Known as the “Greatest Show On Earth”, the English Premier League is considered as the planet’s most popular and most-viewed professional football league, and is seen across the globe by an estimated half a billion people. Millions of fans have seen the games on TV and on the Internet, rooting for marquee players like Alan Shearer, Michael Owen, Christian Ronaldo, Les Ferdinand, Thierry Henry, Ruud van Nistelrooy, Juan Sebastian Veron many more.
Who Controls Global TV Rights for the EPL
Viewed in over 202 countries and territories, the English Premier League is generally seen on TV networks that are either controlled by NewsCorp, owned by news mogul Rupert Murdoch, who also owns a large stake at local television broadcaster BskyB.livescore They also control the rights over the United Kingdom and Ireland. Over the Internet, fans can check out live streaming of football matches on soccerstreaming.co.uk, livesportnetwork.com, footy-live.com, and other Web channels.
Global Reach of the EPL
The English Premier League’s popularity today has rapidly grown in regions like Asia, where it is noted to be the most widely-distributed sports program. Live streaming video, football highlights as well as regular updates are beamed daily to audiences in countries like China, where regular matches attract TV and online audiences reaching as high as 360 million. Sporting analysts say this is more than any other foreign sporting event.
A total of 20 clubs play matches in the Premier League. The EPL’s season runs from August to May and each football club plays the other teams twice, once at their home stadium and once at their opponents, for a total of 38 games. Each competing teams are awarded three points for a win and one point for a draw and no points are given for a loss.
The teams in this league are then ranked by total points, goal difference, and total goals scored. The club who has the most points earned at the end of the season is then awarded the championship. The teams in the English Premier League also enjoy the freedom to sign any number and category of players they wish and no team or individual salary caps are pegged.
The league also does not impose any squad size limits and age restrictions except those that apply to UK general employment laws. No restrictions are also imposed on the total number of foreign players a team could hire.
