Since I hate both ManUre and Barfalona, I neither wait for them to play, nor will watch them had they been offered twice yearly. No, thank you. I prefer to keep the idea of a national championship alive over the artificially created monster with few fans.
It's the kind of deep analysis and dare I say it "wordsmithery", contained in the above exchange that makes these forums so fascinating. One imagines that this is the kind of discourse that would occur betweena Pep Guardiola and an Arsene Wenger. Well done Bigsoccer! Well done indeed!
I don't think this is analysis at all. We're just publishing our personal opinions and preferences, since we don't have any real data
The Epl would'nt get any TV deals if Englishmen didnt go to the stadiums once a week!! And if a European superleague came into being trust me - Englishmen would stop going to the stadiums once a week.
Sarcasm. I see no value in deriding sets of fans as "mongs" or referring to teams as "Barfalona" and "ManUre". While I don't want to see a Superleague arrive, declarations that you don't want to watch it and that you believe most Europeans wouldn't want to watch it, aren't relevant to the teams that would be involved. As long as the teams involved get enough fans to fill their own grounds and enough TV viewers and sponsorship, that's all they need to make a Superleague viable. Manchester United and Barcelona to use you examples, have little trouble in those areas. The fact that you don't watch now, means you aren't part of their demographic anyway. I personally would like to see greater opportunity for clubs to grow and compete. Platini has thankfully moved slightly in this direction with the "Champions path" for the UCL preliminary stages. Perhaps things like a windfall bonus for teams from lower ranked leagues making the group stages and cash awards for the clubs with the highest coefficient increases in a given season might be ways to facilitate that.
On the contrary, I think it is very relevant. Manchester United and Barcelona are already filling out their stadiums and nothing will change. Superleague's ONLY path to success is offering something to ME, a person who does not care for either team. Otherwise, CL is quite satisfactory. Superleague, in order to succeed MUST go after those fans who are "part of their demographic anyway".
This doesn't make sense. Attracting you is far from the only path. In fact, if that was the case, it wouldn't be a topic for debate as any measure of market research would inform them that YOU have no interest in that product. Therefore, creating a product you do not want in order to get your attention would be doomed from the outset. This is about exclusivity. The big draw for these teams here is that they perpetually get the UEFA Champions League viewers, it's sponsors and it's revenues, largely to themselves. They don't need you to watch, because 300m will tune in to watch the Champions League final. You may not care about United playing Barcelona, but others do. Chevrolet just dumped their Superbowl and facebook advertising and handed over $500m to sponsor Manchester United. The rationale was that whereas 175m people will watch a Superbowl, 50m in a given week will watch Man Utd. Think about that and then consider Barcelona's own comparable draw. Suddenly, Chevrolet aren't just being seen by Man Utd fans, but by tens of millions of Barca fans on top of that. That's without the casual viewer who watches just for the hype. Suddenly, that Chevrolet deal becomes even more valuable, which will lead to a bigger renewal. These things aren't set in stone of course. I've heard some people grumbling at seeing Real Madrid vs Barca too many times in the last couple of seasons, so maybe these clubs overestimate the longterm appeal of seeing them play week-in week-out. However, I'm thinking it's more likely that such a thing get would more than the required attention to work. I just don't like it for what it could mean for the rest of football if it happened.
Games like Juve v Chelsea sell-out and have great appeal for neutrals because of the importance of the match. And the importance hinges on the fact that it's a 4-team group and the entire tournament is at most 13 matches for any one team. So most games are quite important. If they're not (like sometimes on the final day of the group-stage when a team's progression/ elimination is already clinched), attendance plummets. Watch what happens next week when Barca hosts Benfica. This would be a "typical" match in a hypothetical Superleague, so lets see what the attendance is.
Why would it? It may not carry the weight and interest of a do-or-die situation or a match-up between title contenders, but it wouldn't be the same scenario as a dead fixture in a decided group. I suppose that as the competition goes on, interest will progressively drop off, but how does that differ from national leagues now? Of course, there's European places and relegation to worry about but there are also teams that are practically out of both scenarios two thirds in. A bulk of the season ticket holders will still be there most weeks.
Not really. Currently even if you are not in the domestic title race, you may still have European places to fight for. That cannot be replicated in a super league. All that will matter is finishing first (or fighting for the last playoff spot - either way there is only one spot in the table where teams have something to play for). There will be tonnes of dead fixtures. Ps Barca v Benfica is not a dead fixture. One of the teams has everything to play for. In any super league format you will almost never have both teams with something to play for after the first 2-3 months of a season.
You really think so? How many clubs do you think will be in the title hunt into the final weeks of the season?
I think the problem is that if only a couple of 'top' clubs from each country competes then the 10% of fans of the 'said' clubs in the country will be alienated from the 90% of fans of other clubs in the country, as a lifelong Chelsea supporter (first game I attended was as a small boy in 1979!) I could honestly tell you now that if I was given a choice of one or the other I would prefer Chelsea to stay in domestic competition. Of course I want my club to be in the Champions League which works because it is a competition run in conjunction with domestic leagues.
Not many. That's my point. In the current set-up, domestic leagues have not just a title race but also a CL place to fight for. And the latter is usually a much tighter race involving several teams. In a super-league world, you will only have the race for #1. Meanwhile the domestic leagues won't have any race for CL spots either. So in all leagues, all you'll have is the title race. If you get a situation like we see in the Bundesliga this season, every match from January to May will be pointless. At least now Dortmund, Frankfurt, Schalke, etc. can play for CL.
But they already get that viewer! In the CL! That will not change! They need someone who does not watch the CL. Otherwise there is no growth. And if there is no growth, why would an advertiser spend more?
I feel the same. I don't want this, I'm just explaining what some of the motivations would be. However, if both our clubs left the Premiership for such a thing, we'd both probably still watch and attend. Man Utd, Barca and Madrid already have fans accross the globe and since moving to the US, I've encountered a number of American Chelsea fans. To date, I've seen locals wearing Man City shirts on two occasions. Now you may dispute the legitimacy of their fandom, however they still buy merchandise and provide television ratings. All they need is enough people consuming on that basis. They don't necessarily need the 90% of fans from other clubs to make a mint out of this. You're missing my point or I'm not making it clearly. I'm guessing that most casual viewers didn't make a point of catching Man Utd vs Cluj or Braga. They likely did watch Chelsea vs Juventus and Real Madrid vs Man City. Manchester United don't play Real Madrid, Barcelona, AC Milan, Inter, Juventus, Bayern Munich etc, every season. They would in a Superleague. That's where your growth is. Such a league would also most likely become the destination for the World's best talent. This is where you would go to see them. The Champions League is also variable. Luis Suarez didn't play in it this season, while Sergio Aguero and David Silva won't get past six games. Even if their respective clubs didn't make the Superleague cut, those players would likely arrive before long.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the EPL television deal in the U.K. is worth over 100 times more than the EPL's TV deal in the USA. And of course as residents outside England and even outside Europe, we are contributing next to nothing in terms of ticket revenue the clubs receive. While we are living in North America we are next to useless to these clubs apart from the pocket change they get from us during their summer preseason tours.
Man Utd make as much in sponsorships yearly, as they do from Sky. Global exposure is a big part of that. Assuming the teams retain their fanbases, it's also quite feasible that any TV deal for the Superleague could surpass the EPL's.
Getting rid of the worthless Europa League and 'expanding' the Champions League may be a way to go, I just dont think English EPL fans (which are still the VAST majority of attendees on matchdays for obvious reasons) want their team removed from domestic football to play in a seperate Euro League. I dont know for sure but my guess is that fans from other Euro nations feel the same way about their domestic leagues.
I would not want to have the best Ukrainian team(s) removed from the UPL. many European fans, certainly, feel the same way.
Unite all of Europe's teams into a one big pyramid. Here's my idea with pro/rel of course. Div 1 --- 32 teams ( teams play each other once for a total of 31 games, the top 16 teams get an extra game for the next season. bottom 3 get relegated , top 8 playoffs to decide winner ) Div 2 ---32 teams , Single table all teams play each other once for a total of 31 games top 2 get promoted and the next 4 playoffs for the last promotion spot, bottom 4 teams get relegated to the regional leagues. Div 3 --- 4 different regional leagues, West, North, South and East, each league would have 18 or 20 teams, play each other twice, home and away, winner of each regional league gets promoted to the Div 2. Something like this ---------------------------------Div 1 32 teams ↑8(playoffs) ↓3 (rel)--------------------- ---------------------------------Div 2 32 teams ↑3(pro) ↓4 (rel)--------------------------- Div 3 West 20 teams ↑1 ↓3 ---Div 3 South ↑1 ↓3--- Div 3 North ↑1 ↓3---Div 3 South ↑1 ↓3 And so on and so forth......
How exciting. Who cares... How scary... I don't want it to happen and I also don't think it's gonna happen. Who forced you to follow the EL? If you don't like it, just stick with your "increase in currency" CL ... Same for some clubs who think they're too good for the EL: If they don't give a shit about it, they should just not qualify for this league or qualify for the CL!