Dissertation - BA (Hons) Media

How has the commercialisation of football
altered the way the sport is consumed?
Kenneth Ware
N0477694
April 2015
A dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for a
BA Hons in Media
Nottingham Trent University 2012-15
Declaration of ownership: Date: 24/04/2015

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Abstract
Over the last twenty years football has become a vastly commercialised sport, to the
point of it often being referred to as ‘more of a business than a sport’. The sport has
been gradually reaching its current position of total commercialisation since its post-
war popularity in Britain and throughout much of Europe. The first chapter of this
dissertation traces football’s commercial roots back to the post-war period and
follows the sport’s development through the 20th
century. A whole chapter has been
devoted to the explanation of the history and background of consumerism in football
due to the importance of understanding the story of modern football in understanding
the sport’s present day commercialism. However, despite the importance of history,
the heart of this dissertation and the primary reason for the increasingly
commercialised world of football is the Premier League era. This period of the sport’s
development has seen rapid global expansion and sales. Although the Premier League
and consumers based overseas have benefited greatly from the globalisation and
commercialisation of the League, local supporters of football clubs on the global stage
are bearing the brunt of clubs’ dependence to generating revenue through any means
possible. Following an analysis of the effect the Premier League has on the way that
football is consumed, the focus is shifted to the League’s most successful club:
Manchester United. The case study of the Club allows for the consumerism of
football fandom and the commercialisation of the running of football clubs to be
situated within an understandable context.

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Contents
Introduction 1
The History of the Standardisation and Commercialisation of Football prior 3
to the Premier League
The Premier League Era (1992 – present) 12
Case Study: Manchester United 27
Conclusion 36
Bibliography 39

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Introduction
With the world we live in becoming increasingly commercialised, so have the sports
we watch. Firstly, sport in the United States was subject to commercialisation due to
the creation of the many ‘world series’ and ‘world championships’ during the first
half of the 20th
century.
With the establishment of national leagues and championships for the various popular
spectator sports in North America came the opportunity to sell these sports to
advertisers and broadcasters. Secondly, the teams playing in these competitions were
able to sell their respective advertising space and commercial rights to companies that
wanted to be seen amongst the newly formed glamourous competitions. This
commercial aspect of North American sports was made possible through the strong
partnership between sport, entertainment and the mass media in the region.
In Britain the commercialisation of sport – in particular football, the national sport –
was frowned upon by all parties. The broadcasters were not permitted to air
advertisements, including those of paying sponsors on team kits, and the players’
wages were limited under the maximum wage policy until its abolition in 1963.
Although many fans were all for the expansion of football beyond simply a sport
during the sixties and seventies, the way they began to be increasingly treated as
consumers by their respective clubs left a sour taste for many.
Consuming Sport by Gary Crawford explores several aspects of sport consumption,
from the stages of fandom to the purchasing of club shirts. Crawford’s book along

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with John Horne’s Sport In Consumer Culture are quoted from when relevant but,
more importantly, the two books guided my direction in this project.
The development of sport in the latter part of the 20th
century “can be tied to wider
developments in the nature of late-capitalist societies, as sport … becomes ever more
based around acts of consumption” (Crawford, 2004: 8). This consumerism led to
football fans being pressured into the purchase of club shirts and merchandise –
increasingly expensive products due to takings from kit manufacturers – and,
following the foundation of the Premier League, costly television subscription
services.
To fully understand the commercial aspect of Premier League football today, the
sport’s penchant for financial gains needs to be traced back to its roots.

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The History of the Standardisation and Commercialisation of Football prior to the
Premier League
Football is a sport with no definitive origin, instead developing over centuries prior to
becoming regulated through the founding of associations, the first being the Football
Association in England. The Football Association (FA) was founded in 1863 to
regulate and standardise the many variations of the game of football under one
recognisable and accountable sanctioning body (FIFA, n.d.a). Fourteen official rules
were created regarding ball size, match length, playing field dimensions and, most
importantly, number the of players per team; the first steps towards standardisation of
football had been taken (FIFA, n.d.b).
Following on from this first step, the English Football Association combined with the
respective governing bodies of Ireland, Scotland and Wales to form the International
Football Association Board (IFAB) in order to standardise the sport’s playing rules on
an international level (FIFA, n.d.b). At around the same time, the Fédération
Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) was founded in much the same way as
the IFAB, as an alliance between football associations in Britain, Europe and, in the
impending years, the rest of the world (Tomlinson, 2014: 7). Whilst FIFA was
established as a governing body, the IFAB was the constructor and guardian of the
laws of the sport. The rules were maintained and altered based on votes cast by its
British football association members, until 1913 when FIFA were invited to become a
member of the board (Tomlinson, 2014: 15). This power to influence the maintenance
and development of the rules of football that was granted to FIFA initiated an alliance
that continues to exist and play a pivotal role in the running of the sport today.

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The organisation and standardisation of the game was a product of the associations’
passion for football, along with the sports growing popularity. It is unlikely that the
founding members of FIFA and the IFAB could foresee the dramatic growth of
football and the unprecedented popularity of the sport today. The two bodies, in
particular FIFA, form an extremely reliable platform for supporting the world’s most
popular and moneymaking recreation of all time – with the three most valuable sport
tournaments in the world being football competitions (Burke, 2012).
The union between the football associations of Britain and FIFA was unpredictable in
the early part of the 20th
century. The English Football Association gained presidency
of FIFA in 1906 and invited the other British associations to become members of the
governing body shortly afterwards (Tomlinson, 2014: 15). However, the Football
Association’s membership to FIFA was short-lived, with termination of their
membership in 1920 due to all other members authorising matches to be played
against the defeated nations of the First World War (Tomlinson, 2014: 16). The FA
rejoined FIFA in 1924 but remained a member for just four years, this time leaving
over disputes regarding payments to amateur player, however the English eventually
became a permanent member of FIFA in 1946 and has remained so ever since
(Tomlinson, 2014: 15).
This period of turmoil for FIFA and the English Football Association coincided with
the international strife that gripped the world between the beginning of the First
World War and the end of the Second World War. By the 1906-07 season, the
twentieth season after the founding of the Football League, football in the United

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Kingdom had gained sufficient popularity in terms of playing and spectating to
warrant the demand for two divisions made up of a total of forty teams (Slade, 2013:
336-340). This burgeoning popularity was understandably challenged first by the
onset of the First World War and later the Second World War. The suspension of the
Football League during wartime led to the creation of temporary regional leagues.
These regional leagues mainly consisted of teams made up of amateur players and
guest players, allowing for a development of novices that would come to prominence
after the war and the resuming of the Football League (Taylor, 2007: 192).
Whilst football as a sport went through a testing period, two of the most prominent
companies within the sport in the forthcoming years and today were beginning to gain
momentum, albeit in Nazi-ruled Germany. In 1924 Gebrüder Dassler Schuhfabrik
was founded in a small town in Germany, the company was owned by Adolf and
Rudolf Dassler (Smit, 2007: 9). This relatively small family-run manufacturer thrived
during the Second World War, partly due to the company specialising in producing
sport shoes (rather than general purpose boots or boots for soldiers) but also partly
due to the connections the brothers had with those in power at the time, naming shoes
‘Kampf’ and ‘Blitz’ may have also helped their cause (Smit, 2007: 24-25).
Following the conclusion of the war, the occupying American soldiers discovered the
Gebrüder Dassler factory and the sports shoes it was producing. After learning that
the company had produced Jesse Owens record-breaking shoes at the Berlin
Olympics, the Americans authorised approval from the military government to assist
the production of the Dassler sports shoes (Smit, 2007: 33). This relationship with the
American military led to the approval of an association football league to be

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established in southern Germany, with many players wearing the boots produced by
Gebrüder Dassler (Smit, 2007: 32-33). However, whilst the company prospered, the
occupying Americans had imprisoned Rudolf Dassler over his involvement with the
Gestapo, leading to accusations and arguments between the two brothers following
his release in 1946 (Smit, 2007: 34-38). The hostilities between the two Dassler
brothers led to the dissolution of the family business, two separate shoe factories were
founded: Adolf Dassler contracted his first and last name to form Adidas whilst
Rudolf did the same to create Ruda, which was altered to the more marketable name
Puma (Smit, 2007: 39).
With the two brothers and their companies established, they set about the branding of
their shoes. Sports shoes of the time used strips of leather to reinforce the sides of the
shoe, most companies uniformly used the same colour leather for the main body and
the sides. However, Adolf Dassler decided to use a contrasting white leather for the
side panel strips thus transforming Adidas from a regular sports shoe manufacturer
into what it still is today: “the brand with the three stripes” (Smit, 2007: 41). This
signature use of an identifying contrasting side panel allowed Adidas to easily market
its shoes. Being one of the first sports companies to recognise the importance of
publicity and advertising, Adidas was a frontrunner in the sports shoes market. Puma,
led by the other Dassler brother, recognised this and decided to employ a similar
design: the ‘formstripe’ that still adorns Puma footwear today. The battle between the
Adidas three stripes and the Puma formstripe had begun, as had the sports shoe
advertising and marketing war.

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In the post-war years football flourished throughout the European continent. Despite
limited supplies in Britain and Germany, teams and players had managed to scavenge
supplies and equipment, allowing them to cater for the continued public enthusiasm
for the sport (Smit, 2007: 47). The popularity and continued growth of football made
it an obvious target market for Adidas and Puma (who had mainly focused on running
shoes), with Adidas supplying boots to the West Germany national team at the 1954
World Cup. The revolutionary boots that Adidas had supplied the West German team
were lightweight and used screw-in studs allowing for traction in varied conditions
(Smit, 2007: 53). The team won the tournament in the famous three stripe boots with
adjustable studs and put Adidas on the world stage (Smit, 2007: 55). The longevity of
the Adidas and Puma boots’ dominance is demonstrated with the majority of English
and Brazilian players wearing the German brands in a match at the 1970 World Cup,
as seen in the photograph used in Hackett (2013), as well as the continued use of the
brands’ boots by footballers and fans today.
Following on from the World Cup success, both on the pitch and in the promotional
sense, Adidas was bombarded with orders for their lightweight boots with innovative
studs in Germany as well as abroad. With the company’s first international sales
operation set up in Canada in the early fifties, the three stripes were rapidly being
seen and bought all over the world (Smit, 2007: 60). At the same time, England’s
Stanley Matthews had returned home after the 1950 World Cup held in Brazil with a
sample of lightweight boots used by the hosts’ national team. These boots were
reproduced for Matthews and sold bearing his name to the public; the deal saw
Matthews receive a fee for every pair sold – the very first endorsement deal of its kind
(Smit, 2007: 59). These two boots are seemingly the first examples of particular

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football paraphernalia being sold to the public, a trend that would gather momentum
in the following decades.
Following on from the monetisation of the making of football boots and selling them
to both footballers, amateurs and the public in the fifties and sixties, the sport was
further commercialised in the 1970s through the branding of club shirts. Whilst
football kits in Britain had been manufactured by the likes of Umbro and Bukta for
some time, in 1973 Leeds United agreed a deal with British sportswear manufacturer
Admiral. The deal, brokered by Leeds United manager Don Revie, saw the club’s kits
feature Admiral branding and the away kit being altered to a radical all-yellow kit
with blue and white trim – allowing for the copyrighting and sale of the new designs
(Moor, 2010). Prior to this, teams’ kits were produced by external manufacturers,
such as the aforementioned Umbro and Bukta, but featured no branding. As a result,
these generic kits were easily copied and sold to the public with no benefit to the
football club or team kit manufacturer.
The success of the Leeds United kit manufactured by Admiral, selling for two or three
times the price of generic copies but must-have items for young fans, led to the
company manufacturing similarly branded kits for the likes of Manchester United,
West Ham and Southampton (Moor, 2010). However, it was not until 1974 that
Admiral’s branded football kits truly entered the national consciousness. This was the
year that Admiral began producing the kit for the England national team, who were
now managed by former Leeds United manager Don Revie, with Admiral design and
branding. The Leicester-based company paid the Football Association £15,000 a year
for the right to sell replica shirts and full kits to the public, at five and nine pounds

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respectively (Merz, 2014). The kits produced were often of inferior quality to those
worn by players during matches, but the greatest innovation was to come in the 1980s
with the development of artificial polyester shirts: decreasing production costs whilst
being lighter and less moisture absorbent (Moor, 2010).
The branding of kits – in particular the England national team – by Admiral can be
seen as the advent of the monetising of fandom by a football club or team. This
commercialisation of football fandom was something not appreciated by Labour MP
Roy Hughes who, in 1977, claimed that “the most unpleasant aspect [of shirt
branding, copyrighting and sales] is that children are being exploited” (Great Britain
Parliament House of Commons). Hughes was not alone in opposing the new
commercialised dawn for British football, the BBC being one other such party. The
Corporation threatened to not broadcast the FA Cup Final at the end of the 1976
season due to the kits for both of the teams playing in the final being adorned with the
Admiral logo, which was in conflict with the broadcaster’s rules on not airing
advertisements, however the match was shown after some small alterations were
made to the teams’ kits (Merz, 2014; Townley & Grayson, 1984: 154).
The next step in the commercialisation of the beautiful game, a term coined by British
commentator Stuart Hall (Harper, 2003), came with the arrival of shirt sponsorship;
the first of its kind took place in West Germany in 1973 with Jägermeister sponsoring
Bundesliga club Eintracht Braunschweig (Moor, 2010). The FA, however, did not
permit shirt sponsorship until 1977 with the first English team to play in a kit with a
shirt sponsor being Liverpool in the 1979-80 league season (Moor, 2010). This
landmark Hitachi shirt sponsorship deal, and those that followed it, provided

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Liverpool with “a new source of income, but also became a point of reference for
supporters recalling memorable matches” (Liverpool FC, n.d.). With the financial
benefits of shirt sponsorships outweighing the debatable loss of identity – in a
theoretical sense, identifying teams arguably became easier with individual shirt
sponsors – many other teams understandably followed suit and signed their own
deals.
However, this newfound ability for clubs to sell advertising space on their team kit
was dealt a blow when the BBC and ITV, Britain’s football broadcasters, refused to
transmit coverage of matches featuring teams playing in sponsored jerseys (Moor,
2010). However, in 1983 the broadcasters decided to allow sponsored shirts to be
shown in their programmes, this immediately saw a dramatic increase in the value of
a sponsorship deal with a team featured on highlight programmes, such as the BBC’s
Match of the Day (Moor, 2010). This method of measuring the cost and value of shirt
sponsorship can be seen as a precursor to those used today, i.e. Premier League status
and consequential appearances on highlight shows, which have resulted in the
financial chasm between football clubs residing in the Premier League and those in
the Football League’s other divisions.
Whilst manufacturer’s logos and shirt sponsorships were major steps towards the
highly commercialised world of football today, other innovations took place during
this period as well. Many stadiums began to feature perimeter advertising boards;
these advertisements were particularly effective as they were unavoidable (more so
than shirt sponsors) to broadcasting cameras (Townley & Grayson, 1984: 105). Such
was the success of the perimeter advertisements in football that by the 1980s they

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were considered the most valuable method of sports sponsorship (Townley &
Grayson, 1984: 105).
Also occurring at around the same time was the title sponsoring of tournaments, such
as the renaming of the Football League Cup to the Milk Cup (Townley & Grayson,
1984: 104).
This can be considered the final step towards the following decade’s introduction of
the breakaway FA Premier League division and its various guises over the years due
to sponsorship. This, along with the other aforementioned methods of
commercialising football, helped lay the foundations for the sport’s biggest step
towards the fully commercialised climate it lives in today: the variously sponsored FA
Premier League.

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The Premier League Era (1992 – present)
Football became increasingly commercialised throughout the 20th
century, from the
placing of advertisements around stadia, to sponsor’s logos appearing on club shirts
and other merchandise that was then sold to fans to generate revenue for the club.
However, the transformations that saw football become as much a business as it is a
sport reached a pinnacle in 1992 with the foundation of the FA Premier League
(Dobson & Goddard, 2001: 418).
The FA Premier League was formed as a result of a number of factors. Firstly, the
reputation of British football had suffered badly at the hands of hooliganism in the
decades prior to the League’s foundation. Such behaviour effectively gripped British
football from the 1970s through to the nineties.
The a milestone for British football hooliganism was the final of the 1975 European
Cup in Paris that saw Leeds United fans wreak havoc in the Parc des Princes stadium,
during the game and after the final whistle, and subsequently through the streets of the
host city that resulted in a five-year ban from European competition for the Club
(Hunt, 1990). In the ensuing decade further acts of hooliganism by British fans
resulted in football appearing on the front pages of newspapers for the wrong reasons,
often these were skirmishes between rival fans in Britain (Davies, 1983: 7). However,
it was not until 1985 that hooliganism became an issue that needed to be tackled
immediately by the British football authorities. Ten years after the behaviour of Leeds
United fans hit the headlines, Liverpool fans would produce one of the most infamous
examples of hooliganism ever. Prior to the kick-off of the final of the 1985 European

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Cup, Liverpool fans rioted and broke through police barriers resulting in the deaths of
thirty-nine fans at the Heysel Stadium in Brussels (CNN, 2001). The actions of the
Liverpool fans resulted in the banning of all English clubs from participation in
European competitions, with Liverpool banned for an additional year (Coslett, 2006).
These incidents along with the similar, yet not fan-blamed, Hillsborough disaster in
1989 and the Taylor Inquiry that followed it saw radical changes to football spectating
in the United Kingdom. The most noticeable of these implemented recommendations
is the playing of matches in ‘all seater’ stadiums, something that became a
requirement of membership to the Premier League following its inception (The
Football Association Premier League Limited, 2014: 130). The introduction of all-
seater stadia, and its aim to reduce fan violence, in British football paved the way for
the foundation of the Premier League as a gateway for middle class fans to attend
football matches in comfort and safety.
The Premier League was founded as an autonomous league. It was separated from the
Football League yet still associated with it in terms of the rules and the transferring of
relegated and promoted teams between the Premier League and what is currently
known as the Championship. This independence from the Football League allowed
the newly formed division to negotiate its own television rights and sponsorship deals
that were more lucrative to the clubs who were members of the Premier League.
Although television and its utilisation has been described by Pierre Bourdieu (1999:
16) as the Trojan Horse that allowed commercial logic into sport, the full effects of
selling television coverage rights were not experienced by clubs until the formation of
the Premier League.

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The breakaway league, registered as The Premier League Football Association
Limited, permitted television rights to be able to be sold independently of the more
conservatively managed Football League and marketed as an exclusive, premier
competition. The financial benefits of the sale of the League’s television rights to
BskyB for £66m for the first season were colossal to the twenty two member clubs,
however this income was only felt by those elite clubs rather than the members of the
Football League as a whole (O’Sullivan, 2014). This ineffective attempt at trickle-
down economics in British football has resulted in a huge financial, and consequently
competitive, chasm between the country’s elite clubs and those languishing in the
lower leagues (Dobson & Goddard, 2001: 418; Horne, 2006: 31). This is particularly
evident when comparing the £8 million per season that the average Premier League
club received from television revenue to the £0.5 million that second-tier clubs
received from the same source in 1999 (Horne, 2006: 33).
However, with the push for the creation of the Premier League being led by the ‘big
five’ of British football at the time (Arsenal, Everton, Liverpool, Manchester United
and Tottenham Hotspur), it could be argued that this economic and subsequent
competitive dominance was possibly planned prior to the league’s inception (Evans,
2005). This theory is further supported by King (2002: 131) who states that the ‘New
Directors’ of British football, the big five clubs along with the mass media who
supported the sport’s rapid commercialisation, aimed to transform fans into a
consumer and a customer of football.

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The arrival of the Premier League was also the dawn of globalisation for many clubs.
Although the previously mentioned ‘big five’ of the time had already started to grow
their fanbase outside of the United Kingdom, the Premier League ushered in an era of
unprecedented international growth for its member clubs. However, this international
growth in fanbase, and consequently revenue, can only be maintained if Premier
League status is too. Relegation from the Premier League sees clubs miss out on
television rights money but equally as important is the loss of a platform to market
and sell the club to football consumers on the world stage.
The financial implications of a club losing its place amongst the sport’s elite in the
Premier League is evidenced through the introduction of ‘parachute payments’ in
2010 to help relegated teams combat the loss of income experienced as a result of
losing out on Premier League television payments (BBC, 2013). The parachute
payments given to relegated clubs, along with recent investments into ‘grassroots
football’, can be seen as a loosening of the grip the Premier League and its member
clubs have over television rights and the funds gained from them.
The move away from what could be argued as a socialist television rights package,
i.e. the sharing of royalties between all members of the Football League, led to British
football effectively “drifting towards the American TV model” (Holt & Mason, 2000:
176) where sport is aired the majority of the time. This sees television audiences
become consumers of sport and consumers of advertisements carried by sport on a
daily basis.

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However, in recent years the progression of faster Internet speeds and the
development of web-enabled handheld devices have resulted in television
broadcasters beginning to focus their attentions on utilising the Internet. Many
broadcasters of the Premier League, e.g. Sky Sports, NBC Sport and FOX Sport Asia,
have established their own online live and on-demand streaming services (streaming
being the term for content that is delivered live over the Internet). However, the
majority of these live streaming services provided by corporate broadcasters require a
paid subscription, be that a traditional television subscription or an additional fee for
online access to live broadcasts.
The expansion in subscription television enabling access Internet has been paralleled
by the rise in availability and popularity of illegal live streaming services. These
illegal live streaming services operate as websites that provide live ‘second hand’
broadcasts of Premier League matches. This involves the capturing and streaming of a
broadcast from an official Premier League broadcaster and recycling it to the
website’s users. This form of consuming football is gaining popularity the world over;
many in the United Kingdom use these websites to watch Premier League matches
that are not broadcast live due to the Saturday afternoon television football blackout
(Hurrey, 2014). This form of watching Premier League football has spread at a fast
pace and it could be argued that illegal live streaming “represents for pay-TV a
comparable threat to that of ‘file-sharing’ in relation to music” (Scherer & Rowe,
2013: 296).
With live streaming services poised to affect the most precious asset of the Premier
League and its member clubs – the exclusive television coverage rights and the

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financial rewards they bring – the League and those who run it may be forced to take
action through the abolition of the Saturday afternoon football blackout in the United
Kingdom. As with most other decisions to do with the running of the commercially-
minded Premier League, the reason the League will challenge the live streaming
services is centred on revenue generation.
The Premier League has greatly altered the way that football is consumed in both the
obvious and more subtle ways. With the introduction of all-seater stadiums and the
increasing prevalence of corporate boxes, the way football is watched in a live
atmosphere has visibly altered significantly. This more relaxed – some people may
say civilised – approach to providing football for spectators in a stadium has
seemingly led to the sport targeting a different clientele, as Gary Crawford explains:
The commercial interests of the new corporate forces in professional
football have led to a targeting of a new audience (a ‘new fandom’) of
new middle class consumers at the expense of the game’s ‘traditional’
working class supporters. (2004: 30)
With the Premier League, and recently football in general, targeting a more middle
class clientele it can be argued that football (at least at the elite level) is losing touch
with its traditional working class fans. This argument is further supported by the
steadily increasing price to attend Premier League fixtures. With clubs in the division
receiving large amounts of money each season from the television rights deals, the
rights for three seasons from the 2016-17 season have been sold to Sky and BT Sport
for £5.136billion (BBC, 2015), it would be logical to expect this income to help lower
ticket prices for Premier League teams. However, season ticket prices at Premier
League clubs have progressively increased from 2010 to the 2014-15 season, with

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several clubs increasing their prices by around sixty per cent over five seasons (Conn,
2014). However, this has not been the case in Europe’s other ‘elite’ leagues, with
season tickets for multiple domestic league and Champions League winners
Barcelona and Bayern Munich costing less than that of any of the ninety two
professional clubs in the English Football League system that BBC Sport’s Price of
Football study analysed (BBC, 2014).
However, despite the increase in ticket prices, attendance of Premier League fixtures
has continued to grow since the formation of the League with an average stadium
capacity of under seventy per cent in the first season to over ninety two per cent in the
2010-11 season (Premier League, n.d.). This is in stark contrast to the years from the
end of the 1949 season when “a period of sustained decline [in attendance] that
continued, almost uninterrupted, until the 1986 season” (Dobson & Goddard, 2001:
317). The rising ticket prices coupled with rising attendances does point towards those
attending Premier League fixtures (and therefore consuming football as a spectator
sport) being members of society with more disposable income to spend on leisure
activities, principally people identified as middle class. It could be argued that this
shift in consumer type has seen the sport blur its distinctive popular culture identity
with that of high culture in a postmodern sense (Storey, 2012: 209). This can be
attributed to the rising price to attend a Premier League fixture, which is now at a
level that is comparable to traditionally high culture activities that are pursued by a
habitually middle class and above consumer.
Although a shift in type of consumer is probably the most logical evaluation of who is
attending Premier League matches in the 21st
century, there is an alternative opinion

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on the matter. Kevin Miles, the chief executive of the Football Supporters’
Federation, argues that the rising price of tickets, combined with clubs receiving more
money from television rights than ever, is not evidence that football attendance has
become a middle class activity but instead shows that traditional (working class) fans
are stretching their finances to fund consuming the sport that they love (Conn, 2014).
Miles also claims that because of the love supporters have for ‘their’ team, clubs are
able to “squeeze people in a way that other businesses can’t” (Conn, 2014).
This ‘squeeze’ is applied to fans of Premier League clubs despite the economic
benefits of recent television rights deals but also, in many clubs’ cases, despite the
added finance that their club receives from sponsors. Whilst it is true that virtually all
professional teams in the English league system carry a sponsors name on their shirts,
it is also true that the majority of these deals are not big enough to warrant a reduction
or stabilisation of season or match day ticket prices (Crow, 2015).
However, when supporting a big Premier League club (i.e. a team that regularly
qualifies for European competition or wins trophies) a fan could expect to pay less for
their tickets if the club is agreeing major sponsorship deals. One such example of this
is Arsenal, the team with that charges the most for season tickets and match day
tickets in the Premier League and indeed of all ninety-two clubs in the Football
League (BBC, 2014; Conn, 2014). Arsenal is a team that frequently challenges for
trophies and has consistently qualified for the UEFA Champions League over the last
decade. The Club relocated from Highbury to the Emirates Stadium in 2006, claiming
the increased capacity of the new stadium would allow the Club to generate more
income from ticket sales (Arsenal, 2007). The relocation to the new stadium was

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announced six years prior to the move along with the announcement of a new shirt
sponsor in Fly Emirates and the naming rights to the stadium being sold to the same
company (Arsenal, 2012). This sponsorship agreement was extended in 2012 with the
announcement of a new deal with Emirates worth £150m over five years (Arsenal,
2012). With this sponsorship deal in place, along with attending matches at the
sponsor-named Emirates Stadium, the price of attending Arsenal matches could be
expected to be cheaper due to the funds the Club has so readily told its supporters
about.
This expectancy and hope of lowered ticket prices occurs as a result of supporters
being constantly informed of their club’s business dealings. Seemingly a criteria of
modern day football consumption is the understanding, at least at a basic level, of the
financial transactions that takes place between clubs, players and sponsors. Although
this adds another dimension to the way football is consumed, supplementing the
simple spectating and supporting of a particular team, it can be argued that this
understanding of the running of clubs is unnecessary at fan-level. The adage “a little
knowledge can be dangerous” can be applied. With the flotation of several clubs in
the early years of the Premier League, casual followers of football along with
supporters began to grasp an understanding of the economic dimension of football
club ownership and management (Pollock, 2012). This, along with the British media’s
fixation on the running of football clubs, has resulted in fans understanding the
business of football and questioning their club’s expenditure of sponsorship and
television revenue.

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Although the sponsorship deals of the Premier League and its clubs should benefit
football fans in their enjoyment and consumption of the sport, it could be argued that
perhaps fans appreciate the business side of the sport too well. As a result, it could
also be argued that fans’ understanding of the business of football ought to be
recalibrated in an attempt to subside the fan reaction to sponsor agreements and
increasing ticket prices (Crow, 2015). One such way of recalibrating this relationship
would be to better explain to fans how the requirement for all seater stadiums for
Premier League teams greatly reduced the capacity of clubs’ grounds, and therefore
the number of tickets that can be offered to supporters.
Whilst this means that football is not committed to retaining its original core of
consumers, it is seemingly evidence of football clubs judging profit to be more
important than rewarding the loyalty of working class fans with cheaper subsidised
tickets, as seen in the other elite European leagues mentioned previously. Football
clubs have gone from being part of a community’s identity and social agenda to out-
and-out commercially focused businesses. This is an argument supported by Tim
Crow, CEO of world-leading sponsorship agency Synergy Sponsorship, who agrees
that “fans are not particularly high in the priorities of Premier League football clubs,
they are far more focused on money” (Crow, 2015). Although the satisfaction of fans
is seemingly not overly important to Premier League teams, this sentiment can be
considered misplaced due to fans being a major source of revenue – meaning fans
should be a priority for the money-hungry clubs in England’s top league. This must be
considered counter-intuitive due to the obvious revenue that fans generate for clubs.
However, it would seem that Premier League clubs (especially those with a global
fanbase) would be misplacing their priorities to not focus on satisfying and retaining

22

their fans. Tim Crow revealed that “ten per cent of a big club’s fanbase may be in the
UK and ninety per cent from further afield, whilst ninety per cent of their revenue
comes from the UK and only ten per cent from outside” (Crow, 2015). Therefore the
Premier League’s big clubs need to get their priorities in order and strive to retain
their core (British) fanbase whilst also attempt to monetise the fans that are located
overseas.
Having established that the attention of Premier League clubs lays firmly on
generating money (be that for buying players, contract negotiations or for upgrading
their stadium), it should be noted that many facets of Premier League sponsorship
deals do not benefit football supporters in any way. The likes of shirt sponsorship and
the naming rights for a club’s stadium do not add or develop the way in which
football is consumed by fans, however other types of sponsorship are available to
Premier League clubs.
The globalisation of football and the Premier League in particular has resulted in a
very different consumer climate compared to that prior to the formation of the League
in 1992. With football being very much a sport played and watched globally, the
actual consumers of Premier League football have changed. Manchester United were
“the first [Premier League team] to be aware of the potential of marketing [and]
developing [an] international strategy for its brand” (Bodet & Chanavat, 2010: 57)
and later leveraging their marketable and valuable global following in the selling of
the Club’s sponsorship and commercial rights. Through the rapid globalisation of the
Premier League, the league and its teams have been able to sell certain commercial
rights multiple times to different regions – i.e. two different companies becoming the

23

official drinks partner of a club, but each company only holding the right to market
the relationship in their respective region or territory. This has allowed for even
greater income for Premier League clubs. However, as with most sponsorship deals,
the selling of commercial rights has done little for the fans of these clubs.
The regionalising of sponsorship sales to maximise potential income is only an option
to Premier League clubs due to the global popularity and consumption of the League
(Booth, 2015). Due to Premier League fixtures being watched and its teams being
followed all around the world, there is a market for companies based in different
regions to associate themselves with the League’s clubs.
Firstly, this is most evident to the casual consumer with the rapid growth in foreign
brands sponsoring team shirts in the Premier League. Several of the Premier League’s
top clubs began to be sponsored by overseas brands in the 2000s, with major clubs
such as Liverpool and Chelsea being sponsored by Carlsberg (Danish) and Fly
Emirates (United Arab Emirates) respectively. The majority of foreign sponsors of
Premier League clubs are foreign brands targeting the League’s British audience, such
as Samsung sponsoring Chelsea, Chang Beer’s sponsorship of Everton and the
multiple foreign airline sponsoring Premier League teams. Though these brands do
indeed appeal to British consumers the global popularity of the Premier League and
its clubs allows for sponsors to reach a global audience, something that these
companies are very much focused on.
One such company that invested in Premier League sponsorship to broaden their
brand’s awareness outside of the United Kingdom is online betting and gaming

24

operator, Betfair PLC. In 2009 the British betting exchange giant announced a deal
with globally renowned, multiple Premier League champions, Manchester United to
become the Club’s official betting partner (Golding, 2009). Matt Booth, Betfair’s
Head of Marketing and Commercial Operations at the time, explained that the
partnership with Manchester United “allowed the company to build it’s awareness and
brand scale, and in turn consumer trust, across Europe and the rest of the Premier
League watching world” (Booth, 2015). As with many other sponsorship
arrangements, the partnership with Manchester United allowed Betfair to create
content, such as fan competitions, in association the Club and aimed at the Club’s
global fanbase. Association with Premier League clubs through sponsorship and
content creation is also an opportunity for companies unable to advertise in certain
countries (e.g. due to regulatory restrictions) to reach potential customers (Booth,
2015).
With the rise in popularity of Premier League football and that of online gambling (be
that sports betting or casino games) virtually coinciding, many of the shirt sponsors of
Premier League clubs have come from companies from within the online gaming
industry. This, coupled with the recent shirt sponsorships by financial advisory and
investment companies, has resulted in twelve of the twenty Premier League teams
participating in the 2014-15 season feature shirts with brand logos for companies
involved in risking money and placing bets (picture used in: The Telegraph, 2014).
Whilst many Premier League sponsors invest to raise their brand awareness globally
as well as in the UK, there is a recent trend of companies sponsoring Premier League
club shirts with the objective of exclusively targeting foreign markets. With the

25

Premier League being an effective way of marketing a brand to Europe, Asia, the
United States and Latin America many brands not specifically interested in British
consumers have began shirt sponsorship arrangements with Premier League teams
(Booth, 2015). Possibly the Premier League’s most observable current shirt sponsor
targeting a foreign market are the Chinese characters adorning the Swansea City kit.
The Welsh team is sponsored by a Hong Kong-based financial services provider
called Goldenway that are using Premier League shirt sponsorship as a platform to
advertise to the two hundred million households in China that receive live television
broadcasts of Premier League matches (Swansea City AFC, 2013). The company,
displayed as GWFX and Chinese characters on the Swansea City shirts, is now able to
target the Chinese market that account for thirty per cent of the Premier League’s total
audience (Swansea City AFC, 2013). Virtually nobody in the United Kingdom is
remotely interested in this product or service.
With the Premier League’s audience and popularity growing year on year, the League
has sought to further monetise the watching of its matches. This is another example of
how football as a sport and the Premier League as football league are seemingly more
about financial gain than actual sport. The importance of money to those running the
Premier League is an illustration of the capitalist and neo-liberalist society we, as
citizens of the West, live in today.
With television rights playing an important role in the finances of the Premier League
and its member clubs, the selling of coverage rights to foreign territories has helped
boost the revenue gained from the live broadcasting of the League’s fixtures.

26

An alternative form of Premier League television broadcasting is the television
channels dedicated to specific Premier League clubs. Club television channels
broadcast exclusive content such as interviews with club staff and players and often
transmit coverage of the club’s Premier League matches, live preseason tour matches
in the summer and live youth and reserve team games to their subscribers. These
television channels originated through digital television but are now available on club
websites and are available worldwide in most cases. The first of these dedicated club
channels, and the most prominent today, is Manchester United’s MUTV (BBC, 1998).
This is one example of one of the Premier League’s foremost clubs investing in
marketing itself in alternative ways, both in the United Kingdom and in the
developing football markets overseas.

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Case Study: Manchester United
The dominance Manchester United experience today both on and off the field is best
personified by the Club’s recently departed record-breaking manager Sir Alex
Ferguson. The Scot’s achievements at the helm of the Premier League’s most
successful club are unparalleled. Despite a shaky first few years in charge of the Club,
with some fans calling for Ferguson to be sacked, the former Aberdeen manager led
Manchester United to an FA Cup triumph in 1990 (BBC, 2006). This first trophy
essentially opened the floodgates to the many titles the Club won during the Scot’s
reign.
However, it was not the success that Manchester United experienced under the
guidance of Sir Alex Ferguson that shaped the Club as the dominant force it is
recognised as the world over today. The team assembled under Sir Matt Busby during
the 1950s and 60s captured the imagination of the British football watching public
(Hamil, 2008: 115). The team, known as the ‘Busby Babes’ due to their youthful
exuberance, had won several titles in the fifties under Busby but the Club’s popularity
had not progressed beyond local adoration (Frank, 2013: 76). However, in 1958
“Manchester United ceased being just another football club among all the others”
(Frank, 2013: 76) when the much-admired young footballers developed under Sir
Matt Busby’s tuition travelled to Belgrade for a return fixture in the European Cup.
The team secured a 3-3 draw against the side from the Yugoslavian (now Serbian)
capital and boarded a private chartered aeroplane back to Manchester. The flight was
scheduled to land in Munich to refuel and continue on to the United Kingdom,

28

however the snowy conditions at the German airport resulted in the plane crashing on
its third attempt to take off for the second leg of its journey (Frank, 2013: 76-78).
The event that was dubbed the Munich air disaster resulted in the deaths of eight
Manchester United players and the injury of many more (Hamil, 2008: 115).
Following the disaster, Sir Matt Busby was tasked with rebuilding his team. This re-
fashioned side assembled by the manager “became associated with the free spirit with
which the liberal social changes of the 1960s are associated in Western Europe and
North America” (Hamil, 2008: 116). The rebuilding of the team, along with Busby’s
determination for his players to play entertaining attacking football, saw the Red
Devils enjoy an iconic, almost mystical, following during the highly successful years
after the crash in Munich. This new look team was spearheaded by George Best, a
Northern Irishman renowned for his flamboyancy both on and off the playing field.
Arguably the first celebrity footballer, Best greatly helped the formation of
Manchester United as a global brand during the sixties through the success he and his
teammates produced in the face of adversity – creating a romantic image that captured
the imagination of football fans around the world (Hamil, 2008: 115-116). It could be
argued that George Best and his Manchester United teammates helped transform
society at the time, with the liberalism of the Club’s football style echoing that of
society in general.
With George Best, Manchester United had a player that intrigued both football fans
and those interested in popular culture. The player had unquestionable footballing
talent, winning the European Footballer of the Year award, which endeared him to
Manchester United fans and beyond, whilst his celebrity status allowed him to

29

experiment with fashion modelling and retail (Hamil, 2008: 116-117). George Best
was known as the ‘fifth Beatle’ due to his rock star off the field persona and his iconic
hairstyle. This global pop band referencing nickname is a good illustration of Best’s
and Manchester United’s impact beyond the purely sporting arena (Hamil, 2008: 116-
117).
The Manchester United global brand of today was clearly not “derive[d] from a
purely sporting or entertainment root, but has much more complex origins” (Hamil,
2008: 117). The sympathy received following the Munich air disaster endeared the
Manchester club to neutral fans the world over. This, along with the aforementioned
team rebuilding, the entertaining attacking style of play and the off field personalities
of the team’s players culminated in the creation of the brand in the 1960s that is still
ingrained into football today.
George Best and his iconic image allowed commercialism to enter football at an
individual level. This personified brand equity is vital across the many regions
accessed by the Club today, but especially in the Far East market. The endeavours of
Best during his time at Manchester United arguably paved the way for the more
recent high profile and commercial exploits of the modern celebrity footballer.
The exploits of George Best and the success of Sir Matt Busby's team was followed
by nearly two decades of very mediocre performance until the arrival of Sir Alex
Ferguson. However, the lack of significant on field success did little to diminish the
continuing growth of the Manchester United global brand, albeit not on the same

30

scale and at the same pace once Ferguson's influence on results began to be felt. The
reason for the Club’s ever-strong fanbase is best explained by Sean Hamil:
A significant advantage of the special loyalty engendered towards the
[Manchester] United brand by the hard core of its supporters, the so-
called ‘fan equity’, is that it does not require consistent success on the
field to sustain it. (2008: 117)
This retained fanbase was supplemented with additional fans from overseas during the
time Sir Alex Ferguson spent in charge of Manchester United. The globalisation of
British football as a result of the foundation of the Premier League, described in the
previous chapter, coincided with the global awareness and popularity of Manchester
United (as both a football team and a brand). Already a phenomenon amongst the
football-watching world, the Manchester United brand became a worldwide sensation
during the late 20th
century, with an estimated seventy-eight per cent of the world’s
population being familiar with Manchester United (Football Culture, 2001).
With the foundation of the breakaway Premier League looming, in 1991 the owners
of Manchester United floated the Club on the London Stock Exchange to raise capital
to develop the company both on and off the pitch (Hamil, 2008: 117). This allowed
the Club to invest in developing its international presence. This was particularly
visible in Asia as a result of Manchester United aggressively targeting the region
whilst many of its countries were benefiting from rapid economic development at the
time (Bodet & Chavanat, 2009: 57). The Club’s global marketing initiative, romantic
history and recent on field successes combined to make Manchester United the team
of choice for those introduced to British football by the Premier League’s
globalisation.

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An illustration of the wealth brought about by the Premier League can be evidenced
through analysis of the history of the comparatively recent ownership of Manchester
United. The Club was almost sold for £20m in 1989 (three years prior to the creation
of the Premier League) to property tycoon and former footballer Michael Knighton.
However the deal famously fell through (BBC, 2008). Following this approach, the
Club undertook an initial public offering (IPO) to become a publicly listed entity on
the London Stock Exchange. However, yet another takeover project emerged and
contrasted to that of the Knighton attempt in 1989 and, ten years later, seven years
after the foundation of the Premier League, the Club was subject to a takeover bid
from BSkyB (the Premier League broadcaster) worth £623m (Bose, 2007: 157).
Although the takeover was disallowed on legal grounds, in just ten years the value of
Manchester United had skyrocketed by a mammoth £601m. This was partially due to
the Premier League and partially due to the Club’s successful international marketing
strategy. However, the Club was eventually delisted from the London Stock Exchange
following the purchase of the Club by American tycoon Malcolm Glazer for a total of
£790m (BBC, 2005a).
The purchase of the Club by Glazer was met with rowdy disapproval by Manchester
United die-hards, culminating in fans forming a supporters’ trust and holding
demonstrations against the American takeover (BBC, 2005b). Although the hostilities
between the Club’s owners and the fans did eventually dissipate, in 2010 the
announcement of the Club’s £716.5m debt pile prompted supporters to reignite the
campaign against the Glazer ownership of Manchester United FC (Sinnott, 2010).

32

This campaign was most visible through its use of green and gold paraphernalia to
show disapproval at commercialism of Manchester United, with green and gold being
the colours of Newton Heath – the Club that became Manchester United in 1902
(Sinnott, 2010). These supporter demonstrations and displays of unity against the
ownership and direction of the Club illustrate how the supporters from the local area
(and indeed nationally) felt they were suffering thanks to the commercialisation of
football at Manchester United. It has to be said that conversely it also benefitted
audiences on a global scale through access to television broadcasts of games and
content.
In 2012, some years after the initial Glazer takeover, Manchester United once again
became a public entity and successfully floated on the New York Stock Exchange.
The flotation valued the Club at £1.5billion and made it the most valuable football
club in the world (Rushe, 2012). The staggering revenue growth recorded by the Club
over the last twenty years typifies the total commercialisation of the Old Trafford
brand. The hiring of a former Disney executive as it’s first commercial director is the
latest illustration of the Club’s intentions and direction, later opening the Disneyland
Paris Soccer School as a dual venture (Horne, 2006: 37; Manchester United). The
Club began to officially target fans as customers, emphasising the importance of
revenue generation as well as brand loyalty (Manchester United).
Following on from George Best in 1960s and 70s, fans had to wait until the early
nineties for a player of similar celebrity status to play for Manchester United.
Following the foundation of the Premier League, many foreign players gravitated
towards the League’s newly rich clubs. One foreign player who had relocated to

33

England prior to the League’s conception was conception was enigmatic French
international player Eric Cantona. However, Cantona moved to Manchester United
from Leeds United in 1992, where he was regarded as a highly skilful and
entertaining striker (Auclair, 2010: 245). Cantona remained at Old Trafford for five
seasons, winning the Premier League title four times, and wrote himself into
Manchester United folklore with not only his entertaining style of play and off field
flamboyance but also for famously kung-fu kicking a fan following his sending off at
Selhurst Park in 1995 (Auclair, 2010: 354-355). The exploits of Cantona only served
to increase further the international and superstar appeal of Manchester United;
something the Club were able to once again convert into valuable commercial rights.
Although Cantona acquired a high level of notoriety for both himself and Manchester
United, it was the Club’s next star player that shaped it into the global phenomenon it
is today.
David Beckham came through the youth ranks at Manchester United as part of the
famed ‘Class of 92’ (Frank, 2013: 183). The midfielder became a key member of Sir
Alex Ferguson’s successful team that came to fruition around the turn of the 21st
century. However, it was Beckham’s off field persona that was to become his and
arguably Manchester United’s greatest asset (Frank, 2013: 6). Although David
Beckham was undoubtedly a talented footballer, it was his off field image that made
him such a valuable player (Andrews, 2004: 25). At the turn of the century Beckham
was able to list a Champions League triumph with Manchester United on his CV, and
along with his recent marriage to a member of prominent pop girl group The Spice
Girls allowed him to pursue numerous lucrative product endorsements. By 2002,
Beckham and, in turn Manchester United, had become a global phenomenon –

34

securing endorsement deals with Adidas, Pepsi, Police sunglasses and several
companies located in Asia (Horne, 2006: 82). As impressive as the association with
global brands is, it is perhaps the use of Beckham’s image in commercials for
exclusively Asian products that are the most telling of his reach as a global brand. As
Beckham’s popularity soared around the world so did Manchester United’s, hence his
value to the Club in its pursuit of global commercial dominance.
Much of Beckham’s initial fame was naturally aspirated through his football talents.
However, it is important to draw attention to the fact that his current level of fame is
very much manufactured through the marketing of ‘Brand Beckham’ – the name the
media have used to identify the global image of David Beckham, his wife and his
family. Examples of how Beckham’s image has been propelled to a global level are
his pop star image that has been attributed to his good looks and frequently changing
hairstyles, which the media keep the public updated on (Andrews, 2004: 25). Also
playing a role in the player’s global popularity was the release of the film Bend It Like
Beckham to coincide with the 2002 World Cup in Japan and South Korea (where
Beckham was already a superstar) and his cameo appearances in the Goal films
released prior to the World Cup in 2006 (Horne, 2006: 156).
David Beckham’s popularity across the world, and Asia in particular, was extremely
valuable to Manchester United and an integral to the expansion of the Club’s fanbase
across the region (BBC, 2003). This is evidenced by the £25m fee Real Madrid paid
in 2003 to purchase Beckham from Manchester United, but also by the Spanish club’s
ability to mostly recoup this fee through the sale of so many of the number 23 shirts
(Beckham's chosen squad number) in his debut season in La Liga (Horne, 2006: 82).

35

David Beckham is not the only player that was capable of attracting football fans
from Asia to the Manchester United brand. Park Ji-sung was brought to the Club from
PSV Eindhoven in the summer of 2005 (BBC, 2005c). Recognising his potential use
as a pawn in Manchester United’s quest for commercial dominance of the Asian
football market, upon signing for the Club Park Ji-sung chose to address the issue by
stating he was not transferring to the Old Trafford club for business or to aid their
Asian marketing strategy, but for footballing reasons (BBC, 2005c). Park Ji-sung was
to be used for marketing purposes though, such as being one of two players selected
for the AIG shirt sponsorship announcement as the lead photograph of the BBC
(2006a) article shows. The use of the player in such presentations allowed Manchester
United and the Club’s sponsor to become a meaningful news story in Asia.
The globalisation of Premier League football and Manchester United has resulted in
the delocalisation of fan loyalty (Horne, 2006: 29). The Club’s followers now consist
of a community that “is less defined on the basis of residence or birth in Manchester,
but more so on the adoption of … consumer-based practices” (King, 2000: 421). This
could be considered as a loss of consumer (fan) identity and the traditional nature of
football support as a result of commercialisation.

36

Conclusion
This dissertation attempted to provide an explanation to the way that football is
consumed as a result of the commercialisation of the sport. The commercial interests
in the sport were traced back to their roots in post-war football in the 1940s and 50s,
where the rising attendances in British football were rivalled by the creation of two of
the world’s major sporting brands in Germany. Whilst the romanticism of football as
an recreational activity and a spectator sport was enjoyed in Britain following the
Second World War, German football enthusiasts were concentrating on trying to get
ahead of the competition through innovative products.
The German model seemed to favour a move towards a more commercial-orientated
future in comparison to the British game. However, following the redevelopment of
the sport’s image in Britain in the late 1980s and 90s, the ‘new directors’ of the game
began to focus on the monetisation of every facet of football. The ‘business of
football’ began at this time and the foundation of the Premier League in 1992 helped
propel the commercial aspects of the game to new heights.
Following the interpreting of the background to the commercialisation of football, the
focus shifted to the Premier League and how its foundation changed the way football
is consumed, not only in Britain but the entire world. Looking at the effect the
Premier League has had on consumption from a sponsor’s point of view allowed for a
better understanding of the nature of the League’s audience. It is clear that supporters
could be rewarded for their loyalty far better than most Premier League clubs
currently do, whilst the clubs themselves see the fans as customers. The main aim of

37

Premier League clubs was also deduced to be the generation of revenue at virtually all
costs, including fan disapproval.
The case study of Manchester United allowed the effects of commercialism to be put
into the context of one single club. With Manchester United being the world’s most
financially valuable football team and claiming to have the largest fanbase, the Club
was a good choice to study for this work. Manchester United is seemingly the prime
example of the total commercialism at work in Premier League football, with the
expansion of the Manchester United brand and the generation of revenue the two most
important things for the Club. Although this may seem to mean that the Club places
less importance of on the pitch performances, it is not the case as television coverage
rights (depending on league position) are the most lucrative form of revenue
generation – even for the global brand that is Manchester United.
It is important to consider what the future holds for football, in terms of the continued
commercial expansion of the Premier League and the consumption of what is
produced as a result of this. Those working in the sponsorship industry believe that
the Premier League will continue to grow as a global entertainment brand and
package. This growth enables local teams to “attract global exposure and command
unprecedented levels of commercial spend due to the exposure the League attracts”
(Booth, 2015). Although this may have positive effects in a small community with a
small club, this vast increase in commercial opportunities has often led to bigger
teams pricing out their ‘traditional’ working class fans.

38

With this occurring at many top clubs in the Premier League, such as at Manchester
United and Arsenal as mentioned in this dissertation, some fans have turned to
alternative commercial outlets. Manchester United’s continued pursuit of commercial
interests over those of the fans saw the founding of FC United of Manchester by a
group of supporters in response to the Glazer ownership and direction of the Club.
The rising price of replica kits has led to a surge in popularity of so-called ‘classic’
kits. These football shirts are either second hand or reproduced copies of club kits
from the seventies and eighties. This romanticism surrounding old-style kits is
arguably misplaced as the kits from this period were the first to bear sponsors’ logos
and names and were the catalysts to those mass produced kits today.
With the continuing tug of war between the commercial power of the Premier League
and the League’s consumers, the future of the British football in terms how it
allocates its money and its priorities is still in the balance.

39

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