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Let's turn to sports. Deep breath, can calm down? Now the world's most watched football league making its way across the Atlantic. The English Premier League is playing six matches for sold out crowds in New Jersey, Chicago, and Atlanta this summer, the series kicking off this past weekend with Manchester United beating West Ham Joining US. Now, I'm very pleased to say the CEO of the English Premier League, Richard Masters, Richard Kimonic, good morning, thank you for having me.
Welcome to the studio here in New York. It's going to see you, sir. Let's just talk about your involvement in the sport. I think it's almost twenty years of direct involvement with the Premier League. Are you surprised by the amount of growth we've seen, Not in the UK, forget all of that, the amount of growth we've seen in America.
Yep, twenty years next January at the Premier League, seven years at CEO in December. What's the Premier League gets? Get bigger and bigger and bigger, and out here in the US we've got a fantastic broadcast relationships NBC. We've opened offices here in New York. We're committed to the game. About thirty percent of the US population not interested in soccer or football, and about two thirds of those follow the Premier League, and that's a brilliant foundation which to
growth reason. We're out here with six of our teams playing matches to give our fans a taste of the Premier League.
As a Britain New York I can tell you the experience of NBC is amazing. I get to wake up on a Saturday morning on a Sunday and I get to watch absolutely everything. That's not the experience in the UK with Sky It's a very different experience. You only get to watch so much. Why do we get to see so much more through NBC than maybe fans in the UK get to see at home.
Well, in the UK, the matches between two and five o'clock on a Saturday afternoon, which is the traditional time to go and watch football in the country, aren't broadcast. So it's not just the Premier League, the FL as well aren't broadcast and that's part of the decision we've made. It's long term commitment to what's called Article forty eight. But anywhere else outside of the UK, it's all three hundred and eighty games throughout the season you can watch.
And of course here in the US, as you say, there are millions of people getting up on a Saturday and Sunday morning watching their favorite team and you can sit there from seven ams lunchtime watch the entire thing if you want to, and that's a brilliant thing for us.
Does it kind of hurt your soul to say soccer instead of football?
Not at all. I think they're interchangeable. When I grew up, I grew up in the Midlands, I watched soccer Sunday on Star Soccer rather on a Sunday lunchtime, So it's interchangeable. Yea.
At this point, though, does it dilute the big player's ability to really commit to not only a team but a season if they're playing at all times in all places and their bodies have to be exhausted at a certain point.
Now that's true. I mean there is a start of players at the top of the game who are playing a lot, and it's a big issue within the game. The Premier League, obviously, since ninety four, has been twenty clubs to in ginety Games August to May. But we've seen the gradual expansion of European competitions and now global competitions as well. Next summer, the US will host the World Cup, first time forty eight teams, and of course in the last timemeer, we've seen the Club World Cup,
a brand new competition put into the calendar. And I think that from my perspective, not just as CEO the Premier League, but also my other role as chair of the World League Association, which is about representing domestic leagues around the world, there has to be a big conversation now about how you balance this out properly and make sure that players are looked after and that these competitions are additive and not subtractive from the competitions they bump into.
Well's have the conversation right now. I can speak as a fan. I hate it. I don't want to see an expanded FIFA Club World Cup. In fact, for most fans of the English Premier League, we get annoyed whenever there's an international break. We don't want to see more tournaments. What we loved was just the cadence of every two years you had a major tournament. The Euro's the World Cup, the Euro's the World cub. Why have we gotten away
from there? And what's your message to FEF to your wafer As in the minds of many fans, they just seem to be chasing money, the expense of the game and maybe the player's health.
Well, the message is talk. You know that there is actually strong dialogue between domestic leagues in Europe and new about competitions and that's a coalition of stakeholders, clubs, leagues, club players as well talking about it. That dialogue doesn't happen at the top of the game, and it should do. So that's the key message. Sit down and talk to the leagues, talk to all the stakeholders and find a way through all of this because it has to. It has a limit, and I think we've gone past it.
We've gone past saturation point. My job, obviously is to look after the Premier League and we're going great guns, thank you very much. And I want the purity of that competition to remain. I want people to be able to enjoy that, enjoy their football because I want the best players on the pitch all the time in the Premier League and not worrying about to how to balance everything out.
Let's talk about the purity of the game. It's a polarizing topic and very controversial, as you know. Manchester City and this number one hundred and fifteen the number of charges for alleged breaches of financial regulations. What can you share with us this morning about where things stand.
Nothing is truth. The case was heard last year, and we wait for the decision to be made. We can't hurry the people whose job it is to make that decision, and it will happen when it happens, and I don't know when it's going to be. We'll find out with everybody else.
What's your sense of why it's taking so long?
I don't know, and it's difficult for me to speculate. I'm sorry.
It's just difficult for a lot of people in the game who follow the game to see how quickly things concluded with a club like Everton and how long it's taken with a club like Manchester City. And some people can't help but conclude that maybe different clubs are being treated differently because of these status they have in the Premier League.
Yeah, well, I do want to sign of the frustration and share some of those but in the end, This process is very different. These allegations are very different. Makes it different to you. They just said the charge themselves and the number of them. But I can't really get into it. I really can't talk about and you.
Can't get into the details. But do you think it's hurting the reputation of the league?
Well, at the center of this is a football competition, and I think people want to be basically watch the football. That's the main event. And when you get dragged into whatever it may be financial affairs, I think people think
that maybe there's something going wrong here. I do accept all of that, but the competition remains strong, the economics the PREMI League remain strong, and fundamentally, as long as we can put the best players on the pitch and give people a fantastic competition, I think we can get through this period.
I've been an outsider and I've been studying the rules of the game and the sustainability rule that kind of led to this investigation into Man's City and this idea that a club has to bring in and just spend the same amount of money that it brings in. Do you think that that rule has become outdated or unenforceable in any kind of real time way.
So if you're talking about the financial regulations within football, our clubs are all really subject to two sets of regulations, our own, the profitably and sustainability rules and also u waifers rules, So they're looking at two sets of financial rules to comply with, and essentially in England our rules are there. It's a spending rule really about profitability. So there is the ability to invest and that's what we
want our clubs to do. We've got a fantastic set of owners that invest in the stadiums, in fan experience and players on the pitch, and that's what we want. Weever, as I said, the great set of owners that want to invest, and so there has to be a limit ultimately to ensure we've got a competitive league, which we do have. So I think we're known as look at investing in the Premier League. They can see that you can aspire to do better in the league and now
see more clubs qualifying for European competition. Our clubs are incredibly successful in Europe and that's all down to investment. So there has to be a limit ultimately on what you can spend. Clubs have all signed up to these rules and we are enforcing them.
Well, how much does the Saudi League really kind of, I don't know, skew the financials of this in a way that creates a sort of complicated dynamic.
Well, the Saudi League is in investment phrase Sally League has been around for many decades and now we're seeing local investment into that and they're becoming very active in the marketplace. Sometimes that good for Premier leau clubs. Sometimes they take clubs, take players that premier leage clubs want to sign. It's just a new dynamic and we have to observe it and we have to cope with it.
Richard, you'll be generous with your time. We appreciate it. Thanks for dropping by, Thanks for having me. Thank you very much for being here. Richard Master is there, the English Premier League CEO