Games abroad? Game's gone. Why everyone from English fans to the new Independent Regulator will resist Premier League matches being played in the USA.
It would be an affront to fans and to the sporting integrity of the Premier League.
Purely in the interests of research, I spent an enjoyable day in a pub run by a Manchester United fan in Santa Monica, California. Sticking strictly to coffee as I scribbled notes for a planned book, I gauged the level of American interest in English football by watching successive Premier League matches on the multiple screens.
Ye Olde King’s Head opened at 6am and became busy with a mix of ex-pats following their teams and those locals seduced by the great Premier League show. There was full-English on the breakfast menu and on the monitors. That was in 2015 and Uncle Sam was already smitten. It was all very different from the paucity of interest I encountered when covering USA 94. I went on a Chicago radio station phone-in to discuss the World Cup, and callers just wanted to dissect every twist, turn and tyre spin of that afternoon’s O.J. Simpson car-chase drama.
All that’s changed. Games in the 2026 World Cup taking place in America, Mexico and Canada will be sold out. English sides play to packed houses pre-season. Viewing figures and rights fees rise. NBC paid $450m (£360m) per season for its six-year deal for the Premier League agreed in 2022.
