The Emergence of the Premier League

My Game Changing Event

HISTORY Despite significant success in the 1970s and early 80s, English Football was at an all time low come the late 80s

Stadiums were crumbling, supporters endured poor facilities and hooliganism was rife

English clubs were banned from European competition following the Heysel Stadium disaster in 1985

The Football League First Division, which had been the top level of English football since 1888, was well behind leagues such as Italy's Serie A and Spain's La Liga in attendances and revenues. Several top English players had moved abroad

In the early 1990s the downward trend started to reverse. European Footballs governing body UEFA lifted the European ban on English clubs and television money became much more important. The Football League was now receiving £11 Million per year as apposed to the previous £3 Million a year deal

FOUNDATIONAt the close of the 1991 season, a proposal was tabled for the establishment of a new league that would bring more money into the game overall

The Founder Members Agreement, signed on 17 July 1991 by the game's top-flight clubs, established the basic principles for setting up the FA Premier League

The newly formed top division would have commercial independence from The Football Association and the Football League, giving the Premier League licence to negotiate its own broadcast and sponsorship agreements

In 1992, the First Division clubs resigned from the Football League and on 27 May the Premier League was formed as a limited company

There was no change in competition format. The same number of teams competed in the top flight, and promotion and relegation between the Premier League and the new First Division remained the same

DEVELOPMENT The Premier League is operated as a corporation and is owned by the 20 member clubs. Each club is a shareholder, with one vote each on issues such as rule changes and contracts

The Premier League has the highest revenue of any football leagues in the world, with total club revenues of €2.479 billion in 2010, and is the second most profitable after the German Bundesliga

From 2013, the league generates €2.2 billion per year in domestic and international television rights

The main broadcaster in the United Kingdom is Sky Sports, who broadcast 116 of the 154 televised games in the UK, and BT Sport the rest. The BBC shows weekly highlights of the Premier League on its Match of the Day programme

My Technology Innovation Choice

Twitter

OVERVIEWTwitter is an online social networking service that enables users to send and read short 140-character messages called "tweets“

Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey, Evan Williams, Biz Stone and Noah Glass and launched by July 2006

The service rapidly gained worldwide popularity, with more than 100 million users who in 2012 posted 340 million tweets per day

As of December 2014, Twitter has more than 500 million users, out of which more than 284 million are active users

IMPACTThe world of journalism has changed in the internet era. Newsrooms are significantly smaller now, and news is no longer a once-a-day product, but instead a constant flow of information

Thanks to Twitter, journalists are now faced with the challenge of adapting their roles in this digital era, finding new ways to add value to content, and making content relevant

Twitter has revolutionized the newsroom, speeding up an already complicated news gathering process. What used to slowly crawl in over the wire, now comes over in real time, tweet after tweet

With Twitter’s accessibility, it has become extremely easy for a community or a group to rally around an idea or a cause. The collaborative reporting concept that is fostered on Twitter can lead directly to social activism

FUTURESome believe Twitter could become the next titan of digital advertising, up there with Google and Facebook, while others think it will be stuck in a niche, albeit a fairly large one, and will ultimately be valued as such

Twitter has more than quadrupled its revenues since 2012, to an expected $1.4 billion this year. Like many technology firms, its valuation has ballooned even more

Twitter plans to continue expanding, both by increasing its own user base and by delivering advertisements to users on other mobile applications

Over time people hope Twitter will make room for more video advertising, which advertisers would like, and introduce an attractive e-commerce service, so users can buy items via Twitter with a click

If its growth stalls and its shares become cheap enough, a larger firm, such as Google, might consider trying to catch the bird

My Personal Media Choice

OVERVIEW

The channel focuses predominantly on football (especially during the European football season – August–May) but reports on a wide range of sports. Even sports to which Sky do not possess broadcasting rights receive limited coverage

The programming is presented by two reporters in the studio who read the news or introduce short clips featuring highlights and interviews

Tabs at the bottom of the screen give unrelated information on a wide range of sports, while a sidebar also shows unrelated league tables or other information

The content of the main studio feed generally repeats depending on the amount of news at a given time, varying from 20 minutes to an hour

GROWTH & IMPACTSky Sports News launched on 1 October 1998, the launch date of BSkyB's Digital Satellite service, and was BSkyB's first digital only channel

On 10th April 2000, Sky Sports News relaunched as Sky Sports.com TV, to tie with the launch of the SkySports.com website

The channel scrapped its ".com TV" look, and on 1 July 2001, Sky Sports News launched another graphics change. A major part of this was the standardisation, i.e. a more corporate look across the Sky channels

From April 2002, Sky Sports News had another face-lift. The channel stayed in the same studio, but with a silver look replacing the old wooden bench, and there was a promise of being first for breaking news, along with much more useful information

Sky Sports News was rebranded as 'Sky Sports News HQ' on 12 August 2014. The new studio is twice the size of the old one and includes an 18 square-metre video wall. As part of the change the channel moved to Sky channel 401

UNRIVALLED Sky Sports News is unrivalled in its 24 hour coverage of sport in the UK and Ireland

They comfortably provide exclusives and breaking news on a daily basis. Pre match news conferences from Premier League managers are aired within minutes of taking place

As well as being first in terms of football news, Sky Sports News are also first to breaking news in Tennis, Golf, Rugby League, Cricket and Horse Racing. This honour coming hand in hand with their broadcasting rights on their other subscription based Sky Sports channels