5 ms·

Such an obvious thing, should have been there from day 1. The situation in Spain is particularly crazy. How can la liga have this much power over the Internet?

gonzalohm 3mo ago
In the US there is lobbying. In Spain there is soccer. I have seen crazy things done just for soccer. The town I used to live in closed my street for a few weeks during one world cup. I wasn't able to use my garage during all that time. Also, somehow small towns always find money available for soccer related stuff (like building stadiums, events, etc.) but there is no money for improving healthcare or building parks. I hated that
- dummydummy1234 3mo ago
  ... Out of curiosity, why did they close the street? Was it to turn it into public walking space? (I'm trying to imagine a reason and coming up short...)
  - forgotaccount3 3mo ago
    Sometimes places close streets for traffic control. The 'main' roads end up getting backed up and then people naturally start drifting over to a bunch of side-roads to get to the destination. This then causes further traffic issues as the locations where side-roads intersect the main roads get backed up as people on the side roads try to merge into the main ones. A solution ends up being closing some side roads to funnel the temporary traffic into the main thoroughfare while still allowing some local traffic through the non-closed side roads at the cost of some side roads being inaccessible.
    - cylemons 3mo ago
      Also the sideroads intersecting each other usually don't have traffic lights which is good for low traffic but bad for high traffic. What they would do in that case is close off one the roads so traffic flows smoothly through the other one
  - gonzalohm 3mo ago
    It's a wide street and they installed a screen. I guess that's not something that you can set-up for every match so they decided to leave it up the whole time. The problem I have with it is not that my street was closed. It's that soccer always gets all the preferential treatment. Why not set that up for badminton or tennis? We have spectacular players but soccer seems to be the only important sport
    - bluefirebrand 3mo ago
      Bit of a catch 22 isn't it? Soccer is the only important sport so it gets all of the attention Soccer gets all of the attention so it stays the only important sport
    - wiether 3mo ago
      Having had this discussion many times, the conclusion we often come to is that part of the popular success of football is the scarcity and simplicity. In most sports, you have a world championship every year, meanwhile, a World Cup happens only every four years. When you have screens and stuff setup by the city to follow a World Cup, the crowds are not made of die hard football fans, the majority of people there are normies that don't give a hoot about football during the 47 other months of a WC loop. Here we call them "footix". If the WC was happening every year, they would be bored and less and less of them would come out to the public events. Meanwhile, making it only every four years, they have time to forget that they didn't quite enjoyed it, they can believe things are very different from last time, and they agree to reserve part of their mental bandwidth to the event. They wouldn't do this on a yearly basis because they fundamentally don't care about football. They want to enjoy sharing a unique experience surrounded by friends, family and random peers. You can't do this every year because it removes the special character of it. To illustrate this further: here we have the Tour de France (cycling), that happens every year, so no scarcity. Unless a stage passes near you. Which is something that happens even less often than a World Cup. In that case, people with no interest in cycling will go to the side of the road and go crazy.
      - abdullahkhalids 3mo ago
        Most popular sports have world cups every four years. Basketball, cricket, rugby, volleyball, field hockey WCs are all held every four years. Some others like handball are held every two years. Cricket gets the same level of crazy support in South Asia as football does in most of the world. But the reason football gets such support in most of the world is simply because most people consider it the best sport, or the "beautiful game". It is one of the most well designed sports, having the fewest number of unnatural rules - only one in fact (offside). It can also be played with basically any number of players from 2-20 in fields of any size, so it's really popular for normal people. The skills floor is reasonably low, but the skill ceiling is very very high. So, then it flows naturally into social actions like blocking streets.
- greenavocado 3mo ago
  > Also, somehow small towns always find money available for soccer related stuff (like building stadiums, events, etc.) but there is no money for improving healthcare or building parks. Bread and circuses. Whatever it takes to suppress the instinctual nationalistic ambitions of the people by redirecting their spirits and energy into /dev/null
  - gonzalohm 3mo ago
    Those are my thoughts too. I believe there was a world cup or euro cup during the 2008 crisis, which Spain suffered specially badly. All countries were getting out of the "hole" except Spain, but hey we won the euro cup so suddenly our country was the best and everyone forgot about it
    - GuB-42 3mo ago
      Which I believe is a good thing. An economic crisis is tough, let people have some joy. I am not into spectator sports, and certainly not soccer, but the positives emotions that go with it are worth it, I think. If you think about it, how often do you hear good news? A war here, a disaster there, a mass murder,... And it is not because of the current world situation, it is always the case, we usually don't talk about things that go right. Go ahead, go to your favorite news website and see for yourself. Chances are that the only good news you see are sports related. The only other source of good news I can think of is science and technology with their new discoveries, but even there, plenty of bad news too, like with climate change and price hikes. Sports is the only consistent supplier of good news. Of course, sometimes, you lose, but losses are easy to forget, it is just another blip in the sea of bad news. But with all the sports that is happening, there is always something to make your day: your local team winning in a local tournament, there are even some losing matches you can be proud of.
      - chuckadams 3mo ago
        Perhaps sports are a net benefit overall, but these are multi-billion-euro companies who don't deserve to keep getting handouts and special favors from the government to supply it.
- FireBeyond 3mo ago
  > Also, somehow small towns always find money available for soccer related stuff (like building stadiums, events, etc.) but there is no money for improving healthcare or building parks. I mean Texas can hold a candle there. Nearly 30 high school football stadiums with 10,000+ capacity (and 20,000 in a few cases), built for amounts sometimes exceeding $50M each. Some of the stadiums are shared with track and field etc., but others are "exclusively used by the high school football teams".
  - iso1631 3mo ago
    To take the other side, my understanding is in the US there aren't any "second division" teams. You've got 350 million people and about 30 professional American football teams, or 10 million people per team That would be the equivalent of having the top 6 teams in England's Premier League -- which based on last season would be Arsenal, Manchester City, Manchester United, Aston Villa, Liverpool and Bournemouth* College and High School are more like the equivalent of national teams in England, although in America is seems that the taxpayer pays for these, where in the UK they are private businesses. * There was a coup attempt a few years ago by a bunch of european teams to leave league football behind and make more money, because in the uk "only those 6 teams win". Chelsea and Tottenham fancied themselves, Tottenham narrowly avoided relegation and finished 17th, and Chelsea were topped by such internationally famous teams as Brentford, Brighton and Bournemouth
    - FireBeyond 3mo ago
      > To take the other side, my understanding is in the US there aren't any "second division" teams. You've got 350 million people and about 30 professional American football teams, or 10 million people per team There are - but popularity is vastly different. My understanding is that minor league baseball has a notable following, basketball is smaller but there are still some passionate fans, and that football is mostly "keeping players warm". There's also the "D1 College" as a "second division" of sorts.
  - stwr 3mo ago
    That’s crazy, in the Netherlands (though about 16x smaller than Texas) the 10 biggest stadiums in the country are Football (soccer) stadiums ranging from 10400 capacity at #10 to about 56000 capacity for the #1 stadium (build for 130 million euro). All at the highest paid level of professional football. 30 _high school_ stadiums at 10000+ I can’t even fathom!
gadrev 3mo ago
It's ridiculous. Not being able to work (or having tools/certain websites fail randomly each time there's a high audience match) because "soccer" tells you a lot about the priorities of the country. Or at least of the elements that make these kinds of decisions and policies possible... We even got an isitchristmas.com-like website to track this (https://hayahora.futbol/ https://hayahora.futbol/). I admit I find it a bit amusing.
riffraff 3mo ago
I can assure you the situation in Italy is just as bad. We do have an independent telecommunications authority, but it's been subservient to the Serie A (rather, the companies who own the broadcasting /streaming rights) diktat almost completely.
microgpt 3mo ago
Close ties to the mafia. Same in Italy.

gonzalohm 3mo ago

In the US there is lobbying. In Spain there is soccer. I have seen crazy things done just for soccer. The town I used to live in closed my street for a few weeks during one world cup. I wasn't able to use my garage during all that time. Also, somehow small towns always find money available for soccer related stuff (like building stadiums, events, etc.) but there is no money for improving healthcare or building parks. I hated that

dummydummy1234 3mo ago
... Out of curiosity, why did they close the street? Was it to turn it into public walking space? (I'm trying to imagine a reason and coming up short...)
- forgotaccount3 3mo ago
  Sometimes places close streets for traffic control. The 'main' roads end up getting backed up and then people naturally start drifting over to a bunch of side-roads to get to the destination. This then causes further traffic issues as the locations where side-roads intersect the main roads get backed up as people on the side roads try to merge into the main ones. A solution ends up being closing some side roads to funnel the temporary traffic into the main thoroughfare while still allowing some local traffic through the non-closed side roads at the cost of some side roads being inaccessible.
  - cylemons 3mo ago
    Also the sideroads intersecting each other usually don't have traffic lights which is good for low traffic but bad for high traffic. What they would do in that case is close off one the roads so traffic flows smoothly through the other one
- gonzalohm 3mo ago
  It's a wide street and they installed a screen. I guess that's not something that you can set-up for every match so they decided to leave it up the whole time. The problem I have with it is not that my street was closed. It's that soccer always gets all the preferential treatment. Why not set that up for badminton or tennis? We have spectacular players but soccer seems to be the only important sport
  - bluefirebrand 3mo ago
    Bit of a catch 22 isn't it? Soccer is the only important sport so it gets all of the attention Soccer gets all of the attention so it stays the only important sport
  - wiether 3mo ago
    Having had this discussion many times, the conclusion we often come to is that part of the popular success of football is the scarcity and simplicity. In most sports, you have a world championship every year, meanwhile, a World Cup happens only every four years. When you have screens and stuff setup by the city to follow a World Cup, the crowds are not made of die hard football fans, the majority of people there are normies that don't give a hoot about football during the 47 other months of a WC loop. Here we call them "footix". If the WC was happening every year, they would be bored and less and less of them would come out to the public events. Meanwhile, making it only every four years, they have time to forget that they didn't quite enjoyed it, they can believe things are very different from last time, and they agree to reserve part of their mental bandwidth to the event. They wouldn't do this on a yearly basis because they fundamentally don't care about football. They want to enjoy sharing a unique experience surrounded by friends, family and random peers. You can't do this every year because it removes the special character of it. To illustrate this further: here we have the Tour de France (cycling), that happens every year, so no scarcity. Unless a stage passes near you. Which is something that happens even less often than a World Cup. In that case, people with no interest in cycling will go to the side of the road and go crazy.
    - abdullahkhalids 3mo ago
      Most popular sports have world cups every four years. Basketball, cricket, rugby, volleyball, field hockey WCs are all held every four years. Some others like handball are held every two years. Cricket gets the same level of crazy support in South Asia as football does in most of the world. But the reason football gets such support in most of the world is simply because most people consider it the best sport, or the "beautiful game". It is one of the most well designed sports, having the fewest number of unnatural rules - only one in fact (offside). It can also be played with basically any number of players from 2-20 in fields of any size, so it's really popular for normal people. The skills floor is reasonably low, but the skill ceiling is very very high. So, then it flows naturally into social actions like blocking streets.
greenavocado 3mo ago
> Also, somehow small towns always find money available for soccer related stuff (like building stadiums, events, etc.) but there is no money for improving healthcare or building parks. Bread and circuses. Whatever it takes to suppress the instinctual nationalistic ambitions of the people by redirecting their spirits and energy into /dev/null
- gonzalohm 3mo ago
  Those are my thoughts too. I believe there was a world cup or euro cup during the 2008 crisis, which Spain suffered specially badly. All countries were getting out of the "hole" except Spain, but hey we won the euro cup so suddenly our country was the best and everyone forgot about it
  - GuB-42 3mo ago
    Which I believe is a good thing. An economic crisis is tough, let people have some joy. I am not into spectator sports, and certainly not soccer, but the positives emotions that go with it are worth it, I think. If you think about it, how often do you hear good news? A war here, a disaster there, a mass murder,... And it is not because of the current world situation, it is always the case, we usually don't talk about things that go right. Go ahead, go to your favorite news website and see for yourself. Chances are that the only good news you see are sports related. The only other source of good news I can think of is science and technology with their new discoveries, but even there, plenty of bad news too, like with climate change and price hikes. Sports is the only consistent supplier of good news. Of course, sometimes, you lose, but losses are easy to forget, it is just another blip in the sea of bad news. But with all the sports that is happening, there is always something to make your day: your local team winning in a local tournament, there are even some losing matches you can be proud of.
    - chuckadams 3mo ago
      Perhaps sports are a net benefit overall, but these are multi-billion-euro companies who don't deserve to keep getting handouts and special favors from the government to supply it.
FireBeyond 3mo ago
> Also, somehow small towns always find money available for soccer related stuff (like building stadiums, events, etc.) but there is no money for improving healthcare or building parks. I mean Texas can hold a candle there. Nearly 30 high school football stadiums with 10,000+ capacity (and 20,000 in a few cases), built for amounts sometimes exceeding $50M each. Some of the stadiums are shared with track and field etc., but others are "exclusively used by the high school football teams".
- iso1631 3mo ago
  To take the other side, my understanding is in the US there aren't any "second division" teams. You've got 350 million people and about 30 professional American football teams, or 10 million people per team That would be the equivalent of having the top 6 teams in England's Premier League -- which based on last season would be Arsenal, Manchester City, Manchester United, Aston Villa, Liverpool and Bournemouth* College and High School are more like the equivalent of national teams in England, although in America is seems that the taxpayer pays for these, where in the UK they are private businesses. * There was a coup attempt a few years ago by a bunch of european teams to leave league football behind and make more money, because in the uk "only those 6 teams win". Chelsea and Tottenham fancied themselves, Tottenham narrowly avoided relegation and finished 17th, and Chelsea were topped by such internationally famous teams as Brentford, Brighton and Bournemouth
  - FireBeyond 3mo ago
    > To take the other side, my understanding is in the US there aren't any "second division" teams. You've got 350 million people and about 30 professional American football teams, or 10 million people per team There are - but popularity is vastly different. My understanding is that minor league baseball has a notable following, basketball is smaller but there are still some passionate fans, and that football is mostly "keeping players warm". There's also the "D1 College" as a "second division" of sorts.
- stwr 3mo ago
  That’s crazy, in the Netherlands (though about 16x smaller than Texas) the 10 biggest stadiums in the country are Football (soccer) stadiums ranging from 10400 capacity at #10 to about 56000 capacity for the #1 stadium (build for 130 million euro). All at the highest paid level of professional football. 30 _high school_ stadiums at 10000+ I can’t even fathom!

gadrev 3mo ago

It's ridiculous. Not being able to work (or having tools/certain websites fail randomly each time there's a high audience match) because "soccer" tells you a lot about the priorities of the country. Or at least of the elements that make these kinds of decisions and policies possible... We even got an isitchristmas.com-like website to track this (https://hayahora.futbol/ https://hayahora.futbol/). I admit I find it a bit amusing.

riffraff 3mo ago

I can assure you the situation in Italy is just as bad. We do have an independent telecommunications authority, but it's been subservient to the Serie A (rather, the companies who own the broadcasting /streaming rights) diktat almost completely.

microgpt 3mo ago

Close ties to the mafia. Same in Italy.