​In this summer’s European soccer transfer window, which closed Tuesday, it was again clubs in the English Premier League that flashed the cash. The league’s 20 teams spent a combined $4.7 billion in transfer fees on 315 new players. That was more than the total spent by clubs in Italy ($1.39 billion), Germany ($939 million), Spain ($877 million) and France ($670 million) combined.This is becoming a familiar story, but the numbers remain striking. Across the five leagues, there were 13 clubs with a net spend (transfer fees paid minus fees received) of over 100 million euros. Nine of those teams were in the Premier League. The average team in the other four leagues, which include giants such as Real Madrid, Bayern Munich and Paris Saint-Germain, spent around $46 million on new players. The average Premier League team spent $238 million.Put differently, 38 players moved clubs over the summer for a transfer fee of 50 million euros or more and 32 of those deals had a Premier League team either buying or selling.The big theme of the transfer window was an intensification of trading between Premier League clubs. The three biggest deals of the European summer—Enzo Fernandez moving from Chelsea to Manchester City ($168M), Morgan Rogers from Aston Villa to Chelsea ($160M) and Elliot Anderson from Nottingham Forest to Manchester City ($156M)—were all between Premier League clubs. Even a decade ago, these sorts of deals used to be a rarity. The biggest Premier League teams would buy the best players from the competition’s smaller sides and teams across the league would look abroad for talent. But big-name players moving between established teams in their prime was rare. Clubs and fans were territorial. Even enquiring about another team’s stars was considered an aggressive move.But in the mid-2020s, players moving between the biggest clubs has become much more common. The main reason for this is economic. The Premier League has become a financial juggernaut, pulling in broadcast rights revenues far in excess of other leagues. And because the Premier League divides this revenue relatively equally between its clubs, the spending power of smaller teams has risen so that they have become competitive with the biggest teams in leagues elsewhere.This has created a cycle within England: The larger clubs have to pay more to sign elite Premier League players, but they are also then able to command more money for their castoffs. For example, Chelsea had to pay a huge fee to sign Rogers from Aston Villa. A player of the same age, status and playing style signed from Italy and Spain would not have cost $160 million. Going the other direction, Chelsea wanted to sell their Senegalese forward, Nicolas Jackson. They surely advertised his availability abroad, but none of the European giants outside of England could have matched or exceeded the $63 million offered by Aston Villa. Newcastle United would probably have preferred to sell their Italian midfielder Sandro