What really worries me about all of this is that it feels like we are all United in despising the plans, but I have no idea of the demographic of this forum, or blue moon, or RAWK or Twitter even but I imagine it's all 'legacy fans'. What is the opinion of fans from Asia, USA, rest of the world that the proposals are clearly targeting?
If in favour then all that we will fight for will mean nothing. Manchester United will be nothing more than a brand name
What’s evident to me by watching this SL creation and some comments on the internet is that people grossly overate the reach of fans half way across the world whilst massively under rating the impact of local and U.K. based fans.
The overwhelming majority of tv and matchday money comes from the U.K. The sky and Bt packages not China, not america, in fact China didn’t even bother paying for the last tv rights deal they purchased and so the PL cancelled it. And China pay the most outside of the U.K. for Pl football.
Theres an idea going around that us in the U.K. have no say and that fans in America and China will cough up the cash and deliver the finance the owners want. The company giving them these down payments are banking on this idea too.
Im not naive enough to conclusively say local and U.K. fans will turn away from the SL.
There’s still enough cnuts (yes that’s what you are if you embrace this ) to be buying these packages and turning up at games.
But if they do turn away the whole thing is dead and buried.
People already folk out loads to get Prem coverage here, they’re not gonna empty their pockets more for a product they don’t want. Contrary to popular belief 50 thousand Chinese and Americans aren’t going to be turning up at Old Trafford and the San Siro every week for SL games.
NFL is still by a distance the most popular sport in America and their grounds aren’t full for a lot of the regular season games.