing right now, which has got anything to do with what was going on back then.

35:36Yeah, I just said the two players. Anyway. Speaking of personalities, cultures, we saw the return of… Oh, God. You nearly forgot, didn't you? Kevin Peterson. Kevin Peterson's back. My God. So, Charlie, let me ask you a question. So, we've got a culture issue. Maybe we've got overconfidence issues. Maybe, you know… Fragile confidence issues. White ball team. What do we need? If we're trying to control that, let's bring KP back and pair him up with Baz and see what happens. I think the fact that the idea that he is himself quite similar to Basport, I don't think it really stands up to scrutiny. I mean, Peterson is one of England's all-time batting greats in all forms of the game, including test cricket, where he was perfectly capable of digging in and spending an hour or two just keeping the ball away from his stumps before going and blazing the ball around the park.

36:33He was an absolutely outstanding batsman, one of england's 10 best ever batsmen um you can't take that away from him you know but like a significant number of great athletes he was always a problem at team level always both in england but actually particularly back at his counties you know he was originally at nottingham until they threw all his kids off the balcony because they were so fed up with him and then he caused problems at other counties he went went to as well and that is because basically the guy is objectively a narcissist, right? Everything is about him. Now, the problem about when you become a coach is that fundamentally your job is to subsume your own short-term interests, whatever they might be, bite your tongue if you have to, and everything you're doing is being very carefully judged as to how is this going to benefit this player and the team.

37:29And sometimes it means as a grown-up you know peterson's 50 odd so he's no he's not a kid anymore it means the grown-up some sometimes having to take stuff on the chin from very young people who given half a chance you'd read the riot tattoo and then take a step back and say how am i going to deal with this in a way that enables us to move forward there is nothing in kevin peterson's career as a cricketer or indeed as a pundit since being a critter that's a cricketer that suggests that he's somebody who is ever able to subsume his own ego for the interests of other people. And that's why I think that this is a really dodgy move.

38:05So two thoughts. If you're looking at England cricket right now across any of the formats, are you looking at that group thinking you have under optimized talent, that talent is an issue? For sure at test level. In white ball cricket, it's interesting when we've been very good at T20, we've been less good at 50 over cricket. when we've been very good at 50 over cricket, we've struggled at T20. But broadly speaking, I would say over the last seven or eight years, white ball-wise, has not been such a car crash as it has been in a test arena. Talent, I don't think, is the problem for England cricket.

38:39Culture is the problem. Yeah. Is Kevin Peterson the person that you bring in to that dressing room as a mentor in any capacity to fix a culture problem? No. So that's why I find this interesting. Not in my view. Let's see. I mean, you know, instinctively. It's fun, though. Instinctively, it is fun. And it all adds to the gaiety. And most importantly, can you just, KP's actually got a job at the ECB. I mean, that in itself is more. The mind boggles. I mean, all I would ask is that by the time that somebody gets to a certain age, the likelihood that their character is going to change significantly diminishes, right?

39:15Yeah. Now, speaking from experience. Yeah, for sure. Yes, indeed. That's absolutely a fair point. I think can you mellow a little bit? Yes. But your underlying structures, the way in which your mind works, stays the same and hardens even. So can someone change between the ages of 25 to 35? Yes. Perhaps you still are doing so. Let's hope. Can someone really significantly change between the ages of 40 and 55? I don't think so. And when you look at his impact on team environments, it's broken into two parts. Number one, as a batsman and a fielder, actually, he was so able to impact matches as a performer that people put up with him.

40:07Right. Mostly until they didn't. But mostly. But mostly they did. once he is no longer able to impact games as a performer then you look at well what's been his impact on teams he's been in has he brought out the best in other players within team environments and you speak to players about what it was like to be part of a team with kevin peterson and the answer was broadly speaking if you yourself were an absolute top top top top top performer and you could take him on and tell him to shut the fuck up because you were good enough to be able to do that okay that that might work anyone who was below his level talent wise basically was swatted out of the way and regarded as being totally irrelevant so to or had a personality that didn't quite fit his and andrew strauss or andy flower type comments when he um was you know mean rude whatever it was about flower it was about him basically putting everyone to sleep right it was an attack on a personality absolutely absolutely because of the ego and that's my problem here is that you're putting an explosive ego with an already explosive ego yeah I think McCollum is a bit more nuanced he's certainly more of a people person most people seem to like him you definitely cannot say that of Peterson you speak to players who have played in the past with McCollum and they're like oh yeah Baz is great love to go for a drink with him speak to players who have played with Peterson before and they're like brilliant player brilliant player can't stand the bloke and to put that into that dressing room is something which I just I just don't see why if that's the answer what's the problem right which comes back to my point if culture is the problem this move looks odd very much so if it's just to have a bit of fun and go hey guys let's we KP's back in the fall because he can be great but that isn't what England needs right now from my view it just seems to be yet another weird move by the elite side of the ECB now we've given the ECB praised what they did with the 100 and the way in which from nothing they magicked up a billion a billion quid's worth of value to save the future of the county game brilliant fantastic what what an effort that has been but the we've been consistently critical of the unstrategic and unstructured way in which the elite side of that setup is led we haven't even covered what happened a few weeks ago so if you go back a bit for viewers and listeners who don't know the england Lions is effectively like the England test second team.

42:33You're talking about Freddie. And it's meant to be for a bunch of young players who haven't quite yet made the test team, who are then put in an England environment and encouraged and brought along to get them ready to play test cricket for England. So Rob Key makes his best mate, Andrew Flintoff, coach of that team, even though Flintoff's coaching credentials are wafer thin, right? He spent the majority of his time post-playing as a TV celebrity. Great, brilliant, but definitely he had not done the hard yards to become coach of the Lions team. And having done it for a short period of time and just before the Lions actually had an important bunch of matches, which they don't often have, Flintoff just walked out and said, actually, I'm done with that.

43:13Oh, and by the way, anyone who comes along after me is going to have big boots to fill. It's like, it's just, it makes me tear what remains my hair out is the culture that under Rob Key, this extraordinary culture by which it's like, well, let's give this a go. Well, let's give that a go. Well, let's give this a go. It's like you've got to have a blueprint. You've got to have a piece of paper that says, this is who we are. And over the following years, this is how we're going to progress players. This is what we're aiming for. This is the mix we're aiming for. Here are the challenges we currently face.

43:43Here are structured, strategic ways to answer those challenges. It's like, okay, well, we don't have a good spinner at the moment. Apparently, so-and-so saw this young kid doing well on YouTube the other day. Let's bring him into England's squad. the whole thing is just so sloppy and bringing KP in is an undefined no accountability role so if England do badly which bit of that is he responsible for is he responsible if a batsman plays a poor shot is he responsible if Harry Brook as captain makes poor decisions out on the field is he responsible for selection what's he responsible for the whole thing is just so loose and they never seem to learn just loose loose loose loose loose there we are moving on yeah well should we use it as a chance while we're on cricket to have a look at the county championship because it's getting towards the end of the county championship season very exciting and there there's some quite interesting team performances to take a look at particularly of teams that we've covered in the past it's very exciting actually it's a very exciting county championship for lots of reasons right firstly talking about the positive side um it looks like somerset who famously have never won a county championship could i mean i know it's pretty tight at the top between them nottinghamshire and warwickshire but they could break that however century plus old um hoodoo and win and win their first title and it would be fantastic so for those who don't follow the county cricket game closely um somerset are from a support perspective one of the big counties yeah um if i was to compare them to a an English Premier League football club.

45:24It's like Spurs, right? They're not the very biggest, but they're very big, but they never win anything. It's unfair. You've saved it. But they've won various one-day trophies. But even back in the 70s and early 80s, when they have Viv Richards, Ian Botham, Joel Garner playing for them, they never won the county championship. And over the last five, six, seven years, numerous times they've been in a position where they've been really, really close to doing so and they just keep on finishing second or third. Can't quite get it over the line. If I support any county team, I support Somerset and I've been there twice this season.

46:00Great stadium, big following. Yes. When you go to a Somerset game, it's often quite a big crowd, quite a big atmosphere. You really feel like for the West Country, this is... Oh, is that part of the world? Well, I say the world, sorry. That part of England, isn't it? Which isn't served by multiple sports assets. That's right. And so the ones that do exist, they really encapsulate the fandom of the area. Of the whole region. And you feel that down there in the cricket team. And you think of the player, I mean, you know, Bothams and that lot they've had attached to that county. They've had some amazing players.

46:31Yeah, Marcus Triscothic. Interestingly, no England players at the moment, which I think has helped them. Definitely. Because they haven't been losing players from the county championship team into the England setup, which, for example, are Surrey, who, shock horror, are actually towards the bottom of the table. Right, so we just discussed the fact that Somerset might win. So keep an eye on that because that would be historic and that would be a real big celebration down in the West Country. But we've also got to look at a situation that was quite amusing, again, similar to football over the last couple of seasons where Man United and Spurs were dicing with relegation.

47:07Two of the biggest three clubs are in trouble. Surrey, who have been the perpetual champions of the last four or five years, I think they've won three of the last four. 22, 23, 24, and then they came runner-up last year. Right. They're in danger of relegation from the first division to the second division. And then Lancashire, who would be the equivalent of Man United being, literally they play next to each other, so it's very opposite, are towards, well, they're second bottom in the second division. Yeah. Right? So that's the equivalent of Man United being relegated to the championship and then being in danger of finishing towards the bottom of the championship, Leicester City, et cetera.

47:43So it's a very dramatic season. I mean, were Surrey to get relegated, it would be one of the biggest cricketing shocks that this country has ever seen. It would. It's the most resourced county of all the counties. Okay, good point. Because this is where the challenge, I think, of county championship comes. Yeah. So what, Charlie? Yeah. The business of Surrey, I don't think, gets damaged by a relegation. and that is part of the challenge that we have here with the county championship. So you there were thinking, as you were talking, you went Lancashire, 7th of 8th. So they've gone down there and then you're like, oh no, actually wait, I can't say then they go down again because we're in a two-tiered system here.

48:24And with Lancashire and Surrey, you have two of the four biggest businesses. I think those two... Warwickshire. Warwickshire and Hampshire. Yorkshire. Yeah. Yorkshire. Yorkshire. You put those guys together and you'll have half of the revenue across 18 first class. counties the majority of that comes from not just cricketing and performance on the pitch it comes from hosting fees of test matches it comes from hotels it comes from conference and entertainment as we discussed with um langashire last time which was a huge problem with the membership right they were yeah they were they were very upset because the money wasn't being all the time the money the attention wasn't on improving the cricket it was in improving the business but that's because to the executive side of it the performance on the pitch doesn't mean that they are better or worse of business i mean if sorry go down they don't suddenly lose a huge amount of money it's like the american franchise system right which is look you know you you know you're going to be one of the 18 professional outfits in the country um there's no tv revenue involved here not certainly no significant tv revenue ecb handouts come but you know it's that don't change that much um and as you say those big counties have got such large non-county cricket revenue streams from hosting other big events, whether it be cricket events or even non-cricket events.

49:43I mean, crikey, the number of times I've been to non-cricket events at the Oval would be like a lot. A lot of conferences, a lot of lunches and dinners and all this type of stuff get hosted at the Oval, which simply would not be the case at Taunton for Somerset. So you're absolutely right. From a business perspective, this is small beer. From a sporting perspective, it is a pure sporting story. not a business and the challenge and the frustration of people who love their county cricket is that the cricket doesn't mean more financially financially i think there's an element of sport which is meaningful for the sake just of sports right now in other professional sport of course that then translate mostly tends to translate directly through into um financial performance although we're about to discuss the nfl which arguably doesn't really um but But if you were to start creating a lot of financial jeopardy in a sports ecosystem in county cricket that is already very vulnerable, that might cause problems of different kinds.

50:48So they benefit from the fact that getting relegated doesn't ruin you. I mean, they definitely do. Because if you were getting ruined, then the count is in div two. But you also mentioned, Charlie, that in Surrey's case, for instance, a large chunk of their playing staff are off playing for England most of the summer. Yeah. so that symbiotic relationship between the counties and the ecb with the ecb either providing direct funding or granting test matches to be held there which provides other funding etc means that effectively the counties subjugate their own performance interests to england's performance interests and therefore if you were to make it more financially meaningful what happened within the county game you would start to get a real tug of war happening which sport does that happening rugby rugby you know there's been real tugs of war haven't there between the clubs and the rfu about the players and you know when they get released and you know and all that type of stuff in england it's broadly in english cricket it's broadly understood if the england squad needs a player that they go the atmosphere must be boiling in lancashire cricketing oh crikey we actually haven't caught up recently in what's happened behind the scenes with all of their various EGMs and AGMs and having to bring people in to sign documents on bank holidays and all this type of stuff.

52:07One for substat maybe. That is maybe one for substat subsequently. But yeah, I think it is worth saying, look, Surrey have been terrifically successful over the last four or five years. And sometimes teams do go through cycles. And it feels like maybe Surrey is coming towards that point in the cycle where they've got a few, you know, they've got some players like Rory Burns and Sibley and these types of guys who've been around for quite a while, who've been in the England team in previous, who have then had a really good back end of their career playing really good candy career for Surrey, but who are now in their mid-30s.

52:36Yeah. And that becomes a bit more challenging from a performance perspective. Meanwhile, losing Atkinson's Lawrence, Jamie Smith, Lottie Pope's even out at the moment. So they are, they're hampered, right? By the structure. So look, they are, they're pretty close, but I think there's a lot of teams, it's actually very tight down at the bottom. You have Surrey, Essex, Yorkshire. I mean, Yorkshire, right down there, Leicester, Hampshire, gone a pretty pretty yeah pretty much done i think yeah um anyway there we go there we go keep an eye out keep an eye out for county championship for the next few weeks it's going to be exciting charlie we mentioned it was nice having the premier league back um this week also welcomes back the champions league it does european football it has i should say back with us yeah my i find myself going to the carabao cup against leeds tonight rather than watching a mighty Champions League draw at the bridge.

53:29Mind you, I will get the chance to do that a few times because of Shakhtar playing their home games at Stamford Bridge. Did you see? I did not see that, Charlie. So Shakhtar, Donetsk, the Ukrainian team, since the war haven't been able to play their Champions League games at home. They've played them around European countries over the last few years. Anyway, now, because Chelsea are not in Europe, Stamford Bridge has been nominated as the host of Shakhtar home games in the Champions League. Uncle Roman will be turning in his Chelsea grave. Can you imagine? Well, there's obviously that poetic element to it.

53:56anyway Champions League is back yeah should we frame this by saying we've just gone from speaking about one sporting competition the English County Creative Championship in which there is almost no financial relevance whatsoever to a competition that could hardly be more financially stratified and layered if it could try you know there is financial implication at every single level of the UEFA Champions League yeah it's fascinating isn't it shall I lay it out just for some of the money line it out so just so you get the full picture the full Champions League financial pot to be distributed amongst participants this year is 2.5 billion euros.

54:32Yeah. That is broadly packaged into three main areas. Yeah. First one is equal shares. That's 670 million. That equal shares is just your participation, if you want, for getting to the Champions League. And getting into the group stage. And getting into the group stage. So if you are now competing in this league table, which you can't call it the group stage anymore the table stage or whatever you want that is 18.62 million euros to each of the 36 clubs 18.6 million that is 27 and a half percent of the budget you then have performance 914 million euros is on performance winning matches getting to further rounds getting we're getting to knockout stages winning matches the knockout stages that's the next pot exactly that is 37 and a half percent of the pot and the third pot is the one which is least well known and least well understood do you When I line that one out.

55:20The value pillar. The value pillar. Sounds great, doesn't it? It does, doesn't it? It's lovely. It's actually a stitch-up. Meritorial, yeah. It's actually a bloody stitch-up. It's like, guys, just in case we're really big clubs and we don't do very well, we just need to have a little bit of cash in there. This was what came out the back end of the failed Super League, right? This was UEFA's sort of little shimmy they did to make sure that the very biggest clubs in Europe never again thought of creating a Super League. Yeah. So the value pillar is worth 835 million euros, 35%. Just repeat that.

55:49835 million. So just so everyone's very clear, of the two and a half billion that UEFA distributes through the UEFA Champions League, 900 million of that odd is distributed not based on whether you qualify for the group stage, not based on how well you do in that stage or subsequent in knockout stages. It's distributed how, Charlie? Basically by your UEFA coefficient, which is how big a football club you are over the last five to ten years and the size of your media market. so I'd love to see how that second bit was calculated the media market yeah yeah and the media market is then distributed equally amongst the number of participants from each country so for example the Premier League Premier League clubs actually you know while they get a huge amount from this yeah individually they get less because there are more of them right same for Spain this year in five right it's actually better to be PSG yeah where there are only let's say three French clubs taking part but the French market is still in UEFA Champions League terms a big TV market.

56:48Exactly. Right? So therefore, PSG end up getting the maximum amount because they are a big fish in a small pond in terms of the number of clubs competing, which is a big pond in terms of the number of TV viewers. Yeah. But so in essence, it is exactly that. It is if we have a stinker, we still need to make sure we get a good amount of cash here. Right. Because we can't have Lask taking our money. Right. Or AEK happens. So I sort of just did some back of my fab packet calculations and by the way that's not a metaphorical fag packet I can confirm there's a few so last season PSG won the most amount of money that any club has ever made from UEFA one season 150 million euros PSG made of which about a third was from this value pillar so in other words PSG made 100 million euros through winning the Champions League and winning lots of matches along the way to win the Champions League right but they also made 50 million for being PSG right it's a nice place to be isn't it right so let's just say for the sake of argument they didn't win a single game in the group stage and therefore did not progress the knockout stages they would have made 19 million for taking part in the group stage basically 65 60 to 70 million they would have made and then 50 million just for being PSG So that is the way in which UEFA has managed to make sure that all the big clubs are happy with the setup of the Champions League.

58:23They basically said to the big clubs, particularly, as you quite correctly say, the non-British big clubs, look, don't worry. As long as you make sure you qualify, which if you are in the Italian, French, German and Spanish leagues is much more straightforward to do them when you're in the English League. You know, because they're being allocated three, four, five spots when really there are only two or three big, big clubs in there. So if you are one of those big clubs, so if you are one of the Milan clubs, Juve, if you are, you know, Real and Barca, if you are PSG and if you are Bayern, right?

59:04Broadly speaking, you're going to qualify for the Champions League pretty much every year, provided you haven't had some massive financial scandal that relegates you to Serie B. Correct. So on those grounds, and because you are big fish in a relatively limited number of clubs qualifying, but in a big TV market, you're basically getting a 50 million euro handout just for being you. Yeah. Right. And it's worth remembering that for leagues outside of the Premier League. I was just about to say this. Yeah. This money actually matters. I mean, it matters for all clubs, even in the Premier League. If you're receiving 120 million from the Premier League, a 50 million handout is still very, very nice to have.

59:41if you're in a league where your TV revenue might be not all that ambitious, particularly if you're PSG. Where you barely have, yeah. Where you barely have any domestic TV revenue at all. The 150 million that you get from UEFA becomes the entire point of your whole life, right? Now you need to do well enough in your domestic league to make sure that you do qualify for the Champions League, right? So make sure of that. But this is why PSG could afford, or not even afford, why it was strategically appropriate for them to say that Dembele is basically never going to play in Ligue 1 unless we're using it as a way to keep him fit because it's the Champions League where they make their money.

1:00:19Yes, exactly. And I mean, look, you only need to look at what you get for finishing last in the Premier League, right? Which is 110 million pounds. Pounds. Pounds. So that's 130 million euros. Yep. Right, and you're winning the Champions League with what all in, as you said, 150-ish million euros. So 20 million difference between finishing bottom of the Premier League and winning the Champions League as PSG. We know the numbers are huge. What I think was interesting, Charlie, was to tie this into some of the stuff we were talking about last week when we were trying to understand a bit more about the transfer market spend.

1:00:54Because it's been obviously hugely well documented how much Premier League clubs spend against Europe. It's been well documented that all of the leagues packaged together don't even spend anywhere near what the Premier League spend. so the question you can always come back and i think we said there is it but does it actually make a big difference european competition when everyone gets to compete against each other how do these premier league teams who are spending so much money is that correlating to success well that of course they have it much harder don't they because first of all because they are okay so let's just go back no premier league team at the start of the season can in any way guarantee that they are going to qualify for the champions league so that's problem number one so they so So they then have to commit to the Premier League.

1:01:33They then have to make sure they're playing their best team in the Premier League, right? So there's no business model that exists that says, well, we can take things easy in the Premier League because we know we're going to try to fight the Champions League. So that's the first thing. That then means because they've got their best players playing in the Premier League week in, week out, which is, of course, what makes the Premier League such a great TV product. That then means that by the time they play their Champions League matches, they are more likely to have to actually roll in some of their reserve players to play in the Champions League.

1:01:58And Charlie, remember, not just they can rest players. other leagues famously move fixtures to accommodate European performance. If PSG have a Tuesday night game, Ligue 1 will often move their game to a Friday night rather than playing on a Sunday. Now, the Premier League will often have Liverpool in the 4.30 slot in a big game and they could well be flying to Cyprus to go and play Apple World on a Tuesday night. So while you have these international leagues protecting their teams in European competition. The Premier League, for good reasons, for the integrity of the competition, I would say. Yeah, I mean, look, ultimately the Premier League is bigger than the Champions League.

1:02:42That's the truth of the matter. There's more money in the Premier League than there is in the Champions League. So therefore, both the Premier League itself and the clubs that own the Premier League naturally prioritise the Premier League because that's where the real big bucks are, okay? Including your only way to then qualify for the Champions League. It has to be by doing exceptionally well in the Premier League. So it's a totally different body language and a totally way of looking at it to the European clubs for whom the UEFA Champions League really is their last remaining chance of actually doing well enough to even be able to vaguely compete with the English Premier League clubs.

1:03:14You know when we were talking last week about whether the Premier League can attract the top, top, top talent and we said the Premier League has never really been set up for that. It's not been about having the top, top, top talent. It's been about the breadth of competition. If you're a top, top player is the ambition is the core objective is the pinnacle of club football to win the Champions League. Yeah. Yeah. So you've kind of got this system where because of the leagues not being as strong, those clubs that you mentioned always qualify. They will likely always be able to hold that appeal to those biggest players because - You're always in it.

1:03:51They're always in it. Always. And they're always likely to be in the latter stages of it. Absolutely. For a Premier League team. No guarantees. Well, there's no guarantees of even qualifying. Absolutely. You could have a horrible season. You can go out early. So for a Premier League team to do what Arsenal did last year, actually, when you look at all of this together, is even more, and I'm sure this is going to piss a lot of people off, going, oh, you're so English. But to play in the Premier League week in, week out, with Hull City competing against the top teams, to then go and play in Europe every single week, needing those players to be on it every single time.

1:04:28The achievement of doing that in the Premier League is extraordinary. And also being penalty kicks away from winning that when PSG had been able to start Dembele 10 times in a domestic season. Yeah, when Declan Rice was playing 50 times. When I was looking at this, Charlie, do you know, I was interested. I wanted to see the last time a European league spent more than the Premier League in a summer transfer window. What do you reckon?

1:04:562010 earlier 2002 syria since then premier league has spent more than every league there was roma spent the most money in 2000 2001 juventus in 01 02 and inter in 203 then abramovic arrived and everything changed and everything changed but the real thing that changed was i mean abramovic was the change at that particular moment but the thing that's changed it structurally is the growth in global TV revenues, detaching themselves from all the other leagues. The other leagues have not been able to achieve significant non-domestic TV revenue. So they've been pinned to their domestic market, whereas the Premier League has been able to develop this massive global market.

1:05:44And that extra$2 billion a year that they get for their international TV rights basically is the difference. But it does drive challenges on the Champions League side. Now, of course, another thing that has happened is, you picked me up on this yesterday, you know, not that long ago, if you got knocked out of the group stages of the Champions League, as they were back then when it was four-team groups, if you'd done reasonably well, you were able to move back into the Europa League at a later stage in the Europa League. so you get a second bite of the cherry. And that strengthened the Europa League.

1:06:17That meant some quite good sides dropped into the Europa League and then basically into the last 16, I think it was. Maybe in the last eight. Anyway, no, last 16. No, last 16. It was last 16. And then they were like, okay, well, a bit sad not to have gone further in the Champions League, but I'm only three matches away from a European final. So let's give this a proper go. When they moved to this new league format, that then finished because the league format goes on too long. By the time you finish the league, the Europa League is already up and running properly. So you can't then start filtering clubs back into the Europa League at that point.

1:06:51Yeah, sorry, it's just on that right at start when I just was having a look. It said, oh, the Champions League begins. The league phase runs from the 8th of September to the 27th of January. Yeah. It's like 27th of January. Yeah. Used to end in December. Yeah, exactly. Beginning of December. So you can't drop clubs down now from being knocked out of the Champions League into the Europa League. That in turn has weakened the Europa League. And that in turn has meant that the Europa League and indeed the Conference League below that is now being dominated to an embarrassing extent by the English teams that qualify for it because the team that finishes 7th or 8th in the Premier League is so far ahead of teams that finish 5th, 6th, 7th in the other European leagues that effectively it's almost like a no contest as people who saw the Aston Villa-Fryberg final in the Europa League last year.

1:07:40It was like watching a Premier League team playing as a championship side. It was a real sort of total mismatch effectively. So the Europa League, I do think they have a problem with it. Yeah. Because, I mean, that Europa League final last year, the gap between Villa and Freiburg was enormous. Yeah. Now, if you have, let's just say, right, if you have the Benficas of the world, if you have Marseille, if you have, I don't know, maybe an AC Milan who's gone down before, Atletico Madrid got knocked out a few years ago, Chelsea got knocked out. if you have those guys going into the Europa League it makes it more competitive then you know people could also say but then what's the point in starting in the group stages you do the hard work you just go in and then it's a bit like you know the big teams coming into the third round of the FA Cup they always go well you know that's just unfair isn't it so I don't it's a hard one to balance yeah it's a difficult but I think it is worth noting the financial relevance of it last year Villa won in total from the Europa League 40 million euros right so that's the equivalent of qualifying for the European Champions League League, which is about 20 million, and then winning three or four matches in that and maybe qualifying for the last 16.

1:08:47Yeah. I think that's 16 last eight. So you get 2.1 million euros per win this season, 700K for a draw. Yeah. So you get four wins, that's another eight, and you qualify for the last 16 and you get beaten the last 16. That's sort of the level we're talking about here. Basically, is Villa around the same amount for winning the Europa League as they would have got for getting to the last 16 or the last eight in the Champions League. And then the Conference League, Palace made around 20 million euros, which is the same as qualifying for the league stage of the Champions League. So look, much better than the kick in the teeth.

1:09:20And for clubs who have been finishing seventh or eighth, whatever it might be in the Premier League, it's obviously a very significant boon for them. But if you think percentage wise, in terms of their revenue splits, and you think about Villa's revenues being 350 million, the 40 million that they make from the Europa League is 10-15%. Whereas if a club from one of the European leagues were to make 40 million from the Europa League, like Sevilla did for several years, that's going to be more like 25 % of their revenues. It's going to be a really, really significant portion. So look, it's an interesting landscape and the English clubs are just across a number of different ways.

1:09:58They're just in a slightly different position from the other European clubs. They are. Charlie, I want to move on to our final topic because it's the start of the NFL season. It is. And with it, I thought an interesting time with what's going on in the NBA. You have the NFL with more international matches than ever to look at the expansion strategy, should we say. You mentioned there that the media rights deals, the global media rights deals had really moved the Premier League into a different stratosphere. American sport seems to be in its moment where it's not looking purely domestically to grow.

1:10:29It's looking very much at international as its next phase. and we've seen this in the NBA with the bids going in very recently for NBA Europe franchises and we're now going to see it a little bit more in a different guise in the NFL who as I've just mentioned are going to play nine games abroad this season in some pretty far-flung places I mean I don't know are you going to be watching in Melbourne what will be tomorrow night for us so actually as this comes out the game will have just happened really? yeah wow will you be watching? I think it's about 11 o 'clock here night time it's on Netflix It's on Netflix?

1:11:03Yeah. Wow. I didn't see that, Charlie. Well done for digging that out. It's really interesting. So effectively what we're seeing here is that the NFL, you're seeing two different approaches. So the NBA have said, well, for us to grow our European market, we're going to set up a league in Europe, and we're going to try and really build basketball in Europe. And the NFL have gone, no, we've sort of done that before, back in the 90s, didn't really work. It's just that there isn't enough American football fandom in Europe. so we need to be a bit more selective about this and we need to make sure what we put in front of them is the real deal there's also a basketball in Europe is a big sport that's why that's why the NFL has and I spoke to Brett Gosper who runs the international great interview I really enjoyed that you know he very simply says look when you're building something internationally there has to be a foundational element and for the NFL to build that from scratch in Europe is a massive lift they're not at the stage where they need to do that they still need to build no one plays it here exactly Right.

1:12:00This is a fundamental issue, which is that when you're thinking about fandom and spectatordom, a significant chunk of every sports fandom, every significant size sports fandom, is built off people who at a young age played the game. yeah you know um and when you're looking at a geography in europe where almost nobody has played it at all and where there have been no historic clubs in basketball they have but not here not not in not not in american football effectively you are you're a startup you know you're a startup and i think they've been very wise and smart in taking a 5 10 15 20 year view on this saying let's not go crazy here let's gradually increase the number of international games that we play let's see how we make those individual games the into full weekends real sort of full events with lots of stuff going on around them so that we drag people into our net as opposed to simply going look it's here give it a go type thing well it's the discussion we have regularly which is you can't just create something from scratch and expect people to care yeah so by renting the demand if you want by taking these teams into new areas the lift is much easier it is far less of a commitment you're not having the infrastructure plays you know your your margins are far better um the business of the nfl is worth reminding everyone is already extraordinary right this is 23 billion dollars their domestic in revenue last year it's good to repeat that 23 billion dollars in revenue.

1:13:32The media deal alone was$11 billion. Right. So you're talking about - And that's almost all domestic. And they're still growing domestically. It's still growing. I think it was 8 % or something, the growth domestically for the NFL. So maybe unlike the NBA, which you could say saturation domestically is there, hence why we've got this more aggressive play. The NFL's move here can fall into that all-blast category of when you're on, the best time to innovate and change is when you're already winning. you know the nfl they could just sit and enjoy the domestic side of the business roger goodall said it would be a 25 billion business you know relatively soon they will they will do that within the next year or so they are so far ahead of any other sports league despite having 18 17 sorry round of regular season games and you know we talk about scarcity we talk about oversupply you've mentioned it with horse racing you know within this uh environment they they make you want the product my god like when they when they take it out to their fans they're desperate for right you're absolutely right i just want to just i just want to illuminate that point right you said at the start of this show god it's great the football's back yeah right okay that's how you're feeling right now and you'll be feeling like that for a while it depends by about december you'll start to go got another four months of this yeah right that's it's just what all football fans think at some point.

1:14:57Unless we're top of the league. It's not that happened. So in December or January, you're starting to feel a level of saturation, and really your interest is only then really held if your team's either doing very well or very badly. Yep. Right? What they do is they manage to keep the season to, I mean, the regular season finishes in mid-January, and it's only starting now. So you're talking about a four-month season, right? So huge anticipation because NFL fans in America, you said, I'm so glad the football's back when we'd been away for three months. But they'd been away for eight months, right?

1:15:34If your team was not in the playoffs in January, 2026, January, February, 2026, you haven't watched your side play since mid-January, 2026. By the time you come round to mid-September, you're desperate for it. And that interest is then held through the entire four months, passionate interest. into the playoff season, which one they go, oh, stop. You're going to have to wait another eight months. Yeah. Right? And I think it's just such an amazing lesson. It's one which I just, you know, do you remember, I sort of mentioned the other day when I was having a bit of a go at the Professional Footballers Association and over their prioritizations and saying, for me, the calendar is so important in sport and understanding how to generate the highest level of excitement for a sport in the most sustainable and durable way is the most underestimated part of putting a whole sport together, right?

1:16:30And this for me is something which the NFL has just gone, this is who we are. This is how we do it. This is what we do. And they know that if they did extend the season by an extra two months, it wouldn't necessarily mean more revenue. And that's the big mistake that football has. They think more is more value. Well, the problem is that, Whereas the NFL acts as one body, football is FIFA, UEFA, the Premier League. And so there's all of them fighting for their own share of the pie, even if it's at the expense of the greater pie. And that's always where we have to be, we have to caveat what we say about the brilliance of the US sports with the challenges that everything else faces.

1:17:08But with this kind of global strategy, the NFL are playing one of the hardest games in sport, right? And it's looking to grow and build away from a core fan base that has made you what you are. So their big challenge of taking games internationally is not to piss off the existing fans that have contributed to the success. Now, they've done it in clever ways. I mentioned the Australian game. Do you know what they haven't compromised? They haven't compromised kickoff time. So you have the biggest time difference gap pretty much anywhere in the world between what will, and it's the Rams versus the 49ers, right?

1:17:39So two West Coast US teams. Yeah. Like 17 hours, I think, behind. it kicks off at 10 30 a.m in melbourne so it's like 5 p.m pacific time 8 p.m eastern time in the u.s they haven't gone and put it in the evening in australia it'll be interesting to see how it works yeah it'll be really interesting have you seen the travel arrangements of both teams i have that was pretty cool for people so so you guys just say if you haven't seen it the san francisco 49ers have been in melbourne for a week pretty much and the rams are flying literally in and out it's it's a staying on the same clock it's a really interesting conversation which i've heard a lot in professional sports about whether you try and fully acclimatize and get over the jet lag or if you try and blast straight through the jet lag and just try and get in and out of there quick enough that the body doesn't have time to adjust where do you sit on it what have you heard what do people say um i've i think one or other but not in between and too often it's in between too often it's well let's get there a day or two beforehand and you get the worst of both worlds um i quite like to do a sub stack subsequently on the history of the nfl as i started to research this topic for today i started to dive down a few rabbit holes in terms of how the nfl's actually come into being i thought it's probably not a subject for the main show but i'd love to do it as a sub stack because it's relatively recent history how the NFL's ended up being the way it was effectively.

1:19:08It was a merger between the NFL and a very powerful challenger league. It's what happened in the 1960s. So not that long ago, that's a living memory for some of our listeners. So it's like, no, not myself, but there will be others out there. And that challenger league brought a lot of innovation, which is now central to what the NFL looks like visually. So I'd love to do that as a subsequent point. But for the moment, I think suffice it to say that even if in a less than pure fan perspective, we're getting pumped for the start of the NFL season. Yeah. And I think it's also worth saying just finally to round it off, the international expansion, you know, it's not loved.

1:19:45There is a lot of contention to it. It's also seen as the feeder, the early stage of the potential 18th game. So adding another game because Roger Goodell has basically said that, well, they, I say him specifically, I'm not sure of the quotes directly attributed to him but every game every team should play an international game yeah that is very hard to do with the inventory that they have right now so adding the 18th game allows them to do that the pushback is of course the impact that that has on the players the scheduling yeah the fitness in the sport that already has a huge impact on on the guys and also moving uh 55 players players around the place it's another interesting significant challenge There's another interesting part of the sub stack I want to do is, you know that they have an offensive and a defensive team effectively.

1:20:31That, again, happened in living memory, you know, for some people. That was not an original part of American football. Yeah. Okay, so we'll do a bonus, a good bonus soon on the NFL. Indeed so. We probably need to do it. I need to do it to scratch up on my own knowledge. Your legendary appreciation of American sports, which is growing all the time. It is. And I promised myself this year is going to be it. But then I suddenly realized, shit, it starts literally today and I haven't really done anything. But you were right. Do you know what my challenge, I think, with it honestly is? Is it just hasn't been rooted in me having exposure from a participation level as I've grown up.

1:21:05And therefore, I've just never had that depth of interest. We are, guys, we're now going to move on to Substack. We are. We're going to have a look at in the wake of Liverpool's massive new front of shirt deal with Turkish Airlines. We're going to take a look at the sponsorship situation within Premier League football and how some of the other teams have fared now that gambling companies are no longer allowed to sponsor teams. So if you want to hear about Premier League sponsorship and shirt fronts, either jump on the sub stack or if you're not a subscriber, come and subscribe. It's a great, great crew we've got on there.

1:21:35He did that without a script as well. So well done. Thank you guys as always. And if you're not coming over, we'll see you next week. Cheers, Jolly. Cheers. Thank you as always for joining for another Breakdown. Now this week, I would like your thoughts on the length of the show. If you're still here, that is a slightly longer show, but plenty to cover. So do you like that? Should we look to keep to the hour? We want to make it the best for you. And I think this is an important element. So let us know your thoughts. Hopefully there was still plenty in there to keep you hooked. And if you're not heading over to join us on Substack, then we'll see you next week.

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