Is Premier League football oversaturated?
Recently, Rory Smith of the New York Times wrote a twitter thread arguing against what he calls the ‘lack of a match day’ for the Premier League.
His argument, roughly summarised, is that football being televised from 12–10 every weekend does not benefit the product, and football without emotional investment can be boring if its low quality.
In the first lockdown, we had no football at all — and we missed it. When the Bundesliga resumed with a drab 0–0 draw in the Revierderby, BT pulled in a peak of 652,00 viewers — more than most of their Premier League viewings.
But, we have had football behind closed doors for half a year now, and it has become part of the monotony of lockdown. With all the restrictions, days can blur into one. As Smith explains, excess of anything, including sport, can make it seem boring.
Another impact of losing the Saturday 3pm timeslot hosting multiple games is in fantasy football. Before the pandemic, my phone would ping every few minutes with the traditional reply of “who got the assist?” as people check their teams.
Fantasy Football is maybe the best way to be invested emotionally in ‘bad’ football matches; in no other environment would you root for a 0–0 between Sheffield United and Newcastle.
This can be part of a more general point: sometimes the best parts of football are not the games themselves, but the whole experience around it. Articles, memes, and fantasy football are all parts of the Premier League ‘product’, and in stretching out the matchday the PL are diluting this.
Smith also points this out, adding that people are watching games they would not in ‘normal circumstances.’ Burnley beating Sheffield United would never be anything other than a 3pm fixture last on Match of the Day, but now it is broadcast on Amazon Prime.
Yet this is somewhat disingenuous; the vast majority of viewers did not watch games like this before, and they certainly don’t now. Burnley, the side most associated with the traditional direct low block, have been featured on Monday at 5:30 — the new graveyard slot — four times.
The tweets saying football ‘fell off’ are not talking about this type of match, but a perceived drop in quality of the top sides, or the death of ‘aesthetic’ number 10s. This was a common attitude before the pandemic, and oversaturation but there is no denying it has intensified.
Nostalgia is obviously a factor: when I look back to the early years of Klopp’s reign at Liverpool, I remember Mane’s winner in the derby, or Lovren’s header at the death against Dortmund — not the 2–0 loss to Newcastle that was probably a worse watch than most games this season. In a similar way, people glorify the highlights of Riquelme and forget the games they were more ineffectual than the more ‘functional’ modern 10, like Bruno Fernandes, ever is.
But, is there a more compelling reason for this attitude? The impact of empty stadiums has to be mentioned, for obvious yet intangible reasons: fans add the soundtrack, a sense of involvement and intensity to the spectacle.
Tom Worville has shown that ‘every Premier League team bar Villa are pressing less this season.’ A romantic fan might attribute this to the absence of the ‘12th Man,’ but the impact of a heavy schedule — without a real pre-season break — is a far more tangible reason for this.
This is not to say every team is deploying a low block every game, but it does show a marked difference; a difference that is not tactical in the traditional sense, but tactical in managers trying to preserve their players.
The heavier the schedule, the more likely managers are to rotate star players for worse ones, or to run these players into the ground. Either way, the quality is lowered.
There are reasons for positivity. Fans will return, with a fascinating title race for them to return to. Following that we have the Champions League knockouts, as well as EURO 2021 to look forward to.
This season has been a test of how saturated football can be, and the rest of the season will be no less overloaded. Fitting the recently postponed games into an already packed schedule will test both players’ health and fans’ enjoyment.
The hope of fans, and executives, is that the rest of this season will be far higher in quality. A title race between Manchester City and Liverpool was expected, but this season we have Leicester, United and Spurs all in reach which promises a more exciting run-in than last season.
Although the saturation will continue — international level players will not have a summer break until 2022 — there is hope for more quality, especially once fans return.
As a Liverpool fan, it only takes one more Anfield European night to drag me right back in. Hopefully, the title race can offer a similar experience for neutrals, and if the Euros does take place in a post-vaccine Europe it could still be a fantastic fan-experience at home and in the stadium.
So yes, football can endure the oversaturation — it is not the first time the Premier League has suffered from it but continued to grow regardless. But it has never had to do so in soulless, empty stadiums before with players’ bodies under as much physical pressure.
In sport, fans acknowledge quality varies a lot but that does not mean we turn the TV off. 30 minutes is enough to turn off a bad movie, but in football you never know what might happen — and that hope will continue to keep us coming back.
