You're wrong. The United games are going to be big for many years no matter what. Just like for Newcastle fans beating United in the FA cup today would be bigger then beating Fullham.
TV fans perspective? I think it's more what you have. You say a game against a team isn't important unless it's a league decider. I say the last decade+ rivalry with United isn't going to go away the second it's not going to decide the league. It's just not how it works.
You seem to be arguing that being a more attractive match than a match v an average Fulham team means it would always be a big game. Yes, there will always be a certain glamour to a Man Utd fixture that will make it seem a more appealing game than a game v an ordinary midtable club, but that doesn't mean it must be a massive game, with the same appeal as now. For example..., four random Rothmans yearbooks (the only 4 I have left) for the early 80s show that Arsenal v Spurs drew a bigger crowd (sometimes by a big margin) than Arsenal v Man Utd in 80/81, 83/84, 84/85 & 85/86. So no, Arsenal v Man Utd won't be run-of-the-mill quite like Blackburn v Fulham might, but it won't by any stretch still be a big game in the way it is now if the title wasn't being battled for. There is no rivalry between Arsenal and Man Utd beyond the title battle.
the only games that are truly important are ones where there's a lot at stake. The stakes could be about titles/promotions/relegations etc, or it could be a game v local rivals. Man Utd aren't Arsenal rivals in anything but the title race. You are just too detached from the everyday lives of fans to understand what's important to them, and why certain games are meaningful.
Isn't that how rivalries are created? Fighting over titles or supremacy in a city? The rivalry has already been created over the past 20 years. It's not going to go away over night.
So Barca v Real wouldn't be big unless both teams can win the title? You're the one who think only the top four games are important. Real fans don't think that way. Maybe it's because you're American. I dunno.
No. It's not about supremacy in a city. It's about living among people who support the other side, and getting one up on them. That's why all true rivalries are nearly always local. You can't get that when the other team's fans live two hundred miles away. You can point to Real Madrid v Barcelona as a non-local rivalry, but there's more history to that than just sporting. Virtually all genuine rivalries are local.
I'm not even sure that a Superleague would be really that good financially speaking. Let me explain this. What's good about the Champions League is the thrill of the playoff games. The first round is always a bit boring. The real thing hasn't really started yet. I agree that a Championship can be thrilling too... but if a team dominates it and is champion when 8 games remain to be played, it's just not the same thing. Now, if the purpose of the "euro-league" is to consider the 8 or 16 first teams who qualify for the playoffs, then it's a rather meaningless league. Just a CL first round, only even more boring. Making it a close league would just kill the interest for lower ranked teams. And if that "super-league" means there's no more national championships and cups, then there will necessarily be less games where something is at stakes, since there will be less title to win. All in all, I hardly see how this could financially be good for clubs. Granted you have more games against top teams, but if they wouldn't have much value, it's just pointless. If that would only be about me, I think it's smarter to merge smaller championships rather than to create a euroleague. Nice evolution could be merger of Netherlands and Belgium, Scandinavian countries, British Isles countries, Central European countries...
So you really have no idea why Fulham fans would love to beat Chelsea? A win for them, after all, wouldn't prove that Fulham were superior.
I actually like the idea of a Superleague to some extent but think the negative effects on domestic leagues would probably not be good. That said, I haven't seen the specific good arguments for it in this thread, which are IMHO: 1. Overall higher level of play. Given that all of the involved teams would be what we currently consider "superclubs", all would have pretty high financial resources and talented rosters. That would mean that week in and week out you would have competitive interesting games. Even a game versus a top of the table team and a botton table team would be more competitive in general than we see in similar types of games in domestic leagues (where often the lesser teams just plays negative style and hopes for a draw). 2. I would think that there would be more parity and variety of champions or teams competing for a championship in such a league. Each team should have enough of a name cache at this point to not be down indefinitely. We see a variety of teams compete and perform in the UEFA CL and this would probably be similar. Off hand, even if it is a "closed" league, the teams could in theory still participate in their domestic cup competitions with the probably approval of FIFA and their federations.
that's true, provided they put rules in place to stop teams being able to vastly outspend the others, or you'd just get, in time, the same as now with haves and gave nots. What you would lose is the detail that the competition would effectively be reduced to the title race, and nothing else. The season would be dead for most teams by October. Actually you don't. Get down to the last 8 and it's dominated by clubs from England, Spain and Italy, and some of those wouldn't keep up if it was a league rather than a cup.
For Fulham fans, on that night, they are superior if they win. But that's not really a rivalry. It's just a derby. Not all derbys are rivalries.
OK. You really have no idea. You support a team from another country, so you can't really be expected to fully understand. Like I said, you know football from tv, so naturally the reasons why you find a game important are going to vary from a fan who supports his local club. To you, Arsenal playing Spurs is just a chance of three points, and means no more than beating Blackburn or Stoke. Somebody actually from London might have a rather different viewpoint.
This coming from an American pretending he's from Berkishire. Hilarious. Ya know, England isn't the only place on earth with sports. Did you know this? You don't think anyone except people from London knows what a rivalry is? Hammers fans want nothing more then to beat Spurs. Does that make it a rivalry? Because, quite frankly, I don't know a Spurs fan who gives a rats ass about Hammers. Maybe there's some Spurs fans in your US Berkishire world who can shed some light on this. It's not a rivalry if one sides don't give a shit.
Exactly. For guys like Richard who only care about top four games everything else is run of the mill. It's not. Just because not everyone cares doesn't mean it's not big. It's like England v Scotland. Or USA v Mexico. No one outside of those countries care about the game but it's still huge for those fans.
You really have an annoying way of not making a point. Let's break it down. 1. To you a rivalry only exist if the teams are from the same city or they're fighting over trophies. 2. To you a rivalry between non-locals, no matter for how long it's lasted, will end immediately if one or both teams are not fighting for trophies. 3. To you a game is run of the mill unless everyone cares about it. That about sums it up. It's quite laughable to be honest.
better than not having one. pretty much so. There are exceptions such as Real Madrid v Barcelona, or even Chelsea v Leeds, which has a little spice for other reasons, but that's about it. Yep, that's pretty much it. It'll cease to be relevant without that "edge" to the fixture. Run of the mill means "ordinary". A local derby will never be ordinary to the fans of the teams, although it might easily be ordinary to neutrals. He who laughs last did not get the joke.
Completely false. Fiorentina v Juventus. Completely false. Liverpool v United. Completely false. Argentina v Brazil.
Fiorentina v. Juventus is a derby. Just like Inter v. Juventus. Its due to historical differences between the two clubs. Liverpool v. United is a local rivalry with only 40 miles between them. Add to it that in the 80's while Liverpool was winning Man U was a shell of itself. Argentina vs. Brazil is important to the fanboys who like big name players. I dont care about it if its the U-20's verse each other.