The Future of Pro. Football in Europe.

I don't disagree, but that is the world and that's why we need to protect the game before they and the media exploit it, then trash it, then move away to something else.

 

Isn't that what they are doing with FFP

 

FFP is ostensibly about a club being financially
sustainable as a "business of own account"
(no financial "doping" , no debt large enough so that
if the current owners go AWOL the club is destroyed etc) .

 

I don't follow any American sports, more than the occasional cursory glance to make sure things like the 'World Series' still only involves America and Canada.

My impression is that the way grassroots is viewed there is radically difference to here, in the sense that as other have mentioned, it is largely the school and college systems that give a sense of 'grassroots' participation, although this is done with the explicit goal in mind to make to the big time, and the money swilling around at the top colleges reflects this. It's even implied in the names they use: 'Minor League', i.e. the aim is to become 'Major League'.

Here, I think the attitude towards grassroots is much simpler. It is what it says on the tin: Grassroots. Something that binds a local community to a shared passion. I.e. the opposite of what PNP has described, with teams uprooting and moving multiple times away from their historic roots.

I might be being naive, but I used to be a season ticket holder at my local club when they were in the Vauxhall Conference. There was a certain magic to it. Even though the football was often poor and the stands needed more than a coat of paint, everyone knows each other and bumping into players in the local Tesco was so refreshing compared to the faceless detached corporate machine of the PL.

Things like drafts and caps sound good on the surface as they ostensibly create a more equal playing field, and at the same time I would congratulate any US team who is creative enough to use the draft system to it's fullest advantage.

But at the same time, levelling the playing field increases the expectation of success. The two are proportionately related. Which means fans of long barren teams feel far more disillusioned and far less connected to their team. In a country that is geared towards winning and being the best, anything less is hard to swallow.

Here, the British sense of irony is that many fans couldn't give a damn if their team wins or not, as long as they try. This shows that the team values the things that the grassroots following have in common. To lose is bad, to play badly is insulting.

I'm rambling and tbh haven't the foggiest what I'm on about. But there does seem to be a fundamental cultural difference and it starts from grassroots level.

 

To add to this, there are 32 NFL teams. 12 of them have never won the Superbowl.
In a rather unamerican fashion, the most successful side is owned by the fans.
The trophy is even named after one of The Green Bay Packers' coaches, Vince Lombardi.

 

I agree it’s a cultural/structural thing. What works in the US won’t work in the UK.

On the Minor League thing, I think I’m right in saying that’s mainly a baseball thing. The Minor League teams are affiliated with (or owned by? Not sure) the MLB clubs. So the New York Mets have the Coney Island Cyclones for example (great day out by the way). They’ll often have their young players play there for a year or so after drafting them before they come into MLB. That’s a bit different from NFL and NBA where drafted players go straight into the rosters. But they’re not developing those Minor League players as kids. That’s the job of high school and college sports to do.

Again the sourcing of talent is completely different and that’s why I can’t see a draft working in the UK/English football pyramids, or in Europe. I do think that we should mandate more of an emphasis on clubs developing their own talent and that teams should also be incentivised to develop and play players who are qualified for the FA under whose structure the club plays. But unless you do this sort of thing Europe-wide then the first mover will always be at a disadvantage.

 

There are lots of reasons why things that work in the US might not work here. I think the draft system only works if there is no alternative employer...that's pretty much true for the big US team sports. Once there are alternatives in other countries it all collapses. I don't really get the obsession we have with promotion and relegation though. Historically it only really applies to football. Cricket has never had it and Rugby doesn't really have it in either code. I quite like it but I don’t think it has to apply across the board.

 

And the reason the baseball final is called the World Series is that it was named for the original sponsor....the New York World newspaper. The name had already stuck when the paper went bust.

 

I guess the sacrifice for what is essentially an oligarchy is that we do occasionally get incredible rags to riches stories as teams use the promotion system to climb the rungs of English football.

The idea that a team like Luton Town with a stadium like Kenilworth Road could play at an elite level in American sport is laughable.

So while it has happened (very occasionally) that a wildcard team wins the Super Bowl, they already came from a place of immense privilege and will invariably play in a stadium no smaller than ours.

You can fit 5 Kenilworth Roads into the smallest NFL stadium.

I think it boils down to the fact that our two nations see magic in different ways. Americans want to be dazzled by a highly polished spectacle. We want to see the underdog win.

I think this difference is most obvious in comedy. I'm not sure who said it (I think it was Stephen Fry) but this summarises it perfectly:

In American comedies, the main character is the wise acre, smarter and quicker than everyone else. He cracks the jokes, everyone else is the butt of them, the audience worships him because he is already on top.

In British comedy, the main character is tragicomic, the butt of everyone else's jokes, the audience sympathises with him, sees themselves reflected in him, and wants him to come out on top.

 

Great posts CK

 

Really interesting point about there being a single employer for most big US sports (although basketball is now huge in many parts of the world including Europe, but NFL and MLB are specks on the horizon in terms of American hegemony).

I wonder if this is why despite the country having such a huge and very eager market, 'soccer' still hasn't quite taken off there.

The MLS still operates salary caps and a draft system in order to mirror policy in other major sports. So the policies match a closed market model, when in reality of course the market for soccer is truly global and has been for ages.

I'd imagine if the authorities took the brakes off and removed those policies, soccer would soon overtake both hand-egg and baseball as the no.1 national sport.

Perhaps that is exactly what some are afraid of. Wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if in the wake of USA '94 there was some serious lobbying from some seriously wealthy investors to impose measures that would restrict soccer's relative growth.

EDIT: Did a bit more reading on this and apparently as of 2010, the overwhelming majority of MLS coaches say that they prefer using youth academies (i.e. the European version of college teams) and overseas transfers over the draft system for player recruitment.

So it looks like you're onto something. This is a global sport with many alternative markets being shoehorned into closed market policies.

 

English football has a rich history and heritage. Clubs represent their communities. As a consequence, fans are loyal. There are teams in non-league football - ie outside the top 92 - getting 7-10,000 gates every week. That doesn’t happen in any other sport in any other country. There remains a belief in our pyramid system; a team can rise from the 5th tier to the PL (Luton, for example).
The model of the NFL (or IPL) is alien and does not hold any appeal for most of us, I think.
But what our game needs to do is ensure a fairer distribution of the wealth, otherwise the pyramid system will ultimately fail and the hope and belief which keeps fans coming back for more will be lost. Ultimately, that will cost the money men their money. When you remove ambition and jeopardy, it is boring. Our structure produces competition; it draws talent in. It enables players to enter the game and rise through the ranks. That wouldn’t happen if there was just a small group of franchised teams and a comparative wilderness outside that. It won’t happen if a small number of clubs continue to get richer, while the rest get poorer.

 

I suppose Americans would look at the college level as something of a 'lower league', and those games get average attendances in excess of 40,000 people!

But it's a different type of connection. The only true common denominator all those fans have is that they happen to be studying in the same place. They may hail from all corners of the country and after graduation might never even visit their Alma mater again, so it's a very different definition of 'community' than the one we're used to here.

Higher up, I'm not surprised at all to read that the NFL basically legislates community. With Home Territory and Home Marketing Area policies covering up to a 75-mile radius beyond the city limits, what they essentially legislate is that Team A has exclusive rights to host professional games in that Area, as well as exclusive rights to advertise and market its existence. So a sense of commonality isn't quite allowed to grow organically...it is forced upon anyone who lives within 75 miles of the city.

This is basically the equivalent of a couple of munitions men pitching up in North London one day in 1913, only for us to tell them to piss off back down south of the river, and the government forcing them to go.

 

I think the essential difference between the sports like Cricket, Rugby, Tennis, Polo, Squash, Golf, and so on is that football is the 'peoples' game. Started and played by 'ordinary' folk. All those other games were started and played by the 'toffs'. Country house sports or so called gentleman's pursuits. Designed to keep the hoy polloi out, or in their place as in Cricket. The Gentlemen and The Players. This lasts to this day with only golf really becoming a working mans game as it has been for centuries in Scotland. To play cricket in this country is still more difficult for working class folk as it is in India. In Australia it's everyone's game which is probably why they consistently produce world best teams. The net result is football is more widely available to play with more teams and it's very nature is to be open to all. Promotion and therefore relegation reflects that including ethos. The governing body, the FA was formed to control and tame the game and is sort of the toffs trying to take over the working mans game which has now been achieved by the very rich. All of this is very much why I thought this thread was needed. The peoples game it might be but it's shaped by the rich, the media and those governing bodies.
In my lifetime football has changed as it has spread across the world. The rules, the equipment, the players, the pay, the competitions, the national competitions. All have been developed following the money. It's reasonable to think it will go on changing.
This thread so far has clearly explained why the American model is different to the European but despite that the Americans are very much involved. I suppose because they have loads of very rich sport entrepreneurs. Football is also becoming more popular in the states after many years of trying to promote it there. Like many areas the internet and world television opens new horizons.
So moving on from the American/Europe comparisons where do you think football is going?

 

The oil rich Arab states, looking to their post oil futures have focussed on sport as a key area in their diversification and of course football is a prime target. Their cultures tend to be very respectful of tradition so their involvement may not alter the game too much. The game is still controlled from Europe but not so long ago it was controlled by England & Scotland. South America's involvement has so far (dare I say) been pretty corrupt. If we look at cricket the force of numbers and money and the change in rules has placed India firmly in charge. Could similar happen in football with the Far East having the numbers and more and more the money?

 

A key issue is legacy environment, and weather.
In the UK you can always find a park or greenfield
nearby to play whatever pitch-pound sport you like.
And the weather means tis likely to be usable all year.

In other nations (especially in urban areas) , you
cannot take the above for granted, So no surprise that
basketball would be more popular in inner-city locales.

Hong Kong is a classic example of this.
Space-constrained, but not so bad that you do not
see half/full size basketball courts everywhere.

 

It's more than that. Something like 8 of the top 10 largest sports stadiums are US colleges:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_stadiums_by_capacity
Their unpaid students attract larger crowds than their multi-millionaire pros.

 

He's largely right about virtually all of what he says here.
The Glazers buying Man Utd with the club's own money was ludicrous.
German football does get a lot right, although Bayern have won 6 CL/ECs and not 10.