16 ms·

US owners find greed doesn't play well in European soccer

137 points by bdz 5y ago

anthk 5y ago
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 5y ago
  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.
  - thejackgoode 5y ago
    >> 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
  - nmfisher 5y ago
    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.
- samfisher83 5y ago
  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 5y ago
    > 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-accounts-reveal-club-in-concerning-e901m-debt https://www.football-espana.net/2021/01/27/real-madrid-accou... https://www.football-espana.net/2021/01/25/barcelona-on-the-verge-of-bankruptcy-e1173m-in-debt-e730m-in-short-term 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 5y ago
      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 5y ago
    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 5y ago
  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-buurtwachten-door-verschillende-steden-desnoods-springen-we-ertussen~a99d9fd2/ https://www.ad.nl/binnenland/voetbalsupporters-als-buurtwach... [1] https://www.rtlnieuws.nl/nieuws/nederland/artikel/5211010/voetbalsupporters-rellen-willem-ii-den-bosch-mvv-maastricht https://www.rtlnieuws.nl/nieuws/nederland/artikel/5211010/vo...
lmz 5y ago
It's funny how they jump to blaming the Americans. Last I checked the Spanish clubs in this scheme weren't run by Americans.
- oneeyedpigeon 5y ago
  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 5y ago
    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.
    - 5y ago
kome 5y ago
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.
- jonwinstanley 5y ago
  It’s the difference between a sport and something designed to look like a sport but in reality is just entertainment
  - kome 5y ago
    beautifully put
  - username90 5y ago
    Super Bowl being closer to WWF than a competition explains so much, thanks!
- technofiend 5y ago
  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 5y ago
    > 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 5y ago
      > .. 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.
thewarrior 5y ago
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.
- rrrazdan 5y ago
  Yes because the analogy doesn’t make sense. Can you explain how the two things are equivalent?
  - thewarrior 5y ago
    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 5y ago
      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 5y ago
        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 5y ago
TheButlerian 5y ago
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.
Joe8Bit 5y ago
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 https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/africa/54510898
- jonwinstanley 5y ago
  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 5y ago
  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 5y ago
    Speaking as someone from Malaysia, I would love to there be an easy way to watch NFL games here.
hyko 5y ago
“They’re trying to commercialise the sacred game of football that I already pay £1200 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.
- oneeyedpigeon 5y ago
  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 5y ago
  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 5y ago
    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 5y ago
      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.
sportsball 5y ago
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.
twobitshifter 5y ago
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 5y ago
  The league below the Premier League is even more competitive, there are 24 closely matched sides trying to gain promotion.
  - mrob 5y ago
    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 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 5y ago
      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.
      - jonwinstanley 5y ago
        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.
formerly_proven 5y ago
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.
- zpeti 5y ago
  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.
  - skinkestek 5y ago
    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 5y ago
      Agreed
  - cloudfifty 5y ago
    If you're making UEFA bosses feel altruistic you should realize that you're in deep shit.
  - mhh__ 5y ago
    Lots of people have been saying this on reddit throughout the whole affair
- programmertote 5y ago
  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.
IG_Semmelweiss 5y ago
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.
granshaw 5y ago
Wish there was as much pushback here when some of these same owners instituted the 17-game NFL season
- rory 5y ago
  I'm against adding a game, but it's hard to imagine a similar level of pushback for a much more incremental change.
harryputtar 5y ago
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 5y ago
I think it's more cultural differences. The same happens with formula 1. Haas still at bottom.
sthnblllII 5y ago
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.
- permo-w 5y ago
  have you ever lived in manchester?
rkangel 5y ago
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.
- chrisseaton 5y ago
  > 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 5y ago
    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.
deagle50 5y ago
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.
mcc1ane 5y ago
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/04/19/americanization-europes-beloved-game-reaches-tipping-point/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/04/19/americanizat...
univalent 5y ago
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 5y ago
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
ksec 5y ago
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.
cableclasper 5y ago
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?

137 points by bdz 5y ago

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 5y ago
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.
- thejackgoode 5y ago
  >> 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
- nmfisher 5y ago
  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.
samfisher83 5y ago
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 5y ago
  > 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-accounts-reveal-club-in-concerning-e901m-debt https://www.football-espana.net/2021/01/27/real-madrid-accou... https://www.football-espana.net/2021/01/25/barcelona-on-the-verge-of-bankruptcy-e1173m-in-debt-e730m-in-short-term 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 5y ago
    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 5y ago
  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 5y ago
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-buurtwachten-door-verschillende-steden-desnoods-springen-we-ertussen~a99d9fd2/ https://www.ad.nl/binnenland/voetbalsupporters-als-buurtwach... [1] https://www.rtlnieuws.nl/nieuws/nederland/artikel/5211010/voetbalsupporters-rellen-willem-ii-den-bosch-mvv-maastricht https://www.rtlnieuws.nl/nieuws/nederland/artikel/5211010/vo...

lmz 5y ago

It's funny how they jump to blaming the Americans. Last I checked the Spanish clubs in this scheme weren't run by Americans.

oneeyedpigeon 5y ago
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 5y ago
  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.
  - 5y ago

kome 5y ago

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.

jonwinstanley 5y ago
It’s the difference between a sport and something designed to look like a sport but in reality is just entertainment
- kome 5y ago
  beautifully put
- username90 5y ago
  Super Bowl being closer to WWF than a competition explains so much, thanks!
technofiend 5y ago
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 5y ago
  > 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 5y ago
    > .. 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.

thewarrior 5y ago

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.

rrrazdan 5y ago
Yes because the analogy doesn’t make sense. Can you explain how the two things are equivalent?
- thewarrior 5y ago
  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 5y ago
    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 5y ago
      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 5y ago

TheButlerian 5y ago

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.

Joe8Bit 5y ago

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 https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/africa/54510898

jonwinstanley 5y ago
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 5y ago
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 5y ago
  Speaking as someone from Malaysia, I would love to there be an easy way to watch NFL games here.

hyko 5y ago

“They’re trying to commercialise the sacred game of football that I already pay £1200 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.

oneeyedpigeon 5y ago
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 5y ago
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 5y ago
  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 5y ago
    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.

sportsball 5y ago

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.

twobitshifter 5y ago

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 5y ago
The league below the Premier League is even more competitive, there are 24 closely matched sides trying to gain promotion.
- mrob 5y ago
  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 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 5y ago
    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.
    - jonwinstanley 5y ago
      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.

formerly_proven 5y ago

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.

zpeti 5y ago
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.
- skinkestek 5y ago
  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 5y ago
    Agreed
- cloudfifty 5y ago
  If you're making UEFA bosses feel altruistic you should realize that you're in deep shit.
- mhh__ 5y ago
  Lots of people have been saying this on reddit throughout the whole affair
programmertote 5y ago
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.

IG_Semmelweiss 5y ago

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.

granshaw 5y ago

Wish there was as much pushback here when some of these same owners instituted the 17-game NFL season

rory 5y ago
I'm against adding a game, but it's hard to imagine a similar level of pushback for a much more incremental change.

harryputtar 5y ago

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 5y ago

I think it's more cultural differences. The same happens with formula 1. Haas still at bottom.

sthnblllII 5y ago

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.

permo-w 5y ago
have you ever lived in manchester?

rkangel 5y ago

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.

chrisseaton 5y ago
> 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 5y ago
  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.

deagle50 5y ago

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.

mcc1ane 5y ago

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/04/19/americanization-europes-beloved-game-reaches-tipping-point/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/04/19/americanizat...

univalent 5y ago

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 5y ago

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

ksec 5y ago

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.

cableclasper 5y ago

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?