Premier League 2023-24 preview: How to bet on England's top soccer league

At the bottom of the table, everyone has one goal: stay out of the bottom three places. The teams who finish in 20^th, 19^th and 18^th are “relegated” to a lower league for the following season, while three top teams from that lower league are “promoted” to replace them. Imagine the Oakland A’s moving to AAA ball and being replaced in the majors by the Oklahoma City Dodgers: a fascinating dynamic, but an absolutely brutal one.

Relegated teams will see their funding plummet as their games are broadcast less widely; promoted teams will see their funding skyrocket as they enter the big leagues. It’s a wild cycle.

Where can I watch it? In the United States, all Premier League games are available through NBC's family of networks, including the Peacock streaming service.

Who finished in the top spots last season? Manchester City won the Premier League (along with just about everything else) last season. London’s Arsenal finished in second place, while Manchester United clinched third and Newcastle United took fourth.

Liverpool and Brighton finished fifth and sixth to take the Europa League spots, while Birmingham’s Aston Villa shocked many by snatching the Conference League spot in seventh.

Who just missed out? London’s Tottenham Hotspur ended up finishing eighth after a disastrous second half of its season, while crosstown rivals Chelsea wound up in 12th after a bacchanalian spending spree saddled the club with too many players. Both are expected to do better in the 2023-24 season.

Which teams were ‘promoted’? Burnley, Sheffield United and Luton Town. Regular Premier League viewers will remember Burnley; the club has bounced between the top two divisions regularly in recent years. The Lancashire club stormed to first place in the second division in 2022-23 with the help of coach Vincent Kompany — a longtime acolyte of Manchester City’s Pep Guardiola. Many are expecting big things from it this time around.

What storylines have carried over into this new season? The end of the “big X”. In the 2000s, many people believed the Premier League had a “big 4” of championship-caliber teams: Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester United. The 2010s heralded the arrival of the “big 6”, with Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur joining the party. But now, with all six teams performing well and clubs like Newcastle United, Brighton and Aston Villa storming up the table, things are much, much more competitive up there.

(However, Manchester City remains in a class of its own. The “big 6” may be no more, but it might be more accurate to point to City as a “big 1” instead.)

The engine powering City’s ascent — and Newcastle United’s — is foreign wealth. City is funded by the sovereign wealth fund of the United Arab Emirates; Newcastle is funded by a similar one in Saudi Arabia. The other big clubs can hardly boast of "clean" money, given all but Brighton are run by hedge funds and American businessmen, but expect a lot of stories about the pros and cons of foreign investment as City and Newcastle take the field.

And what of Brighton? Tiny, likable Brighton? It’s a success story unlike any other. Through smart buying, nuanced data analytics and some excellent coaching, it’s managed to compete with the never-ending cash of the big teams and win more often than it loses. Brighton has become everyone’s second favorite team — expect to hear a lot about its surprising ascent, too.

The Premier League kicks off this Friday with newly promoted Burnley facing off against last year’s champions Manchester City. It’s the teacher versus the student as Vincent Kompany takes on his old boss Pep Guardiola. We’ll be back later this week with some great bets on this and other games taking place over the weekend.