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Premier League success is regulator proof

No real surprise that The Economist has a pop at the independent football regulator, it's a liberal paper that thinks everything can be solved by the market mechanism.

The paper fears that the regulator will put off the footloose international capital that has made the Premier League a rare British success, but in reality the regulator isn't that powerful.

The article points out that 700 million people across the globe may watch a single Premier League game.  The American Super Bowl attracts just a third of that.   The league generates $10 billion a year for the UK economy.

The majority of TV revenue comes from foreign rights, by comparison the NFL gets 98 per cent of its m media rights revenue at home.

75 per cent of this year's minutes were racked up by foreign born players and in total 128 countries have been represented in the top flight.

Lower leagues are also flourishing.  Attendance in League One is up by 47 per cent over a decade and the National League is up by 50 per cent.

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