New Chelsea co-owner Todd Boehly raised the hackles of some of English football’s most annoying people last week when he suggested that the Premier League could learn from America and consider introducing an All-Star-style game to boost TV revenue. “US investment into English football is a clear and present danger to the pyramid and fabric of the game,” thundered Gary Neville on Twitter, in an emblematic reaction. “They just don’t get it and think differently.”
In response many have pointed out that pundits like Neville owe their very livelihood to the Americanization of English football: without the influence of America’s example, the whole shebang of the modern Premier League – as a business structured around massive TV deals, as an endlessly mediatized spectacle, as a hegemonic cultural form – would not exist. Suggestions like Boehly’s are directed at furthering the commercialization of English football; this is not “thinking differently”, but the very essence of the sport as it has developed over the last three decades.
