Well, but the reason why La Liga is tucked away on BeIn is that it's not a big TV draw. That's the old "if you'd only make our product more easily and widely available it would be more popular" argument, to which the response has always been " if your product was more popular we'd make it more widely available"
As this is ball is rolling to a stop it's becoming obvious who the real backers of this move are: https://talksport.com/football/8697...ropean-super-league-real-madrid-chelsea-fans/ Everybody knows that Real Madrid has been a financial train wreck from day one of the Perez administration but they have used their wackiness to good effect because of one simple rule of always doing anything you can to be must watch TV. That chaotic nature is currently biting them in their butt because of the pandemic. Suddenly, everything is harder and they have gone from the typically precarious to walking a tightrope over the jaws of Hades. The other big backer, Juventus, is in a similar situation after a full decade of dominance. Already expecting a downtrend this year. It's this situation that seems to be the true driver of ESL. The English clubs, and their American owners, are not in such a delicate situation. For all intents and purposes, the EPL is already the ESL and the top 6 clubs show little sign of being in danger of descending. If anything, the pandemic will be beneficial in the medium term as the clubs snap up bargains from financially bereft clubs around the world. Their participation is showing to have been more as a speculative opportunity to latch on to the next big thing more than as a driver of the changes. In the end, ESL or no ESL, the English clubs stand to gain big in the long term.
Well, the last time the NBA champions played the European champions was in 2010. Barcelona beat the LA Lakers 92-88. No such "Intercontinental Cup" has happened since.
It’s looking like the Spanish clubs are getting away unscathed. A couple of other LaLiga owners have been quoted saying they’ve already been punished by their fans and that they are focused on preventing it from happening again.
Something that was lost - maybe by design - with all this ESL nonsense was the ratification by UEFA of the revamped CL on Monday. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/footbal...e-will-revamp-work-will-breakaway-rebels/amp/
I remember watching Magic Johnson and the Lakers in person as they barely hung on to beat Badalona when they played in a Paris tournament. That Spanish team had some damn good players.
Spot on! I love the regional battles that pro soccer offers us followers. Perhaps it is that I am from such a diverse city in our nation like Houston where I have so many buddies from all corners of CONCACAF and certainly my players I have coached over the years are mostly CONCACAF youths (ME and Sub-Sahara Africans added to this recently!) The banter over these matches is authentic and fun year after year. I cannot fault a guy like Mr. Nice Guy Inter Milan to go seek out some soccer thread that has so many vile Americans on it, in order to vent his or her frustrations over the sudden realization in their life that all they had known, well perceived, about their club was about to get shipped away. We get relocation threats and it sucks, as an old Houston Oilers die hard, one thinks there are things that will never occur in his life but then some billionaire ruins that for you. But as Americans we grapple with this and move on. Dem boys over in Europe, they just received the Dear John letter from hell! You have hit on something that is very important. What path was our pro soccer following set on when looking back to that era. It is odd in that the old insular mindset from the suits that ran pro soccer decades ago made the NASL a "renegade league" in the eyes of FIFA suits wanting to sanction the start up league. Everyone watching back then wanted to see if pro soccer can really take off in the United States. Certainly the earnings potential in such a sports crazed market like our culture. Well, the NASL league leaders stuck to their guns and went non FIFA clock, shoot outs, no regional play and other gimmicks to go long on the "Americanize the sport". The thinking of course is to grow the sport this way is best. Which of course who knows how the NASL goes, well our pro soccer culture's intimacy with the beautiful game, if those league suits go FIFA standard clock, a point race season, look to play regional opponents and no shootouts or gimmicks. Even if the league folds due to all the relocations and funding issues, MLS suits most likely would have never had the same hiccups early on by following most of that same mindset. We all know the old NASL folds by '84 but as we look back decades later there is the legacy of that era in that the youth soccer boom of the 70's and 80's saw the an entire generation of American kids get introduced to the sport. As we stand now, that old insular mindset is still very strong with many pro soccer fans in our culture. Which rubs the so called purists down at the sports bar the wrong way something awful so they ditch on the ever booming American pro and armature soccer scene. Then there are all of us MLS junkies that are caught in the middle of having to explain to our friends on both sides of the isle why enjoying an MLS game in CCL play these days is the right thing to do! Um Bill, putting the "Intercontinental Cup" aside, the L.A. Lakers will need to defeat our U.S.A. Olympic National Team first. A Team U.S.A. comprised of all the best Americans across the rest of the NBA to be the best team in the world. Which honestly would be a nice competition year after year. The defending NBA champions versus an NBA U.S.A. Best V. Reminds me of back in the day when MLS HQ served up MLS U.S.A. Best XI vs. MLS Rest of the World Best XI, this format they introduced over the traditional ASG format of East vs. West. This all evolved to what we know now right with the MLS All-Stars vs. Opponent XI.
It seems like NBA teams stopped playing the European elite after Real Madrid beat the Oklahoma City Thunder in 2016: List of games played between NBA and international teams - Wikipedia The European elite can be summed up largely as: Real Madrid Barcelona CSKA Moscow Fenerbahçe Olympiacos I guess they didn't do their job as "Washington Generals" well enough. Instead there is a lot of Chinese and Aussie teams...
I had a friend in high school whos uncle made a very nice living playing and coaching basketball in Australia. I think i still have some gear stored away somewhere. Might have to dig it out.
As we talk about nba teams losing friendlies, let's remember that the Kansas city wizards beat Manchester United.
The thing is - if there is no direct competition then there is no way to gauge. Maybe there should be a World Club Championships for basketball, baseball, etc. I'm sure the Euro teams would like that, as would the Mexican/Asian/Central American baseball teams. It is the peak of hubris to believe that you are too talented to be tested against world wide competition.
And iirc the very next day the K.C. front office phones were ringing off the hook with locals wanting to now step up and purchase tickets to Wizards home games! The one time I was able to communicate with J.J. Watt of the NFL, I asked him now that he displayed a following for Chelsea and a passion for growing soccer in the U.S. that would he and others in the NFL kick around the idea of having a the very least a once every four or five years, a U.S.A. vs Canada gridiron game of National Teams. Follow up question was, would he envision captain the team. It appears that ol' Danny Ferry's Italian pro basketball team Il Messaggero (now Virtus Roma) did not make the list then.
I think the NBA's decision to cease these "friendlies" was a case of realizing that they had more to lose than gain by playing these. Win and it was expected. Lose and people could question if the NBA was the number 1 league. The NBA is not gonna do anything to threaten their place as the arbiters of basketball. Which is too bad, because how much fun would it be to see the NBA Champs play in a legit international club tournament to be crowned true World Champions? I think a lot of fun, but again no way the NBA lets FIBA in on something like this. Kudos to FIFA for scheduling a CWC and to teams like Bayern who could claim "We are the best and it is too risky for us to play Tigres" but who go ahead and participate still. That gets my respect. To pull this back to the ESL, while we are happy today with the demise (for now) of the ESL, we should remember that it is probably not illegal as a structure. EuroLeague basketball is structured where they have 11 permanent members with 7 slots open for qualifiers, pretty much what the renegade 12 soccer clubs were proposing. Wouldn't be shocked if it was that model that the ESL teams were copying. Soccer fans will need to stay vigilant as I'm sure we have not seen the last of ESL type proposals.
That's not exactly true. BeIn can afford to overpay for the rights because its an existential matter to them to keep La Liga. There is no reason for BeIn to exist in the US without La Liga rights.
The one thing that's been consistent in the past 20 years is how much easier it is to find soccer matches on U.S. networks than it is in Europe. When I go back to France, access to top level football on TV is not even close to what we get here. Ligue 1 matches have historically required a subscription to Canal +.
Exactly my point with the tongue in check "Washington Generals" comment. I think it's extremely short-sighted. Participating in an "Intercontinental Cup" or global "Final Four" of sorts only risks a fraction of your reputation. The odd upset (1 in 10?) won't make people question your overall dominance but it would do wonders for the sport elsewhere. Let's say in 10 games 1 is an upset, four are reasonably close and five are dominant victories by the NBA champions. That means half the time the fans of the underdog go home happy, with a strong sense of pride in their domestic teams. These are the kind of nights that create new fans for a sport, together with World Cup like events that offer the sport's best players in one competition. I am certain those Barcelona basketball fans are going to remember their win over the Lakers for a long time, even if it was just an exhibition. Just like Tigres fans will remember their respectable loss to Bayern. I have mentioned it previously in the thread, but the likes of the NBA and NHL aren't really interested in growing their respective sports internationally. Quite the opposite I would argue. They suffocate it to some extent. Their idea of growing the sport is picking up the odd Lakers fan in China who will probably lose interest down the line because of lack of local relevance. Just like an American casual fan will move on from Chelsea once Christian Pulisic does. Truly growing the sport around the world (with real local relevance) would eventually benefit them commercially too, but they can't seem to grasp that. I'm not sure if you are aware, but the basketball EuroLeague has fallen out with FIBA, just like the KHL has fallen out with the IIHF in hockey. Both sports are extremely fractured right now. It's why I say be careful what you wish for when hoping for FIFA's demise. Without a strong central regulator to enforce some rules it all goes to pieces.
Somewhat aware. I don't want what's happened in Euro basketball and hockey to happen in soccer. The fact that the KHL and EuroLeague exist though means that something similar is at least legal and possible in soccer. If fans hate it and don't attend or watch it won't survive, but it doesn't seem that it could be stopped via legal challenges as the rules are today. Fans of Euro hockey and basketball must be ok with it in sufficient numbers that those leagues can survive. I think that the ESL teams probably thought that FIFA/UEFA's brands were so damaged by their corruption that this was the time to make their move. There plan was so poorly conceived, so poorly planned, and so poorly rolled out, however that it had no chance. Doesn't mean a better conceived, structured and presented plan won't be coming from these big teams in the future. This story is not over.
Right, back to the ESL. They will have to grease a lot more than UEFA executives if such a league is going to be implemented in the existing governance structures. There will have to be massive "solidarity payments" to the rest of the pyramid. Solidarity payments were also supposed to be part of this ESL but for some reason they never explained it in detail which tells me it wasn't a concept treated in good faith. I do believe that a ESL could rival if not eclipse NFL revenues but still not sure if the math adds up when you consider the solidarity angle. And there will have to be promotion and relegation of some kind. Not permanent members. Perhaps the Europa League could act as the promotion mechanism. You could also have "relegation playoffs" to keep things interesting at the bottom. The most tricky aspect is continued domestic league participation. Without having to qualify for the ESL you could see B line-ups in domestic league matches. So the question becomes, what devalues a domestic leagues more? The "super" clubs leaving to participate solely in the ESL or resting players in league matches?
Whatever they bring to the table, a closed league isnot going to happen. The political minefield they ran into doesnot go away. The state run clubs are vulnerable to political threats and it seems the United Arab Emirates as "owners"of ManCity have gotten a serious warning things for them would get very difficult in the UK if they continue. Also the fact that both the EU and the UK in concerted action can prevent sl clubs from either side of the Brexit line to play matches and the governments are in control over who gets workpermits are all indications you really are an imbecil if you donot learn a lesson out of this and that lesson is to not try it again. You maybe a billionair, or even have money overflowing from wells, but in the end the power of the EU and UK combined makes it a wreck in the making.
The NBA can't enter any serious international competitions because there just isn't enough money in it to convince the teams to care. I mean they are intentionally losing NBA games, what makes you think they will give an ounce of effort in an international tournament? Would anyone care about the Lakers Summer League team playing against Barcelona?
Agreed, so we shouldn't be surprised when ManU is asking the question "Why are we playing Granada on a Thursday night?" They think they can make more money if that game was vs. Atletico Madrid. I fully expect these teams to come up with another plan sometime in the future. This is not over.
Any suggestions how they can avoid the minefields I mapped out for them? After a country with financial resources that makes Glazer and Kroenke combined look like beggars, was kicked into submission?
To be super clear, I am not hoping for this. I am really glad The Super League died so quickly. I do think the desire to lock in more guaranteed money is going to continue to push on these clubs though. I think these clubs damaged their case and set back their cause by years with the crappy ESL proposal. But if EuroLeague Basketball and Hockey can wrest themselves away from FIBA and the IIHF, these teams know it can be done. Maybe they create a plan that, you know, actually outlines how much money they'll give to teams outside the league. Maybe if (big if) MLS gets a huge NFLesque contract (in 10 yrs? 20 yrs? ever?) and can start outbidding Barca and Man City for the next Haaland and the MLS salary cap gets large enough so that players in their prime can make the most money in soccer in the US. What if Atlanta and Seattle were the biggest, most valuable teams in the world? Maybe then UEFA and the fans agree that a ESL makes sense to try to make Europe the home of the biggest teams again. If Barca is really €1bil in debt maybe it goes bankrupt and has to sell Messi and Pique and Ansu Fati and Pedri and the other stars. There are so many unknowns it is impossible to predict. We don't know when, how or even if another proposal will appear. I just think there are enough unknowns and enough pressures out there that we have not seen the last of this.