It won’t work because it requires the Clubs to collaborate and agree to risk their multi-million pound investments to make more money for the League itself.
Clubs over here have developed individually and organically, and have cultivated their identity and distinctiveness based on the city they come from - with very close ties to their local areas and communities. These ties are what their success and identity has always been based on.
Their position in the League is based on their own competitiveness within a tiered League structure - not on the League itself. They have the opportunity to climb the League structure and compete at the top based entirely on their own performance. Or to drop out of it too. Clubs make commercial decisions and take risks to grow individually - and win or lose based on their own decisions.
Whilst the top teams all play in the same League, their success is seen as individual and based on merit.
In the US, franchises are owned and granted by the MLS - and owe their existence to a decision made by the League itself. Franchises are run entirely as businesses, granted and located based on an analysis of the potential commercial market in a city for an MLS team, and can in theory move cities if the market opportunity is more favourable elsewhere.
Whilst operated as franchises, the individual teams are still ‘owned’ by the League itself. The franchises owe their existence and their success to the League, so dance to their tune.
They are already split regionally between East and West to enable more teams in a league, and therefore more revenue, so already have a sense of ‘competition’ between East and West. And crucially there is a market based on this split.
Players are also owned collectively within the League, with their contracts being held centrally. They are the property of the League, not the individual clubs. The League can dictate what they do, and holds the liability if they get injured.
These are clear fundamental structural and commercial differences between the PL and the MLS.
Getting a group of entirely separately owned and managed Clubs to agree to put aside their individual differences and interests - not to mention their vital ties to their locations - and agree to risk the very best players they own (on who their individual success is based) to generate revenue for the League itself is a complete fucking nonsense.
The reality is to make this happen, the League would have to pay a fortune to the individual Clubs to get them to agree to release their players - which immediately limits the potential for a game like this to generate the kind of profit it would need to be worth its while.
In addition, there is no clear evidence of any fan interest in or market for a North/South team which would be capable of generating anywhere near the revenues he’s talking about anyway. He’s not operating in a market entirely based around a broad regional split over here.
Given the lack of a developed market, and the eye-watering costs needed to pay the individual clubs to release their players, I would suggest Boehly would have a tough time arguing this makes much financial sense at all. Which unfortunately seems to be the crux of his argument.
It works in the US because the League holds all the power, and ultimately owns all the franchise and player contracts. They own all the risk, and due to the structure over there are able to mandate a game like this irrespective of the individual franchise opinions.
The fact he seems to be brushing aside (or even worse, simply not grasping at all) the fundamental structural and commercial differences between the two League situations is both alarming and baffling for an owner of an English team.
