English Quiz 210

(English Quiz 210)

1. Before English football could take over the world, it had to sort itself out. And just as Liverpool's change of ownership has come to epitomize the state of the Premier League now, so its fortunes two decades ago demonstrated the depths to which the English game had plummeted. Though a powerhouse on the field — its teams were champions of Europe four times between 1977 and 1984 — Liverpool's fans had a reputation for being a dangerous disgrace. When some of them rioted at the 1985 European final in Brussels, 38 fans of the Italian team Juventus were killed. It would be five years before English teams were allowed to play again in European competitions. Back home, aging stadiums offered neither comfort nor safety; in 1989, 96 Liverpool fans were crushed to death on an over-crowded terrace at the Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield. Financially, too, the game was a mess. Most top-flight team owners poured money into their local team in the hope of boosting their social standing, not its bottom line. Even Manchester United, English football's most successful team in the last decade, was led through much of the '60s and '70s by an enterprising local butcher. (Not so these days: U.S. tycoon Malcolm Glazer, owner of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers National Football League franchise, swallowed the club in 2005.)
Q: 試翻 "And just as ... had plummeted."

2. But the 1990s brought change. The official report into the carnage at Hillsborough mandated that top grounds had to be all seated by mid-1994; the government even offered millions of pounds to help pay for reconstruction. Out went crumbling terracing; in came safer seating and improved facilities that made fans feel more like spectators than animals. And as the game began rebuilding its domestic appeal, a handful of chairmen with a sharper eye for profits made a bold move. For years, the top teams had threatened to split from England's four-tier, 120-year-old Football League, claiming that with a domestic game in the doldrums and top clubs impotent against Continental opposition, they needed a greater say over their own affairs — and the enhanced broadcast revenue they thought they could win. In 1992, England's top clubs walked out of the Football League to form the Premier League, a commercially independent alliance able to hammer out its own TV deals on behalf of all its teams.
Q: 試翻 "Out went ... more like spectatos than animals."

3. Nobody went short. Sky, a satellite-TV broadcaster that is part of Rupert Murdoch's media empire, forked out around $350 million to air the elite's first five seasons in Britain. (Having previously struggled for both cash and viewers, Sky's nascent business was given an enormous boost by snatching the football rights.) The game was transformed. For fans accustomed to the stodgy — albeit free — coverage offered by terrestrial channels, Sky's whizzy stats and graphics brought football up to date, and made it much more entertaining. Fans were treated to fireworks and dancing girls at grounds. For football, says Simon Chadwick, co-director of the Birkbeck Sport Business Centre, part of the University of London, the 1990s "was a monumental decade — probably the most important since [the setting up of the Football League] in the 19th century." As player salaries have ballooned, talented foreign players have made a beeline for England; there are now more than 300 overseas players on Premier League clubs' books. When the four top teams clashed one weekend in January — Liverpool against Chelsea, and Arsenal against Manchester United — players from 18 different countries, from Togo to Norway and Serbia to Brazil, took to the turf in those two games alone. Businesses have been keen to cozy up, too. Current league sponsor Barclays Bank recently committed $125 million in a new three-year deal, up 15% from its present agreement. As the presentation of the game changed, so did its fan base. Lured by the refurbished stadiums, Sky's clever marketing and the arrival of better players, new bottoms occupied the Premier League's shiny new seats. Among the converts were more women and those with cash. "It was clear the new fans were more affluent," says John Williams, director of the Sir Norman Chester Centre for Football Research at the University of Leicester.
Q: 試翻 "For fans accustomed to ... much more entertaining."