Back in the 1940s and 1950s, many didn't like the idea of an Eredivisie either as opposed to the regional leagues of that day...
And what teams do Belgium have that would make the Eredivisie better Anderlect , Brugge, and Liege that's really it And what teams have to be sacrificed in Nrtherlands I think it's just a short term fix
Scotland should merge with the English leagues as that's the style of football they play. Denmark is too small. Merger should be just Belgium and Netherlands.
Vlaanderen should just merge with The Netherlands imo. I'm not sure merging the leagues would make us that much more appealing. It would still be a league that's cold for 80% of the season, with an unfamiliar language and not much money compared to the big leagues. And we'd run the risk of having combined even less European starting spots.
Sure, but that was Dutchie leagues joining other Dutchie leagues. We're now talking about other countries joining our league, which will dilute the gene pool
Genk, Gent would be upper half teams too, and potentially Mechelen. I agree with your conclusion but consider that the quality of Scotland induces their playing style. It's easier to play hoofing football with 'bad' players. As is England. The identification with Dutchness and Dutch football culture wasn't as strong as it is today. Take into account too that back then quite some people still had their dialect as primary language and 'ABN' (standardized Dutch) as secondary language. That is not irrelevant. Will not comment about the 'gene pool' thing. That is too spooky.
I agree, the benefit of a few stronger teams doesn't change the basic problem of a lack of revenue while it could affect the leagues identity and the feeling of involvement with the fans. I wouldn't mind a joint league cup tournament like the old mitropacup with neighboring countries and scandinavia. Mid table teams would welcome the extra revenue from the extra games and gain some valuable European experience.
I suppose a fusion league would mean that all participating clubs would have at least 10000 spectators per game. Possibly there is also potential for further improvements, just like the EPL went from 20000 to 36000 per match.
The big problem is not match attendance. I believe all the Dutch clubs play to almost 100% arena capacity. Obviously some teams have small stadiums but this is true in other leagues as well. Look at Eibar in Spain, their arena has sits for 7,000 and is smack in the middle of a residential area where apartments have balcony views of the pitch. Television money is the biggest factor working against the smaller countries these days and it's going to continue getting worse. We finally have a new Internet sports channel here in the US that will carry all Eredivisie matches. It's free for thenext three months and the cost is supposed to be $8 US/month. They will also carry Portugal, Russia, Chile, Ecuador and two or three other leagues that are not available on subscription television. For me this is a good deal as I have always look for Internet streams to watch Ajax. I don't know how much the Eredivise will recieve in revenue from this but any amount of money is better than zero. Maybe the Eredivisie never gets a big contract from US. I know their matches are carried in other Euro countries but don't know what the revenue is. In contrast the EPL has a huge contract with NBC Sports over here and all the league matches are either on television or Internet.
Spain is a very bad situation, because average attendance has declined rather than gone up since 2005 (their growth between 1992 and 2005 was lagging behind England and Germany anyway). If it was not for Real Madrid or Barcelona, their decline would have been even steeper. The recent Atletico Madrid successes has hedged the decline too. Bad/low attendance can work against your television money, as it does for Italy. Which is still doing well with television money, but is below their potential. 100% arena capacity can also mean there's room for improvement.
Spain's real problem is the lack of proper revenue sharing of the television money as Barca and Madrid get most of it. Valencia were in real trouble a couple of years ago because of the leveraged money for a new stadium but got bailed out by foreign investors. I'm not so sure about the attendance problem. Certainly all the Basque area teams enjoy very good support.
Lokeren too. Very well-run club. Not saying they would be in the upper half, but they would certainly be in the running for a place in the left column.
HERE is an analysis of the financials for Swansea, a mid level club in the EPL that has a relatively small area. they are very careful in managing their finances and have shown a profit every year that they have been in the EPL. However, the only way that this is achieved is through the large amount of television money. They rank in the top thirty of Deloitte Money standings whereas no Dutch club makes the mark.
Its official folks, Dutch L. is in big, big trouble!! We've just been surpassed by Swiss, Croatia and Greece out of all countries. Turkey will be next: http://www.ad.nl/ad/nl/1058/Europa-...-presteren-beter-dan-Nederlands-voetbal.dhtml
It's not as bad as it seems, it's just that 6th EL spot which is killing us. If we calculate the average of the best 5 teams the Eredivisie would have scored 7.2 points, which would have put us in 10th just behind Ukrain which is normal. Belgium is the odd one out, but that can be explained by Brugge collecting almost half their leagues points with a deep run in the EL.
It's also worth noting that a combined Belgian/Dutch league would come with more money. I found it detailed before in discussions on another board: It is already done in the women's league. I think it's the way to go to see progress in both the Netherlands and Belgium. We won't stop producing great footballers for Oranje if that's what you're worried about the academies run deep and a more competitive league, if anything, would see those young players more likely staying longer than they currently do.
Where is this massive rise in TV money going to come from? In the end it will have to be paid by the fans and I doubt both the Dutch and Belgians are prepared to bleed financially like the British. If the pay TV package is too expensive people will pirate streams (already happens on a large scale) or watch it in the cafe. What company is going to pay more for advertising in a joint league when they can sponsor two leagues for less money? A sizable part of the football fanbase is happy with teletext and sunday evening Studio Sport.
Synergy effects. Economies of scale. Plain and simple. It also depends on how well it is executed of course.
Well I'm sure that the people making the proposals know more about the financials than we do. They wouldn't propose it, IMO, if it were not feasible. Regardless of whether or not that is the actual figure there would definitely be a marketing boost, better sponsorships, etc. It's not as simple as you are laying it out in terms of 'well it's cheaper to sponsor two lesser leagues than one big league'. The problem is that the sponsors will have more competition and also they won't have the option of sponsoring two leagues because the sponsors don't determine the merger.
One area for growth is overseas television. We have had little opportunities until now to watch Eredivise football. Now a new Internet sports provider is carrying the Dutch league and six others. It's free for the remainder of this season and then costs about $7 US per month. I'm going to watch the rest of the season on it and if it proves reliable I won't mind paying for it as it beats watching streams of mediocre quality. I don't know how much the Dutch league will make from this.
I have my doubts about merging national leagues, the problem remains that Dutch and Belgian top teams simply cannot acquire TV revenue streams from their domestic markets needed to compete at the very top. Currently a team needs around 350 million a year to compete regularly in the end stages of the CL and that number is likely to increase rapidly. A European super league that devides total income equally would work but the current top dogs stand too much to lose to make the switch. If you look in Scandinavia EPL teams are more popular than their own league, that might happen here too. I fear Barcelona will sooner be the most popular football team in the Netherlands, rather than any Dutch team being a major player in European football again.
Thats exactly what I'm worried about. Players will leave NL earlier because if they do that means they THINK they'll get to play CL football, which of course they wont (see vGinkel, Drenthe, Bruma, vAanholt......etc.....etc). I'm too lazy to google all the failed players who left NL too early, feel free to add to that list