Match Day Thread Tottenham Hotspur v Brentford

But no-one has ever claimed that footballers should be treated as if they are office workers.
The weird thing is that this discussion is going on in parallel with people lauding the efforts of Brighton and Brentford, both of which are run like they are investment companies with data based recruitment.

 

Their progress isn't just about data though. That part certainly gives them an edge and allows them to outperform rivals with exponentially larger wallets than them. But it would mean very little if they didn't also have a clear and cohesive footballing philosophy running through all levels of the club, a clear style of play, and an openness to sell players for the right price (something De Zerbi literally spoke about today regarding Caceido and MacAllister).

The clarity of vision though is above and beyond anything what has taken them to where they are now. I've mentioned previously I've been privileged to have met Tony Bloom at a number of charity events and at one last summer I asked him tongue in cheek if they'd be able to keep hold of Potter and in so many words (as much as he could say without landing himself in trouble), he very confidently gave the impression that it wouldn't affect their long term trajectory even if he did leave, as they had a very clear idea of the perfect candidate to pick up from where Potter would leave off and continue along the same style of play. That man was of course Roberto De Zerbi who has with a net profit of £85m, taken them into European football for the first time.

This is why all this talk of Levy embracing the data models being used by other teams doesn't register a flicker of interest in me. Until we have a clear, unifying vision from top to bottom we might as well use the software to analyse how long fans spend in the stadium loos and how many of them don't wash their hands.

 

I agree with most of that and we had it for many years. The only problem is that you can't actually see the benefits in the performance data, at least at any statistically significant level. Sacking Poch was a big mistake but I can see why Levy did it because it allowed him to appoint a serial winner who was supposed to get the lack of trophies monkey off our back. But of course neither Mourinho nor Conte can actually win when they don't have the best players.

 

Incorrect on both counts.
Professional sports can be compared with all other
commercial sectors, on all major objective dimensions.

What it does have is a relationship with its customer
base that is very rare in commerce as a whole
(a relationship that sadly can be abused by product vendors) .

 

What distinguishes professional sports teams from virtually every other business is that their primary function is not to make profit for their owners or shareholders, but to succeed on the playing field.

Football teams invariably overstretch themselves as they climb the pyramid in order to climb further. They don’t settle for being a small or medium sized business making a profit; they strive to compete with the large businesses . A local soft drinks company like Barr would never try to compete with Pepsi. But in sport, there is no finding your niche and recognising your limits. The drive is to climb to the top. Plymouth, for example, will be planning how to get to the PL. They won’t be thinking that they can hang around in the bottom half the Championship in perpetuity, being a viable going concern at a level commensurate with their support base. The result - especially in football - is often boom and then bust.

There are few businesses outside sport which could justify the high level of risk taking all clubs take to progress. County cricket clubs play in front of one man and a dog because the competition (County Championship) is sacrosanct. They rely on ECB money from more commercially viable games. In business, the County Championship would be ditched very quickly because it makes a loss. It would be irrational to do otherwise.

No, sport is not like any other business.

 

1. Professional sports are in the entertainment sector.
The "mission statement" is to entertain those who consume the product

2. The mission statement holds for the providers irrespective of motivation
(whether it be for altruistic or wealth creation reasons) .

3. All enterprises have to live by the balance sheet.
The motivation for operating an enterprise is moot if you
cannot afford the CAPEX/OPEX costs.


So again, professional sports are like every other business.

 

To some extent, yes. Players are both employees and assets, though.

 

The most significant difference when football clubs are compared to “normal” businesses.
The workers appear as assets on the balance sheet. That would have Marx and Engels in a tiz