Why is the EPL the best league in the world?

Been missing a lot of MOTD's too actually. I keep making the mistake of watching the Villa game on a stream each weekend. Guaranteed that by the time it's finished I'm not in the mood for any more football that day. Tend to catch both games on a Sunday though, not got much else on atm

Xp if i drank only shit coffee i'd dislike coffee but i mean

other leagues shit games are not as funny as epl shit games

I was probably thinking mostly about the epl's global preëminence as seen from the outside because it's hard to tell from the eye of the storm; but that probably only leaves boxall, jibe and LBI, so vote as you see fit.

Windsor nailing it tbh.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--CdA8IhE6Q

I could maybe have collapsed 'best clubs' and 'football culture' into one option - I don't suppose regard for Hackney Marshes figures highly in the world's regard for the epl, whereas this guy can imagine himself a gooner. Maybe only hooligan fetishists could point to a general love separate from Big Club X, and that's been long ironed out of the story.

I reckon the full grounds and noise must be a decent selling-point though.

'end to end' fitba and aggro atmosphere are less important than marketing reasons

homogenous, well presented, predictable product (like no disputes over whether the season will start on time as in spain)

games played at convenient times for overseas audience

maybe most importantly, foreign epl benefits from english speaking population in usa, india, se asia etc with natural affinity for anglo products, secondary coverage in a language they understand, can follow domestic fitba blather from afar......germany or italy have a layer of alienation here

I'm not sure, end-to-end and blood-and-guts (not that there's so much of the latter anymore) does make for a spectacle that you don't have to be particularly sophisticated, or even a football fan, to enjoy. I'm thinking of the Chinese bloke next to me at the 'Nal-Spurs 5-2 last season, who only turned up at half-time, spent the whole 45 minutes on his mobile, yet jumped up & down at every goal having the time of his life.

I doubt that type of fan is as drawn to a tactically compelling Serie A nil-nil.

yes because that is exactly representative of the difference between the two leagues

Serie A's taken a slapstick turn recently in fairness, but it hardly trades on it

and i think you have conflated the 'naive foreign epl viewer' archetype with someone who actually bought a ticket to watch arsenal and could have been the architect of the sinosophere's most devoted carl jenkinson tumblr page for all you knew

Indeed, but if he lives for Jenk you'd think he'd've turned up on time

though yes, I accept he may have been dictating liveblog copy

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i'll have to agree with nakh's answer. living in asia, the only football games you get at decent hours are the english ones. the epl is also damn good at marketing itself, organising summer tours in asia, sponsoring mr potato crisps (god how i loved going to the supermaket and seeing rooney's ugly face on bags of crisps). i really need to put up some of the pictures of very random sponsored items i saw here and there some are hilarious. this is a self-sustaining cycle - you only see the epl, keep hearing that it's the best league in the world, so you want to watch only the epl, where you keep hearing it's the best league in the world and so on.

tbh though, in my random conversations with malaysian taxi drivers sporting arsenal, liverpool, manU/C, chelsea flags in their cars, most would agree that the best team and player in the world were barcelona+messi. but not only are the games at horrible times (clasico starting at 10pm in spain= 5am in malaysia), the other feeling is that there's only those two teams. la liga really suffers from this impression there's a lack of competition, whereas the epl has 4-5 teams who look like they can compete (even though who are we kidding, manU/C are the only likely winners).

haha i remembered you were in malaysia, home of ilx favourite and old trafford hoardings staple MISTER POTATO, but i never put the two together

not in malaysia anymore, though i hope to get back there soon, but the mr potato thing was really hilarious. my other favorite was a branded "manchester united champions roll-on deodorant". i've yet to come across any funny epl marketing in india but i'm sure i'll find some soon enough.

the intensely shouty trailers for the 'liverpool vs chelsea' nollywood film from a few years back seemed like one of the more potent foreign reimaginings of the epl

germany or italy have a layer of alienation here

I only have Freeview, whereas it seems like a few of the football nuts here seem to have access to every major league in the world, but I always try to catch the Bundesliga higlights show, which is on where... ITV4? Think I'd rather watch the Bundesliga than have the Premiership rammed down my gullet 24/7. Also I like how the big Teutonic blonde they've got to present it doesn't speak very good English, I mean out of all the big Teutonic blondes they could have hired in Germany....

Ive got setanta, espn as part of my cable bundle. I would use the brother's sky go but it's total shit so i stream anything else. CL is rte. Tbh i dont watch that much footy tho.

How the game is played there - lol no.
The rolling soap opera off the pitch - depressing rather than entertaining for the past couple of years
The biggest stars play there - manifestly untrue
It has the best clubs - manifestly untrue except Spurs obviously
England's football culture - being priced out of Premiership games
Because you can't avoid it - probably, also y'know it's here, I'd never be able to get the same level of emotional attachment to any other league even if I watched it every week
nobody outside England thinks it's tblitw - not true either

We've already discussed this tho iirc, in direct relation to why england has tblitw but are shit internationally. It's the addiction to thundering melodrama thing.

England's football culture - and this is different from anyone else's in what way?

Also the soap opera element isn't exactly a novelty in world football

There are some ways I think - more people going to games (the Championship is the real unique thing here), fan culture (though this is a residue of the dark days and dying of old age shortly imo), home of football (Wembley in particular seems to inspire slightly bewildering reverence), perception of fair play (Bobby Charlton, Gary Lineker, maybe Beckham even)

Don't know the stats on yr first point, the rest is bollocks tho

Gary Lineker? The guy whose diving brought England to the verge of World Cup glory in 1990?

The Championship is something like the fourth-best-attended league in Europe iirc

Eh and hold on - those Cameroon ones weren't penalties?

I don't remember exactly which penalties he dived for tbh. There is a missing option in the is poll, "Because we say we are".

              average       total
Bundesliga   45,179  13,805,496
EPL           34,601  13,148,465
La Liga       30,275  11,504,567
Championship  17,738   9,791,690
Serie A       23,459   7,765,082

The really impressive thing about that poll is the Bundesliga averages! That's a big gap to second place.

I believe the depth of support in English football and the following of the lower leagues is stronger than elsewhere in Europe but let's not pretend The Best League In The World is concerned with that.

Bundesliga stadia still have terraces, which is a big part of it.

Actually Bundesliga 2 pushes the Championship close in average attendance, but has much fewer games so the total is only a bit over half.

(xp) and it's cheaper too?

Just to be clear, not a person posting here believes that the epl is 'the best league in the world', which is a very different thing than tblitw.

itt ppl pretend like last season wasn't the most ridiculous gripping fun

this season is the nasty hangover though i'll grant u

tbh the epl is blitw a bit by default? to most people, la liga is two teams and 18 sparring partners, bundesliga= bayern and 17 other teams with unwieldy names and then there's serie A, whose claim to greatness lies more in its past than current situation.

The grass is literally greener

Tempo

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On Mancini's future Quinn added: "It's hard to say Mancini is not the right man. He's brought the title there after all these years.

"In any sane, civilised league, you would think he would be given more time but the Premier League is the most high-powered, fascinating, atmospherically-charged league in the world and with that comes the price to be paid for managers looking for time."

Get that man a sub-editor.

every time i hear 'EPL' now i think of

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wg5amJgH7sc

suggest that NBC nix this 'BPL' shit and shore up the EDL name with gritty intertitles of remedial trash grunting E E EPL

11 likes 11 dislikes, a nation divided

good chant though, and I note the uploader takes his name from an SL2 banger

the bobbling transparent plastic umbrella as favoured by some elderly shoppers near me is the dark heart of that vid.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-3308370/Leicester-City-s-match-ball-delivered-helicopter-Premier-League-clubs-mark-Remembrance-Sunday-poppy-displays.html

tragically 239 fans were subsequently shot for deserting their post before the half time whistle

I love all these clubs and am so glad that they took the time to celebrate this hard earned golden era of international world peace that we currently live in thanks to our armed forces. Ranieri looks a bit spooked, maybe a spectral El Duce was giving him some gyp!