1992 was a big year for sport. The Dallas Cowboys beat the Buffalo Bills 37-24 in Superbowl XXVI, we had an Olympic Summer to enjoy from Barcelona, Nick Faldo won the British Open and English football was about to unveil it’s newest concept: The Premier League.
On paper, the only thing that changed was instead of seeing the words ‘First Division’ written above England’s top tier, it now read ‘The FA Carling Premiership’. But away from the lexical alterations, football in England was about to become a very different place.
As English football moved away from the hooliganism and stadium disasters that blighted its progress in the 80s it was seeking a new, prosperous future. The national team’s success at Italia 90 and the upgrade of stadia in the top divisions gave a good platform for wide scale changes to be made to the structure of the domestic game.
Fears were mounting that the English top flight had fallen a long way behind other top divisions in Europe and less money in the game meant that top sides were less able to attract the world’s best players. Disgruntled at the way English football was heading, ten of the top teams threatened to create a new division which would break-away from the Football League which they’d been a part of for over 100 years, and it was this notion that took the first steps towards the creation of the Premier League.
As with much in football, the foundation of the Premier League revolved heavily around money and it was a lucrative television deal with Sky that brought the new league to the fore. Previous television deals had seen any money split equally between all 92 Football League teams, but the new rights would see the 22 Premier League sides share over £250 million exclusively between themselves. It was initially feared that putting football on subscription television would prove to be unpopular and that Rupert Murdoch had made a huge gamble in his efforts to launch his new satellite channel. Sebastian Coe said of the deal: “I think it is wrong that only two million dish owners get access to such events”. But the Premier League/Sky Sports combination proved to be a pairing that benefited both parties and, of course, still exists today.
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Prior to the 1992 kick-off, the newly formed elite quickly used their newly found wealth to finance a host of transfers above the £2 million mark with Teddy Sheringham, Dean Saunders and David Rocastle among the big movers. The season provided excitement and entertainment at both ends of the table. Manchester United ended up running away to their first league championship for 26 years while Oldham made a great escape after winning their last three games of the season including a win at high-flying Aston Villa. As previously mentioned, the original Premier League contained 22 teams, however this was reduced to 20 in 1995 after a FIFA ruling regarding the reduction of games in European domestic leagues.
All of a sudden the prizes for being promoted into the top division had become much greater and suddenly meant a lot more than pride alone. After the dawn of the Premier League, taking your place among England’s elite not only now meant a healthier bank balance, it also guaranteed you wider commercial exposure both nationally and internationally which would in turn give you greater sway in the transfer market. Before the age of the Premier League, being able to watch international stars like Dennis Bergkamp and Gianfranco Zola week in week out would not have been possible.
However, after a while it became clear that the gap was widening significantly between Premier League clubs and the Football League, both in terms of quality and financial clout. With so much money being diverted from the lower leagues into the Premiership, the rich were getting richer and the poor were getting poorer. As a result it was getting far harder to newly promoted teams to compete with the big boys, long gone it seemed were the days when a promoted side (like Newcastle in 1994/94) could finish as high as third in their first season. This fact was plain for all to see when Crystal Palace, Barnsley and Bolton were all relegated despite only being promoted the season before. In an attempt to stop this happening in the future promoted clubs began spending beyond their means in order to stay in the Premier League. When this tactic worked they earned the right to a second season, but when it didn’t the relegation meant that the clubs now had players whose wages they couldn’t afford to pay.
Since the inception of the Premier League the amount of money paid in combined television deals has risen from over £300 million to a staggering £1.9 billion and viewing number in China alone are thought to have top the 100 million people mark. The Premier League has undoubtedly made English football into a global game and it is loved by millions of people all over the world. While there have been casualties as a result of the vast sums of money being pumped into the game, English football is unquestionably in a healthier state now than it was only 20 years ago.
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