Fans in the ownership of Big Five leagues: lessons for better football governance

Digital transformations in a platform society: A comparative analysis of European football leagues as YouTube complementors

“…This area, and sports media more widely, remains as key cornerstones of the continually developing academic field revolving around the nexus between sport and communication (see Billings et al, 2018). Finally, this article has also added to available research on the ‘big five’ leagues (Sanchez et al, 2021) in a time where a number of key clubs competing in these leagues have been criticized by athletes, fans, sports officials, commentators and academics for establishing a European Super League. While the Super League plans announced in April 2021 were quickly abandoned by the 12 relevant clubs, the timing of this remains important, because the enormous public interest in this proposal serves as a reflector and reminder of the current sociological importance of European football, its ownership and marketing efforts in the present-day societies.…”

“…By throwing a light on how YouTube, in European football’s context, may be seriously considered an alternative and complementary medium in comparison to traditional media, such as television, this article makes an original contribution to the existing literature on the nexus between sport and YouTube (Checchinato et al, 2015; Gil-Lopez et al, 2017; McCarthy, 2021a, 2021b) while our findings concurrently tie into, and push the boundaries of the wider and evolving digital football studies field (Lawrence and Crawford, 2022). We also extend the existing scholarship on the ‘big five’ leagues (e.g., Sanchez et al, 2021) through our analysis of their adaption to YouTube. To clarify, our chosen focus on what is often characterized as the ‘big five’ leagues (Deloitte, 2022) is justified for a series of reasons.…”

“…To clarify, our chosen focus on what is often characterized as the ‘big five’ leagues (Deloitte, 2022) is justified for a series of reasons. Yet, most notably, the English Premier League (EPL), La Liga (Spain), the Bundesliga (Germany), Ligue 1 (France) and Serie A (Italy) have, in comparison to other elite leagues, undergone more intense processes of commercialization with ‘very strong increase of revenues’ (Sanchez et al, 2021: 355; see also Kennedy and Kennedy, 2012). In 2021/22, the ‘big five’ clubs dominated UEFA’s (2022) Club Coefficients ranking.…”

Decrypting the specifics of professional football club investments: Why? What? How? An integrative review

“…Publicly-owned clubs with dispersed ownership also benefit from efficient governance structures. On the other hand, clubs partially or fully owned by supporter trusts show a lack of speed in execution, as the joint exercising of voting rights and alignment of strategy slows decision-making (Garcia-Garcia and Welford, 2015;S anchez et al, 2021;Tobin, 2017;Treharne, 2016). Member associations are seen as ambiguous across literature.…”

Accounting, finance and conflict in football arenas

“…Prior research in football has explored the consequences of problematic configurations of ownership, governance, management and financial structures on sporting performance, competition, sustainability and social roles (Bosca et al, 2008;Gammelsaeter and Senaux, 2011;Rohde and Breuer, 2018;S anchez et al, 2020;Szymanski and Weimar, 2019). In common with many sports organisations (Andon and Free, 2012;Clune et al, 2019), football clubs face challenges in mediating conflicts as to their nature and purpose while securing necessary resources (Bull and Whittam, 2021;Gammelsaeter, 2010;Morrow, 2015).…”