Competitive edge

Platform:The bankers and lawyers bustling through Canary Wharf in London's financial hub know all about globalisation. They live and breathe it every day, writes Richard Gillis.

It is appropriate then that the US National Basketball Association (NBA) chose the area as its base. A few miles across town, the Minnesota Timberwolves and the Boston Celtics limber up for their pre-season exhibition game at what used to be the Millennium Dome. Back at camp, the league's head of global marketing, Heidi Ueberroth, is talking world domination.

"Everything is under discussion," says Ueberroth. London franchises, global leagues, converting the potential of China - the NBA wants it all.

Two weeks later, a few miles across London, Jerry Jones, billionaire owner of the Dallas Cowboys, is holding court in a hotel lobby. Different decor, same script.

"We should talk about bringing the Super Bowl to London," says Jones, in his Texan drawl, a Lone Star lapel badge catching the lights from the television cameras.

Its no coincidence that three of America's major leagues were in London this autumn: the National Hockey League (NHL) filled the O2 (the renamed Millennium Dome) for two consecutive nights in October and the National Football League (NFL) took over Wembley, only the second time a regular season game has been played outside the United States.

Growth is the buzz word. Here in one of soccer's European capitals, the major leagues are pitching for business. The first batch of 40,000 NFL tickets were snapped up within 90 minutes of going on sale, despite the hefty £45-£90 price tag.

Tom Hicks made his first fortune selling Dr Pepper and 7UP sodas. Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst was an investment fund that ripped through Wall Street in the 1990s.

Now Hicks is known as the co-owner of Liverpool, whose money brought Fernando Torres and whose opinion on Rafa Benitez's rotation policy will determine whether the Spaniard starts in the Anfield dug-out next season, beard or no beard.

When Hicks called Liverpool a franchise, we winced, but when he talks money, he's on firmer ground.

"When I bought a baseball team [ the Texas Rangers] eight years ago, the revenues were about $3 billion," says Hicks. "For the year just finishing, it's going to exceed $6 billion.

"It grows. It's a big business and people look at the TV ratings globally for soccer and see that the English Premier League is the best product. They are going to continue to have the TV revenues grow."

How fast Premier League money grows depends on whether Hicks and his countrymen in the boardrooms of the Premier League elite can challenge the status quo.

Currently, the money flowing into football comes from a handful of huge broadcast agreements.

The rights to show Premier League games in the UK were sold for £1.6 billion, paid by Sky, Setanta and the BBC. The overseas rights for the same three-year period from the start of the 2008/09 season are worth close to £690 million.

Collective selling of the Premier League has underpinned its growth as the most valuable league in the world. However, were the big four of Liverpool, Manchester United, Chelsea and Arsenal to break out of that agreement, there's a good chance they would make even larger sums.

Some analysts believe this is the end game for the top clubs, which look enviously at Real Madrid, which sold its overseas TV rights for €1.1 billion.

The American view is that now is the time to build a presence, position yourself for when sports fans can access anything they want via internet TV.

When Liverpool launched LFCTV, its own digital channel last month, the first programme was a chat show hosted by John Barnes. In the new world order, it will have to come up with something better than that.

One scenario sees live Champions League games beamed to 500 million people in India and China, each paying the club directly. Hicks kept schtum on that one.

Back at Canary Wharf, the NBA's Ms Ueberroth makes it clear that London was merely a stop-off. The zeitgeist, and the money, are moving east.

"Look at Yao Ming [ who plays for the Houston Rockets basketball team], he's not just popular in Houston but across the country. The bridge he is able to build as we look to China is important."

Ueberroth's plans for China are very big indeed. The NBA appointed Tim Chen, formerly chief executive of Microsoft in the country, to become head of NBA China, a $2 billion investment housing all TV rights, licensing and operations.

Chen is a Beijing insider, with access to the highest reaches of the Chinese government. His job will be to turn potential into genuine return on investment.

NBA's own figures suggest participation levels in the sport close to 300 million. There are 51 different TV networks bringing in eight games a week. The push in to China is in readiness for Olympic year.

Meanwhile, the Premier League teams debate the best way of "monetising" the interest of people around the world in their product.

The pre-season summer tours conducted by English clubs have been half-hearted affairs, dismissed by locals who want genuine competition. The NFL brought the real deal to London, the NBA is planning something similar in China.

If football is to follow it must act fast and with real commitment. If not, they may find when they do get there, the locals are playing a different game.