premier league | table | fixtures | teams | fantasy | top scorers
premier league | table | fixtures | teams | fantasy | top scorers
The Premier League is the top level of the English football
league system. Contested by twenty clubs, it operates on a system of promotion
and relegation with the English Football League (EFL).
The Premier League is a corporation in which the member
clubs act as shareholders. Seasons run from August to May with each team
playing 38 matches (playing each other home and away). Most games are played
on Saturday and Sunday afternoons. It is known outside the UK as the English
Premier League (EPL).
The competition was formed as the FA Premier League on 20
February 1992 following the decision of clubs in the Football League First
Division to break away from the Football League, founded in 1888, and take
advantage of a lucrative television rights deal. The deal was worth £1
billion a year domestically as of 2013–14, with BSkyB and BT Group securing the
domestic rights to broadcast 116 and 38 games respectively. The league
generates €2.2 billion per year in domestic and international television
rights. In 2014–15, teams were apportioned revenues of £1,600 million, rising sharply to £2,400 million in 2016–17.
The Premier League is the most-watched sports league in the
world, broadcast in 212 territories to 643 million homes and a potential TV
audience of 4.7 billion people. In the 2014–15 season, the average Premier
League match attendance exceeded 36,000, second highest of any professional
football league behind the Bundesliga's 43,500. Most stadium occupancies are
near capacity. The Premier League ranks third in the UEFA coefficients of
leagues based on performances in European competitions over the past five seasons.
Forty-nine clubs have competed since the inception of the
Premier League in 1992. Six of them have won the title: Manchester United (13),
Chelsea (5), Arsenal (3), Manchester City (2), Blackburn Rovers (1) and
Leicester City (1).