Overbearing point on this is true, HOWEVER .... the NY football teams did begin inside NY proper. That makes a bit of a difference as opposed to the MetroStars/NYRB that were never actually NY.
The fact that the NFL thrives without a team within the New York City limits is a point worth stressing in light of MLS' fixation on putting its 20th team within those city limits despite already having one in the metro area (one which until recently shared a stadium with the two local NFL squads). MLS's fling with Queens is arguably mis-directing resources that could be used to greater advantage in growing the league in a number of other locales.
This is largely correct and a lot of folk on BS are under the misapprehension that European super clubs are some how manufactured. That may be arguable with the likes of Real Madrid but for clubs like Man Utd and Barcelona it certainly is not. Most super clubs simply evolved and Man Utd have never had a rich benefactor, they earned their status and money through success on the field and later off when soccer and its brands became more marketable. The top tier of English soccer actually started with a purer form of parity than MLS will ever achieve, that is to say it was a natural grass routes league with anyone free to form up and join though there was limited sponsorship For example Man Utd started life as Newton Heath who were formed from workers of Lancashire and Yorkshire railway who paid for the kits. Now there is a great deal more money in the game and success so well rewarded both on and off the field a natural disparity has evolved, one that does need to be looked at but without any misguided notions of parity making for a better product. Essentially a salary and transfer cap would be the best route with some sort of equation basing that on on field earnings and overall income with weighting given to on-field success. There might also be a clause that allows investors a certain amount of leeway on first purchases. I believe that would even the playing field somewhat without penalising clubs such as Man Utd for their previous achievements, after all Man Utd are in part responsible for the success of EPL as they were a world brand before the EPL was branded. MLS had to do parity in the way they have but revenue sharing (there is revenue sharing in the EPL but the big earners get a proportionate slice of the pie) and a single entity league are not something Europeans would be attracted to, especially the single entity structure. Super clubs do attract ratings but where that can be relevant to MLS is by successful marketable brands being highly visible in the league. For that reason I believe the weighting given to big name DP's and their franchises TV coverage next season is probably correct. It may be romantic to love the idea that anyone can win MLS and how lovely it would be to see each team represented equally on TV but the reality will move further and further away from that ideal the more successful the league becomes.
There is nothing accidental about Manchester United's success. Regions/cities have certain qualities that give them advantages when forming a football club. Larger, richer and more populous regions tend to have more of those advantages. I don't know much about Man U's history, but Manchester, England was one of the foremost industry cities in the world during the industrial revolution, which was around the time of that the first football leagues were coming to existence in England. The city may not be as globally renowned as London or Liverpool, but it's not like it's some tiny berg that happened to develop a great football team, especially back then. Influx of immigrants seeking labor and a huge working class population probably had lots to do with Manchester becoming a football hub. So while it's not necessarily the case that big clubs have to come from big cities, it's usually the case simply because big cities have more of the things it takes to have a big clubs.
And Pittsburgh was one of the foremost industrial cities in the world during the American industrial revolution, which is around the time the NFL came into existence. Yet, the Steelers were absolutely woeful for four decades prior to the Immaculate Reception in 1972. (And the City of Champions still doesn't have an MLS club.) Which goes to show that there is a helluva lot more that goes into developing a super club than the size of a city or its industrial capacity, and Manchester United's prominence likely correlates only loosely, if at all, with the industrial revolution or its population base. By the way, San Jose is currently the capital of Silicon Valley, the center of world innovation, and therefore is arguably THE most important city on the planet today. So, by your theorem, MLS' "super club" belongs here.
Not at all. I never made the claim that super-clubs "belong" in big cities. What I said was: If we think of football as a manufacturable product then, like any other product, it requires resource inputs. For football, those inputs include a pool of potential players and coaches, equipment, facilities for training and playing etc. Large urban areas with big populations are more likely to have access to all of those things. Does it mean clubs established in those cities are going to be guaranteed successes or top clubs? Not necessarily. After all, you must be able to manage those resources well to create a good product. But if you hold all other things equal, a person starting a club in a big city has more crucial resources at his disposal than someone from a smaller city. Manchester isn't the exception to that rule since it is not a "small town" by any reckoning. You're comparing apples to oranges with San Jose. I didn't say Man U prospered because of some abstract connection with the fact that Manchester was a booming industry town. The fact that Manchester was a booming industry town meant that a lot more of the resources needed to put together a good football team were more available there than, say, a small town in the countryside. San Jose, by contrast, is an affluent city but it's also a highly specialized one with a highly educated workforce. Most people working in San Jose probably make more at their jobs than they would as a utility player in MLS, so the circumstances are not necessarily similar.
But that isn't the case because very few resources were required back then to form a football club and there were many clubs competing equally from all around the country. Clubs from Newcastle, Tyneside, Birmingham, Liverpool and Yorkshire all won championships regularly and before Manchester United. Then you have your London clubs such as Arsenal, Tottenham and Chelsea of which none can really be considered a super club but I guess we all have different criteria there. I would say Liverpool were still a Super Club despite their lack of recent success because they have the history and the fan base and you know they will rise again just like Man Utd did. One or two things that may of helped Man Utd attain Super Club status (their brand) could of been the bombing of Old Trafford in second World war which was widely reported obviously and then the globally reported Munich air crash which killed many of the Busby Babes who themselves were rapidly gaining fame at the time for their football. Then we also had the first World super star footballer George Best (and he lived it!) and a few other legends such as Bobby Charlton. All of this added to the lore and legend of Manchester United. Of course winning a lot also helps. Yes, you need a certain level of support to attain Super Club status as well, no way a club getting under 40k as a norm can be a super club in my view as fan base is a big part of status. In that respect you are correct a super club needs to be a reasonably populous area but the Greater Manchester area only has a population of 2.2 million and of course there are many clubs in and around the region including Manchester City. There are an awful lot of cities more prosperous and populous than Manchester across Europe but few have football clubs that attain Super Club status. As I say it is not something you can manufacture or predict since there were many clubs better placed that could of/should of attained similar status but never did
I don't understand the point you're making. And you conveniently ignore my having cited Pittsburgh, which is a fairly direct American analog to Manchester. Pittsburgh sucked as a football town until after its downfall as an industrial behemoth. (It sucked at hockey, too, before, even later on, it got good.) The Steelers' (or Penguins') success demonstrably had nothing to do with the relative "resource inputs" of Pittsburgh, which were greater during the days when it sucked at football (and hockey) -- just as ManCity's recent success is based on a Middle East sheik's oil fortune rather than Manchester's historical industrial might, and just as the Galaxy's success is at best indirectly related to the resource inputs of L.A. (Uncle Phil lives in Denver).
I know that. I didn't "conveniently ignore" anything. The Pittsburgh example doesn't undermine my point, since I never claimed that industrial cities will have top sports teams. I claimed that big cities in general will have more of the things it takes to make sustain a top sports team or a sports team in general. Do you really find that to be a controversial statement? Your argument proves my point. Why would an oil sheikh invest in a Manchester based team and not in a team from UAE? Why would AEG invest in a franchise in Los Angeles and not his own back yard? Because businessmen aren't stupid and they invest where they think their business will succeed the most.
Not at all. Why would an oil sheik invest in Manchester based team and not a team from London? or Tokyo? or Shanghai? or NY? or LA? All of which are larger and sexier cities than Manchester.
You're not really paying attention to what I said. I'm not claiming there is a one-to-one connection between a city's size and the sucess of its sports franchises. I named specific things about the type of city Manchester was/is, in addition to the fact that it was prosperous and populated that could've contributed to Man U's success, even moreso than in a "bigger" city like London. So it isn't just the size of the city; it depends on local amenities and details about the population. In general, big cities have more advantages in most types of business, including sports franchises--which is why all kinds of businesses locate in big cities.Using Manchester as an example that subverts this rule is silly since Manchester, like Pittsburgh, is itself a big city.
In the soccer world, Manchester is a huge and established soccer town that is already home to one super-club, obviously. But, again, you prove my point (thank you) since there've also been large cash investments (both from foreign and domestic investors) in teams in Los Angeles, New York, Shanghai and Tokyo--not to mention Paris, Rome and London (Chelsea ring a bell?).
You're not really paying attention to the fact that Mucky is from Manchester and, therefore, likely has a better understanding of why ManU is a super club than you do. When you equivocate, by saying "it isn't just the size of the city; it depends on local amenities and details about the population," you give up the game. In effect, you're saying, "each case is unique," in order to explain why Manchester is a better soccer city than larger London or Pittsburgh is a better American football city than larger Philadelphia. A bigger (i.e., more populus) city doesn't necessarily make better when it comes to super clubs. Thanks for conceding this self-evident point.
And Mucky, being on the scene, has explained why, while you have expostulated counter-factual theories that offer no explanation.
My understanding is that Uncle Phil is divesting from AEG. It is therefore highly uncertain that any preferential investment flow to the Galaxy will continue in the future. The movie industry, and the defense industry, are also in flux. Also, California's state government is a mess, and there is outmigration among the wealthy and professional classes. And there's that ever-present question of water rights in the West, not to mention those pesky earthquakes, all of which could adversely impact investment in L.A. and its "super club."
That's not obvious so far. How am I "giving up the game"? You are the one trying to box the conversation into strictly city size. I'm merely correcting your misunderstanding. 1. I said that clubs started in large, populous cities are likely to have more advantages than clubs started in smaller ones. In this definition, both Manchester and London would qualify as large, populous cities (and so would Pittsburgh, for that matter). If you disagree with that, then you should cite an example of a real small city (i.e. not Manchester) that has a super-club. 2. Among clubs started in large cities with similar populations and amenities, marginal differences between clubs will probably boil down to other factors (i.e. managing resources, access to outside money etc.) or differences in local amenities (for example: San Diego may have more natural advantages for building a soccer club than New York, even though New York is larger and more populated). Trying to say that Man U being a bigger club than, say, Chelsea or Arsenal (all are obviously super-clubs) doesn't prove anything, because we're talking about marginal differences between them. You guys are trying to make it seem like Manchester is some po-dunk town that accidentally came up with one of the world's most prominent soccer teams.
Untrue, as evidenced by my previous statement: "A bigger (i.e., more populus) city doesn't necessarily make better when it comes to super clubs."
Not really. He explained a couple factors that might've contributed to Man U's popularity and growth as a brand over the years, but not the factors that lead to them being able to put together a successful football team to begin with. In fact, let's use Mucky's own idea and go to the turn of the 20th century and pretend the first league in England has just been established. Do you think all teams in all cities have an equal chance at success, or will teams started in some cities have some natural advantages/disadvantages because of where they are located?
That's probably the best example there is, but it's the exception that proves the rule. I ask you: if the mob gave you money to invest in a sport's team today, would Green Bay, WI be the first city you'd pick?
You said that in response to a post I made in which I mentioned several local factors that might have some influence on a club's success. You and Mucky focused strictly on city size only. The post you just quoted is "evidence" of you doing exactly what I said you were doing. Like literally.
If you were starting over and predicting the future purely according to your theory, Manchester United would not be at the top of the heap.