You've probably heard the old joke about 98% of all statistics being made up - but have you heard the one about crowds becoming more diverse and inclusive?
No, seriously, it's all there in new research conducted for the league by polling company Populus.
. Nearly one in five adult fans at Premier League games is female and 8% of the adult total are from an ethnic minority group.
The number of under-16s attending games on a regular basis is also on the up, with 13% of all season tickets sold across the league being junior tickets.
Premier League staff are understandably pleased with these numbers but it is the "direction of travel" that really delights them.
According to the research, women and "black or minority ethnic" adults now account for nearly half of new fans in the last five years.
Read the rest of this entry
When Premier League chief for believing the lies Portsmouth officials kept telling him last season, I knew what he meant. The various regimes at Fratton Park made mugs us of all and it will be some time before I unreservedly believe anything any club director tells me about his/her team's finances.
Where I have less sympathy with Scudamore, however, is with the idea the Pompey debacle could have been avoided if only people were more honest with each other. Fewer fibs would have helped but too much debt and not enough regulation made Portsmouth a mishap waiting to happen.
Thankfully, Scudamore does not intend to be made a mug of again as the Premier League season starts this weekend with a considerably thicker financial rulebook.
No longer will a club director be able to get away with a verbal assurance to the boss that all is . Proper regulatory checks, financial transparency and paying your taxes on time are the order of the day.
I am fighting the temptation to mention bolting horses and stable doors (and not just because it is a well-worn cliché): the Premier League deserves praise for responding as promptly as it has and nobody can say it is not willing to learn from its mistakes.
Read the rest of this entry
Flaky economy, massive public sector cuts and a for the world's "best" domestic football league... it is hardly an optimum sales environment for the Premier League's box-office staff, is it?
And yet, broadly speaking, they have pulled it out of the bag again.
Having spent the last two days on the phone, I can exclusively reveal the English still like football and are willing to pay good money to go and watch it every other week. As discretionary spends go, a Premier League season ticket appears up there with a decent cup of coffee, bar of chocolate or lottery scratch card as the last luxury to give up.
Read the rest of this entry
Man honours recently signed and very lucrative employment contract - it's hardly man bites dog in the turn-up-for-the-books stakes, is it?
But news that for a wee bit longer is significant, and not just because it is going to leave a large hole in the sports pages of many English (and Catalan) newspapers.
One in the eye for player power? English piracy? Premier League 1-0 La Liga?
Yeah, maybe. But it's also a story about money. Or more precisely, one company not having quite enough money to persuade another company that it can buy something better than it already owns.
Read the rest of this entry
I should have known it would be day when I phoned the club's administrator Andrew Andronikou a few hours before to ask him a legal question.
"Matt, I'm going to have stop you there," Andronikou said. "I've got something very important to do... and that's finish my lunch." Enough said, Andrew.
Mr Justice Mann, however, was determined to reintroduce some suspense into the day's events. The hour-long wait for his ruling on appeal against Portsmouth's planned escape from administration came and went in a courtroom surprisingly full of clerks, journalists, lawyers, Pompey fans and supporters.
Where is he? What does this mean? Which side looks happier? The guessing games stepped up a notch when a still-to-be-seen Mann summoned both barristers to his room.
We scrutinised and his Pompey counterpart when they emerged minutes later, but these two could play poker for their lives and look unruffled.
And so it was something of a surprise when Mann slipped into his chair, breezily apologised for being late and then, with no further fanfare, and sparked .
Read the rest of this entry
Hi, I'm Matt Slater and I try to shed light on what's happening behind the scenes in sport - so everything from football finance to Olympic squabbles. You can also follow me on . 