The Network League: Global Brand Clubs, ‘Game 39’ and Transnational Spaces

Abstract

Richard Scudamore announced that the EPL were exploring plans to export an extra ‘39th game’ at the end of each season to various cities across the world in order to give many overseas fans the chance to watch matches in their local stadiums in February 2008. At the time, football manager Sam Allardyce was working as a football pundit in Dubai and spoke about the resonance of the league across Asia, highlighting the thirst for ‘Game 39’. Although the plans — at least temporarily — faltered, it highlighted that some dimensions of the EPL now clearly inhabited a transnational ‘space of flows’ (Castells 2000 [1996]). This chapter illustrates why the EPL’s network structure lends itself to the transnational space before discussing the EPL and its clubs as global brands and the emergence of the ‘Game 39’ idea.

It’s only since coming to places like this [Dubai] that I’ve realised how big the Premier League is. It will be midnight here when the game kicks off and close to 2am by the time it finishes. But the audience will be up to 50m. Not so long ago I also did some work with Steve McMahon in Singapore. Out there it will be 4am before the game kicks off and yet they expect an audience in the region of £250m. It’s incredible when you think about it, because how many people in England would get up at 4am to watch a football match? The most they’d do is record it. Now I can see why Richard Scudamore wants this 39th game. The Premier League is getting global audiences of more than 800m and Richard’s idea would take the football to the masses. It makes a lot of sense to me because the people are fanatical about their football in places like this.

Sam Allardyce (quoted in Lawton 2008: 114)