The European clubs don’t need the best possible league, what they need is a league that can match the epl and stem the flow of money etc away from the European game. A European League could generate revenues comparable to the epl. In fact if it got its act together it could pretty comfortably outstrip it imo - Europe has much bigger clubs than England does, we’ve just lost sight of that because the epl package is so slick. We also lose sight of Europe’s domestic market being much bigger, because there isn’t a single domestic market at the moment (except for the CL) and we focus mostly on foreign tv revenues.
To follow the logic of this through, if this hypothetical European league did get up-and-running, you’d be looking at competing products along these lines:
CLASSIC FIXTURES
Liverpool-Man Utd vs Real-Barcelona
NOT QUITE TOP TIER
Chelsea-Man City vs PSG-Inter
GENUINELY DIFFICULT GAME
West Ham-Tottenham vs Atletico-Bayern
BREAD-AND-BUTTER
Arsenal-Villa vs Juventus-Benfica
FILLER
Leeds-Bournemouth vs Lyon-Roma
Right now as-a-package the epl’s brand is probably holding its own - but that (imo) is absolutely remarkable when you look at the games involved. The great illusion, and tribute to Sky and Richard Scudamore, is convincing the world that the bottom two or three tiers there are worth watching - that us hosting Leicester, or Palace-Brighton, are significant events at all. It’s daft but it works because they’ve been successful in selling the whole package as the only game in town.
Serie A is the only existing league which could conceivably compete as a package but I don’t think that’s realistic because the epl has first-mover advantage in the overseas markets and I don’t see any motivation for those markets to shift focus away from it.
A European league would be a different story though, because if it did get up-and-running there would be no doubt that the Milan derby is a bigger deal than the north London one, or that Ajax and Marseille matter more than Everton and Fulham. So the pull of gravity would always have to be towards the European league, how could it not?
PS I’ve been assuming, as does everyone else, that overseas rights are always going to be a big thing. But that’s probably worth interrogating. Is it really the case that Asia is going to stay in love with the English game, or that the US wouldn’t prefer to boost its own league at some point?