7 ms·

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. Primari

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 6y 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 6y 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.
- slg 6y ago
  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 6y ago
    > 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 6y ago
      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 6y ago
        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 6y ago
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 6y ago
  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_ 6y ago
    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.
NoOneNew 6y ago
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?
- cjrp 6y ago
  > 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 6y ago
    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_ 6y ago
      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 6y ago
randomsearch 6y ago
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.
kingofpandora 6y ago
Leicester.
- mandevil 6y ago
  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?
  - iso1631 6y ago
    > 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?
  - jeegsy 6y ago
    You might even say Bolton has been wandering for a while
ska 6y ago
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.
- koolba 6y ago
  s/New England/Tom Brady/
  - ska 6y ago
    ok, so map that to Messi and FC Barcelona :)
- fallingknife 6y ago
  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)
lordnacho 6y ago
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?
ssivark 6y ago
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.
iso1631 6y ago
> 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.
lamontcg 6y ago
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.
renewiltord 6y ago
Well, that's a knockout vs. league outcome, right? The FA Cup has 5 winners in the last 10 cups.

chrisseaton 6y 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 6y 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.
slg 6y ago
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 6y ago
  > 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 6y ago
    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 6y ago
      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 6y ago

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 6y ago
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_ 6y ago
  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.

NoOneNew 6y ago

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?

cjrp 6y ago
> 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 6y ago
  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_ 6y ago
    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 6y ago

randomsearch 6y ago

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.

kingofpandora 6y ago

Leicester.

mandevil 6y ago
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?
- iso1631 6y ago
  > 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?
- jeegsy 6y ago
  You might even say Bolton has been wandering for a while

ska 6y ago

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.

koolba 6y ago
s/New England/Tom Brady/
- ska 6y ago
  ok, so map that to Messi and FC Barcelona :)
fallingknife 6y ago
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)

lordnacho 6y ago

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?

ssivark 6y ago

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.

iso1631 6y ago

> 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.

lamontcg 6y ago

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.

renewiltord 6y ago

Well, that's a knockout vs. league outcome, right? The FA Cup has 5 winners in the last 10 cups.