YOU could be forgiven for thinking that sport in general and football in particular was all about money nowadays.

Business has become an integral part of many sports and the majority of football fans can tell you just how much player x earns at club y.

For several years now, football has been governed by the value of sponsorship and satellite television to the extent that many other sports have attempted to emulate the financial side of the national game. Few have learned from its mistakes.

The stark financial contrast that exists within the football industry was brought home to me during a recent trip to London.

I had arranged to meet Chelsea's chairman, Ken Bates, in the palatial surrounds of Chelsea Village and was directed by polite security staff to my underground car parking space before being whisked through well appointed offices to the top floor boardroom.

Here was the football industry at its highest echelons: the plc which has successfully forged a link between sport and property to create significant asset value. A place where players change hands for millions and where lucrative European competition constitutes an essential part of the business plan.

Meanwhile, the fallout from ITV Digital's decision to call "time" on the Football League continues to reverberate throughout all sports, not just football. The value of televised sport has plummeted, leaving most broadcasters with the television equivalent of negative equity.

This will be most starkly illustrated when the new Premier League broadcast contract comes into effect at the beginning of the 2004/05 season. Expect its value to be at least 30% below the present £1.1 billion being paid by Sky.

The prices paid by broadcasters during the feeding frenzy of the 1990's represented a high water mark which will not be re-visited for some time yet. The fluctuating value of sports rights is the 21st century's equivalent of the late nineties dot-com boom.

The Premiership has talked about setting up their own television channel if offers for its product "do not come up to expectations". What, one wonders, will they do for money in the meantime? The Football League may have some allies in the top flight after all.

As I headed back north, I listened to a radio debate regarding salary capping, an issue of colossal importance to Football League clubs.

The discussion boiled down to laying the blame for football's wage-driven ills at Jimmy Hill's door, but if we look at high profile sports lubricated principally by money outside of the UK, there are some alternatives worthy of exploration.

Take American Football. Salary capping was introduced years ago to prevent clubs becoming insolvent and rigorously supported by financial penalties should clubs pay players too much.

The result? Everybody stays afloat.

The value of sponsorship, broadcasting and salary caps are important to all sports, and over the coming months, I shall delve further into the contrasting financial backgrounds at either end of professional sport, because it really is a business.