[HN Gopher] US owners find greed doesn't play well in European s...
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US owners find greed doesn't play well in European soccer
Author : bdz
Score : 123 points
Date : 2021-04-21 11:21 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (eu.usatoday.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (eu.usatoday.com)
| Joe8Bit wrote:
| Lots of people have talked eloquantly about the monetary greed
| the Super League entailed, but I think it misses the wider point,
| Kronke (et al) have long been pushing for a _redistribution of
| power_ in football, away from the 'leagues' (e.g. the Premier
| League, La Liga, UEFA) to the clubs and owners themselves. Which
| is the now the canonical model for US sports, where they're most
| comfortable.
|
| Another example of this is last year's "Project Big Picture"[0]
| in the Premier League, which was mostly led by the same owners
| with the same motivations.
|
| As an illustrive example, take the NFL where Roger Goodell's
| purpose is to serve the leagues owners. He's an instrument of
| their will and so's steered the NFL in a direction that benefits
| them the most (e.g. Goodell will always pick the path that gets
| them the most money). The Premier League on the other hand takes
| decisions that are seen by big club owners as precisely _against_
| their interests (e.g. distributing TV money from foreign TV deals
| equally to all clubs when they claim >80% of matches watched
| outside the UK are of the 5-6 big clubs, the classic but
| reductive 'No one in Malaysia wants to watch Bolton play')
|
| [0]: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/africa/54510898
| jonwinstanley wrote:
| Yes, the owners want their status to mean they receive more
| guaranteed income.
|
| But that's not how football works. Status and brand shouldn't
| matter, you get money based on your results.
|
| Most of these clubs are pretty much assured of qualification
| for Europe anyway, but at least they earn it by finishing in
| the top few places in their national league.
|
| They already have the most money, they want to get rid of the
| risk that they might not always do so.
| kasey_junk wrote:
| But the NFL distributes all TV money equally to all teams as
| well even though no one in Malaysia wants to watch Tampa Bay.
| Further most of that money goes to the players not the club
| owners. How do you square that with your thesis?
| hewrin10 wrote:
| Speaking as someone from Malaysia, I would love to there be
| an easy way to watch NFL games here.
| missedthecue wrote:
| Pirating them is quite easy, though that doesn't fix the
| timezone problem
| solidasparagus wrote:
| There's only 32 NFL teams and even when the crappy ones play
| internationally, they draw huge crowds. And that's because
| it's a closed circuit so the level of play of the worst teams
| is much higher than the worst teams in European football. The
| NFL as a league is also designed to have a much higher degree
| of parity than European football. There are also fewer games,
| which increases the importance of each game. These rules are
| dictated by the NFL (more or less) because the goal of the
| league is to make the league successful by being fun to
| watch.
|
| The NFL might distribute money evenly, but only among the
| select, limited number of teams that the NFL allows to be a
| part of the NFL brand.
| martin8412 wrote:
| Of course 32 teams will be better than the literally 10
| thousands of teams in European, which all have a chance of
| playing at the highest level, albeit not a huge chance for
| most of them. My local football team is part of same
| pyramid as CL, despite them only playing for fun. Small
| local teams have risen through the ranks to the best
| national leagues.
| throw_nbvc1234 wrote:
| The "draft" plays a role in this too where the worst teams,
| in theory, get the best players further increasing the
| chance of parity. Unless those terrible teams are terrible
| because their management sucks and just repeatedly make
| terrible decisions over the years.
| ilamont wrote:
| I think some of them would like to see Tom Brady play for
| Tampa Bay, especially after winning the Super Bowl. About
| five years ago his old team the patriots played in Mexico
| City's arena to 75,000 people and it was a huge hit. This is
| in a country which has its own strong soccer culture.
| addicted wrote:
| The CBA gives owners 52% of football related money and
| players 48%. So, no, the majority of the money does not go to
| players.
|
| And the way football related is defined is fairly narrow, so
| some obvious revenue sources (suite upgrades, parking, etc)
| do not fall under football related and therefore goes to the
| owners.
|
| Further, the vast majority of wealth the owners make is
| through the rapidly increasing value of their teams.
|
| At the end of the day the income is peanuts compared to the
| wealth and asset value appreciation that is generated by the
| teams.
| rory wrote:
| How much of that value appreciation is derived from income,
| vs the status symbol nature of owning a team?
| djrogers wrote:
| > The CBA gives owners 52% of football related money and
| players 48%. So, no, the majority of the money does not go
| to players.
|
| I think you're looking at this a bit too narrowly - every
| expense involved in running an NFL team comes out of that
| 52% that the owners "get", so none of the owners are
| actually seeing all 52% of that money.
|
| Please note - I'm simply responding to the specifics here -
| I'm not saying that owners are hard done by, in fact I
| believe the split should be more weighted to the players
| (and include roster expansion and more pay/stability for
| practice squad players).
| frockington1 wrote:
| As an American, not having 15 leagues with the worlds best
| players spread out seems like a great idea. I'd rather watch
| the worlds best players play each other every week than have to
| wait a full year for the Champions league
| walshemj wrote:
| If the US had relegation from baseball and football it would
| improve the sport.
|
| At the moment there is no penalty for coming last in the AFL or
| NFL :-) oh and next year you have first pick of the best new
| players
| mandevil wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_professional_sports_le.
| ..
|
| The NFL, MLB, and the NBA are all higher revenue sports than
| the EPL. Even the NHL brings in more revenue than every other
| sports league than the big 3 North American sports + EPL- 30%
| more than La Liga or Bundesliga. So if revenues for sports
| without relegation are so much greater than the revenues for
| sports with relegation, why would it improve the sport?
| prionassembly wrote:
| The best music is also not the one that draws the higher
| revenues.
| duncanawoods wrote:
| EPL is higher if you normalise by population.
| mandevil wrote:
| Whose population? The EPL makes so much money because
| it's a global sport, so why should I normalize by the
| population of the UK?
| duncanawoods wrote:
| If you want the global sport then use global football
| revenue. If you want apples to apples for a regional
| league then compare US to Europe or normalise by
| population for a single country.
| anthk wrote:
| Now add up all the major leagues in Europe and sum it up
| again.
| mandevil wrote:
| Sure, but let's go by # of teams: The top 58 teams in
| promotion-relegation system: (EPL+La Liga+Bundesliga-
| I'll even through in UCL since it's mostly the same core
| teams driving the attention) 15.5 billion euros The top
| 62 teams in limited entry leagues: (NFL+NBA) 21.1 billion
| euros (You can even add in Ligue 1 and Serie A and you
| STILL don't get to just what the NFL and NBA pull in,
| setting aside MLB and the NHL. MLS, which does not do
| promotion/relegation, and is clearly the fifth biggest
| sport in the US, pulls in ~as much as the EFL.)
|
| In terms of money, which is a rough but reasonable proxy
| for fan interest, limited entry leagues seem to make more
| money.
| iso1631 wrote:
| It's another example of Americans exporting their culture, and
| not even recognising how they are different. It's there in
| travel, it's there on the internet, it's there in sport.
|
| It's not deliberate arrogance, it just comes from the same core
| belief that thinks the USA is the best in everything {insert
| newsroom speech}
| dash2 wrote:
| Yeah, I think this is more about power. Sky News has put this
| on its front page. Wonder if that's because they've invested
| heavily in the existing setup?
|
| I'm not sure a super league isn't a good idea. At the moment
| the top six or so teams in the Premiership are more or less
| unbeatable by those beneath them. I'd like to see more games
| where they play other great teams in Europe, and fewer of them
| beating Middlesbrough or whatever. (Or Norwich, my local team
| that just got promoted.)
| flr03 wrote:
| Arsenal, Spurs, Liverpool are out of the Europe spots at the
| moment though. I want to see the best teams playing in the
| Champion's League, not the wealthiest.
| gmtx725 wrote:
| you say that but a complete minnow (Leicester) won the league
| only five years ago putting all these 'big' clubs to shame.
| Yes the odds are stacked in their favour but the only thing
| that keeps it exciting is the (small) chance of a big upset.
| rizz0 wrote:
| Club != Owners.
|
| The club is the people, the owners own the shares of the
| company.
|
| Your comment frames the situation as a "League Owner" vs "Club
| Owner" power struggle. That struggle is real, but it ignores
| the critical aspect that makes European football appealing:
| European football is about the clubs, the communities they
| represent, and cultural rivalry between communities.
|
| In essence Man City is Man City because they are not Bolton,
| not because Malaysians want to watch them.
|
| Reason European clubs are good is that they're intertwined with
| society. European football became big business, but that's not
| where it came from, nor what it is.
| jopsen wrote:
| I was shocked when I learned that American sports teams could
| be bought and moved to another city.
|
| I've never care for soccer or followed any of it. But I know
| enough to know that if you tried to move a big British soccer
| team to another city it might just set of a minor civil war.
| nradov wrote:
| How many Man City players are actually from Manchester? I
| fail to see the connection to the local community.
| randomsearch wrote:
| In a recent game half of the Manchester United onfield
| players were local or academy players. Mostly local.
|
| I'm so confused by this question. Do clubs in other sports
| not play a massive part in the community?
|
| Manchester United did so much to help people in the
| pandemic. They have strong links with local charities. The
| footballers do a lot for charity. Rashford is an obvious
| superstar in that regard but it's across the board.
|
| Do American sports clubs not play a massive part in their
| community? I don't get why this question keeps coming up.
| Of _course_ the clubs are central institutions in their
| community...
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| >Do American sports clubs not play a massive part in
| their community? I don't get why this question keeps
| coming up. Of course the clubs are central institutions
| in their community...
|
| I grew up in the US, and I always viewed them as
| businesses. They sell entertainment, and are free to do
| what's needed to boost their bottom lines. The businesses
| can move (and have moved) to wherever they think they
| might earn more money.
| zelos wrote:
| > the communities they represent, and cultural rivalry
| between communities.
|
| This has always confused me: what's the connection between
| the community and the club? How does Man City 'represent'
| Manchester?
| randomsearch wrote:
| Clubs are heavily involved in their communities. They do a
| lot of charity and community work. Lots of players come
| through the club's youth system, which usually contains a
| disproportionate number of local kids.
|
| The history of the clubs and cities are intertwined. It's
| just a massive cultural deal. Can't properly explain it but
| the clubs are part of it people's identity, which often
| they inherit from their parents.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| In the UK most clubs are literally in the middle of a
| residential community. In many working-class towns they're
| the literal and emotional centre of the community - visible
| from all around and one of just a few unchanging social
| things shared across generations. People are very heavily
| invested into them.
| xapata wrote:
| Some clubs are majority owned by the fans.
| barbazoo wrote:
| I don't think that's it. For fans, whether you "belong"
| to a club has nothing to do with money. It more what city
| you were born in, what games did your parents take you to
| when you were young, what trading cards did you own when
| you were a child or who were your idols when you played
| football as a kid, things like that.
| barbazoo wrote:
| From my experience, clubs are much more connected with the
| community in Europe. Where I'm from, you'd have sports
| clubs that offer different sports at different levels. In
| Germany you'll find a "Sportverein (SV), Fussballclub (FC),
| Turn- und Sportgemeinschaft (TSG), etc" in almost every
| town. If it's a generic club, they'll have many sports.
| Eintracht Frankfurt for instance has a Bundesliga football
| team but they also have amateur football teams, handball
| teams, hockey, etc. Towns often have more than one sports
| club so there connection to "your" club as well.
|
| So there is a direct connection between your town and the
| sports club. It's the place where you sign your kid up to
| participate in team sports. Independent clubs aren't really
| a thing in Europe, for instance Bayern Munich is the team
| from Munich. They'll probably never be based in Berlin just
| because they're making them a better offer. Local clubs
| often have a long history, too. It's not uncommon for a
| local sports club to be over a hundred years old as well
| (TSG 1899 Hoffenheim, founded in 1899).
| Mordisquitos wrote:
| > In essence Man City is Man City because they are not Bolton
|
| I fully agree with the spirit of your comment but, to be
| fair, Manchester United _is_ in Trafford, which is as much
| "Manchester" as Bolton is...
| hambast wrote:
| Trafford is 20 minutes walk from the centre of Manchester.
| Bolton (or Horwich as it now) will take you a couple of
| hours. Also Trafford has been Manchester for as long as the
| club has been there (and it was Manchester when it was
| Newton Heath).
| OldHand2018 wrote:
| Whether you support City or United has been a cultural
| thing going back 100 years. It kind of defines you and
| where you fit in. I know some people that have had season
| passes for City for 50+ years, passed down from father to
| son. It is totally part of their identity.
|
| Geography only plays a small part of this.
| randomsearch wrote:
| That's not even remotely geographically correct.
|
| And United's first home wasn't in Trafford.
| zimpenfish wrote:
| > That's not even remotely geographically correct.
|
| Which bit is wrong? Old Trafford is in Trafford which is
| in Manchester. Bolton is in Greater Manchester which, ok,
| isn't what people would possibly understand by
| "Manchester" but it's still viable.
| harryputtar wrote:
| This so such a reductive analysis, no there is not an illusion
| but an acutla fact that good well run clubs can not only win
| titles ( I.e. Leicester City 2015) but they can also join and
| stay in the league and slowly come quite close to being a strong
| club ( check BVB in Bundesliga).
|
| American sports system on the other hand doesn't work on fairness
| at all and just the illusion of competition hence has so little
| penetration in SE Asia ( check how many people watch American
| sports and football in India, Korea or Japan).
|
| Americans have a hard time admitting they are not the best at
| everything just because their currency runs Supreme.
| tecnocriollo wrote:
| I think it's more cultural differences. The same happens with
| formula 1. Haas still at bottom.
| hyko wrote:
| "They're trying to commercialise the sacred game of football that
| I already pay PS1200 a year to watch on television"
|
| Said in a muppet voice.
|
| Edit: I guess ultimately it's the weakness of being a fanatic
| about anything that isn't yourself or your loved ones. Some smart
| business people realised thirty years ago that there was a
| massive consumer surplus in football fandom and set about
| capturing it.
|
| Judging by the way fans vote with their hard earned money I'd say
| there's still more to be captured. But the idea that the current
| FIFA governed world of football is some sort of pristine old-
| growth forest threatened by commerce is just ludicrous.
| Sleepytime wrote:
| Is it really PS100/m to watch on tv? That sounds almost
| unbelievable.
| oneeyedpigeon wrote:
| Many of the fans objecting to the ESL also object to
| extortionate TV fees. Many still object to the formation of the
| English Premier League and the associated 'capitalisation' of
| football. If you only watch football on TV then, sure, things
| like the ESL will have far less of a direct impact on you.
| fumblebee wrote:
| This seems to miss the point entirely. The furore wasn't from
| further commercialisation, it was because a cartel of greedy
| clubs tried going solo and breaking tradition with the ladder
| system, where Leicester can win the Premier League or Greece
| the Euros. Most footballers are born into humble backgrounds,
| meritocracy matters.
| marcinzm wrote:
| Except it's not a meritocracy. The same clubs tend to win
| year over year. Those clubs then get the most money which
| they then invest into players so they win again the next
| year. That something is possible doesn't make it a
| meritocracy if the the system stacks the odds against it by
| favoring incumbents.
| iso1631 wrote:
| Leicester, Wigan, Portsmouth?
|
| It's not about the winning either. The romantacism of being
| able to win, when Bradford knocked out Chelsea in 2015,
| when Oldham beat Liverpool, fighting for 5th/6th place in
| the premier, or fighting to avoid relegation, this is the
| essence of football, where everyone, no matter what their
| team, can support their team and have those dreams.
| fumblebee wrote:
| iso1361 already made the point well.
|
| There's a non-zero percent chance for upsets in the current
| system. In ESL there'd be no chance. Zero. Zilch. That
| difference is fundamental and transcends the collective
| psyche of world football.
| anthk wrote:
| IDK about the rest of Europe but in Spain soccer is highly tied
| to local cities/towns and lesser cathegory leagues, as if the big
| soccer teams were built up from the smallest grounds.
|
| Trying to convert that into a "Hollywood" soccer kind with
| "fireworks", elitism and expensive/luxury consumerdom/PPV like is
| the recipe for a disaster and to dis-joint the huge regional
| fandom of each team.
|
| On major events such as finals, my province's capital city's
| population rises from ~200k people to nearly 500k-1 million in
| the streets, it's crazy.
| rvieira wrote:
| I think it's pretty much the same throughout Europe.
|
| A massive component of football's success is the illusion that
| "anyone can make it" and win everything, being just 11 vs. 11.
|
| I say illusion, because it's true in theory, but in reality
| small budget teams can't really hold on to great players.
| nmfisher wrote:
| I hate the influence of money on sports (EPL in particular),
| but I mean, relative minnows Leicester City did win the
| League a few years back. It's not impossible.
| thejackgoode wrote:
| >> is the illusion that "anyone can make it"
|
| This has some other implication. Ease of access is a good
| argument of the coming big decline of football and most
| active sports in favor of e-sports.
|
| That said, Amazon buying Twitch for <1bn IMO is even a bigger
| steal than FB buying IG for 1bn
| samfisher83 wrote:
| Barca and real Madrid are two of the richest sports franchises
| in the world. Look at all uefa champions. They are all the big
| spenders. It's already a system of the haves and have nots.
| kingosticks wrote:
| > Barca and real Madrid are two of the richest sports
| franchises in the world
|
| In addition, it's also worth pointing out that those two
| clubs are also massively in debt:
|
| https://www.football-espana.net/2021/01/27/real-madrid-
| accou...
|
| https://www.football-espana.net/2021/01/25/barcelona-on-
| the-...
|
| If (when?) this new league falls through it'll be interesting
| to see what happens to big clubs like these that, despite all
| their success and big brand, might have been relying on this
| extra money to see them through.
| jonwinstanley wrote:
| This is a point not talked about enough. These huge clubs
| possibly rushed into the forming of a super league because
| the pandemic has made the pain of their debt even more
| acute. Most of their money comes from TV but no fans paying
| for tickets does reduce their income significantly.
| watwut wrote:
| There is difference between:
|
| * system of "haves and have nots" where haves have advantage,
|
| * two tiered system of "haves and have nots" where haves have
| build in advantage in the rules and have nots have additional
| disadvantages on top of lack of money.
|
| Also, making everything into dichotomy where something not
| being perfect is a reason to make it even worst is also a
| very American cultural tendency. No, just because it is not
| perfectly fair now does not mean it is ok to make it even
| less fair. And just because solution of problem is not
| perfect does not mean it is pointless.
| kazen44 wrote:
| also, regional fandom is usually tied with local feuds.
| European football is community for many people, especially on
| the local level. The amount of dedication for a club and the
| community around it is enourmous.
|
| For instance, ultra's defending their stadium and city/town
| against looters during recent riots in the netherlands[0][1],
| with members the club willing to "take the hit" in terms of
| getting fined/arrested.
|
| [0]:https://www.ad.nl/binnenland/voetbalsupporters-als-
| buurtwach...
|
| [1]
| https://www.rtlnieuws.nl/nieuws/nederland/artikel/5211010/vo...
| sportsball wrote:
| Tradition is typically pretty bad at keeping up with innovations.
|
| It's very European to cling to what was done by their ancestors
| rather than adapt to change. European exceptionalism has been
| dead since WW2/end of the cold war, and with technology we get to
| witness how the citizens are handling the transition.
|
| You can find parallels with European Food and Products. It's 2nd
| place stuff.
| univalent wrote:
| The owners are greedy excuses for human beings. But let's also
| not forget UEFA or FIFA who are acting like they are the good
| guys. They are garbage as well. The whole system needs reform.
| Can't stop with just the cancelation of the Super League.
| ObserverNeutral wrote:
| This whole thing was a fiasco.
|
| ESL would be participant would have been better off by fighting
| for the right to negotiate their TV rights individually
| deagle50 wrote:
| I think nationalism played a factor, this plan would split a
| country's fan base between their current national league and the
| ESL. The fans of the big clubs invited to the ESL get to enjoy
| the top league and everyone else in the country gets relegated.
|
| They should have allowed for a results-based promotion system to
| the ESL if you top your national league.
| twobitshifter wrote:
| With relegation and promotion is there no tournament between the
| promoted and relegated teams? Without this, it seems that the
| same teams could seesaw back and forth year to year.
| jonwinstanley wrote:
| The league below the Premier League is even more competitive,
| there are 24 closely matched sides trying to gain promotion.
| mrob wrote:
| The promotion and relegation system goes all the way down to
| amateur level. This chart is outdated but captures the
| complexity:
|
| http://thepyramid.info/asp/pyramid3.asp
|
| A big part of the appeal of local football is the knowledge
| that your team could theoretically get promoted all the way
| to the top. A closed league goes against this sense of
| fairness.
| wwtrv wrote:
| But the only way that could realistically happen is if a
| large corporation or a wealthy individual bought the local
| club and replaced all of it's players with significantly
| more expensive ones and I don't see what's particularly
| appealing about that.
|
| The closed American leagues are actually much fairer at
| least to the teams that are in them, TV money is split more
| evenly, there are caps on how much money can be spent on
| players and the teams at the bottom of the league table get
| more chances to acquire the more talented players due to
| the draft systems. Whereas in European football the pretty
| much the only thing that matters is how much money a club
| has to spend.
| bmsleight_ wrote:
| AFC Wimbledon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AFC_Wimbledon
|
| Combined Counties League divison 2 -> Two below
| premiership. Who beat a the team now 4th in premiership
| (West Ham) two season ago.
|
| No wealthy individual replacing all the players, just
| fans.
| jonwinstanley wrote:
| I kind of agree, but as all clubs have some sort of
| wealthy owner it becomes more about how well you use your
| money rather than how much you have.
|
| There are plenty of examples of rich clubs performing
| badly and less rich clubs punching above their weight.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| This is indeed somewhat the case.
|
| Looking at Cardiff City's long-term fortunes....
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardiff_City_F.C.#/media/File:...
|
| There are clear long term trends over the decades, with the
| team slowing sinking down to the 4th tier in the late 90s and
| working its way back up.
|
| In the 2010's we can see see-sawing you mention: back and forth
| between the Championship and Premier leagues. They fight like
| hell to be promoted, quickly find themselves overmatched in the
| Premier League, and are then relegated.
|
| It's worth noting that the team's post-2000 rebirth corresponds
| with an influx of juicy cash via foreign investment:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardiff_City_F.C.#Foreign_inve...
|
| So, I mean, it's a "meritocracy" but it's still largely
| dependent on who's got the money because they can afford the
| best players and player development.
| bijant wrote:
| In Germany the last two Teams are automatically relegated to
| the lower league while the third to last team of the higher and
| the third to the top team of the lower league fight it out in a
| two match decision. The relegated Teams usually are in big
| trouble financially as they have to balance their budgets while
| loosing a lot of income. If they renegotiate salaries with
| their players successfully and can increase contributions from
| their supporters to make up for the loss of TV Money they are
| in a good position to fight for promotion in the coming year.
| There are ample examples of Teams getting handed down from
| league to lower league down to the amateur leagues and never
| making it back to professional sports. Thats part of the
| excitement that keeps fans glued to their screens.
| lmz wrote:
| It's funny how they jump to blaming the Americans. Last I checked
| the Spanish clubs in this scheme weren't run by Americans.
| arbitrage wrote:
| It's being labelled as "American style" here because one of the
| goals of the now defacto-defunct Super League is that it would
| have very little actual sportsmanlike competition.
|
| All of the founding members would be immune from
| ejection/relegation. 15/20 slots would be permanent.
|
| There's no point to competition if winning and losing has no
| real consequences. Just like american sports, which are so
| freakishly boring because of that. Someone one a superbowl?
| Someone came in last out of 38 teams in baseball? What happens
| now? Nothing? Got it.
|
| American-style sports is just playing exhibition matches over
| and over again, without end or consequence, year after year.
| There's no point to it.
|
| Turns out, real sports fans don't like that.
| caddemon wrote:
| I mean definitely late season games between bad teams are
| exhibition matches, and sometimes even outright tank battles.
| But I'm not sure how you can claim that winning the whole
| league doesn't mean anything? The NFL is already pretty
| clearly the collection of the 32 best football teams in the
| world. Presumably there is also a top end to promotion in
| European leagues, does winning the best of the best league
| mean nothing because you can't get promoted anymore? That's a
| pretty weird way of looking at sports
| rchaud wrote:
| I've noticed that more and more people watch solely because
| they have a player from that game in their fantasy lineup, no
| other reason. Others have bet on a particular outcome in that
| game.
|
| Say what you will about American puritanism, but it's
| shocking how brazenly the English game promotes gambling.
| gerikson wrote:
| The Spanish club Real Madrid is mentioned:
|
| > But Kroenke, Henry and the Glazers, believed to be the
| ringleaders of the Super League fiasco along with Real Madrid's
| Florentino Perez, badly miscalculated.
| tguedes wrote:
| I think his point is that a lot of people are blaming the
| Americans for this when the 2 largest and greediest clubs in
| the world are "run" by fans. So it has nothing to do with the
| Americans, it's that European football has become so greedy
| at the top.
| gerikson wrote:
| That's fair.
|
| The American franchise model has a lot of advantages (or it
| would not be so popular) - steady income stream, revenue
| sharing, lower player acquisition costs.
|
| But I also think the average European soccer fan thinks
| that the current status quo is bad, and introducing
| measures to _increase_ the concentration of power and money
| is to be decried.
| Tarsul wrote:
| well one of the masterminds behind it is JPMorgan Chase,
| American.
| oneeyedpigeon wrote:
| I think it's less about specific Americans (e.g. owners of
| several of the English teams involved) and more about the
| American _style_ of running league competitions -- e.g. without
| promotion /relegation.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| In the "American system", in most major sports, _individual
| players_ (and coaches, effectively) are relegated and
| promoted between the big league and smaller developmental
| leagues all the time. I don 't love the American system but a
| failure to ensure that our top talent plays in the top
| leagues is not one of its deficiencies.
|
| In terms of meritocracy, I'd say it works at least as well as
| the European system.
|
| As an American I would admit a preference for the
| promotion/relegation model but when I look at how a league
| like the English Premier League functions I don't find much
| to be jealous of. It's basically just a contest to see who
| has the most money... the teams with huge amounts of cash win
| nearly every year. Greed wins. And the fat paychecks for
| Premier league teams assure that the rich stay rich. It's
| hilarious to think of Man U being relegated because it
| _could_ happen but c 'mon, it's not.
|
| The main difference is that Euro football leagues give the
| _illusion_ of adhering to the sport 's amateur roots.
| Theoretically your local town's team could play its way up to
| the Bundesliga or the EPL and win it all. However... that is
| basically an illusion. Occasionally a team like Cardiff City
| fights its way up to the Premier League, takes a beating, and
| sinks back down to the Championship League. They never really
| have a chance. Once per century you get a Leicester-style
| miracle, which is _extremely_ cool but it 's the exception
| that proves the rule.
|
| Basically both systems are nearly equally ugly but the
| American one is more honest in most regards.
|
| However I will agree that the proposed Super League is a
| terrible idea. The Champions League is special because it
| pits the best against the best every single year. That will
| be much less true for the Super League.
| treis wrote:
| >the teams with huge amounts of cash win nearly every year.
|
| That's the thing I don't get about the opposition to this.
| Bayern has won the Bundesleague for a decade straight.
| Paris St Germaine is almost as dominant. Juventus the same
| in Serie A. La Liga flips between Real and Barca. Why not
| let these teams that have outclassed their competition go
| play in their own league? Let them chase the money and
| international market while the rest of the league can
| maintain their traditions.
| sauntheninja wrote:
| Because these teams bring in the most money and if they
| go there is less money left for other teams
| kingofpandora wrote:
| Are you saying Arsenal is one of the top 12 teams in
| Europe?
|
| The Super League was not about merit but rather brands
| recognition.
| treis wrote:
| 538 has them at 12th:
|
| https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/global-club-soccer-
| rank...
| gmtx725 wrote:
| It's not _completely_ an illusion. You had for example
| Leicester winning the league only five years ago.
| borroka wrote:
| It happens once every 30 years and it is one of those
| improbable events that somewhat, someway happen, and
| after the event we get back to normal real quick (top
| teams aka those with more money in the Premier League
| winning, Milan, Juve, Inter in Italy, and Real or Barca
| in Spain, and of course Bayern in Germany). Then, there
| are some minor (in terms of fans, history) teams that get
| to the top echelon of their respective championships. But
| here is the catch: they go up there because they spend
| like crazy, like Parma, Roma, Lazio in Italy in the late
| 90s, early 2000s, Leipzig with the Red Bull money, and
| how can we forget the Real Betis and Deportivo La Coruna?
|
| This fans reaction to the proposed ESL is ridiculous.
| Football is of and for the fans? How laughable. Players
| making millions and millions, oil money and money from
| suspicious financing changing teams from minor characters
| in the national stage to top teams (see Chelsea, ManCity,
| PSG). How can true fans support Chelsea when the money
| from Abramovich change the dimension, the spirit of the
| team? Or Manchester City, with working-class fans that
| are now supporting a team that in one week is spending
| more than an Onassis in a year?
|
| My football, the "romantic" football, ended in the 80s.
| Certainly a time in which players were already paid
| handsomely, but also a time in which you could see
| players play for the "shirt", in which teams had an
| identifiable "culture" and "spirit" that was shared among
| players and fans. A sport, not just a pastime. I cannot
| stand watching a game now.
| bmsleight_ wrote:
| >How can true fans support Chelsea when the money from
| Abramovich change the dimension,
|
| Man City were getting 30,000 fans attending in the third
| tier. Sunderland gets 30,000 fans attending in the third
| tier.
| borroka wrote:
| Minor characters on the European football stage with a
| good local following. Schalke04 in Germany, Roma, Lazio,
| Fiorentina (when in B, Lazio and Fiorentina were making
| 30k+ each Sunday) in Italy, ManCity in England. Before
| the oil money, at first approximation nobody outside of
| England knew about ManCity (or Sunderland...). My point
| is that teams with large local followings had a certain
| "spirit" (working-class City fans against the less
| working-class United fans, working-class Torino fans
| against more posh Juve fans) and tradition that has been
| razed to the ground by the arrival of owners who have yes
| a ton of money, but nothing in terms of the local
| culture. If I were an old-time City fan, I would not be
| able to support a team that has nothing to do with what
| the team historically represented, has nothing is terms
| of local property, and could play in Manchester or in
| London or in Newcastle and it would be exactly the same.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| Above all else, we can definitely agree that Leicester's
| miracle was one of the best sports stories _ever._ That
| was simply amazing.
|
| But, it was sort of "the exception that proves the rule"
| right?
| xapata wrote:
| Not really. Leicester in particular winning was an
| extreme event, but any small club winning in any league,
| much less extreme. Remember Chapicoense?
| martin8412 wrote:
| It is absolutely not an illusion.. It happens quite often
| even.
| rchaud wrote:
| Yes, the economics of the sport are prett distorted even
| under the current system. It is unlikely that a team can
| accomplish promotion to a higher league year after year.
| However, poorer teams can level the financial playing field
| somewhat if they are able to sell star players to teams in
| a higher division.
| enaaem wrote:
| It's not an illusion. It has happened. Leicester played in
| the third division in 2008-2009 and won the Premier League
| 7 years later.
|
| Leipzig used to only play in a regional division 10 years
| ago and are now in the top of the Bundes Liga and reached
| the semi-finals of the champions league.
|
| Although rare and improbable it does keep a dream alive for
| many fans. And dreams are part of the entertainment.
|
| It can also go the other way around. Schalke 04 used to be
| a top 5 Bundes Liga team and are now relegated. This drama
| is exactly what makes the football pyramid charming.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| I love those stories and agree they are fun, but aren't
| they also very money-oriented most of the time?
|
| I know for example Cardiff City's renaissance and brief
| promotion to the Premier League corresponded with an
| influx of foreign cash. That's undeniably massive fun for
| supporters of Cardiff, but decidedly un-fun for teams
| that did not receive such an infusion of money, and in
| the end it doesn't make me too jealous of the pyramid
| model.
| martin8412 wrote:
| There have been amateur teams rising through the ranks to
| best national leagues.. One example in Denmark was Hobro,
| and they didn't even have money for a decent stadion to
| play their games on.
| merb wrote:
| well schalke got relegated because of missmanagement, so
| yeah it was money oriented. and rb leipzig also got
| infused with money, but way way less than people think of
| and they kept their places without additional infusions,
| so... I guess they earned their placed, because rb
| leipzig actually put most of the money into
| infrastructure, which is probably what made the so
| successful.
| xapata wrote:
| Not Leicester, as far as I know.
| mandevil wrote:
| After briefly being relegated to the third tier (for just
| a season, first time ever) for a season, they immediately
| bounced back up to the second tier in 2009-10 and then
| they were bought by Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha, a Thai
| travel and retail billionaire and started their rise to
| the top of the Premier League.
| solean wrote:
| Leicester was bought by Thai billionaires a few years
| before winning the league.
| xapata wrote:
| That explains the arrival in the Premier League, but not
| winning it.
| tanjtanjtanj wrote:
| Yes. Leicester's rise through the system was a direct
| result of money being pumped in by their owner, a foreign
| billionaire.
|
| They were purchased 5 years prior to winning the Premier
| League and immediately upgraded their sponsorships,
| facilities, staff, and players.
|
| Did money make them win the premier league? No, but it
| couldn't have happened without it and it had nothing to
| do with meritocracy or the local community.
| kingofpandora wrote:
| Leicester barely survived relegation the year before
| winning the league. There wasn't an influx in cash
| between those two polar opposites.
| kjakm wrote:
| I think it's because the tournament style was supposed to be
| similar to American sports.
| rvieira wrote:
| The club owners pushing for this are equally responsible and
| fans blame them as well (in fact, some of them have resigned
| already). I haven't heard anyone blaming exclusively Americans
| (except for the linked article), if that's what you mean by
| "they".
| sthnblllII wrote:
| Professional mercenary sports played by international athletes is
| a poor substitute for regional identity. Man U has as much to do
| with Manchester as CocaCola does and this new league just makes
| that undeniable.
| mcc1ane wrote:
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/04/19/americanizat...
| rkangel wrote:
| This article presents a simplistic "UK football good, American
| football bad" viewpoint, but there some aspects to how the NFL is
| run that are desirable. Primarily here I'm talking about negative
| feedback.
|
| In the Premier League (as well as Formula 1, for example) there
| is positive feedback that keeps the top teams at the top. Being
| successful means that you make more money (whether directly
| through prize money, or indirectly through sponsors), and you can
| use that money to keep yourself on the top. Seven clubs have won
| the Premier League in the last 30 years (of which two have only
| won it once). If you support one of those top five or six clubs -
| good for you. If you don't, then you don't have a realistic
| chance of seeing a league win in your lifetime.
|
| Whereas in the NFL the playing field is much more even. The
| player salary cap means that teams are limited in the ways that
| they can outspend each other, and there are various mechanisms
| that advantage the worst performing teams compared to the best
| (draft position and schedule). This means that with the right
| moves (usually the result of new leadership) your team can go
| from bottom of the pile to Superbowl contender in a short span of
| years. If you are a Jaguars fan and your team is picking #1 in
| the draft next week after getting one win last season, you can
| realistically hope that you might be supporting a good team in a
| couple of years. In the last TEN years, there have been EIGHT
| Superbowl winners despite what is considered to be an
| unprecedented period of dominance by the Patriots.
|
| This makes the sport more interesting to watch as a fan - it's
| not the same few contenders year in year out. Even Formula 1 is
| moving in that direction for the good of the sport - bringing in
| spending limits and evening up some of the prize money
| distribution.
| iso1631 wrote:
| > If you support one of those top five or six clubs - good for
| you. If you don't, then you don't have a realistic chance of
| seeing a league win in your lifetime.
|
| And yet right now two of the top 6 teams are not the "6 big
| clubs" - Leicester and West Ham.
|
| Liverpool, who walked the season last year, are doing about as
| well as Everton. Man City, who are currently top, lost just 2
| weeks ago against Leeds - at home. I'm sure that Leeds fans
| were delighted by that performance, 10 years ago they were
| languishing in the 3rd tier. I know for a fact the football
| nerds in my family were delighted to see Wolves doing so well
| recently.
|
| A football team is for life, not just for Christmas. You don't
| choose your team, it's something built in, whether you like
| football (or sport) or not.
|
| My Dad, like his dad before him, and his dad before him,
| supported Wolves from a wee nipper in the 50s when they were
| winning the league (53-54 - snatching it from rival WBA, being
| claimed "Champions of the World" apparently for defeating
| Hungary, and being one of the first British teams in the
| champions league) through to his deathbed last month. Clearly
| in the 50s Wolves were one of the "big 6".
|
| In the 60s they were doing great again, starting off with FA
| Cup wins and 2nd/3rd places in the league but by the mid 60s
| they were relegated. They bounced around in the 60s and 70s
| between first and second tiers, but by the mid 80s they were
| down in the 4th tier. Local boy Steve Bull came, and being far
| better than Andy Gray, catapulted Wolves back up the leagues. I
| remember them beating the undefeatable Man U about that time.
| With a "super league" that type of victory doesn't come.
|
| In 2013 they were back in tier 3. The 2017/18 season they did
| outstandingly in Tier 2, greatest season for decades (or so I'm
| informed), and the following season in the top tier was
| blistering too - finishing 7th, getting into Europe, reaching
| the FA Cup Semi finals. What an exciting 5 years.
|
| It's not just Wolves of course. Leicester were in the 3rd tier
| in 2008. By 2016 they'd won the Premier league. That type of
| rise, in 8 years, is the stuff dreams are made of.
|
| Watford had a cracking Semi Final game against Wolves in 2019,
| coming from 2-0 down to win in extra time. Wolves had got rid
| of "big" teams like Man U on the way up, and the FA Cup is
| where anything can happen.
|
| They lost 6-0. Man City were unstoppable. not bad for a team
| that were in the 3rd tier as recently as 1998
|
| Crawley Town beat Leeds earlier this year in the FA Cup. In
| 2013 it was Wigan knocking out Man City. In 2015 3rd tier
| Bradford knocked out Chelsea. Third tier Oldham beat Liverpool
| in 2013, and of course non-league Lincoln beat Premier league
| Burnley in 2013, reaching the FA Cup quarter finals.
|
| English Football has never been about a battle between a few
| big teams. When the century-old Wimbledon were Americaned,
| bought and moved 60 miles to Milton Keynes, the fans got behind
| the replacement. The replacements started off in the 9th tier,
| and are currently fighting the previous Wimbledon (now Milton
| Keynes) in the 3rd tier.
| jeegsy wrote:
| Your in depth knowledge of the stats for years gone by is
| truly impressive. These events, this is why we love the
| beautiful game
| bmsleight_ wrote:
| >Wimbledon in the 3rd tier. "Only took nine years" to get
| back in to the league. Getting promotion on ** merit. Not
| buying a place.
|
| Then eventually beating the Franchise and watching them get
| relegated. Sweet sweet justice.
|
| Now with a fans funded new stadium.
|
| Football is beautiful. Even on a wet cold night in stoke.
| lordnacho wrote:
| The thing is there's excitement at both ends of the table in
| the PL and its continental counterparts. It's not just who wins
| the league, there's relegation as well, which is its own brutal
| drama.
|
| Also I think people overestimate how much winning actually
| means. People support clubs whose heights were reached decades
| ago, not because they might miraculously win this year, but
| because the club is part of their life and the club's story is
| part of their story. It's like a soap opera, greatness comes
| and goes, but you keep watching. Club heroes are often not
| particularly good in a wider context, they're often of
| journeyman skill.
|
| So in that sense there's something for everyone, even if the
| trophies are tied up in the top few clubs.
|
| I do think some sort of more even distribution would make
| sense, though I think there are probably competition laws that
| would prevent a salary cap.
|
| > If you are a Jaguars fan and your team is picking #1 in the
| draft next week after getting one win last season, you can
| realistically hope that you might be supporting a good team in
| a couple of years.
|
| This creates really weird incentives. It was between them and
| the Jets, and people were saying the Jets were stupid for
| winning a game and losing Trevor Lawrence.
|
| It's also its own can of worms, having unpaid athletes who are
| still essentially professionals rather than students, at
| universities who run a huge legally protected racket.
|
| Why not do like in Europe and have clubs with teams that have
| age groups, genders, and second and third teams for all those
| categories? What's the idea in a bunch of professionals who
| come and go as dictated by money, but with the name of a
| specific place on their jerseys? In what sense are you truly
| representing a place if there's no community below the
| professionals?
| NoOneNew wrote:
| I think that's why the golden era of Man Utd (last 15ish years
| with Fergie at the helm) wasn't that good for American fans.
| Yea, it brought in some (me)... but after a while, I found
| myself not caring about seeing a game if it wasn't against
| Chelsea or Liverpool. Even then... After 2 years of that...
| whoopie... Man Utd got another win against, oh look an ant is
| struggling to carry a cookie crumb.
|
| That and diving. Seriously, fuck FIFA and all the EU leagues.
| They cant figure out how to deal with diving and playing for
| time, I cant figure out why I should care. It's painful to
| watch any sport where grown men fake getting hurt. The cringe
| is far more damaging than the love taps they whine about. Rugby
| and hockey have that shit figured out, why cant they?
| dustinmoris wrote:
| > That and diving. Seriously, fuck FIFA and all the EU
| leagues. They cant figure out how to deal with diving and
| playing for time, I cant figure out why I should care. It's
| painful to watch any sport where grown men fake getting hurt.
|
| This is the only football I know. That's why I was never
| interested in watching football as a kid and I'm still not
| today as an adult. I am an absolute sport enthusiast and play
| everything from football to basketball, skateboarding and
| what not but I can't watch a bunch of drama queens having a
| cry when the wind blew their hair the wrong direction or
| someone got slightly touched by another player. The sport
| seriously needs more Zidanes who know how to head butt if
| someone is making a scene.
| vidoc wrote:
| In a way, the drama is a genuine part of the sport. Many
| matches became memorable just due to these theatrics.
| wreath wrote:
| I grew up watching soccer and then stopped cold turkey until
| last world cup. I just couldnt stand watching this crap
| anymore because of all the diving and time wasting etc.
|
| I started watching NFL this past season and i found a lot
| more interesting than today's soccer. Great display of
| athleticism, discipline to follow plays, and the dance moves!
| cjrp wrote:
| > Rugby and hockey have that shit figured out, why cant they?
|
| Something else they could learn from rugby, respect for the
| officials. The number of times you see football players
| chasing after or arguing with the referee is just
| embarrassing. Rugby officials don't stand for it, neither
| should football officials.
| NoOneNew wrote:
| Absolutely. What's the joke regarding the two sports?
| Football is a gentleman's game played by hooligans while
| rugby is a hooligan's sport played by gentlemen. Something
| like that. Either way, the level of respect players have
| for one another and refs is awesome since it really is a
| violent/dangerous game. There are a few exceptions, but
| it's fun when refs say, "This isnt soccer, you cant get
| away with that here." Football/soccer players are just rich
| brats. FIFA and the various leagues encourage it too.
| bmsleight_ wrote:
| Football is a sport played by Gentlemen watched by
| hooligans. Rugby is a sport played hooligans, watched by
| Gentlemen.
|
| Although the rugby hooligans are very respectful to the
| referee. Mic-up the referee in football.
| ldrndll wrote:
| As someone who grew up watching rugby and only got into
| football as an adult, I _couldn 't_ believe the amount of
| disrespect players show to officials. I think I spent the
| first two years constantly saying "in rugby this guy would
| have been sent off by now" on repeat...
| NoOneNew wrote:
| I only discovered rugby a few years ago. I was completely
| floored. Players apologizing? Players being the first
| ones to admit making a mistake? Players making sure
| opposing hurt players are okay? What in the fuck am I
| watching? Who made it okay for mature, respectable adults
| to play a televised sport? Why haven't they been fired
| yet? Dont they know what planet this is?
| megameter wrote:
| When the players are respectful that's when you know it's
| a combat sport.
| LargeWu wrote:
| Same, as an American sports fan. Touching an official or
| yelling at them in any sort of aggressive manner is
| almost always an automatic foul or penalty, and possibly
| grounds for ejection.
|
| My only thought as somebody who never played soccer is
| that the decisions a soccer referee makes are much more
| consequential, and oftentimes very subjective. A single
| call in soccer can change a game in a way that doesn't
| happen in any other sport.
| cycomanic wrote:
| I don't think it is true that referee calls in soccer are
| more consequential than in e.g. rugby. In fact I would
| argue that in rugby a referee could make very subtle
| calls (that would likely not be picked up by many fans
| even) that can very substantially change a game, e.g.
| just how he referees the breakdown or scrums. Let's not
| even talk about giving or not giving a try etc..
| wussboy wrote:
| Rugby Union is a shining example of sport done right.
| Everyone other sport would do well to take a long hard look
| at their processes. I used to love ice hockey and then
| football (soccer) but now the only sport that I can watch
| without getting a bad taste in my mouth is Rugby. Six
| Nations is my favourite time of year.
| vidoc wrote:
| > That and diving.
|
| There is something even more painful to watch than soccer
| simulations: sports that encourage killing the watch like
| football, baseball and basketball.
|
| At least in diving, a little bit of acting talent is
| involved.
| LgWoodenBadger wrote:
| Basketball has the opposite problem: clock-stopping in
| close games through intentional fouls.
|
| The shot-clock in basketball was introduced to prevent
| clock killing, and promote scoring.
|
| Basketbal
| rossitter wrote:
| There's no watch to kill in baseball. You have to get the
| other team out a set number of times.
| vidoc wrote:
| Correct, but the use of stoppage is a little bit similar
| to the use of timeouts in other sports, in my humble
| opinion.
|
| Another dishonorable gameplay of baseball that makes me
| hate it (my apologies for not remembering how this is
| called): this move batters often do to just amortize the
| ball so the field players can snag an extra base!
| Larrikin wrote:
| What makes bunting dishonorable? If anything it's the
| opposite, the player sacrifices themselves to move a
| teammate.
| vidoc wrote:
| > What makes bunting dishonorable?
|
| Well, it is obviously subjective, but bunting can be used
| to prevent no-hitter which is why I personally see it as
| disgraceful.
| rossitter wrote:
| Out of curiosity, what do you mean by "stoppage"? I think
| baseball does have a pacing problem, but it's really
| cultural more than anything else: games are about 1.5x as
| long today as they were 50 years ago, even though in
| terms of what happens (number of pitches, batters, etc.)
| they're basically the same. Unfortunately the main way to
| combat this, the "pitch clock" rule, is unenforced. I
| can't imagine why.
|
| I don't understand what you mean by your "dishonorable
| gameplay" example. What does amortizing a ball mean to
| you?
| vidoc wrote:
| > Out of curiosity, what do you mean by "stoppage"? When
| players or coaches call timeouts (I don't know if this is
| the official name), even tho there is no clock to
| interrupt, to interrupt the flow of the game at key
| moments.
|
| > I don't understand what you mean by your "dishonorable
| gameplay" example. What does amortizing a ball mean to
| you?
|
| It took me some time to find out, but this is what I was
| refering to
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunt_(baseball).
|
| Now truth be told, one thing that makes me love baseball
| is this:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_Gaedel#At_the_plate.
| OldHand2018 wrote:
| The Eddie Gaedel stunt was perpetrated by Bill Veeck [1],
| who came up with so many baseball stunts throughout his
| life and had many rules changed in reaction to them.
| Apropos to this discussion is that he is also the last
| person to buy a major sports team in the US without being
| massively wealthy.
|
| A few days after that Eddie Gaedel stunt, Veeck did
| another one where the fans got to decide everything that
| the team did during the game, by holding up cards to
| vote.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Veeck
| ksec wrote:
| May be it is just me, but my memory of old football in the 90
| /00s wasn't like that at all. No Match was too easy, No Team
| were unbeatable.
|
| Despite the old Analog TV, No 4K, No HDR, No 60fps, No Super
| Complex Codec, but the intensity was there. Something was
| transmitted from the field to audience in front of the tele.
| You can feel Roy Keane is about to punch somebody in the face
| if they dont make one more step or dont chase after the ball.
| And that is how time and time again Man Utd make their
| comebacks.
|
| If we ignore the big teams like Liverpool, Man U, Arsenal, I
| remember Leads had the Australian pair Mark Viduka and Harry
| Kwell, Alan Shearer in Newcastle, Paolo Di Canio in West Ham,
| even Bolton Wanderer has Jay-Jay Okocha. Every team has a
| fighting Chance. And football was so much more fun back then.
|
| I think somewhere along the line Football becomes very
| commercially focused. And big money flowing in means there
| are far less Middle Class Team. ( Sounds like our society in
| general ). And with less competition, along with players just
| dont seems to give a fuck about anything other than their pay
| cheque. The game becomes less interesting.
| loonster wrote:
| I miss the old days where everything was transmitted from 1
| camera in the nosebleed section. Switching the camera all
| the time is fatiguing.
|
| With how much increase in bandwidth we have now days, they
| should just broadcast all of their different camera views.
| Sports bars would be much more interesting if you could
| look at different screens for different views.
| frereubu wrote:
| If you're relatively new to football, you may not remember
| what we used to call the "cloggers" in the UK, players who
| were specifically tasked with going around and injuring
| opposing team members with violent tackles. (Although if
| you're a Man U fan you may remember someone called Roy
| Keane...?) The pendulum has probably swung too far in the
| opposite direction but, for example, Maradona had his ankle
| broken in a famously bad tackle by Goikoetxea, a player
| notorious for doing this, and he wasn't banned for many
| matches: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Wqi3z-3VXo (warning
| - includes slow-motion footage of the ankle break near the
| beginning). Given a choice between these things, I'll take
| the diving, and hope for more retrospective punishments for
| diving in the future.
| NoOneNew wrote:
| I started caring in 04 I think. There was a huge
| soccer/football push at the time in the states. A dedicated
| soccer channel even sprang up. I think I remember the whole
| excessive injury thing brought up a few times, but that's
| over 15 years ago. I think it was the season after the 06
| cup, someone did a really blatant dive. I could swear
| Ronaldo, but he's dived a lot, so not sure. Anyways, it was
| during a huge string of dives in the league and I just
| thought to hell with the sport.
|
| I get it, there's a want to avoid injuries. I respect that.
| Rewarding stupidity and blatant cheating was beyond a
| pendulum swing. Retro punishments isnt enough. It has to be
| consistent red card, ejected from the game, multi game ban
| if you're going to fix the image of the sport. Also, cant
| remember what it's called, but when they intentionally kick
| a ball into an opposing player so it bounces off them, then
| out of bounds so they can get a throw in. Yea, that I hate
| too. I watched a 70s MU vs Liverpool game, none of that
| shit was going on. Just a pure game. I think that was when
| I was becoming disillusioned with the sport, because I saw
| how it used to be played... like an actual fucking sport.
|
| Maybe The Code from hockey needs to leak into
| soccer/football. That's a better way to fix diving and
| injuring strikers. Put the beat down on that player,
| continue the game. Itll sort itself out eventually. Until
| then, I'll choose a sport that has itself sorted out.
| slg wrote:
| >They cant figure out how to deal with diving and playing for
| time
|
| I always find these complaints strange coming from American
| fans. "Playing for time" is hugely important and mainstream
| strategy in the NFL. Coaches will be criticized if they don't
| run the ball enough when they have the lead in the 4th
| quarter. Meanwhile flopping is hugely common in the NBA. You
| can just search Youtube for "LeBron flops"[1] for plenty of
| evidence of the exact same behavior that is always condemned
| in soccer.
|
| [1] -
| https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=LeBron+flops
| NoOneNew wrote:
| To be fair, American Football is a game based around
| playing for time. What's interesting, college games are a
| bit more faster paced, mostly because those kids have
| something to prove so they can get into the NFL draft.
| Either way, I dont like American football without friends,
| snacks and booze. Baseball on TV, I feel the same, in it
| for the party. Theyre slow sports in reality. Though, in
| person, at the stadium, baseball is awesome.
|
| I dont watch basketball at all.
| evgen wrote:
| > I dont watch basketball at all.
|
| Strangely enough, this sport has had a similar problem
| with playing for time that afflicts football/soccer. It
| used to be a horrible problem that almost destroyed the
| sport until the invention of the shot clock. I think it
| may have gone a bit too far in the other direction, to
| the point where you can ignore everything but the last
| five minutes of most games, but football/soccer could
| really use something like a shot clock to force offensive
| action.
| slg wrote:
| >college games are a bit more faster paced, mostly
| because those kids have something to prove so they can
| get into the NFL draft.
|
| That isn't the reasoning at all. The NFL doesn't have
| guaranteed contracts, so in a very real sense the players
| in the NFL are playing more to stay in the NFL than
| players in college are playing to get into the NFL. Also
| some of the highest paced teams in college are the teams
| full of players with no hope of playing in the NFL.
|
| The reason some college teams play faster than the NFL
| (and it isn't all teams) is because there is a wider
| talent distribution in college. It is possible to win
| games there by being faster and playing faster than your
| opponent. Talent is more evenly distributed in the NFL.
| You can just out athleticism your opponent.
|
| Another factor is that both players and coaches spend
| more time strategizing in the NFL. It is harder to just
| run the same scheme every game without it being
| eventually exposed.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| >To be fair, American Football is a game based around
| playing for time.
|
| And time for advertisements.
| vagrantJin wrote:
| Let us be honest about this for once. There are no USA
| sports. Just ads that happen to have a sport segment.
|
| The biggest sporting event in the US sport calendar year
| is known - not for the crunching tackles, not for the
| high flying antics, not for the pin in the needle
| plays...no sir - it is known for ads. _Superbowl_ ads are
| bigger than the sport. When I was younger I though
| Superbowl meant ad marathons.
| beowulfey wrote:
| I think in the USA playing for time is considered
| acceptable and a good strategy so long as it isn't
| overdone. It's different in the NFL though, where there is
| an inbuilt limit to how much you can really delay. But
| anyway, you're right -- I don't think it's generally
| considered bad, at least not anytime I've ever watched
| sports with friends and colleagues.
|
| Diving though; that's universally considered to be
| unquestionably lame. It's _never_ cool.
| divbzero wrote:
| Yes, there are built-in limits to playing for time in
| both American football (play clock) and basketball (shot
| clock). Anything within those limits is fair game.
| randomsearch wrote:
| That's an argument for financial regulation, which we have in
| part in the U.K., not ruining sport by turning it into a theme
| park.
| ssivark wrote:
| I think most of that comes from the fact that American sports
| have playoff systems to determine eventual champions (and the
| uncertainty that entails) whereas leagues favor consistent
| performers (strongly correlated with the money a club can
| invest). If you see playoff-like national tournaments in
| European soccer (which happen in parallel with the leagues)
| those too tend to have a wider spread of winners.
|
| At least in England, clubs are an integral part of local
| culture (see the emotions involved in a derby!), and the
| thought of "moving" a club to a different location would be
| heresy. I presume that it's very similar in many other European
| countries too.
| lamontcg wrote:
| Yeah, but that has nothing to do with the European Super League
| proposal which incorporated none of that.
|
| And I doubt you'd get those kinds of rules and still have
| pro/rel. Ultimately investors don't want that fair of a playing
| field. And pro/rel in Europe is brilliant if you get past the
| very top of the table. If all you care about is "who wins the
| league/cup" every year it may become boring, but the best games
| in the UK can be the lower league playoffs to see who goes up.
| There's a constant refreshment of new teams getting promoted
| which changes the league every year.
| kingofpandora wrote:
| Leicester.
| mandevil wrote:
| Yes, a team bought by a foreign billionaire willing to spend
| money suddenly got good, so good they ended up winning it
| all. Great for fans of Leicester, but what about all the fans
| of, say, Bolton? That's a team where the ownership has fallen
| apart and the team is insolvent and is now down in the 4th
| tier. Sucks to be them.
|
| What if I told you there was a magical way to make sure that
| all teams competing were on an equal financial footing?
| jeegsy wrote:
| You might even say Bolton has been wandering for a while
| iso1631 wrote:
| > Great for fans of Leicester, but what about all the fans
| of, say, Bolton?
|
| I think everyone in the country rejoiced when Leicester
| won. Everyone loves an underdog story.
|
| > and is now down in the 4th tier
|
| Wolves were in the 4th tier, now they battle to get into
| europe. These things are cyclical over the generations.
| Sometimes you're up, sometimes you're down, but you're
| always there.
|
| Out of interest, are you British or American?
| ska wrote:
| And yet New England has been in half of the last 10 years
| superbowls. Is it really as effective as you say? Aren't there
| like a dozen teams that haven't won in 30 years? Does that feel
| different than a smaller market Premier League fan?
|
| I don't think I disagree with your basic point that feedback is
| important, but I don't think the NFL has it well solved either.
| fallingknife wrote:
| There are 16, so 50% have won in the last 30 years, which is
| actually a very good distribution. And that includes a lot of
| small market teams (11 by my non quantitative snap judgment)
| koolba wrote:
| s/New England/Tom Brady/
| ska wrote:
| ok, so map that to Messi and FC Barcelona :)
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > This makes the sport more interesting to watch as a fan -
| it's not the same few contenders year in year out.
|
| I don't understand - isn't this backwards? It _is_ the same few
| contenders in the NFL every year isn 't it? But it _isn 't_ in
| the English football leagues where teams relegate and promote
| every year.
|
| When did a team last join the NFL? 2002? And before then? 1996?
| I think beyond that you're possibly talking about the 70s?
| Plasmoid2000ad wrote:
| Sounds like it depends on your viewpoint. Neither are fair
| and fully open.
|
| Premier League and La Liga are dominated (to different
| extents) by the top teams, but are otherwise open for any
| team to reach and win.
|
| NFL is closed to new entrants, but apparently more fair and
| competitive for all members for that closed group.
| slg wrote:
| I think you are using the generic definition of "contenders"
| and not the way it is traditionally used in a sports context
| (at least in the US). "Contending" doesn't mean merely
| participating in a league. It means having a realistic shot
| at winning the title. The specific teams that are in the
| league don't change much in the NFL anymore, but the teams
| that are near the top of the league are much more fluid in
| the NFL than in the EPL and other European leagues.
| iso1631 wrote:
| > It means having a realistic shot at winning the title
|
| "If Leicester City win the premier league I'll do MOTD in
| my undies"
| slg wrote:
| Leicester City is the exception that proves the rule.
| They were the first first time winner since the 70s.
| Besides that year, there are basically 4 teams (although
| I guess it is now 5 if Liverpool can actually win) that
| have just traded the title back and forth for the last 25
| years. Meanwhile there has only been one repeat Super
| Bowl winner in the last decade with 8 teams winning over
| the last 10 year span.
| cycomanic wrote:
| As someone above pointed out a much better comparison to
| the superbowl would be the winner of the championsleague
| as the structure is more alike. There have been 11 teams
| winning in the last 25 years. Still less variation than
| NFL, but then in soccer there is much more drama
| throughout the season, while in NFL it's all about the
| playoffs.
| speeder wrote:
| Dunno about primier league but F1 not only put caps but also
| made some inverse feedback rules.
|
| For example now the rules are that your usage of wind tunnels
| is bigger the closest you are to the last place, while the
| first place in the ranking doesn't matter how much money they
| are willing to spend with wind tunnels, they are heavily
| capped.
| dharmab wrote:
| We won't see the broader impact of these rules until the 2022
| season of course when teams need to fully redesign their
| cars.
| afrodc_ wrote:
| I'm really interested in seeing how much this experiment
| mixes up the race results in 2022 given Mercedes has won
| the last 7(I think) years in a row.
| kome wrote:
| football without promotion and relegation is not football, i
| never understood the American style of "closed leagues". If you
| can't deal with relegation, don't play a game.
| technofiend wrote:
| Not that I'm a defender of either system but US teams don't
| promote or relegate as a whole. Rather, the players move up or
| down between minor and major league teams.
| cloudfifty wrote:
| > Rather, the players move up or down between minor and major
| league teams.
|
| Uhm, so what? Players move between clubs all the time in
| football.
|
| That doesn't make any sense whatsoever to an avid, European,
| football fan like me at least
| slantyyz wrote:
| > .. Players move between clubs all the time in football.
|
| > That doesn't make any sense whatsoever to an avid,
| European, football fan like me at least
|
| Can you explain how ownership of a player's rights works in
| European football? As a non-football fan from North
| America, I have always found it confusing when I hear about
| the huge fees it costs move a player, before his salary is
| even discussed, as I'm more familiar with the simpler
| trade/free-agency model used by American sports leagues.
|
| What about player loans, how are those even a thing?
|
| I've tried googling/wikipedia-ing it more than once, but
| these concepts are often not dumbed down enough for me.
| pkd wrote:
| Yes loans exist. Teams generally loan players who they
| have on contract but don't see them making the first team
| to other teams to either foster their development or save
| money on their wages.
|
| The team getting the player on loan generally takes on
| the player's wages and in some cases also pays a small
| loan fee to the loaner club.
| Cymrukicks wrote:
| Basically you are buying a player registration with Fifa,
| so if a team wants a player they have to purchase the
| registration with the relevant authorities. Loaning
| players is just an agreement between the clubs and the
| central authorities that the registration will be loaned
| for an agreed amount of time. This can come with clauses
| that a player must play a certain amount of games, can't
| play against a parent club etc and the loaner must pay a
| fee or contribution to wages.
| slantyyz wrote:
| Ok this FIFA part makes sense, because I always wondered
| why there were fees that had to be paid for foreign
| players.
|
| IIRC, when an NHL player under contract decides to play
| in Russia for a season, I don't think I ever hear of
| compensation being paid to the NHL team in return.
| cloudfifty wrote:
| The normal scenario is that a club signs a player up for
| X years. If another club fancy that player during the
| length of the contract period they negotiate with both
| the club and player to break that contract for a fee. If
| the contract expires, the player is free to sign for any
| club.
|
| Clubs usually make sure to not have important players on
| a soon-to-expire-contract, and if they do, they rather
| sell that player than let the contract expire.
|
| There are more complex cases where some players have
| multiple owners to their rights etc. Another more common
| case is that previous clubs usually have some sort of cut
| of future transfer fees as compensation for their
| "development" of the player.
|
| Loans are basically "We got this young player John Talent
| contracted, but we can't give him enough first team
| experience atm due to competition in the team, so we'll
| loan him out to a club in a less competitive league where
| he'll gain it". So that club will pay some amount for
| that loan during a year.
| slantyyz wrote:
| Thanks, that's much clearer than the explanations I've
| seen before.
|
| So it's basically the price to void the existing contract
| instead of moving the player with his contract.
| cloudfifty wrote:
| Exactly.
| jonwinstanley wrote:
| You aren't only voiding the existing contract, you also
| have to pay the market rate for the player.
|
| The contract is between the club and the player, nothing
| to do with the league.
|
| A club "owns" a player under contract, so if someone
| wants to buy the player, they can ask for whatever price
| they want and turn down any offer if they choose.
|
| Often the costs have a lot of conditions included to
| protect the buyer and incentivise the player. Such as
| more money after a number of games played and more money
| if they win a trophy etc.
| notdang wrote:
| What happens when the club wants to sell the player and
| the player does not agree to sign the contract with the
| new club, and vice-versa?
| technofiend wrote:
| >Uhm, so what? Players move between clubs all the time in
| football.
|
| I'm sure they do, but do players often move between teams
| in different tiers as well? That's the key difference here:
| it is not a _lateral_ move.
| slantyyz wrote:
| Not saying that I want it, but I do think it would be
| interesting to see what would play out if the American sports
| leagues adopted relegation and removed salary caps/luxury
| taxes at the same time.
| bena wrote:
| It would get worse.
|
| There would be a set of 10 or so teams that would churn
| through promotion/relegation, a set of 5 or 6 teams that
| would win every year, then 16-ish teams that would
| basically serve as farm teams for the 5 or 6 big teams.
|
| The money available overall to each team is vastly
| different.
| username90 wrote:
| What if you want to see the best players play against
| each other rather than be spread out among all the weak
| teams in order to optimally farm their budgets? The
| American style ensures that there will never ever be
| strong teams.
| bena wrote:
| Due to contracts and the draft, you'll never have that
| regardless. And then there are the areas where clubs are
| allowed to spend with abandon: the front office. Coaching
| staff, player personnel, analytics, etc.
|
| The "American" system does allow for strong teams, but it
| tries to make sure that there's more volatility from
| season to season.
| jonwinstanley wrote:
| It's the difference between a sport and something designed to
| look like a sport but in reality is just entertainment
| username90 wrote:
| Super Bowl being closer to WWF than a competition explains so
| much, thanks!
| kome wrote:
| beautifully put
| formerly_proven wrote:
| Having UEFA people talk about how unethical, greedy and acting
| against football fans the new league is was almost as cringy as
| the YouTube CEO awarding herself a free speech price.
| rchaud wrote:
| They have the moral high ground here, so why not?
|
| Under the system of UEFA competitions and coefficient rankings,
| teams from outside the strongest divisions have a chance to
| participate in big money tournaments and attract viewers. They
| also make the tournament more interesting and unpredictable.
| Last year Atalanta (Italy) made the semifinals of UCL. This
| year Slavia Prague and Dinamo Zagreb knocked out Leicester City
| and Tottenham Hotspur in UEL.
|
| This cannot happen in a system where the 12 biggest teams in
| Europe form a cartel and sign TV deals that leave nothing for
| the development of the sport at grassroots levels.
| zpeti wrote:
| God, this comment has given me relief after 3 days of waiting
| someone to say this. HN delivers.
|
| I can't believe the hypocrisy of FIFA and UEFA and how everyone
| is making some moral case for being against the super league,
| when we know how insanely corrupt fifa and uefa are. It's an
| absolute joke how everyone is taking the moral high ground
| here.
| mhh__ wrote:
| Lots of people have been saying this on reddit throughout the
| whole affair
| skinkestek wrote:
| I'd like to adjust that a bit:
|
| The super league idea was so far out that for a wee while
| FIFA and UEFA actually had a moral high ground to _someone_
| at least.
| jonwinstanley wrote:
| Agreed
| cloudfifty wrote:
| If you're making UEFA bosses feel altruistic you should
| realize that you're in deep shit.
| programmertote wrote:
| 100% this. As a supporter of Manchester United 35 years, I get
| the upset toward this Super League plan. But I, on the other
| hand, couldn't look away at the fact that UEFA is trying to
| expand Champions League participant list in 2023-2024 in ways
| that are questionable. This is not to mention that football
| (soccer) has become very mercenary in the three decades that
| I've been supporting.
|
| Just look at the players' transfer fees, agent fees and weekly
| salaries. Where are all these money coming from to pay for such
| inflated expenses? In the end, it is us, the average football
| fans, who end up paying for all this greed (I pay $40/month in
| cable to get NBC sports to watch SOME of Manchester United's
| English Premier League games; $5/month to watch Peacock, which
| is owned by NBC, to watch SOME of Manchester United games in
| Premier League; $6 to ESPN Plus for FA cup; and finally
| $6/month for CBS Sports, which has now become Paramount+, to
| watch Manchester United in Champions League, which is what the
| super league is trying to supplant). These fees will only keep
| increasing every two years or so. Of course, I do not live in
| England and if I do, I might end up buying match day tickets,
| which could easily cost me ~$100 a game. If I buy a Manchester
| United jersey (not including the shorts), it costs ~$120 (it
| used to cost $90 ~4 years ago when I last bought one).
|
| So yeah, it's greed all around (after all, we live in a
| capitalistic society) and UEFA doesn't have much to hold itself
| over the super league group to taut its virtues in my opinion.
| jhoechtl wrote:
| > Where are all these money coming from to pay for such
| inflated expenses?
|
| It's money laundering. Only a few talk about that. It's from
| the regional league local construction tycoon football club
| president laundering his money from black construction work
| all the way up to the top.
| fedreserved wrote:
| Any links to help me go down that rabbit hole would be
| greatly appreciated
| jonwinstanley wrote:
| I find the player wages issue hard to complain about.
|
| The sport is incredibly popular, so the TV companies hand
| over billions to buy the rights, that money is given to the
| clubs who then use that to build a squad. Which when divided
| up means the best players earn insane amounts.
|
| The top players are just very lucky to be in an industry
| where their skills are so rare and highly valued and
| employers are so rich.
| thewarrior wrote:
| I found it interesting how everyone agreed that football should
| not be run solely for profit and fans need to have a say in how
| clubs are run. It United both Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn.
| But applying the same sentiment to corporations seems
| controversial.
| rvieira wrote:
| Playing the devil's advocate:
|
| Football has its roots in amateur and local associations with
| little or nothing to do with profit.
|
| In fact, only in the 1990s (with the explosion of cable TV and
| sports channels) did it started becoming a huge industry.
|
| Corporations do not share the same pedigree, so they aren't
| "betraying" their roots.
| thewarrior wrote:
| That is just a matter of social convention.
|
| We could all agree that corporations should be socially run
| and football clubs should be private corporations.
|
| People are saying that football clubs are rooted in society
| in the very same country whose leader once said "There is no
| such thing as a society".
|
| The world is what we make of it.
| rvieira wrote:
| > Playing the devil's advocate
|
| I think my employer will only pay for one more comment :)
|
| I agree, but most things in life are social conventions.
| The problem is not identifying them, but changing them.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| Equally I could say that football is, and should remain, a
| private activity, which governments should leave well alone.
|
| If fans want to buy or create and run football clubs they are
| free to do so. If private investors want to invest in football
| and buy or create and run football clubs they are free to do
| so.
|
| I don't think there should a way football 'should' be run,
| again I think this is a private activity that may be organised
| and run however people like within the law.
|
| The same goes for corporations in general.
| watwut wrote:
| The sport in general and football in particular were
| historically subsised by goverments. Quite a lot in some
| places.
| thewarrior wrote:
| Well there is always the is-ought problem. And we get around
| that via social consensus. There was nothing really wrong
| with the super league idea from a pure capitalist
| perspective.
|
| In fact according to neo liberal capitalist logic this is the
| best way to run anything including football.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| Many major clubs have had issues with the way the Champions
| League works for years and it is a well-known problem. The
| ESL is just the latest symptom.
|
| It's not ideological or " _neo liberal capitalist logic_ ",
| though I agree this is mostly a business problem.
|
| But even at a more basic level this is about liberty. I
| don't see a fundamental difference between clubs wanting to
| set up the ESL and people in a town wanting to set up a
| tournament among them of whatever sport or legal activity
| they please. The State has no business interfering.
|
| Now of course the fans (as fans and customers) can equally
| make their voice heard and vote with their feet if they are
| not interested.
|
| My only concern here is this attempt by the government to
| dictate how football should be run.
| da_big_ghey wrote:
| yes, and also no persons is dying for decisions making on
| his soccer team favorite. here is not healthcare or
| automobiles, where bad decision are costing lives. it is
| game and there is no justifying aj interfere by
| governments.
| adamcstephens wrote:
| And belief neoliberalism is starting to crack, which is why
| there was such widespread negativity to this announcement.
| People have realized that neoliberalism is just a way to
| funnel wealth and power into the hands of the few, and
| surprise they don't like that.
| username90 wrote:
| Private run corporations tend to add a lot of value to society.
| Private run football clubs not so much, people prefer their
| amateur run clubs. You could say the first sentence isn't true,
| but that is what people think and why they voted like this.
| FredPret wrote:
| Private run corporations that _don't_ add value tend to have
| a hard time, even if it takes a few years.
|
| Recall Microsoft's much-hated dominance 20-30 years ago and
| how they've had to change.
|
| Think of your own behaviour as a consumer, always trying to
| buy the best and the most for the least. You're training the
| cybernetic organisms known as corporations to add value
| conspicuously and voluminously... or die.
| username90 wrote:
| Many private corporations creates a bottleneck and then
| squeeze it of value and gets money that way. They don't go
| under, they thrive since people have no options but go
| through that bottleneck. Using democratic votes to decide
| when to stop companies from doing that makes perfect sense.
| FredPret wrote:
| Agreed, especially if legal machinations are used to
| create the bottleneck. True competition is the key here.
|
| In my day job as a consultant, I see many small and
| medium corporations, and I can tell you that the
| successful ones are the lean & mean value creators
| thewarrior wrote:
| Value is a highly subjective term. Some claim that social
| media companies don't add value. But they continue to thrive.
| Even tobacco companies are only dying because of extensive
| regulation. They add short term value maybe. But in the long
| term many dont. And by the time they die the damage is done.
|
| There are also counter factuals. The value a corporation
| prevents from being created due to monopolies or lobbying.
| That cannot be measured and maybe greater than the value
| added.
| username90 wrote:
| People vote to regulate companies they feel detract value,
| like Tobacco or in this case Football. Your point doesn't
| contradict mine.
| rrrazdan wrote:
| Yes because the analogy doesn't make sense. Can you explain how
| the two things are equivalent?
| thewarrior wrote:
| Football club - a collective enterprise rooted in a society
| run in the service of collective goals.
|
| A large corporation - a collective enterprise rooted in a
| society run in the service of collective goals.
| jcfrei wrote:
| You are being deliberately imprecise to make them seem
| equivalent. While some clubs are indeed corporations (with
| shares) they are mostly treated as associations, whose goal
| it is to advance the sport competitively, win the various
| competitions and deliver good entertainment. The primary
| goal of corporations is realizing good returns for
| investors.
| thewarrior wrote:
| That goal is a social convention. The CEOs of the worlds
| largest corporations themselves recently discussed moving
| away from this as a goal to something they call
| "stakeholder capitalism".
|
| We see this in debates about moving supply chains back on
| shore and focusing on domestic job creation. Those are
| not legitimate complaints if corporations and their
| profit is an unquestionable moral principle.
| da_big_ghey wrote:
| yes they are legitimate goal even for pursuing only
| profit. supply chain on shore is maybe in some way more
| reslilent, with especialy in geopolitics. job creating is
| leading to more prosperousing in society and more
| customer. also maybe these things are reduce likelihood
| of being smacked with unfortunate regulating.
| TheButlerian wrote:
| They also understood that two big things in Europe are: Sucking
| it up to the man - UEFA and being jealous. I can't wait for the
| Russkies to invade this wretched continent.
| cableclasper wrote:
| So given that the Super League won't work, what then _will_ work?
|
| It seems to me that innovations can come from two forces:
|
| 1) Fairness: Make teams operate fairly. Audit thoroughly, no slap
| on the wrist for violating Financial Fair Play, salary cap (I can
| dream can't I?), etc. Given how our society favors the capitalist
| over the regulator, all efforts on this front have amounted to
| mere asymptotic jokes.
|
| 2) Eliteness: Make the league the creamiest of the cream.
| Increase the magnitude of what happens when athletes with
| incredible talent are wedded with facilities that enhance and
| curate that talent. This was in fact the point of the premier
| league, but the Super league took it a step too far. The
| perception is that the "magic" in a game between Real Madrid and
| Manchester United (Goliath and Goliath) is more watchable than a
| game between Derby County and Manchester United (David and
| Goliath). Except that Derby County can win that game, have won
| that game, and the resulting dreams instilled in people (not just
| fans of Derby County, but fans of United) comprise the very
| source code that makes sports worth watching: a tale of the
| impossible that parallels and informs everyday life. Some men
| with $$$ in their eyes just don't seem to grasp that, for all
| their "finger on the pulse" bragging. Or they did, but felt that
| the source code could be rewritten and that's all that matters.
|
| The "Eliteness" front tries to maximize the quality of a sport
| just short of steroid use: story of the goose that laid the
| golden eggs. But what about fairness? How can we set up
| incentives for that?
| IG_Semmelweiss wrote:
| I think an interesting way to frame this argument would be to
| frame it in the view of eminent domain debate.
|
| In short, although owners own the assets of the club, they don't
| really own the fanbase / legacy of the club.
|
| We have a property (call it "fan equity" or "club legacy") that
| someone (fans) has invested time and effort in improving. That
| property has now acquired commercial value so now the govt (club
| owners) want to use the eminent domain argument to take that and
| use it as they wish.
|
| The eminent domain plays as follows: SL12 owners are looking to
| de-risk their business, ie avoid financial volatility. In effect,
| SL12 is for the "greater good" of the top clubs. (investors would
| lose far less money, which means top clubs would have guaranteed
| financial futures, and thus, never disappear)
|
| This does not appeal to the fans because they are invested in the
| ups and downs of their clubs. They are OK with downside because
| they also have the upside. This is similar to a property holdout.
| They dealt with the bad times in the neighborhood...so its
| natural they say now when the going gets good.
| ksec wrote:
| Am I the only one who thought the name "The Super League", was
| very American and non-European. At least that was my first
| reaction.
|
| What I didn't know was the owner of these club were Americans.
| granshaw wrote:
| Wish there was as much pushback here when some of these same
| owners instituted the 17-game NFL season
| rory wrote:
| I'm against adding a game, but it's hard to imagine a similar
| level of pushback for a much more incremental change.
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