The man who once turned Concorde Pepsi blue and launched the BBC iPlayer versus the man who bought The Voice for ITV and drove the broadcaster’s business in the United States?

That Tim Davie and Tom Betts are believed to be among the runners to become the new chief executive of the Premier League is no surprise. Even if it is not them it is likely to be someone with their kind of background, rather than from football, which points to the direction in which the organisation is heading as it searches for the person to succeed Richard Scudamore. And that is definitely towards new media, new platforms and the monetising of new markets.

If it works, the Premier League could be on the brink of an astonishing spike in revenue – yet again – but if it does not then its collective strength could be seriously questioned with the ‘Big Six’ clubs possibly renewing their threats to break away and be part of some kind of European league.

In fact the key date for the future of the Premier League might not be Scudamore’s departure in December this year but what happens at Christmas 2019 following one of the final broadcast deals that he cut last June in his current role as both chief executive and chairman (a non-executive chairman is also to be appointed once the chief executive has been confirmed).

It was later that month, at the league’s shareholders meeting, that Scudamore announced he was stepping down after nearly 20 years of extraordinary success and expansion.

The news, a bombshell to many, was included in the ‘any other business section’ and after it was also confirmed that he had secured a compromise deal between the clubs on the distribution mechanism for overseas rights which is clearly regarded as the growth area with the domestic market effectively saturated.

Again, the ‘Big Six’ – the Manchester clubs, Liverpool, Arsenal, Tottenham Hotspur and Chelsea – wanted a larger share and this was a fundamental threat to the collective arrangement that is at the heart of the Premier League.

Heading this off was another significant Scudamore success and his legacy at the organisation will be a simple but incredibly powerful one. He is the man who held it all together because the fact is the Premier League is at once a forward-thinking, dynamic organisation and a strange concept.

Richard Scudamore will leave his role in December credit: getty images

There are the 20 clubs who all understand the strength of a collective bargaining power and the strength of the league - which is undoubtedly the most successful and best-marketed in the world, certainly from a broadcast perspective where rights now total a mind-boggling £8.3billion.

However, when they meet each club represents and votes purely in its own interest, and no-one else’s, so the first and last duty of the Premier League’s chief executive is to wrestle with that juxtaposition and somehow keep the peace to stop factions developing that could eventually threaten that collective strength.

And all this at a time when the clubs are owned by a unique selection of oligarchs, Gulf oil billionaires, American venture capitalists and the remaining British owners. Money – and Scudamore – therefore has been the glue.

He found a way through the overseas dispute but also – in the crucial, final deal – sold the remaining two TV packages that had not been bought when the majority of the deals were agreed in February. One of those two packages was bought by Amazon which meant that Sky and BT’s strangle-hold on Premier League football ended.

The online American retailer won the rights to show all 10 matches on Boxing Day, from 2019, as part of a three-year deal. It was announced that the games will be available for free to Amazon Prime’s UK members, who will also be able to watch a round of midweek matches as part of the package.

The value of the deal was not disclosed but the implications could be huge. Really huge. It is the first time that a package of live-streaming matches has been sold by the Premier League with Scudamore appearing to have identified technology companies such as Amazon, Facebook, Netflix and YouTube, with their deep pockets, as the future when it comes to driving up earnings from media rights.

View more!

There is a feeling among several clubs that this type of platform is clearly the way ahead for the broadcasting deals the Premier League will cut. The theory is that customers will not want to continue with the monthly subscription formats that are currently, and always have been, the model on offer and that these will be replaced as old-fashioned and out-of-date.

It means that the pay-TV market could be about to undergo a revolution, featuring more streaming platforms such as Amazon, if the deal they have can be made to work. Therefore, having a chief executive who has this kind of new media experience could be the key. It will be fascinating to see what happens on Boxing Day 2019.

It could take the broadcasting revenues to an unprecedented level, which is where executives such as Davie and Betts come in, if they are indeed on the shortlist from which a preferred candidate is due to be recommended next month by a five-strong panel led by Chelsea chairman Bruce Buck.

Davie, a former marketeer, currently runs BBC Studios and has headed the organisation’s commercial activities for five years, while Betts is ITV’s director of corporate strategy, mergers and acquisitions and has overseen its drive into international markets.

Both men have spent time in America, have done deals there, and have expertise in the shift away from what is known as ‘linear broadcasting’ to non-linear media: where the consumer selects shows (or, with the case of football, games) to watch through a demand-type service. Making that work, and being the person to oversee that, could well define the future of the Premier League.