But you've nailed the problem. This shyt doesn't actually happen in the overseas markets. They make the vast majority of their money from European fans for two reasons; 1) the interest and engagement is the highest, and 2) a single European fan has the purchasing power of two dozen African and Asian fans.
Even Australia for example. Football will only ever be a niche sport here because we already like cricket, rugby league, tennis and Aussie rules; these sports have up to 170 years of history here and football can't ever compete with that tradition. But an Australian has basically the same purchasing power as a European, so one Australian fan is potentially worth 20 in developing countries even if football is the dominant sport there.
When I got into football it was all free to air. Well not all of it, but enough to get a boy's attention. The Premier League used to be on FTA until like 2004 I think. Leeds were very popular because they had Viduka and Kewell tearing it up, getting to the Champions League semi finals and such. Lots of people also liked Manchester United an Arsenal being the dominant teams in the early 00s, and Chelsea too mostly for Zola and Hasselbaink. But we also got other leagues on FTA, Serie A (hence my supporting Inter) and Bundesliga. And we got Champions League and UEFA Cup, the European Championship and the World Cup. shyt was sweet. You got access to all the best club and international football without having to pay a cent.
Now nothing is on FTA. One network carrys international football, Premier League, and the European club tournaments; another network carrys the other European domestic leagues. The first network charges $15 a month (or it's free if your mobile phone contract is with that company), the second $25 a month (although that provides a shyt ton of sports included in the package, it's not exclusively football).
So let's do some quick maths. Suppose I take out both subscriptions (and for a short time last year I actually did). The Premier League and Champions League each got $5 a month from me; Serie A, Ligue 1, Bundesliga, and La Liga got like... a dollar a month each? 50 cents a month? Some really small fraction of $25, since it has to be divided up into 4 leagues and the total bill is for like 20 other sports, many of which - cricket, league, tennis, Aussie rules - would command the lion's share for the Australian market.
Now let's say there are 2 million Australians who like football enough to take out both subscriptions (this is an extremely generous estimation on my part, the real number is probably way smaller). The Premier League as a whole takes in $120 million a year from Australia, the Champions League another $120 million, and the other European domestic leagues about $12 million a year, each.
It's not a huge market. And bear in mind even though the subscriber count is small, Australia alone probably out earns most of Asia (excluding Japan, Singapore and South Korea basically) and all of Africa combined. In India for example an annual pass to watch every single football match in Europe, all competitions in one package, clocks in at about $4 per person per year. You'd need 180 million Indian subscribers to equal what you get from 2 million Australians.
Europe is where these super league clubs will make their money then. Its got the right mix of high population and wealthy population. JP Morgan are not loaning them 3.5 billion on the expectation that they will recoup more than a third or half of that outside Europe, the risk would have been justified by ratings projections and TV rights for the European market.
So if Europeans maintain the rage and boycott the rebels, they will be deep in shyt.
