Why The Premier League Is The Most Popular League In The World

Despite English clubs sometimes failing to produce the goods on the European stage, and despite the country’s best players failing to grab headlines in international football at times, hundreds of millions tune in to different approved broadcasters every weekend to watch the country’s top-flight league: the English Premier League.

Playing in the league is also the dream of many players, even those from nations with amazing football leagues. Is it the marketing? Is it history? Is it the worldwide reach?

In this piece, we are going to open your eyes to why the English Premier League is the most popular in the world.

History Of The Premier League

First-tier league football in England began in 1888 and was called the First Division. A century later, the Premier League was born when the first-division clubs decided to break away from the normal English Football League system.

The new competition was called the FA Premier League up until recent years when the division underwent a rebrand for marketing purposes. The true story of the founding of the Premier League is a lot more troublesome.

Football became an association sport in England and many other countries copied their models to administer the sport. The league was also able to attract world-class players from all over Europe. This helped them stay relevant up until the 1980s.

English clubs dominated European competitions which translated to media domination as well.

In the 1980s, however, corruption, poor management, hooliganism and fan rowdiness crept into the sport in England. Stadiums began to look unrecognisable.

Fans started fights everywhere they went, even on trips to other countries for European competitions. The Heysel Stadium disaster also happened, where Liverpool fans’ actions led to many Juventus fans losing their lives in a stampede due to hooliganism.

This disaster led to UEFA banning English clubs from their competitions. And so, despite being a popular league with a global appeal, the English Premier League was the only league to not feature in European competition for five years.

This led to a massive drop in attendance and revenues and the league was playing catchup to La Liga and the Serie A, two other European leagues of the highest level. Many top players of English descent also moved abroad for financial and sporting reasons.

Some introspection was carried out by the top brass of the first division and the famous Taylor Report on stadium safety was published. The English FA also stepped in by strengthening the national team, the Three Lions.

More players began to return home for a chance to be noticed by the FA so that they could wear the Three Lions jersey in official competitions. Many clubs improved as a result, the UEFA ban was lifted and they started winning European trophies again.

Clubs also began to tow more commercial paths which led to more money coming into the league and in the 1991/92 season, after a lot of disputes over which divisions should earn more than the other, the Premier League was born.

Expansion Of The Premier League Over The Years

The Premier League is now the most-watched sports league in the world. It is broadcast in 212 territories with an estimated audience of 4.7 billion and is projected to reach over 600 million homes every weekend in 2024.

In the 2018/19 season, the league hit a high of 14,508,981 total attendance across all clubs, which is the highest to date in the world.

Not even Borussia Dortmund, one of the clubs in the world with the most loyal match-going fans, and with more seats in its stadium than most English clubs, was able to maintain full capacity for a full season the way Premier League clubs did that season.

The league has also maintained top status for over a decade in the UEFA rankings. The coefficient used in these rankings measures the performances of English clubs in European competitions every season.

The league has now gone from one with a sour history to one with the biggest global audience.

So how did the league grow to this level? It all started with TV money. As the lore of the Premier League grew, followers of historical clubs like Real Madrid and Bayern Munich began seeking ways to watch the league.

Broadcast companies caught on and began negotiating deals left, right and centre. First, it was with clubs, then it was with the FA and then it was with the league management itself.

When the league was formed in the 1991/92 season, Sky, one of Britain’s biggest broadcasters, landed what would become the most significant television broadcast deal in the history of football. This led to the Premier League infiltrating countries where almost nothing was known about the league.

They selected the matches of the highest level to broadcast, which brought in more fans, making the league grow in viewership numbers.

How Did The Premier League Get So Popular?

As viewership of the league grew, fans emerged in many countries. This was also helped by Premier League clubs going on to sign exciting world-class players from all across Europe and the world.

They were able to poach players that the likes of Real Madrid wanted, forcing the attention to come to them. Then came the era of the big four teams. Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester United began to run amok in Europe and England.

The likes of Thierry Henry joined Arsenal, Ruud Van Nistelrooy joined Manchester United, and so on. Quality players were on display week in, week out and fans wanted to catch a glimpse of these players.

More money was poured into the league through various brand sponsorships and partnerships, which also increased the television deals almost every season.

Many clubs also adopted various business models to help them stay profitable enough to win fans from all over the world and attract the best players.

The league grew in leaps and bounds this way, which also translated to European success.

Now, Premier League clubs are the second most successful clubs behind La Liga clubs in Europe, having won 15 titles across the board. They also have the most number of winners on the list, with a record six clubs having won these 15 titles.

Comparing The Premier League To Other Top European Leagues

The popularity of the league has been largely due to its global appeal. However, Premier League clubs have also shown that they can hold their own in international competitions.

The league has also been at the top of the UEFA rankings for most of the last 15 years as stated earlier. “Eye test”, however, has proven to be the major cause for division on the opinion that it is also the best league in Europe – and by extension, the world.

Fans look to La Liga for technical footballers: players who can hold the ball, players with good vision and managers who can coach possession tactics. Fans look to the German Bundesliga for young talents and physical players.

Fans look to the Serie A for tactical football thanks to the experience of the players in the clubs in the league. All of these are sentimental and subjective.

In the end, the Premier League remains the most popular league for many reasons, which also makes it better than other leagues.

Which Premier League Clubs Are The Most Popular?

When the “Big Four” began to dominate the league, their respective fan bases grew. As a result, they are the most popular clubs in the Premier League.

History also does them a great service as many of them have stories that fans can resonate with. This could be a result of the marketing each club – and the league in general – has put into making their product attractive, but there are no bigger clubs than Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester United in the league.

Not even Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur, who have crept into the conversation in recent years to expand the “Big Four” to the “Big Six”, are as popular the world over.

Let us look at some numbers, however, to know the magnitude of these club’s fanbases.

Arsenal

The Arsenal fanbase is called the Gooners. They fill out the home section of their 60,000-capacity Emirates Stadium, which was built in the last two decades by one of their most popular coaches ever, Arsene Wenger.

The club is also the tenth most followed football club on social media, with over 100 million fans. Arsenal also has 272,000 official members.

These members get to vote on small matters within the club and also get priority access to information, as well as different hospitality packages on matchdays.

Chelsea

Chelsea are deemed to have the second-largest fanbase in England worldwide. The last available data is from 2013, which puts the numbers at 135 million.

This should be well over 200 million now, especially when you factor in social media numbers.

The Blues are especially popular in Africa thanks to a certain José Mourinho, who signed quite a few African talents for the club as manager.

Chelsea have also attracted several brilliant coaches, which has helped with their popularity.

Liverpool

Liverpool have a fanbase of 137.4 million on social media. Their fanbase numbers around the world are said to be over 200 million.

This is in addition to their over 60,000-capacity Anfield Stadium, which is one of the loudest stadiums in England. It is always sold out and the fans are very vocal in their support for the Reds.

There are no official records of their membership numbers.

Manchester United

Manchester United may not have that many fans but were able to draw the cumulative attention of 3.5 billion viewers to their matches in 2019.

This means that every gameweek, there were hundreds of millions of people glued to their television screens watching a Manchester United game.

Behind Barcelona and Real Madrid in La Liga, the club is also the most followed in the world.

They were one of the clubs to adopt business models that made them mainstream, which also helped to increase the strength of their global appeal. They also employed top talent Cristiano Ronaldo at two different points in their history.

Manchester City

Manchester City do not have a strong fan base globally when compared with the other English giants. However, they do attract over 1 billion eyes to their matches thanks to their financial prowess.

Having household names like Pep Guardiola, Kevin De Bruyne and Erling Haaland can do that, but they have also been the employers of the likes of Raheem Sterling, Sergio Aguero, Emmanuel Adebayor, Carlos Tevez, the incorrigible Craig Bellamy and a lot more during their recent history.

Top talent has never been lacking at City and with these has come a significant amount of success.

Conclusion: Is The English Premier League The Best League In The World?

Eye test, global audience, star players, constant presence in the UEFA Champions League and the Europa League (especially in the latter stages), teams winning matches with amazing scorelines, incredible title races that can see the likes of Leicester City emerge champions and many more should convince any football fan that the Premier League is the best league in the world.

Many, however, can argue that the financial resources at the disposal of the league and the clubs have covered a multitude of their shortcomings.

They are the second most successful in the Europa League and UEFA Champions League, but most of these victories have not happened when La Liga clubs have been at their best. It will remain one of the most popular sports leagues in the world, regardless, but the jury is out on whether it is the best league in the world.