What Leicester City’s title win means for the EPL in America
I’m a big Philadelphia sports fan. Despite Chelsea FC being my first love, I’m now almost equally infatuated with the City of Brotherly Love’s ‘Big 4’ teams. I regularly listen to 97.5 The Fanatic, a popular sports talk radio station in Philadelphia. All day, they’re busy talking about the Flyers, the Phillies, the 76ers, and – above all else – the city’s first love, the Eagles.
These two sporting worlds of mine rarely cross, as hockey and baseball fans rarely have much time for soccer. But on Tuesday morning, host Anthony Gargano pushed all talk of Philly sports to one side momentarily, and focused instead on an impossible-to-ignore story from across the pond. Just a few hours earlier, Chelsea’s thrilling 2-2 draw with Spurs at Stamford Bridge had handed Leicester City, 5000-1 outsiders, the Premier League title.
You could tell that Gargano and his colleagues were naive when it came to soccer, but even they could not hide their amazement at the achievement, and their admiration of the story the EPL had produced. They even had a sound bite of the moment the final whistle was blown at the Bridge, with the commentator’s exclamations almost drowned out by the cheers and chants from the home support. “That’s on my bucket list”, Gargano admitted, as he repeated the clip for emphasis, “I’ve got to go see an EPL game sometime”.
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The significance of Leicester’s achievement has been discussed ad nauseam in the UK, but something that perhaps hasn’t been touched on is how important it could be for attracting fans from the US. NBC Sports, which offers comprehensive coverage of the EPL in the US, boasted more than 17 million viewers over the first 11 weeks of the league season – a 23% increase on last season. So it’s clear that the league’s popularity in America was increasing steadily even before the Leicester story was taking hold.
But for some – many, perhaps – they needed more than just coverage to reel them in. It isn’t enough to just make the league available for viewing to the US. You need to give America’s swathes of sports obsessives a reason to wake up early on a Saturday morning and tune in to a sport they haven’t been raised to love. Why would I set my alarm for 7.45am to catch the early kickoff, when I can enjoy a lie-in and wait for the college football to get going in the afternoon? What’s so special about this ‘EPL’ anyway?
There’s no doubt that major strides were made during the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil. With constant coverage on American TV – even ESPN – and a US team that was competitive, to say the least, it was a tournament that sucked in many a soccer naysayer in North America. As cynical as it may sound, the reality is that Americans struggled to truly get behind their national side when they weren’t able to compete – a fact not limited to the US. Klinsmann’s talented team were actually fun to support in 2014, and that was a stride that shouldn’t be underestimated for the popularity of the sport in the US.
But the suggestion that America would fall in love with world soccer’s two greatest stars (Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, both on show in Brazil two years ago) failed to materialise. The hope was that, as Messi and Ronaldo returned to Spain, US viewers would follow, and an affection for La Liga, and subsequently European football in general, would develop in earnest. For a variety of reasons – language barriers and coverage issues in particular – it just didn’t happen. Germany’s Bundesliga has also struggled to take hold, for similar reasons.
It’s not primarily language or coverage that is holding back the popularity of other European leagues in the US. The main issue is their lack of competitiveness. Barcelona and the two Madrid clubs are streets ahead of the pack in La Liga; Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund reign supreme in the Bundesliga; and Paris Saint-Germain’s utter dominance in France is becoming something of an embarrassment for Ligue 1. But in the Premier League, last season’s champions Chelsea are languishing in 9th, while top flight ever-presents Aston Villa are rock bottom and destined for the Championship. Leicester’s story is just an extreme example of the league’s competitiveness, with various surprise packages such as West Ham and a vibrant young Spurs side widening eyes throughout the league.
The old adage that any team can beat any other team is a well-known one for Americans. In the NFL, the famous phrase “any given Sunday” is used to demonstrate the unpredictability of the league. But Leicester have shown American sports fans that in the Premier League, it’s now “any given season”. This is a level of excitement and unpredictability previously unseen in any league and in any sport worldwide.
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The Leicester fairytale will be gushed over by existing Premier League fans the world over in years to come. But perhaps its greatest gift to the game will be the scores of fans it attracts to English football, particularly in the US. It’s a remarkable story, and it may just be the final pull that the league needs to lure America’s remaining stubborn sports fans into the world of Premier League football.