The Premier League bubble that won’t burst

Premier League football, having just announced its biggest ever television rights deal, is, according to journalists, analysts and even business experts, about to defy both science and economics – with a bubble that refuses to burst. 

Science tells us a bubble, the kind that West Ham fans see fade and die every year, is fragile and ready to pop at any moment. Evaporation of its water content, contact with dry air or a dry surface, or even a little wind turbulence normally lead to its rather predictable demise.

Economists, meanwhile, define an economic bubble as a ‘time when asset prices appear to be based on implausible or inconsistent views about the future – leading to trade in high volumes at prices that are considerably at variance with intrinsic values’.