July is an important month for England's Premier League (EPL) football teams. As the league's star players returned to pre-season training, the club's administrators and marketing people have put into place preseason tours. As much as these tours are about preparing EPL squads, they are also very much about developing club brands in their most lucrative market: Asia.

Premier League teams do not earn huge revenues from pre-season games, but they are part of clubs building their brands overseas. This is particularly important in developing revenue streams from the sale of television rights, merchandise and sponsorship. During their tour to Singapore, Liverpool completed a $240 million kit sponsorship deal with the Asia-focused bank, Standard Chartered. The main prize for ELP teams is television rights. The EPL's television contract with India and Asia has risen to over $6 billion this year and its value surpasses the deal the ELP has signed in the UK.

Many people believe the success of the Premier League lies in the way it is televised. The league’s founding agreement in 1992 covering domestic and overseas broadcast revenue-sharing evened out the money going to each club, which in turn levels out the playing and financial strength of the 20 clubs in the league. This makes the 380 televised games played between iconic EPL clubs in front of sell-out crowds one of the UK’s most successful exports.

Trade

Premier League football is an interesting example of what makes a successful export for a country and how the theory of specialisation and comparative advantage can be applied. The EPL is very popular in South Korea and is a successful export market for the UK's Premier League teams. When Tottenham Hotspur announced a preseason fixture in Seoul in July 2022 it sold 66,000 tickets in 25 minutes for its first match on its South Korean tour. Tottenham’s South Korean striker, Heung-min Son, was a star attraction.

We can look at the UK's export of the EPL relative to the mobile phones South Korea exports to the UK. The South Korean conglomerate, Samsung is the world’s largest producer of mobile phones with 27.98% of the world’s market share and 29.87% of the UK’s mobile phone market. South Korea exports a huge number of mobile phones to the UK.

A simple way of considering the UK and South Korean trading relationship is that the UK has a comparative advantage in producing football and South Korea has a comparative advantage in producing mobile phones and both countries benefit from trading these goods.

Some points for discussion with a class:

1. What are the resource reasons for the strength of the English Premier League?

2. Why is the EPL so popular in Asia?

3. How does the theory of comparative advantage apply to the trading relationship between the UK and South Korea in football and mobile phones?