Premier League Celebrates 30 Years Of Top Class Football

30 years ago today, the first ever Premier League games were played and since then it has become the most popular football league in the world thanks to generations of world-class players and managers who have delivered competitive, captivating football. 

Since that opening day on 15th August 1992, 4488 players from 120 different nations have graced pitches across England and Wales and 30,988 goals scored, the first of which was scored by Brian Deane for Sheffield United against Manchester United. Alan Shearer holds the record for most goals in the Premier League at 260.

Crowd Puller

The Premier League is a crowd puller with a total of 369,934,749 fans attending matches over those 30 seasons and is now broadcast to over 800 million homes in 188 countries via 90 broadcasters and more than 400 channels.

Over that time the value of the Premier League’s broadcasting rights has grown hugely from £160m in 1992/93 to £10bn for the 2022/23-2024/25 cycle.

Social Impact

This growing popularity has enabled the Premier League to provide a level of financial support to the whole football pyramid and to communities across England and Wales that is unparalleled in professional sport – with the League investing £2.2bn in charitable projects, wider football support and good causes since the 1998/99 season alone, and committing to higher levels of support than ever before over the next three years. 

Economic Impact

According to a study carried out by EY focusing on the 2019/20 season, the Premier League’s contribution to the UK economy has grown from £700m in 1998/99 to £7.2bn in 2019/20 – an 840% increase.

The league and its clubs generated a total tax contribution of £3.6bn to the UK Exchequer in 2019/20 of which £1.4bn was contributed by the league’s players.

The league and its member clubs now support 94,000 jobs across the UK.