Excerpt of a bundesliga.de article: Meier is thinking about a European league: "We are living in times of a Europe that is growing together. You can recognise it everywhere on the cultural and economical sector. In sports there still is a lot to do. Because of that we have to think about an EU-League which could replace the Champions League". Meier is more cautious with formulating a serious thought on a 'international Bundesliga': "What do you think would happen if I told that Belgium and the Netherlands are the extended Northrhine-Westphalia? Let European top teams like Ajax Amsterdam, FC Brugge, RSC Anderlecht or PSV Eindhoven play in the Bundesliga". ------------------------ Though I'm a supporter of the Euro-League idea, I don't support Meier here. Having the EU League replacing the CL would only mean to have the same competition with a different name. I'm afraid Meier just aims to improve the position of his team, which is already strong enough. The Belgium/Netherlands idea is not too bad. But what do you want to do if they relegate? And do they get a promotion spot? I don't see how it could work without abandoning the existing rules. On the other hand it would be an interesting step to a mere Euro-League if they play with a - let's say - 24 to 30 team league which plays this competition only (and not CL and UEFA cup additionally).
Of course Dortmund supports the Euroleague. They are in the center of Europe geographically and won't need to travel far no matter what opposition they face. It's ideal for them. The Euroleague seems glamorous at first sight, but hypothetically speaking, when all the hype slowly fades and we are back to daily business - people will regret it was ever created. It will screw up the domestic league system which is the basis of all football. It's not worth it.
I don't believe it will ever happen. First of all UEFA will never promote anything which could create a another 'European' super league to rival their Champions League. They have always been suspicious of these kind of proposals, for example Rangers and Celtic's attempt to move from Scotland to the English premiership. It would never work either, fans want to have domestic leagues, the novelty of playing big name foreign clubs doesn't last long. Local domestic rivalry however is the lifeblood of european football.
Be careful with the word 'ever'. We had this topic on the Europe board before: EU comissioner Monti doesn't like UEFA and would love to see them having a rival. That's why I think there might be an Euro-League competing with the UEFA, maybe established by the G14 clubs or simply by a rich investor. Also consider that it might be a forced step in a few years. Bundesliga (and probably the English Premier League is the only one being richer) didn't even get 5M credit by bank houses as the soccer business is way too risky at the moment. Nobody knows how the situation looks like in five or ten years, there might be half of the current clubs bankruptcy - the other ones will have to search for new solutions in this case. Also, my other horror scenario is that maximum a handful clubs is getting richer and richer and that no team can break into their domination (though, basically with Bayern and Dortmund this are even only two in Germany) - this will keep the fans away. That's how it looks like now, but quality is the key to success. Local domestic riavlry is the lifeblood of national soccer, on European level it is quality.
Exactly. But that is a cast-iron reason it WON'T happen. Not the other way around. What drives revenue in the European game more than anything else? Television. And where does the current epicentre of financial chaos in football's finances lie? Television. The bottom line is this - throughout the media industry, the traditional advertising model is looking increasingly shaky. But in sports broadcasting it is as frail as Lothar Matthaus' knees. The bidding frenzy that has beset the sports rights market in recent years (not to mention the attendant infrastructure investment by major boradcasters), has been found out for the nonsense it always was. And when you go right down the food-chain - who pays for the largesse of the TV companies and the greed of the "elite" football clubs?? Us and the advertisers (well, ultimately, us, but in this instance the next level up on the foodchain is also in the crosshair). Advertisers have seen costs for prime slots in major football events go through the roof, as the TV companies seeks to recoup the insane amounts of money they have spent securing sports rights. Likewise, the European consumer has been increasinly horsewhipped down the Subscription/PPV model of sports broadcasting access. Only, it's not worked. Advertisers are not seeing brand and revenue value rise in line with their ad expenditure and the European consumer has proven himself to be a good deal less stupid than the TV companies believed him to be. The numbers don't add up. Neither goose has any intention of laying that elusive golden egg. TV rights will never again be sold at the levels they were last time round. Likewise, advertising revenue from major sports broadcasts will never be the same again either. The impact such promotion has on the bottom line of all the big corporations that operate in this market is too negligible. No ROI. Bad business case. Now, you're probably right - in a panicky effort to ignore this basic reality, the clubs and their over-mortgaged TV "partners" probably will lauch some desperate last gamble to extract enough cash from consumers and advertisers to ensure they can somehow recover from their moronic financial conduct of the past decade. But it will fail. Because no matter how numerous the different ways in which you seek to launch a lead balloon, that sucker ain't flying. In order for the recent financial profile of the game to have continued in the manner that it was, people (that's US needed to be bankrolling every stage of the revenue chain in line with the crazy model on which all of this is based. And they're not. The Champions League is being shrunk in accordance with the wishes of the TV companies, not the clubs. The TV companies, in other words, are one step ahead of the perenially blinkered "elite" within football in acccepting the inevitable facts about football's future. Namely - it is NOT about "quality", it is about relevance. If "quality" (i.e big names, big players, big teams - none of which are actually synonimous with quality in the real world, of course) were all that people were in to then most of football's annual calendar would be taken up by all-star teams playing games against each other for the sake of it. Parading "quality" in a vaccuuous, contrived environment that no one feels a sense of attachment to is not the answer. No matter what the G-14 are pretending to be the case. People need to CARE about something if they are to expend any significant amount of their own money on it. That's a very basic, very inarguable part of life. Trying to pretend it does not apply to football is what got the game into this mess in the first place.
Your start is quite good, but you're missing one essential thing: it's not ManU, Liverpool, Arsenal, Bayern, Dortmund, Real, Barca, etc. who are having problems to sign good TV contracts, it's the Wolfsburg's and Cottbus' who aren't attractive for the TV stations. Take a league with 30 big city clubs from 10 to 20 nations and you have an extremely good income. League collects lots of TV money and equally provides it among the teams, additionally you'll get money from Asia and other interested nations, if - again - the quality is good enough. And - sorry to say - it's a bit naive to think that the soccer associations won't react if the TV income continues to sink. What'll happen is that the structure of the game will be changed to a net playing time with time out possibilities to give the TV stations more opportunities for commercial breaks. Cause after all this is how the TV stations get the income for paying the broadcasting rights. Sure, lots of fans would protest at the first time, but this is the reason why it isn't introduced yet. There'll be a certain point where they've got to react before everything crashes - and then the fans will have to agree cause commercial soccer is still better than no organised soccer at all.
That's a fallacy on two counts - one, TV rights in the EPL and the Bundesliga are subject to collective bargaining. When they tried to get away from that model in Serie A this season, it was such a disaster that they almost had to postpone the season because smaller clubs were not able to promise they could fulfill their fixtures. Two, a Superleague (ir Euro League fo any other hue) would not involve the likes of Wolfsburgh in any case. They would be amongst the majority of poor suckers who are left to stare in from the cold, whilst the already rich feast on whatever additional rewards they have managed to vote themselves. Why? Where's the business model that says that a Euro League will make more money for the 30 "big city" clubs that participate. Even if we ignore the practical impossibility of a league with 30 participants, the simple fact of the matter is that the figures don't add up on this fanciful nonsense about a "Super" League. IF they did, we would already have one. The fact is that they never have and, now that the football bubble has resoundingly burst, it is ridiculous to claim that the figures could now still be made to fit. I didn't say they won't react. Quite the opposite in fact, I said they would, even going as far as saying that they would probably do the stupidest thing they could and try a SuperLeague in a last-ditch panic attempt to earn the sort of money the current structure cannot provide them with. Yes, that could quite possibly happen. But you miss my key point - namely, that the traditional ad revenue model is shot to fuck and major corporations are seriously questioning the value of large TV ad campaigns - even those allied to "major" sports events. One thing that IS certain, is that they willl no longer pay the sort of insane premiums to conduct ad campaigns during football spectaculars that they have been doing in recent years. There is no value in that level of expenditure. So the basic reality is that TV companies will not make any more money from a Super League than they currently do from what we already have. I say again - it was not UEFA that wanted the Champions League cut in size - it was the TV companies. So even if the clubs drive for a Super League, there is nothing to suggest that TV will invest in such a project with anything like the dough the clubs and their backers need. But that's not the choice we face. It is not a case of "Super League or Bust" and all the greefy idiots within the game that try and make us believe it is should be shot. The choice is between"well-run commercial football" and "badly run commercial football". The clubs are just trying to insulate themselves against the basic laws of economics b y coming up with these stupid schemes. But as I keep saying, the TV companies have been taken for suckers once and they are not going to let it happen again. Either football learns to live within it means or it dies. The third option of "someone else will sort all our problems for us" is no longer on the table.