Hi, my name is Tom Beckingham and I am a third year student at Liverpool John Moores University, studying Sport Development with the business of sport. I am asking for you to take 15 minutes out of your time to complete a short questionnaire for my dissertation project. The aim of the project is to gain an insight into fans perceptions of who is responsible for the current financial state of the Premier League. I would be extremely grateful for your time. https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/M7MS5NM
I did the survey, but I don't understand why year on year we get students posting the exact same surveys, doing the exact same dissertation. The questions and ultimate topic that have been selected (for the thousandth time) are entirely reductive, and represent bad science because anybody with half a brain can see what answer you are planning on penning in your conclusion already. Best of luck with your degree, but I don't see this being a stand out piece of work for you.
Another student may well have chosen this subject to do their dissertation on but as far as published literature there is nothing on a fans perception on football finances and spending habits. It would be near on impossible to pick a subject never discussed before by students. Thanks for doing the survey and just out of interest what do you think is going to go into the conclusion? Because it really is dependent on the answers given as to whether the media is at fault or the clubs spending habits (this will also vary dependent on what team is supported I hope).
It is not difficult to pick a less travelled path, and in my opinion, that's the whole point of Uni, not to do a bog standard rehash of someone else's work. Imagination gets good marks. The answer will of course be, yes, it has impacted spending. It attracted foreign investors, made the league the most watched, created expectation of having a certain calibrate of players, took the focus away from British players etc etc. While it didn't change club behaviour completely, there were record transfers and those that spent money tended to do well before Sky, broadcast rights magnified it beyond all proportion. But that does of course leave out other factors, and your survey leaves no room for any other consideration, just asks varying levels of agreement. What is your scientific inference if someone states "disagree" to a question? Do you then consider other factors? Because ultimately their answer gives you no licence to do so. Really, if you can spin that out for 10,000-15,000 words, based on that survey, you've pulled off a miracle, because there are intelligent posters on this forum who could deconstruct the topic and give a thorough explanation in about 1000.
You're not wrong. This is only the first phase of my research where I get the responses and analyse them through SPSS (i assume you know what this is if you've been to uni which it sounds like you may have). I'll then use the data collected through questionnaires in focus groups to get more in depth data, so it's a mixed methods approach. I can only tell you that we are not allowed to pick a subject that has been researched before in published literature so in theory it's a new topic and that has been agreed by tutors so won't affect my mark but I understand your point.
2.2 Failed to go into adequate depth and gave limited illustrations to support points made.Had the basis of an interesting essay but looks as though you were on the verge of "going out" and remembered had essay to hand in "tomorrow".Expect more detail and effort on next essay.
I just did the survey, felt it was lacking in breadth really and some of the questions had a historical feel to them, when you consider the money from the next round of rights sales kicks in at the end of this season you can only consider that TV is positively beneficial to the financial health of the PL, just gaining promotion from the Championship has a massive impact on a clubs finances, Crystal Palace went from around a £19 million turnover in their final season in the Championship to over £90 million in their first season in the Premier League having won promotion. As JPF states there are other significant factors involved and a look at the historical financing of clubs and the way this has changed with the advent of the PL and Sky TV would be interesting, as for fans perceptions no disrespect to my fellow fans but whilst there are some who would have a wide ranging knowledge of the factors you are also asking for a response from some who's ability to stay informed is based upon the information garnered from a Sun headline and looking at the pictures. Irrespective of this good luck with your endeavours.
Ok so I did a quick google search, and I got the following straight away that reflect factors you will discuss; Ridley, I (2011) There's a Golden Sky, A & C Black: London. Slack, T (2004) "The Commercialisation of Sport", in British Football and Social Exclusion, Wagg, S (ed), Routledge: London. Black, L et al (2001) The Changing Face of Football, Bloomsbury Academic: London. Goddard, J & Sloane, P (2014) Handbook on the Economics of Professional Football, Edward Elgar Publishing: London. Rees, P. (2014) The Three Degrees, Constable and Robinson Ltd: London. (and the first three appropriate website links) http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/22314015 http://www.theguardian.com/media/2007/jun/15/sport.rupertmurdoch http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/32077356 If your contention is that tackling the subject from a "fan's" perspective is original, then you will have to give a robust description of a fan, because anybody who happens to write about football I would assume has some inherent interest in the game. As a point of note, I might add that it will be worth your time providing your own definition in this work, as it will not only eat valuable word count, but also as I find supporter and fan as two distinct entities. A fan(atic) expresses a strong preference for a club, a supporter is someone who puts their hand in their pocket to watch them play and "supports" them during a game. You should sack off the survey your professor has told you to do, with it's limited available responses, and go round forums and actually read what is written if you are desperate for a day-to-day punter's thoughts. For example, this forum has a search box. Simply typing in "TV" and "football" yielded a million threads, one of which is http://www.not606.com/threads/tv-deals-and-the-state-of-the-game.291833/#post-7602496
I can see you actually writing this dissertation if you're not careful. Not sure if now is the time to mention my dissertation about getting third parties to do DIY jobs, your wife wants you to do, for free by pretending to be writing a dissertation about getting third parties to do DIY jobs, your wife wants you to do, for free.
I also did a quick search on our forum, FYI, and received a number of results. Of those I could be bothered reading: http://www.not606.com/threads/trasnational-corporations-and-the-premier-league.113933/#post-2008568 (very similar but with a very intelligent and more nuanced focus which allows for much larger discussion and scope) http://www.not606.com/threads/dissertation-foreign-ownership.289508/ (foreign ownership being intrinsically linked with your topic... considering you go to the same University as the person who did that dissertation, I find it baffling nobody has mentioned this previous work... unless it was ****)
I think that Mark Twain covered this nicely in the chapter where Tom Sawyer was paid by his peers in order so that they could do the work for him.
