The problem with using this for college sports is that player turnover is guaranteed. In professional sports, qualification for a Champions League type competition may help the club retain top players. In college sports, there is no way to retain top players who graduate or run out of eligibility.
Also, the colleges make more than enough $ as is. And I think there's a concern that the more professional college football gets, the less likely people are to send them free money.
It was a bit of a lark...but...we see the same programs on top year after year, if turnover were such an issue, youd think alabama would maybe struggle once in a while? I'm fine with NCAAF forming a superleague, the conference memberships are kinda comical at this point compared to their historical founding (acc, sec, etc)
After Bielsa laid out "this is how you beat Derby" in that press conference they had to do something new
Why indeed! They've made a huge error no!? What they should have done is improved their academy or gotten better players for less money no? After all Derby County are not by any means the club with the lowest turnover in the league! If they want to get back to the Premier League I suggest they are run better, get better managers, get better players and cut out all the 'dead wood' they've undoubtedly amassed over the last few years!! My club (Chelsea) was the glamour club in the late sixties and early seventies but then was run as badly as Derby is now in the late seventies and early eighties. We fell from top 6 to the bottom of the second division over a period of about 8 years, luckily we then got a new chairman, a man (bought the club for ONE POUND) called Bates who started the transformation of the club back to the pinnacle of English football. In other words we went from 'winning' to 'losing' and back to 'winning' again! That's how it goes for most clubs.
Holy wow ... In general better players cost more money, not less. Improving the quality of your academy ... costs money. A better quality manager will likely, yeah ... But, imagine this, you didn't address what I posited. You just regurgitated the same crap for the umpteenth time.
Spending more money doesn’t equate to being better, though. So you can spend wisely, build a coherent roster and gain promotion, or you can just throw good money after bad in the hope that fielding 18 expensive players will pay off.
Of course it addressed what you posted! The fact is Derby County f*cked up the management of the club! Nobody forced Derby to spend more than they had, other clubs don't have the same problem, now Derby will have to cut their cloth accordingly that's how ALL other clubs have to operate! If they want more money they are going to have to get more success, if they want more success they better get a better team - but here is the thing - EVERY other team is in the same boat and they ALL want success and more money! Somebody will end up last, somebody will end up first - that's the whole point of competition, that's the name of the game, that's why English football is so bloody competitive! In what way, shape or form have I NOT addressed what you posted?
Sure, being good at spending money is diff than spending money. Though, what about what I said isn't true? A championship club in the bottom half of the league is clearly lacking quality to gain promotion. In order to bring in better quality they have to spend. Whether that is on infrastructure, management, or players is irrelevant. You can hit a home run or whiff entirely in all of those aspects. Fact remains that in order to be significantly better than you are, you have to spend money to obtain the quality needed to be significantly better. Everyone's favorite Cinderella did it (Leicester) and even Brentford did it (infrastructure and much bigger incoming fee turnover to outgoing fees to build the squad) ... and how do you suppose that occurs? Oh, and I'm sure the ever elusive dangling carrot of riches above them has NOTHING to do with maybe taking a shot beyond means eh
Nobody forces ANY club to spend beyond their means, nobody, Brighton very slowly but surely made their way up from the bottom of League 2 to equal 2nd in the Premier League, if they can anybody can. When Brighton were in League 2 they couldn't 'compete' with the Premier League - of course they didn't try to! They cut their cloth accordingly. Of course promotion to League 1 made them richer, which meant if they spent wisely they could buy better players and compete in League 1, of course when promoted to the Championship that made them richer still, which meant if they spent cash wisely they could buy better players and compete in the Championship, now of course they are in the Premier League , they're one of the richest clubs in the world and they are raking in money like never before - lets see if they spend wisely! I suggest right now their management team is rather better than Derby's! THATS HOW YOU DO IT. Why should Derby County be treated any differently to Stockport County?
One thing we agree on is the Championship is a mess. And part of the reason it's a mess are clubs trying to chase the golden ticket of the premier league. Basically the huge amounts of money available in the prem has turned the championship into a casino. Not disagreeing with that. So what's the solution? Pulling up the ladder and ending pro/rel, or maybe having genuine effective governance and even a hard salary cap? I know which I prefer how about you
Actually been thinking about the intersection of Pro/rel and college football a lot lately. And it's not just me saw an article about it on the Athletic at the start of the season and even Dabbo Swinney mentioned it during a pre-season presser (tongue was firmly in cheek but was still mentioned). So my solution to the FBS. 1.First pay the players. I looked at the numbers during lock down and all but two of the power five conferences were turning a profit on football. The guys risking their bodies for it should get a cut. 2. Shrink the power 5 into 3 16 team conferences. Pac-12, Big XI, SEC. Pac 12 gets all of Texas, Big XI gets ND and the Northeast, SEC gets the rest of Florida and Clemson. 3. Introduce pro/rel with 3 levels within FCS. Each geographically aligned. So for instance you have the Pac-12 -> Mountain West -> new conference (WAC for nostalgia. 4. 8 Team playoff 5. Share national TV contract including playoffs equally across the 3 regions.
It's an interesting one. Team/squad building is rarely about just spending big, unless you have much more money than those around you. The 2nd tier in particular (or possibly just because it's more noticeable) is littered with clubs who thought the way to go up was to spend big, and they usually fail. The big problem with that policy is that it's very hard to sign proven top division quality players, simply because they'd rather play in the top division. What clubs therefore end up buying a fringe players from the top division, who aren't really that great, but who still want very close to top division wages to step down a level. To make matters worse, because they've only really joined the club for the money, it's not exactly rare for them to not be the most committed players in the world. The result is often an overpriced, overpaid squad, full of players who aren't all that amazing, who don't really put the effort in. Then, because that set of players fails, they often have another round of buys the next season, making the same mistakes. Some clubs also have a problem in that they think they are 'big fish' and care more about 'making statements' with their signings, rather than picking the best people - such as signing famous name managers in the first managerial job, undoubtedly on far higher wages than most managers in their first job would get.
The Championship isn't 'a mess', arguably its the most entertaining league in the world. NOBODY forced Derby (or any club) to overspend, they did that themselves! If Derby fall out the league there are HUNDREDS of (possibly) better run clubs ready to replace them! As we've already seen English fans won't let football remove pro/rel, unlike in the US where there is an argument to be made for and against pro/rel there is NO such argument here - EVERY English fan wants pro/rel 100%. Its not a debate we have.
A hard salary cap may be possible now. It wouldn't have been legal under the EU unless the players agreed to it voluntarily, like in the Super League (rugby league). But the Super League is a bit like MLS where the players have a vested interest in the success of the sport. The Championship isn't like that, players can get work elsewhere.
Financially the championship is absolutely a mess. Doesn't mean it's not entertaining, it can be both, but it is completely a mess when you look at the books. I think the entire league has 110% wage to turn over at the moment so that's not sustainable. Agree 100% I don't want to end pro/rel and as you point out it's not a debate in the UK nor should it be. But still the championship is like the gambling addict in the casino. Or actually more appropriate, the person trying to pay their mortgage by winning at the casino. The answer isn't shut the casino (end promotion) but that doesn't mean we shouldn't be looking at ways to make it better. Because it is getting worse, this isn't the 1970's where it was more of a continuum the sheer amount of money in the prem makes it more like a cliff, and with that much money at stake there will always be owners willing to risk the entire club for the chance of promotion.
Market forces determine, to an extent, what you do. Those surrounding Championship clubs are quite volatile. Unfortunately for those clubs spending beyond their means is sometimes the lesser of all evils .... and that's one of the points of all this. Brighton spent, on infrastructure (a path way I stated earlier). They got out of ground sharing and into a state of the art just under 32k stadium and five years later we're in the Prem. Derby did that and missed. Then they tried on players and missed. They continue to try for that carrot, in part, because it's there (whether they're ever a club of that level or not). Ending p/r outright doesn't make sense in ENG, at all. I think a diff approach to it may work better so that you're not literally throwing dice at the craps table. Oddly enough I really like LMXs three year deal. A single season doesn't tank you or make you out to be more than you are. You have to sustain, and sustainable clubs is what WE ALL would like to see, yeah? But in the end it comes down to equity ... People want to shit on the US for not having MLS give $ to other leagues but what the Prem gives the rest of the pyramid is a cruel joke. Hell, the fact that the parachute payments exist not only is a blatant admittance of the inequity but also further distorts things below them. With the money folks much smarter than I, I highly doubt it would be that hard to come up with SOMETHING in terms of a cap or spending limit and tier it for the pyramid. That would though, take genuine effective governance. Hell, if I were the FA I'd say F IT and call the EPL on themselves. They're a separate entity so let them be that, their own thing. Without a feeder, ..... And let the FL pyramid be the English competition with the Championship being just that. The EPL doesn't want to play nice? Cool, go play with yourself. What world are you living in? BEFORE the pandemic: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/50674331
So what Sheffield Wednesday and other clubs have done to reduce debt is turn the debt into convertible bonds. Wednesday have used the stadium as collateral. The debt can then be removed from the books, even if the owners own it via a third- party investment vehicle. Wednesday are also selling 10 year season tickets effectively removing debt from today's books but risking debt in the future. Notts County sold lifetime season tickets then went into administration, after which the tickets became worthless.
A big problem in all of this is that the current regulation is more concerned with rich owners buying success than of clubs living beyond their means. Another issue is that the owners, many of whom have bought in with the dream of making it big with promotion millions, have no interest in financial prudence, and are about the worst people you could ask to set the regulations. The next few years could be interesting, and so much previously was discussed with the veiled threat of the top clubs leaving to form a European superleague if they didn't get their way, and that's not the bargaining chip it once was. Could that lead to the premier league clubs working with the EFL do do something to smooth the gap between it and the division below? I'd like to think so, but I'm not hopeful. The typical myopic planning of clubs in the premier leagues makes them more likely to want ways to pull up the drawbridge rather than open up. In truth, I do think the game as we know it has gone - or is at least on the slippery slope. I hear younger fans now, pretty much anyone under there mid 30s who doesn't go to games regularly, and all they care about is the 'big 6' and the champions league. There's always been a fair element of that among armchair fans, unsurprisingly, but it does seem far more noticeable now. Maybe with tv coverage at saturation point, and the football league highlights buried away on a smaller niche channel, it's not generally in the public eye as it was before. The flip side of that is the number of fans seemingly a little disillusioned with football at the top level, who quite enjoy attending football lower down. You see non-league teams getting crowds unthinkable a short while ago. Not truly massive, but certainly higher than before.
You are right they could get work elsewhere but a lot won't. I think a hard cap at like 65-70% of mean turnover wouldn't see a massive drop in quality. Now as you said trying to implement it, even outside the EU regulations would be difficult/impossible but they need to do something and obviously ending pro/rel isn't it.
Oh dear. Those self proclaimed superclubs are doing a tremendous marketing job. There's a new sheriff in town: Watch stunning winning goal as FC Sheriff produce one of Champions League's biggest ever shocks with win at Real Madrid The Sun|3 hours ago MOLDOVAN champions FC Sheriff have produced one of the greatest Champions League shocks after beating Real Madrid 2-1 at the Bernabeu. The Wasps, who were only founded in 1997, have now won their
There are 6 National League teams averaging more than 5,000 but they're all long-time Football League clubs. The rest are averaging less than 3,000.
We could see a record average attendance in the National League this season. Also worth noting that some of that 6 are averaging more than they were in League Two. Some pretty impressive attendances lower down too... for example, level 7 South Shields are averaging almost 2k.
It is weird how people are flocking to the older football league clubs even though some of them aren't doing particularly well. In League Two: Pos Team Average 12. Bradford 15,777 9. Swindon 8,705 13. Tranmere 6,612 18. Bristol Rovers 6,530 Meanwhile the newer clubs not doing so well in terms of pulling in the punters. There are 3 former Premier League teams in League Two and one of them, Oldham, is firmly at the bottom.