If you are thinking of dreaming of going to England, seeing a Premier League game, dive into the atmosphere that you see on TV, or even have concrete travel plans already to finally see one game of the club you otherwise follow on TV, then this episode is for you. If you are listening from England, and have followed your club for years and decades, it's for you as well.
Felipe Tobar, originally from Brazil, is a scholar at Clemson University in South Carolina and has written about soccer tourism to England, Premier League related club museums, stadium tours etc. - all the stuff tourists do - as well as overtourism, its effect on local fans, and the danger it could be to the very product that the Premier League is trying to sell.
We begin by mapping what this tourism is, and how the combination of neoliberal capitalism, international TV and individual club’s initiatives have shaped a billion dollar business around the beautiful game in the Premier League. Then we talk about the negative effects. And then, we tried to give a little bit of advice: how can you go, and be a good tourist while there - what should you know before you go and what should you do and not do when there. The intent is not to bash tourists (almost all of us are, in some way, as we’ll make clear) but chart a more sustainable path forward for the game we all love, and international as well as local fans.
HELPFUL LINKS FOR THIS EPISODE:
Felipe Tobar, website with links to publications (Twitter/X, "Football Studies" on Youtube")
"VisitBritain Discusses the Impact of Soccer on UK Tourism" - interview with a British tourism executive (December 2023)
The Enemy, "We'll Live and Die in These Towns" (music video)
Please leave a quick voicemail with any feedback, corrections, suggestions - or just greetings - HERE. Or comment via Twitter, Instagram, Bluesky or Facebook.
f you enjoy this podcast and think that what I do fills a gap in soccer coverage that others would be interested in as well, please
Artwork for The Assistant Professor of Football is by Saige Lind
Instrumental music for this podcast, including the introduction track, is by the artist Ketsa and used under a Creative Commons license through Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Ketsa/