How Chelsea and the Premier League will cash in on their new signed hero

20-years-old. €64 million…Will Christian Pulisic be a hit in the Premier League?

Yesterday, Chelsea spent £58m on 20-year-old Christian Pulisic, who became the eighth most expensive player in Premier League history.

They did not pay for his rich talent alone. Pulisic has long been predicted to become the greatest men’s footballer that the USA has ever produced. He is a player who can win global acclaim in a way that Landon Donovan, declared the USA’s finest in a survey by The Guardian in 2015, never quite did.

So while Chelsea have invested in a footballer they want – even if he was no longer a guaranteed starter for Borussia Dortmund, after Jadon Sancho’s emergence – they have paid a premium on account of Pulisic’s nationality and, therefore, marketing potential.

Pulisic’s market value, based upon his age and performance is £38m according to the respected method developed by the CIES Football Observatory.

Chelsea have paid £20m more – an extra outlay that is entirely justified if Pulisic’s marketability can help them make up the difference. US focus Chelsea have been frequent visitors to the US on pre-season tours. The signing aligns with Chelsea’s longstanding emphasis on the US market. Chelsea are frequent visitors for pre-season friendlies – as well as a charity game in Massachusetts this May – and created a dedicated Twitter account for US fans this year.

“The Pulisic signing is not just a matter of acquiring playing talent, it also represents an investment in commercial potential,” says Simon Chadwick from Salford Business School. “Pulisic will be a point of engagement with Chelsea for US fans, and, given the player’s age, he is likely to have considerable lifetime value for Chelsea.” Nike, Chelsea’s kit manufacturer, will be particularly pleased at acquiring a US prodigy, says Rob Wilson, a football finance expert.

“It’s likely that there will be a number of commercial partners that will be interested in a relationship both locally in the US and globally, given that the US is a relatively untapped territory.”

Manchester United and Liverpool are regarded as the most popular English clubs in the US. Now, Pulisic will make Chelsea the default first-choice side for the majority of Americans who do not have any strong affinity to a Premier League club, says Jake Cohen, a sports lawyer from the US. “The long-term effect will come down to how Pulisic performs.”

Competitive advantage Yao Ming galvanised an entire nation’s interest in basketball (Getty Images) The Pulisic signing is also welcome news for the Premier League.

The price of the next cycle of domestic broadcasting rights, which begins later this year, has dropped £500m compared with the 2016-19 cycle. Now it is overseas markets that the league needs to underpin its commercial growth and it needs to build upon its status in the US as comfortably the most popular European football league.

The US has been one of the Premier League’s greatest success stories this decade. The league’s broadcasting rights in the US, worth £18m a year from 2010-13, are now worth £130m a year, three times as much as those for La Liga. NBC Sports now shows Premier League matches free-to-air and a record 1.7 million Americans watched the Manchester derby last April.

Rival leagues are envious of the Premier League’s competitive advantage in the US – hence La Liga’s attempts to play regular season games there. With Pulisic no longer playing in the Bundesliga, the Premier League is even more attractive to US football fans. Yet – for Chelsea, the Premier League and US Soccer itself – the great hope is that Pulisic at Chelsea will create avid football supporters in the US.

Replicating what Yao did with basketball in China will be impossible, for the US sports market is more mature. But, despite the men’s team failing to qualify for the 2018 World Cup, football in the US is increasingly competitive against baseball, basketball and American football. Football is the third most-played game and is increasingly popular among younger viewers. What they have lacked is a superstar who can transcend his sport.

If Pulisic can establish himself as America’s first elite men’s football player, the Premier League and Chelsea will each enjoy a bigger share of the country’s football market. And, most importantly, the market itself will become larger.

 

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