THE ENGLISH Premier League (EPL), the world’s wealthiest domestic football competition, has just survived a nasty scare. The short-lived European Super League (ESL), launched, vilified and aborted all within a few days in April, would have been disastrous for it, threatening the source of its remarkable ascent: a huge increase in the value of its broadcasting rights. If attention had switched to the midweek ESL, the league would have struggled to command such big fees for its matches; and the windfalls given to the six English teams that were among the 12 ESL founding members would have further weakened the EPL’s power over them. But the ESL’s collapse is
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