TV fans around the world are attracted to the big clubs who are winning things currently, and that's why the big clubs have seem their money from merchandising and sponsorship rocket away from everyone else. The gap isn't closing, it's getting wider. The premier league is closer this year because the big 4 are all having nightmare seasons, not because the rest is catching up.
The gap in most leagues is indeed widening since none of the domestic leagues bar one, have the kind of TV money that can touch the global marketing money that can be earned by the top clubs that can compete in Europe who contend to win the Champions League. La Liga, Serie A, the Bundesliga, none of them filter down big money to the bottom of the table teams. The Premier League is a completely different case due to their massive global TV deal. If it was true that this was just a blip on the radar due to nightmare seasons by the Big 4, then in next year's odds, we'd see the same gaps between the haves and have-nots that we see in Germany, Italy, and Spain, right? Not so! The odds on next year's champion are closer than they've been in recent memory: Manchester City +189 Chelsea: +596 Arsenal: +596 Tottenham Hotspur: +673 Manchester United: +721 Liverpool: +946 Leicester City: +3000 No, in point of fact, the TV money is a game-changer for the Premier League allowing teams at the bottom of the table to be much more competitive with teams at the middle, and teams at the middle to be much more competitive with teams at the top. As much money as is currently associated with the Premier League with a relatively competitive league where the worst teams are relatively competitive clubs such as Aston Villa and Newcastle, a league where the bottom teams are instead someone like Zenit St. Petersburg or Wolfsburg would be even more competitive, even more exciting, and even more globally marketable. The money would grow and grow until the bottom teams that stayed in the league would look much more like the Borussia Dortmunds and Atletico Madrids of today then the Wolfsburgs and Zenits, and you'd have a truly competitive European football crown where every week was a battle, and as many as a dozen teams started the year with legitimate chances at winning the crown.
I don't want a Super League, but if a Super League is created, Tottenham is good enough to be considered for it. How would England know before the season starts how many clubs the Premier League (without the Super League clubs) would relegate to League Championship without knowing how many English clubs (if any) would get relegated from the Super League to the Premier League?
I don't really get excited about the idea of Super League. However I would wan't to see more international games for even the lowest leagues.
They wouldn't. It would be dependent on what happens with the Super League and the European promotion playoffs. Which would actually make the race at the bottom of the table more interesting since while 17th would probably be safe, you'd need more like 15th to guarantee you were staying up, and each place up toward the bottom of the table would have value in terms of a higher percentage of staying in the league. Alternately, if you wanted to lock things in more, you could have a "Western European Elite League" and and "Eastern European Elite League" below the Super League where the top 2 teams from each league go up the next year, and the bottom 2 teams from each side of the East/West divide go down. Then the Premier League champion could he guaranteed to go up into the Western European Elite league. As I've said before, there are many ways to do this, but splitting one league out into multiple regional leagues is a problem that's been dealt with many times successfully in many different domestic leagues at lower divisions throughout the history of football.
Not knowing how many relegation spots there are before the season might be okay with you, but that doesn't mean it's okay with the Premier League and its clubs. There's a season of lag time between changes in the UEFA Country Coefficients and changes in how many Champions League and Europa League spots each country gets and what round its clubs start in so that the number of Champions League spots the Premier League gets is known through the whole season. Would NBA fans be okay with not knowing at the start of the season how many teams the playoffs would have?
With a Super League, the Champions League wouldn't exist in anywhere near its current format. If it did, it would probably just be as a simple cup competition that was a secondary trophy instead of as the determinant of the true European champions. The competitors in that competition from outside the Super League would likely be based purely on league position irrespective of who got relegated from the Super League. Same for Europa League. The only thing Super League relegation would affect would be how many teams were relegated from the top domestic leagues. Also, the fact is that the big clubs really have all the leverage right now. If the Top 20 richest clubs decide they wanna leave FIFA for good and have their own closed shop league, it will be far and away the richest league in the history of football, and a huge success without any help from the lower level teams at all. So if you're someone like West Brom, your choices are, face the slight discomfort of occasionally not knowing what place you'll need to avoid relegation (even though the number will usually be the same) or lock yourself out of the big money of the Super League forever condemning yourself to second tier at best for the entire future of your club. Seems like a pretty easy decision to me. While I feel like I've showed pretty clearly why your comparison of not knowing how many teams would make the playoffs in the NBA is invalid, I do think cross league comparisons are valid, and I want to ask you a question of your own. Do you think NBA fans would be OK with the championship in their main competition being decided by a team that was not one of the Top 60 teams in the world? If the NBA had a single table, and the Warriors were 67-10 with 5 games to go while the Spurs were 66-11, what would NBA fans think about the league title being decided by whether the Warriors dropped a game not to the Spurs, not to the Lakers, not even to a Euroleague-caliber team, but to 5 Eurocup-caliber teams like Trabzon and Oldenburg? I'm sure that if you suggested this to any NBA fan, they'd find it ridiculously dull and anticlimactic. Yet this is exactly the same situation faced by arguably the two most talented football teams in the world, Barcelona and Real Madrid. Real, sitting one point back with 5 games to go has to sweat out results from Granada, Espanyol, and Deportivo for any chance of passing Barca, teams of similar relative talent to Oldenburg in basketball. Now, this is not to say the format for American sports is categorically better than the format for football. They each have their own problems. For instance, the NBA regular season is made meaningless, not by putting teams against inferior competition, but by letting so many teams into the playoffs that all the teams who even have a sniff of winning the trophy (plus many more) qualify for the postseason easily. Both systems have their flaws. However, putting all the top teams together in the same league to create more competitive match ups is clearly a good, fan-friendly strategy to make the sport more exciting. In the global era we live in where many teams decide the success or failure of their seasons based on continental competitions, I think we're clearly past the stage of having to force teams to play out their major competition within narrow national borders even when the quality varies greatly amongst the various squads.
Ya something like that. I see so rarely any finnish teams play international football so it would be interesting. However this will unlikely ever be possible, because lack of resources.
That's true, but sadly not for the reasons you suggest. It hasn't been close this year because other sides have caught the big 4. It's because the big 4 have been crap this year, and they are expected to probably have problems next year too. They've been saying that tv money will be a game changer for nearly 25 years now. It hasn't stopped the game getting more stratified, and the league is nothing like as competitive as it was before the premier league.
Check out the "Anglo Italian Cup" which was played between the 2nd tier clubs of England and Italy. Crowds often didn't even break four figures in Italy, and weren't much better in England.
If you really think clubs who want to form a super league would want pro/rel to be part of it, you really haven't thought about why those clubs would want it. It's purely about greed, and their "right" to the games riches forever.
They'd be so happy it was happening at all, they wouldn't object to promotion/relegation being a part of it. The clubs with the most leverage like Real, Bayern, PSG, etc., would never be able to imagine a world where they got relegated anyway, and the mid-tier teams would just be chasing the top teams, trying to get whatever piece of the pie they could.
Do you have any knowledge of finance and the costs of starting up and the time it takes to get it up and running? These clubs derive their richness from the leagues they are in and the moment they leave are cut off from 80% of their yearly revenue. Did you bother to make any calculation of how much that SL has to cough up to support those 20 clubs to ride out the revenue gap until they can see earnings from the SL?
You think somebody is going to set up a league for their benefit? If there's a league it'll be set up by those clubs, purely for them. Set up a 20 team league an an equal basis, and there'd be very few clubs who'd not fear the drop. The lesser half would probably wonder what's in it for them, giving up being a glamorous big fish in their own leagues for the chance to be a perpetual also ran. And there's also no doubt that the current elite would want the rules tweaked so they can remain top dogs in this new set-up. There's no was Real Madrid would join a league where they wouldn't be all but guaranteed to be a title challenger every year.
You don't think they could get a TV deal set up for their first season? You don't think evey network in the world wouldn't be falling over themselves to bid billions of dollars for the first Super League season in football history? They'd probably get something on the order of $5 billion/year for the worldwide television rights. The English clubs would see their TV revenues at least double and most of the clubs would see them make much larger gains than that.
If the big clubs make a credible enough threat to break away, I think UEFA could set up a merit-based Super League with initial membership based upon league position and Champions League success and then promotion/relegation in the future. If you're a big fish in your current league and you're fearing the drop in the Super League, that means you're likely in a league that doesn't generate much revenue at all like Portugal. So what's in it for you? The chance to compete against the best on the world and make 10x as much money. You might as well ask what's in it for Hull City trying to win their promotion playoff to the Premier League when they could be a "big fish" in the Championship. Plus if they do get relegated, all that will happen is they'll be back in their top domestic league with a nice cash infusion.
I donot want to sound patronizing, but when you make these assertions, do you bother to make calculations in your head? You think the networks have the money in their treasurechests lying around to double their expenditure while they have no clue if the advertisers are going to pay both for the long term contracts that are running and this new one? Did you have a look at the numbers of the Deloitte money league at all, or are you just having your phantasy go wild. Please come up with numbers based on sources, not your wildest dreams. If I would be going to exagerrate in the opposite direction, at least I would do it with numbers at hand, like the money league.
Here's some good fair objective criteria for qualifying for the Super League. First, automatic qualifiers: 1. Champions League group winners from previous year: (Real Madrid, Wolfsburg, Atletico Madrid, Manchester City, Barcelona, Zenit St. Petersburg) 2. Champions League quarterfinalists from previous year: (PSG, Benfica) 3. Champions of Leagues 1-4 (Leicester City, Juventus) Now technically, this could be all 20 teams if every group winner in CL lost their R16 match, and none of the top 4 league champions qualified out of group in CL. Realistically, there are a lot more spots available though. So, in order I'd go: 4. Europa League winner (Sevilla) 5. Champions of League 5-6 6. Runners up of Leagues 1-4 (Tottenham Hotspur, Borussia Dortmund, Napoli) 7. 3rd place teams from Leagues 1-4 who also made R16 of CL (Arsenal, Roma) 8. Runners up of Leagues 5-6 who also made R16 of CL 9. League champions from any league who made R16 of CL (PSV Eindhoven, Dynamo Kyiv) At this point, all 20 spots in the league would be filled, but more criteria would exist in case the Champions League teams and the top league teams were all the same. 10. 4th place teams from Leagues 1-4 who also made R16 of CL 11. 3rd place teams from Leagues 5-6 who also made R16 of CL 12. 3rd place teams from Leagues 1-4 who did not make R16 of CL 13. Runners up of Leagues 5-6 who did not make R16 of CL 14. Any remaining CL R16 teams 15. Champions of Leagues 7-10 Final Super League sides: Real Madrid Barcelona Atletico Madrid Sevilla Bayern Munich Borussia Dortmund Wolfsburg Juventus Roma Napoli Manchester City Arsenal Chelsea Tottenham Hotspur Leicester City Paris Saint Germain Benfica Zenit St. Petersburg PSV Eindhoven Dynamo Kyiv This is done completely based on performance, making it very open and democratic with access across Europe. There will be a few relative minnows fighting to beat the drop (Wolfsburg, Leicester, Zenit, PSV, Dynamo Kyiv), but even they will be much more competitive than the minnows in the current European leagues, and overall we'll be treated to exciting football week in and week out. Also, having the initial season represented across 9 countries should make it truly feel like a competition for all of Europe. Meanwhile, the remaining leagues will still be left with enough big name teams to keep their relevance as those teams scratch and claw to make their way up into the Super League. Looks very exciting to me, I know I'd be watching.
By basing your selected teams on merit you've gone against what the Super League would be all about. Money. Leicester City and Spurs getting included but no Manchester United or Liverpool? No Milan or Inter? A Super League would be all about the markets and the money. There is no way it would be a meritocracy, and that is where you scenario of promotion and relegation back to national leagues would fall down. It would be invite only, with only the clubs greedy enough and global enough in terms of appeal and market, being considered. Also, frankly I can't see that there are 20 teams that would fit the "Super League" criteria of pots of cash and global mass market appeal, so there would always be some less interesting matches. It seems to me that a Super League is something that would receive support from the global fan base - those who may or may not have a favourite team, but watch the best European teams regularly. But it would have very little support from those team's actual fans - those who turn up to watch them. It would also have zero support from the actual fans of other clubs - i.e. the majority within Europe. Globalisation is all well and good, but it is surely wrong to think about creating a product (god I hate that word when talking about football) focusing on the global audience rather than those with a greater vested interest in those clubs.
I agree. Also I fail to see what is in this for the biggest of clubs (excluding those who pay money to shareholders in England). Currently Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Munich are all guaranteed qualification for the Champions League and it is almost as certain that they will progress to the knock out rounds. Why would they want to change this system? What is in it for them? More money is no use if their competitors also receive similar amounts of extra money. It just goes to players. We have seen how the increase in importance of TV money has affected the Premier League. TV money is paid out on a 2:1 ratio to the best team compared to the worst team. Sponsorship and ticket money is earned by the large clubs in much greater quantities than the small clubs. The smaller clubs in England now have a budget that is a higher percentage of the total than they did 5 or 10 years ago. Probably the highest since clubs stopped splitting gate receipts with the away side in the 1980s. Joining a Super League with a reasonably even distribution of TV money immediately wipes out a substantial part of the financial advantage that the likes of Real Madrid have. I can only see Real Madrid, Barcelona and Bayern Munich wanting to join a Super League if they were guaranteed a slice of the pie several times larger than the smaller clubs. Otherwise why would they do it? All they would be doing is increasing competition and reducing their chances of winning trophies. Without even distribution of money what is the point in other teams joining? They currently do well in their domestic league and they would be swapping that for getting beaten regularly by great teams. Not to mention the outrage amongst supporters of all the clubs excluded. Perhaps I have suffered a lack of imagination somewhere. If so please point this out.
It doesn't seem like an issue right now since the top English teams have had such a bad run lately, but the fact is that more and more revenue is pouring into England in relation to the other leagues. This next TV deal for the Premier League will be a big boost to that, and the deal after when we've actually had 6 or 7 teams competing for the title a few years will be even better still. If this keeps going another 10 years, instead of the Big 3 clubs being Real, Barca, and Bayern, it will likely be United, Chelsea, and City instead. Thus, it's definitely in the interest of the current Big 3 to try to band together and build a Super League before they're displaced.
I buy that argument as to what Real et al would like but why would anyone want to go along with that? Any structure that allows their continued financial dominance places the others as purely a supporting cast. It is difficult to see a solution that satisfies all parties. The clubs from smaller leagues want to be on an equal footing and anything that allows that is against the interests of Bayern, Barca and Real. The money available in England should see English clubs competing for the best players again but they will not be significantly ahead of current big three financially.
Which is hypocritical and hopeful that everyone else is complicit with their aspirations for a ruled-permanent caste system. Basically the only people who want this are the rich clubs (and their fans) who don't ever want to stop being rich and/or are envious of the money flowing to England. Goody for them.
Displaced in what sense? The financial dominance in tv revenues already exists for a decade, but it didnot help the EPL clubs one jota for years now. Liverpool are miles ahead financially to Sevilla, but it took Sevilla only one half kicking the pedal to the metal to make them look like schoolboys.