Premier League still booming in Asia despite Manchester City dominance

T here are concerns in England about whether the increasing dominance of Manchester City will reduce the popular and commercial appeal of the Premier League. The signs in Asia, the biggest overseas market, however, suggest that even a succession of City processions will result in more fans for the club rather than fewer for the league.

“Nobody in South Korea thinks that the Premier League will not be competitive, especially if City can also achieve meaningful results continentally and there are still dogfights between big clubs to qualify for the Champions League,” Baek Jung-hyun, head of planning at KBS Sports, South Korea’s public broadcaster, said. “There are enough interesting points in the Premier League for Korean fans. Arsenal could have been champions and nobody expected that at the start of the season.”

Asia, home to more than half the world’s population, is far from one mass. The regions (there are five football sub-federations: east, south-east, central, west and south) are made up of countries with their own cultures, languages and history. Overall however, England’s top tier is the most-watched of the foreign competitions, with football-loving south-east Asia, home to about 650 million people, the continent’s traditional English football hotbed.

In Malaysia, this season’s television ratings are the highest for six years. Broadcasters believe the upward trend will continue as long as Manchester United and Liverpool, traditionally the two biggest teams in the country, as well as Arsenal and others, are near the top, signing big players and playing good football. Sasi Kumar, a former Singapore international and now CEO of D+1 Sports in Madrid, agrees. “Fans are mixed in Singapore. Liverpool and United fans