To kill the goose that lays the golden egg - Curious case of English Football

We all know the valuation of English football and the mind numbing TV rights deal it expects to sign each iteration. Amidst the worst cost of living crisis, if Price rises were not enough then English football is on track to kill its popularity forever. Some issues are social with little say but others are totally avoidable that leads to some parts of society end up becoming disillusioned with the sport.

To understand the whole phenomenon, you need to understand what football meant for people in Society. Football and Sports in general was a way to get away from issues of life and use the tribalism to feel like you belong to something and part of something larger that just themselves.

Now coming to last decade where sports across the world have had this phenomenon and we could replace the name of the sport and articles would still be relevant, e.g.,

Here are things that are contributing to the overall sentiments, whether you are on the liberal side or conservative side of the society, they are not differentiating and making sure to alienate us all.

Prices

it impacts all fans equally and worst part is even paying that money doesn't guarantee the rights to see all games and 3PM blackouts mean you need to either follow these games via Radio, Pay around £1000 for travel/tickets or worse depend on illegal streams.

No Respite from Social Agendas and Politics

Expecting our footballers to be role models and making them carry the flag of agenda's of the league have worked well in some cases and alienated some fans who didn't wanted to have the same conversation they have with friends and family over TV/Pub also in the terraces of the stadium as there is no nuance to any discussion and sometimes we just brand people Racist without understanding their point of views or reasons to politicise sports.

TV Viewership rules and travelling fans are just disposable

The scheduling of games are driven by TV companies and have no understanding of impact on travelling fans, availability of trains or even feasibility of travel. All Clubs do use big words to talk about how important are fans to them but do nothing about scheduling. Money talks.

Players being part of investigations

With kids across the country looking up to these players as role models and the players being investigated for sexual harassments, abusive behaviors etc. This has been slightly controversial as due to tribal nature of football some teams are fine to have these players as long as it keeps them winning. Once the team not perform then these issues are seen differently. One exception being that message it sends to the women supporters about the value club puts of the big statements of fairness, idealisms that it claims to have in PR.

Greedy Owners and Clubs moving from fan owned to owners who want a shiny toy or a channel for sports-washing

With Premier league acting like a exclusive club where they can guard who gets to enter and spend, it has made the game more expensive to manage for clubs and constant need to spend money makes it worse. The outcome being any properly run clubs can't complete long term without a sugar daddy/Billionaires or being owned by countries with no budgets. It is fine as long as it works for Chelsea with Abrahmovic, Man City and Newcastle with Middle east money. Issue is that it does go wrong for others like Blackburn, Bury, Boltan, Macclesfield Town, Oldham Athletic, Coventry City, Southend United. etc.

So at the end of the day is it the same sport or as some people said, A common man's game has been Highjacked by the wealthy.