Like millions, no, billions of people around the world right now, I am missing sports. I love sports and I’m at a total loss for how to fill my time in the evenings and at weekends without being able to play, watch or analyse sporting events.
One night recently I couldn’t sleep, and I started thinking about the differences between sports leagues in America and Europe. They have salary caps and drafts to encourage parity and opportunity and a $13 billion college sports industry (according to Bloomberg in 2017) which develops young stars and feeds them into the league. There is also no relegation, meaning teams can invest without the fear of dropping down a division.
So let’s say the financials stack up and it’s feasible operationally and logistically (big ‘ifs’ but this is hypothetical anyway, so who cares!), who would get to be in the new league?
The new league
To follow a US-style divisions, conferences, and playoffs model I ideally need 32 teams.
I’ve used a range of criteria to determine who gets to be in the league. I resisted the temptation to create some ridiculous coefficient by combining all the factors and instead looked at each category one by one.
If I were starting a league entirely from scratch, it would be a case of picking the largest markets, building stadiums there, and creating teams (think London Blues vs Manchester Reds!). Given that we already have 92 teams across the Premier League and English Football League to choose from, I’ll use these.
I’ve also given myself two wildcard picks, where I can veto the data if I think there’s a team that will add more value (subjectively rather than just financially) to the league.
Category 1: All-time premier league table
I used Wordfootball.net’s all-time premier league table to find the top 10 Premiership teams since its inception in 1992.
Manchester United, with their utter dominance through most of the 90s and into the 2000s, amassing 13 titles, sit miles ahead at the top of the list. Despite spending £1.2billion on transfers since 2008, Manchester City are still playing catch up on the top 6, although they’ll take over Everton in the next season or two.
Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Tottenham, and Everton join Man United as the only teams to have never been relegated from the Premier League.
Newcastle, Aston Villa, and West Ham all make the top 10 by being in the Premier League for the majority of its existence, with Aston Villa consistently finishing in the top 6 in the late 90s and 00s.
Two notable omissions are the only other teams to win the Premier League: Blackburn and Leicester. We’ll get to both of them later.
I also checked out the all-time table from the creation of the Football League in 1888 until 2020 and despite some movement within the list, there is only one new entry in the top 10. Sunderland rise from 16th to 10th to replace West Ham, who drop down to 18th.
I can’t set up this fantasy franchise league without a rivalry as old as the football league itself and arguably the best in England — The Tyne-Wear derby, so Sunderland make the cut too.
We have our first 11 teams. Congratulations to all of you.
Category 2: Global presence and value
I want this imaginary league to be financially lucrative; so although I respect and give priority to the top teams, they also need to have a global following.
The simplest indicators of global presence are revenue and value. More fans = more merchandising and sponsorship opportunities and TV rights= more revenue = higher value.
Revenue
Looking at the 2020 edition of Deloitte’s annual football money league Man United, Man City, Liverpool, Tottenham, Chelsea, Arsenal, West Ham, and Everton are all in the top 20 teams globally and are already locked into the franchise league. Leicester, Wolverhampton Wanderers, and Crystal Palace are also in the top 30 and are added to the new league.
Value
Forbes’s 2019 list of the top football teams by value also includes Newcastle, at 20th, who are also already on our list.
The University of Liverpool published a study in May 2019 on the value of Premier League clubs. This study has the traditional ‘top 6’ at the top of the pile but also includes Burnley, Newcastle, Leicester, and Southampton in the top 10, with Everton not far behind.
I will, therefore, add Burnley and Southampton to the league too.
Category 3: Top UK cities
We now have 16 teams for the new league based on historical performance, revenue, and value — which were unsurprisingly all very closely correlated to one another.
Franchise leagues are all about tapping into the biggest commercial opportunities, so what lucrative areas of the country have been missed so far?
Researching this proved more troublesome than I expected. Choosing between PUAs (primary urban areas), metropolitan areas, cities, districts… to be completely honest I ended up down a bit of a rabbit hole.
I decided to use the centre for cities tool. If you’re a data nerd this is quite a cool tool (I use cool very loosely).
Of the top 10 cities in the UK, currently, Glasgow, Sheffield, Leeds, Bristol, and Nottingham have no representative in the new league. Let’s put that right.
Glasgow
Up until this point I have been talking about the English football league, not the UK. There’s been talk for years about adding Celtic and Rangers to the English league system and I for one am in favour of it. It would likely cripple the Scottish league system but this is hypothetical, so Scottish football fans — don’t @ me!
Not only is Glasgow the fourth biggest city in the UK but it is football mad. I want this league to have as many exciting match-ups as possible and what could be more appetising than the fiercest rivalry in the UK? Congratulations Celtic and Rangers fans, you’re in!
Sheffield
With Sheffield Wednesday 14th on the all-time table and Sheffield United at 17th, they’re both good candidates for inclusion in the league based on history. However, they’ve not fared so well in the Premier League era, at 23rd (Wednesday) and 39th (United) on the table.
As the UK’s sixth-largest city and with 40,000 and 33,000 seater stadiums, they’re both worth candidates to join the new UK Premier League. Whether there is space for only one or both is not yet clear — Sheffield United and Sheffield Wednesday fans — hang tight, you’ll get some football in your city.
Leeds
Ah, Leeds — the nation’s perennial underachievers. Despite being a large city with a love of football, they have been out of the top-flight for 16 long, painful years, even falling to the third tier from 2007–2010.
Leeds looked set to finally return to the promised land before the postponement of all football back in March. Whatever happens with future league games, I can’t make this league without them. Who else can’t wait to renew the Man United vs Leeds rivalry? Not to mention the Yorkshire rivalry with their neighbours in Sheffield.
Leeds United, you’re back where you belong.
Bristol
Bristol is a funny one — a large and affluent city with two football teams, Bristol City (47th overall all-time) and Bristol Rovers (who have never featured in the top division).
Although typically considered more of a rugby city, there is still a clear market for a strong, top division team in Bristol.
Bristol, I’m going to give you a chance; you get one team. Unlike Sheffield, choosing between the two is incredibly easy. I used top trumps cards and Bristol City wins in every category.
Welcome to the big time, Bristol City!
Nottingham
Having been founded in 1865, Nottingham Forest are now the oldest active club in the football league (since Notts County’s relegation from League Two in 2019). They have one Football League title, two FA Cups, four League Cups, and most incredibly two European cups (under the guidance of the legendary Brian Clough in ’79 and again in ‘80).
In the real world, they’re getting closer and closer to a return to the top flight and sit 5th in the Championship table. They’re sleeping giants of English football and deserve their place in this new league.
Nottingham Forest, welcome to the league.
After the first 3 categories there are 22 teams locked in to the new UK Premier League (including the either/or of Sheffield Wednesday and United).
Category 3: Geographical split
I want to create a league that gives as many people as possible the opportunity to watch top-flight football, but that is mindful of where the biggest markets and teams already are.
Using Paul Gerald’s map of English football clubs you can see that there is a bias to the North-West and London across the Premiership (blue pins) and Championship (purple pins), but that the Championship improves the geographical spread in the West, Midlands, North, and North-East. The Premiership also has a strong contingent of teams on the south coast, although it might not stay that way for long.
London
London is by far the largest population and has the largest football market. There are 12 professional teams in London, with 5 of these teams currently in the Premier League and 5 in the Championship. It seems only right that a league of 32 would have more than just the 5 London teams already on my list, so I’m going to add a 6th team.
Now it gets tough. There are six candidates for just one spot.
While Millwall are famous (or rather, infamous) for their fanbase, they’ve spent just two seasons in the top flight in their history, the 88–89, and 89–90 seasons. Brentford, despite their current position in the playoffs places of The Championship, have never been in the top flight at all, so I’m ruling out these two.
Two down, three to go. As far as Wimbledon goes, I attribute the previous successes of the team called ‘Milton Keynes Dons’ to Wimbledon and their surprise FA Cup triumph in 1988 is their crowning glory. Despite this, the so-called’ Crazy-gang’ including the likes of Dennis Wise, Vinnie Jones, and John Fashanu don’t quite cut the mustard here; so they’re out.
Both QPR and Charlton have spent a decent amount of their history in the top division, on balance I have to give it to Fulham. They’ve spent more time and gathered far more points in the Premier League than the other two and they are in an affluent area that has the most potential financially. It also creates another rivalry game (albeit quite a week one) with Chelsea.
All in their own way deserve to be in the league but unfortunately, it’s not to be. QPR and Charlton go on the list of potential expansion teams.
The North-West
The North West has 4 of the top 6 teams of all time and 6 of the top 13 — it accounts for 18 Premier League titles, and that’s without Liverpool or Everton winning a single one between them!
I’ve got 5 teams currently and although Burnley made the list due to their current value, Blackburn and Bolton did not, despite both being higher on the Premier League table and the All-time table.
It’s incredibly tough to decide with just 5 teams in this area but Blackburn’s Premier League Trophy and their global presence (see terrible Venky’s advert) they’re the best candidate. However, I’m going to take Burnley out to make room for a to-be-decided wildcard pick.
Blackburn go on to the expansion list.
The North
With Leeds and at least one Sheffield team locked in, there’s space for another team in the sport-mad Yorkshire counties.
Barnsley, Huddersfield, and Bradford have all had stints in the Premier League, but the latter have fallen all the way down to League Two. As a large city, I’d love to give Bradford a place but they need to prove they could keep up — get yourselves up a league or two and then we’ll reconsider you, Bradford.
Huddersfield and Barnsley don’t represent as exciting a proposition as adding another derby to a league so Sheffield United and Sheffield Wednesday both make the cut.
The North-East
Newcastle and Sunderland are locked in. Middlesborough and Hull represent the other two viable options. Of the two, Middlesborough have by far the best historical record being 14th overall in the Premier League table and 19th all-time. They also managed to sign Juninho which to this day is still one of the most surprising signings I’ve ever seen.
Middlesborough go on the list of expansion teams to discuss at the end.
Scotland
I’m excited about adding the two Glaswegian teams to the league.
As we’ve extended to Scotland it makes sense to also consider the Edinburgh teams. They are minnows in comparison to their Glaswegian counterparts, with Hearts having a slight edge over Hibernian in terms of total points over the years and also recent cup wins (3 in the last 25 years to Hibernian’s 1) and the last league win was way back in 1960.
It would be nice to have representation from Edinburgh, but for now, they go on the list of potential expansion teams.
The Midlands
There are already four teams locked in from the midlands — Villa and Wolves from the West Midlands and Leicester and Nottingham in the East Midlands.
West Bromwich Albion are Wolves’s biggest rivals and are 11th all-time, and 20th in the Premier League era and have spent the majority of their history in the top tier. West Bromwich Albion are in too as the fifth midlands team.
Derby County, Stoke City, Birmingham City, and Coventry City are all options as a sixth team in the midlands.
Despite Birmingham City’s modest credentials compared to the likes of Derby, they represent a great growth opportunity and their rivalry with Aston Villa is up there with the best.
Derby sit 16th all-time but it is Stoke City I am going to add as the sixth team. Geographically they sit between Birmingham, Nottingham, and Manchester and represent an opportunity to develop within that area.
The East
We currently have no representation from East Anglia at all. That’s hardly surprising given that Norwich are the sole representatives in the Premier League, Ipswich are now down in League One and the next closest Football League team is Colchester, who play in League Two.
Norwich are 35th all-time and 25th in the Premier League era. Without the threat of relegation, I’m confident they’d invest more and be an asset to the league. Let’s be having you Norwich fans, you’re in!
I’m going to use one of my wildcard picks here. Despite having a similar ranking all time and in the premier league era to Norwich, Ipswich are currently way off down in League One, and not even doing well in it. It will be tough for them but I want the ‘Old Farm’ derby and good representation from East Anglia in the league. Ipswich, you’re in.
The West & Wales
We’ve already got Bristol City and there aren’t many other teams to write home about in the West. Forest Green Rovers, Swindon Town, and Cheltenham are all in League Two. Further afield there is Luton and Reading in the Championship and Oxford in League One.
I cant see a strong candidate in there worth considering, although Reading do make it on to my expansion team list.
Unlike Scotland, there are already three Welsh teams in the English Football League, with two more further down the ladder.
Swansea and Cardiff have both had stints in the Premier League and Swansea, in particular, were great value during their 7 seasons in the league. I’m excited for them to be in this league to represent Wales. Croeso, Cardiff, and Swansea.
The South
Southampton are already in on account of the top-10 value status, but who will join them in the south?
Brighton and Bournemouth are both worth a mention as current Premier League teams but both are pretty far down the overall rankings. Of the two, Brighton represent a better opportunity demand and financially so I’m going to shortlist them to discuss at the end.
Despite having fallen from grace since 2010, Southampton’s rivals Portsmouth get a place in my league. I was born in 1990, so my peak days of football fandom were the noughties, which is probably why I have a soft spot for Portsmouth. With players like Niko Kranjčar, Sulley Muntari, Lassana Diarra, Pedro Mendes, and Milan Baroš to name just a few of the stars of their FA Cup triumph in 2008.
Portsmouth, you’re back where you belong.
In the South-West, there are no viable options, with Plymouth and Exeter both in League Two.
I now have 30 of my 32 teams locked in and a difficult decision to make.
The final 2 teams
I can make strong cases for each of Birmingham, Brighton, Bradford, Derby, and Middlesborough filling the final two spots and even replacing Burnley.
I’ve talked about geographical spread being a factor I am keen on and Brighton serves an area with a dearth of good football teams, are a Premier League team with a new stadium and sensible owners and provide yet another derby — the A-23 derby with Crystal Palace (don’t understand this rivalry? Yeh, me neither!). Brighton, you’re in.
Just one space left to use my spare wildcard pick. Do I give it to the north-east, north-west or the Midlands?
I was so tempted here to combine the Sheffield teams to make the ‘Sheffield Steelers’ and create the ‘Birmingham Wolves’ (I’ll let you work out which teams that is!) to make room for Middlesborough, Derby or Bradford. I’ve decided to avoid the wrath of these fans and instead go for Birmingham City as the final team on account of the opportunity they present and as a reward for their League Cup triumph over Arsenal in 2011. Don’t let me down Birmingham, or I’ll feed you to the Wolves (you’re welcome for that pun).
So that’s that, the 32 teams are decided.
The new UK Premier League
What do you think? Which teams should I have included? Which teams on the list don’t deserve to be there? Let me know!
If you enjoyed this, check out part 2 in where I go over the league structure, playoff format and fixture list.
What considerations went into the decision-making process for picking the largest markets and building stadiums for the league? Visit Us Telkom University