By Nick Harris SJA Internet Sports Writer of the Year 8 February 2012   Overseas and over here Landmark dates in the history of overseas players in English football 1892 Walter Bowman, born and raised in Canada, of Swiss heritage, becomes the first foreign player in Football League history, for Accrington. He later plays for Ardwick […]

By Sportingintelligence 7 February 2012 Sunday’s Super Bowl victory by the New York Giants against the New England Patriots attracted a live TV audience in America alone of 111.3 million people – making it the most watched programme in the history of US television, of any genre. That astonishing number means that more than one […]

By Nick Harris SJA Internet Sports Writer of the Year 6 February 2012 The first ‘free to air’ Premier League football match broadcast in the UK in the 20-year history of the League, between Manchester City and Fulham on Saturday, had an average audience of 903,000 viewers, and a ‘reach’ of 1.97m viewers, Sportingintelligence can […]

By Sportingintelligence 6 February 2012 The extract below is from Sportingintelligence‘s Global Sports Salaries Survey 2011 report (GSSS 2011) and shows the top 50 teams. It may be of interest to those wanting more background on this article about Facebook popularity. It is also informative for those interested in the relationship between pay and performance, as discussed […]

By Sportingintelligence 6 February 2012 In August 2010, as Facebook registered its 500 millionth active user, Sportingintelligence assessed the world’s ‘most popular’ sports teams by ‘Facebook fans’ – and Turkey’s Galatasaray came out on top. The ‘monetisation’ of sports fans via social media remains in its infancy. But in a rapidly changing multi-media world, we examined […]

By Sportingintelligence 6 February 2012 The NFL has the ‘fairest’ distribution of salaries across its 32 teams of any of the ‘big five’ US sports leagues (NBA, MLB, NFL, NHL and MLS) when you take into consideration the differential between the best paid team and the worst paid team. It is also much fairer than […]

* By Nick Harris SJA Internet Sports Writer of the Year 5 February 2012 The NFL has increased its already remarkable attendance levels in the current season to an average of 67,394 fans per match, Sportingintelligence can reveal. As our updated global attendances league table shows (also below), the new figure keeps the NFL comfortably in the […]

By Nick Harris SJA Internet Sports Writer of the Year 5 February 2011 England’s Premier League is, by far, the nation’s most successful sporting export, watched live each week in more than 200 countries, and earning from foreign TV rights alone £1.437bn for the current three-year overseas deals (or £479m a year) as reported by sportingintelligence last […]

Brian Sears 3 February 2012 Manchester United have suffered only 107 defeats in the 20 seasons of Premier League football, or 107 in 756 games to date since 1992. That’s an average of only one defeat for every seven games played. The next best club at avoiding defeat in the long term, Arsenal, have totted up […]

By Brian Sears 3 February 2012 Earlier in the week we highlighted how Fulham had held a perfect Prem record against West Brom, and no sooner had we highlighted it, it went pop as they could only draw 1-1. That’s Sod’s Law – and the glory of sport. Neither does it prevent me from highlighting, […]