The Transatlantic Sporting Highway is not, in present form, a two-way street, or at least certainly not one in which Mustangs and Minis drive in opposite directions at equal speed. Since 2008, the NFL has been bringing regular matches across the water with huge success, while the NBA has come, seen and moved on to Paris, leaving space for Major League Baseball, back for its third London Series next month.
In return, the Premier League has gone as far as a summer series of friendlies in the States, effectively an ITV2 spin-off of the real thing. The prospect of something more substantial, however, is back on the agenda after a senior executive at NBC told The Athletic that the US broadcaster — which holds the Premier League’s most lucrative TV deal outside the UK, worth £2 billion over six years — will “continue to push” for matches to be played in the States.
We have been here before, back in 2008, when the Premier League tabled plans for a so-called “39th game”. The idea, to tag an international round onto the existing 38-game season, went down in flames, shot at by fan groups, proposed host countries, Fifa and Sir Alex Ferguson.
Supporter opposition remains the heftiest obstacle to expansion, as the European Super League saga showed, but the landscape has changed since overseas matches were first floated.
This story is from the May 03, 2024 edition of Evening Standard.
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This story is from the May 03, 2024 edition of Evening Standard.
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