How big is the English Premier League?

So big that a French telecom is paying the world’s most popular soccer league 100-million euros per season, for this season and the next two, to show all of the Premier League’ games.

In France. Did we make that clear? In France, which has its own soccer league, one generally considered one of the top five or six leagues in Europe.

So, a French telecom, known as SFR, is giving the Premier League about $120 million per year to show, in France and Monaco, games from the Premier League this season and the next two.

Personally, I think it’s a fine business decision.

Why?

Because I have significant interest in the Premier League and very little interest in French football.

In the old scheme of things, someone living in France could expect to see the French league. Because if you are living in France, the French league is what you must want to see.

But the new reality of the club soccer market is that the Premier League is what most anglophones (including this one) want to watch, even while living in a country that is not England.

Actually, millions and millions of global fans, from the U.S. to Asia and Africa, would rather watch the Premier League than anything else, including their national league.

Ligue 1 is, by comparison, gray and limp, with rarely more than two or three teams capable of competing at the top. The French equivalent of Leicester City, which won the Premier League last season, would probably be something like Nantes — which no one outside of France knows anything about and certainly is not going to win anything.

The ultra-competitive Premier League getting 100 million euros per season from a French broadcaster previously known for having a handful of sports programming (French basketball, etc.), demonstrates the league’s reach.

Last season, the Premier League got 60 million euros from France’s Canal Plus network, which had the rights in France to show the English league.

SFR made its big bid, and now I am going to become an SFR customer at a cost of 25 euros per month — rising to 55 euros a month after 12 months — when we relocate to another property here in small-town France in the coming days.

I will not feel bad about not watching the French league, because I would watch it only rarely if I had the opportunity.

Instead, I will be watching the Premier League, with which I am quite familiar after six years in Abu Dhabi. I am a nominal Arsenal fan but I know more than a little about just about all 20 clubs in the league.

The game commentary, plus SFR’s semi-amateurish studio coverage, is entirely in French, but that is not an issue for me … and SFR will need plenty of French customers for the English game to make money on their deal.

I could still see Ligue 1, if I wanted. BeIn, the sports arm of the Qatar-owned Al Jazeera network, will show the French league this year, apparently in conjunction with Canal Plus.

I will not. I just don’t care enough.

The Premier League is conquering the world, including the U.S., which is anything but rabid about soccer … but there goes NBC signing a six-year deal to show the English game live in the States. A deal worth $1 billion.

And here in France, a French telecom is staking its future on making money showing English football. Fine by me.