Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: Let's turn to sports. Deep breath, can calm down? Now
Speaker 2: the world's most watched football league making its way across
Speaker 2: the Atlantic. The English Premier League is playing six matches
Speaker 2: for sold out crowds in New Jersey, Chicago, and Atlanta
Speaker 2: this summer, the series kicking off this past weekend with
Speaker 2: Manchester United beating West Ham Joining US. Now, I'm very
Speaker 2: pleased to say the CEO of the English Premier League,
Speaker 2: Richard Masters, Richard Kimonic, good morning, thank you for having me.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the studio here in New York. It's going
Speaker 2: to see you, sir. Let's just talk about your involvement
Speaker 2: in the sport. I think it's almost twenty years of
Speaker 2: direct involvement with the Premier League. Are you surprised by
Speaker 2: the amount of growth we've seen, Not in the UK,
Speaker 2: forget all of that, the amount of growth we've seen
Speaker 2: in America.
Speaker 1: Yep, twenty years next January at the Premier League, seven
Speaker 1: years at CEO in December. What's the Premier League gets?
Speaker 1: Get bigger and bigger and bigger, and out here in
Speaker 1: the US we've got a fantastic broadcast relationships NBC. We've
Speaker 1: opened offices here in New York. We're committed to the game.
Speaker 1: About thirty percent of the US population not interested in
Speaker 1: soccer or football, and about two thirds of those follow
Speaker 1: the Premier League, and that's a brilliant foundation which to
Speaker 1: growth reason. We're out here with six of our teams
Speaker 1: playing matches to give our fans a taste of the
Speaker 1: Premier League.
Speaker 2: As a Britain New York I can tell you the
Speaker 2: experience of NBC is amazing. I get to wake up
Speaker 2: on a Saturday morning on a Sunday and I get
Speaker 2: to watch absolutely everything. That's not the experience in the
Speaker 2: UK with Sky It's a very different experience. You only
Speaker 2: get to watch so much. Why do we get to
Speaker 2: see so much more through NBC than maybe fans in
Speaker 2: the UK get to see at home.
Speaker 1: Well, in the UK, the matches between two and five
Speaker 1: o'clock on a Saturday afternoon, which is the traditional time
Speaker 1: to go and watch football in the country, aren't broadcast.
Speaker 1: So it's not just the Premier League, the FL as
Speaker 1: well aren't broadcast and that's part of the decision we've made.
Speaker 1: It's long term commitment to what's called Article forty eight.
Speaker 1: But anywhere else outside of the UK, it's all three
Speaker 1: hundred and eighty games throughout the season you can watch.
Speaker 1: And of course here in the US, as you say,
Speaker 1: there are millions of people getting up on a Saturday
Speaker 1: and Sunday morning watching their favorite team and you can
Speaker 1: sit there from seven ams lunchtime watch the entire thing
Speaker 1: if you want to, and that's a brilliant thing for us.
Speaker 3: Does it kind of hurt your soul to say soccer
Speaker 3: instead of football?
Speaker 1: Not at all. I think they're interchangeable. When I grew up,
Speaker 1: I grew up in the Midlands, I watched soccer Sunday
Speaker 1: on Star Soccer rather on a Sunday lunchtime, So it's interchangeable. Yea.
Speaker 3: At this point, though, does it dilute the big player's
Speaker 3: ability to really commit to not only a team but
Speaker 3: a season if they're playing at all times in all
Speaker 3: places and their bodies have to be exhausted at a
Speaker 3: certain point.
Speaker 1: Now that's true. I mean there is a start of
Speaker 1: players at the top of the game who are playing
Speaker 1: a lot, and it's a big issue within the game.
Speaker 1: The Premier League, obviously, since ninety four, has been twenty
Speaker 1: clubs to in ginety Games August to May. But we've
Speaker 1: seen the gradual expansion of European competitions and now global
Speaker 1: competitions as well. Next summer, the US will host the
Speaker 1: World Cup, first time forty eight teams, and of course
Speaker 1: in the last timemeer, we've seen the Club World Cup,
Speaker 1: a brand new competition put into the calendar. And I
Speaker 1: think that from my perspective, not just as CEO the
Speaker 1: Premier League, but also my other role as chair of
Speaker 1: the World League Association, which is about representing domestic leagues
Speaker 1: around the world, there has to be a big conversation
Speaker 1: now about how you balance this out properly and make
Speaker 1: sure that players are looked after and that these competitions
Speaker 1: are additive and not subtractive from the competitions they bump into.
Speaker 2: Well's have the conversation right now. I can speak as
Speaker 2: a fan. I hate it. I don't want to see
Speaker 2: an expanded FIFA Club World Cup. In fact, for most
Speaker 2: fans of the English Premier League, we get annoyed whenever
Speaker 2: there's an international break. We don't want to see more tournaments.
Speaker 2: What we loved was just the cadence of every two
Speaker 2: years you had a major tournament. The Euro's the World Cup,
Speaker 2: the Euro's the World cub. Why have we gotten away
Speaker 2: from there? And what's your message to FEF to your
Speaker 2: wafer As in the minds of many fans, they just
Speaker 2: seem to be chasing money, the expense of the game
Speaker 2: and maybe the player's health.
Speaker 1: Well, the message is talk. You know that there is
Speaker 1: actually strong dialogue between domestic leagues in Europe and new
Speaker 1: about competitions and that's a coalition of stakeholders, clubs, leagues,
Speaker 1: club players as well talking about it. That dialogue doesn't
Speaker 1: happen at the top of the game, and it should do.
Speaker 1: So that's the key message. Sit down and talk to
Speaker 1: the leagues, talk to all the stakeholders and find a
Speaker 1: way through all of this because it has to. It
Speaker 1: has a limit, and I think we've gone past it.
Speaker 1: We've gone past saturation point. My job, obviously is to
Speaker 1: look after the Premier League and we're going great guns,
Speaker 1: thank you very much. And I want the purity of
Speaker 1: that competition to remain. I want people to be able
Speaker 1: to enjoy that, enjoy their football because I want the
Speaker 1: best players on the pitch all the time in the
Speaker 1: Premier League and not worrying about to how to balance
Speaker 1: everything out.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about the purity of the game. It's a
Speaker 2: polarizing topic and very controversial, as you know. Manchester City
Speaker 2: and this number one hundred and fifteen the number of
Speaker 2: charges for alleged breaches of financial regulations. What can you
Speaker 2: share with us this morning about where things stand.
Speaker 1: Nothing is truth. The case was heard last year, and
Speaker 1: we wait for the decision to be made. We can't
Speaker 1: hurry the people whose job it is to make that decision,
Speaker 1: and it will happen when it happens, and I don't
Speaker 1: know when it's going to be. We'll find out with
Speaker 1: everybody else.
Speaker 2: What's your sense of why it's taking so long?
Speaker 1: I don't know, and it's difficult for me to speculate.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry.
Speaker 2: It's just difficult for a lot of people in the
Speaker 2: game who follow the game to see how quickly things
Speaker 2: concluded with a club like Everton and how long it's
Speaker 2: taken with a club like Manchester City. And some people
Speaker 2: can't help but conclude that maybe different clubs are being
Speaker 2: treated differently because of these status they have in the
Speaker 2: Premier League.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I do want to sign of the frustration and
Speaker 1: share some of those but in the end, This process
Speaker 1: is very different. These allegations are very different. Makes it
Speaker 1: different to you. They just said the charge themselves and
Speaker 1: the number of them. But I can't really get into it.
Speaker 1: I really can't talk about and you.
Speaker 2: Can't get into the details. But do you think it's
Speaker 2: hurting the reputation of the league?
Speaker 1: Well, at the center of this is a football competition,
Speaker 1: and I think people want to be basically watch the football.
Speaker 1: That's the main event. And when you get dragged into
Speaker 1: whatever it may be financial affairs, I think people think
Speaker 1: that maybe there's something going wrong here. I do accept
Speaker 1: all of that, but the competition remains strong, the economics
Speaker 1: the PREMI League remain strong, and fundamentally, as long as
Speaker 1: we can put the best players on the pitch and
Speaker 1: give people a fantastic competition, I think we can get
Speaker 1: through this period.
Speaker 3: I've been an outsider and I've been studying the rules
Speaker 3: of the game and the sustainability rule that kind of
Speaker 3: led to this investigation into Man's City and this idea
Speaker 3: that a club has to bring in and just spend
Speaker 3: the same amount of money that it brings in. Do
Speaker 3: you think that that rule has become outdated or unenforceable
Speaker 3: in any kind of real time way.
Speaker 1: So if you're talking about the financial regulations within football,
Speaker 1: our clubs are all really subject to two sets of regulations,
Speaker 1: our own, the profitably and sustainability rules and also u
Speaker 1: waifers rules, So they're looking at two sets of financial
Speaker 1: rules to comply with, and essentially in England our rules
Speaker 1: are there. It's a spending rule really about profitability. So
Speaker 1: there is the ability to invest and that's what we
Speaker 1: want our clubs to do. We've got a fantastic set
Speaker 1: of owners that invest in the stadiums, in fan experience
Speaker 1: and players on the pitch, and that's what we want. Weever,
Speaker 1: as I said, the great set of owners that want
Speaker 1: to invest, and so there has to be a limit
Speaker 1: ultimately to ensure we've got a competitive league, which we
Speaker 1: do have. So I think we're known as look at
Speaker 1: investing in the Premier League. They can see that you
Speaker 1: can aspire to do better in the league and now
Speaker 1: see more clubs qualifying for European competition. Our clubs are
Speaker 1: incredibly successful in Europe and that's all down to investment.
Speaker 1: So there has to be a limit ultimately on what
Speaker 1: you can spend. Clubs have all signed up to these
Speaker 1: rules and we are enforcing them.
Speaker 3: Well, how much does the Saudi League really kind of,
Speaker 3: I don't know, skew the financials of this in a
Speaker 3: way that creates a sort of complicated dynamic.
Speaker 1: Well, the Saudi League is in investment phrase Sally League
Speaker 1: has been around for many decades and now we're seeing
Speaker 1: local investment into that and they're becoming very active in
Speaker 1: the marketplace. Sometimes that good for Premier leau clubs. Sometimes
Speaker 1: they take clubs, take players that premier leage clubs want
Speaker 1: to sign. It's just a new dynamic and we have
Speaker 1: to observe it and we have to cope with it.
Speaker 2: Richard, you'll be generous with your time. We appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Thanks for dropping by, Thanks for having me. Thank you
Speaker 2: very much for being here. Richard Master is there, the
Speaker 2: English Premier League CEO