The PL are under severe pressure without doubt. Every international broadcaster will be looking at that, and seeing if the Chinese get a lower deal, and if they do watch them repeat. There will also be pressure on the domestic broadcasters to begin to follow suit and negotiate down. It's not the same product, Fans not being there makes it an inferior product. I was watching the darts for a bit last night, and it's not as good without fans so I switched off. They are within their rights to say they've paid for full stadiums and it's not beign delivered at all.
Wider than this, I would expect every commercial sponsor to be reviewing sponsorship deals. That doesn't mean they all cancel, but they are reviewed. It may mean some seek to to downgrade sponsor values. Clubs will not make this public, and will probably insist on confidentiality clauses, as once one sponsor gets wind of it, they will all be after it. This will be going on though. Those clubs who have signed relatively recent, and large new sponsor packages will be most suspectible (there's the smallest amount of customer loyalty).
I happen to agree with your broad picture too, the pressure placed on them gets worse. It seems twitter is full of experts who seem to treat FFP as akin to the commandments of Moses, as if ordained by god and passed down (and often seem to be American, perhaps they are just more au fait with regulation in sport). I saw the decision to merge years as a holding decision. It bought time, and allowed for some clubs to keep spending this summer without collapsing the market.
It also worked to the assumption, everything gets better by next March, or in reality everything is already better (so to show up in next March 2022's accounts which will show this season). I think thats an incredibly foolish assumption to have made. This really is the start of the process. Even when grounds partially re-open, with a couple of thousand allowed in, now allowed to sign etc, these people will not be buying merchandise. I also think uptake of commercial boxes will be greatly down. I don't see it recovering to pre Covid levels for some time.
I know some on here think we will be singularly punished. If everyone loses money and you punish one business not others, that looks like unfair competition and you end up getting sued at CAS. It's really that simple. CAS are an objective body, who couldn't care less who is the percieved favourites or have the most entitled fans etc. They look at the facts. If you have rules that favour certain clubs, and you enact those rules, you lose in court. City have just proven this.
It looks like we keep spending, within reason. And yes I expect the legislation around FFP to completely break down through this crisis. Above all else it is inflation busting legislation, at a deflationary period. It's just not needed.
