Not for League teams. Also that game was supposed to have gone on for about 25 minutes too long due to the ref's watch stopping or something, so the glory should be all ours.
Wouldn't it be cool to have a team nicknamed the Saracens? The Fez Heads! Oh, and realistically, I'm betting only one team wins the Premiership this season, which is far more pessimistic than the originally posted 4 or 5 teams. And I'm not betting it's Man City. Unless Wanchope get's healthy!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Two other points occur to me in explaining the contradiction: 1) Soccer is an international game and the American games are national. Any soccer nation that applies a salary cap will soon see its best players leave for a nation that doesn't and only over-the-hill players coming in. But where is an NFL player going to go if he's unhappy with his NFL salary? 2) American clubs are run on a much sounder business model than most soccer clubs, possibly because of the franchise system. Businessmen are generally in favour of deregulation when it suits them but in two respects they're not: a) when they have a monopoly (as in the American game) b) where "workers" wages are concerned. So the greater influence of "sensible" business practices in the American game imposes more regulation in order to retain the monopoly situation and keep the wages under control. We have a very similar setup in team/club sports here in Australia to the USA and the National Soccer League is missing the best 180 Australian soccer players and results in what only be described as "uniform mediocrity"
A salary cap would only work if it applied world wide, which is never going to happen. Unilateral salary caps would be a disaster. As an example (an forgive my ignorance if I am wrong here) the NFL is actually 2 leagues, the AFC & the NFC(?) and the winners of each contest the superbowl. Imagine if the AFC kept salary capping, profit sharing etc in an effort to create parity among its teams, but the NFC abandoned such restrictions allowing its clubs to sign who they want. Not only would you quickly lose parity in the NFC, but the better players in the AFC would quickly sign for NFC clubs instead as they pay more money. The superbowl would rapidly become a one-sided bore and the AFC would soon be regarded as very poor compared to the NFC. That is what would happen if the EPL introduced parity rules and Italy, Spain, Germany etc didn't. If all the major league in Europe introduced parity restrictions then you'd probably see the major European clubs resign from their leagues and set up their own league instead, which I think, like it or not, is the way things are heading anyway. There, a degree of parity will be ensured by the fact that only large clubs will be admitted. There'll be no room for well-run but small clubs like Charlton in a league where a club will need to pull in 50,000 a match to break even.
Not really. The "C" stands for Conference. The leagues do NOT draft separately, they do NOT separate TV deals separately, they do NOT license merchandise separately, etc. They were once separate leagues, but merged over 30 years agol As for the Superleague...I'm a skeptic. Juve-ManU won't be too exciting when it's a midtable clash in the Superleague. People forget that when the G-14 clubs create a league, somebody's going to come in last place. Only one team will win it.
The salary cap is ok if you don't have any genuine competition from a non-salary cap organisation. Here in Australia the salary cap works fine in Aussie Rules. Like gridiron the Aussie Rules players have nowhere to go if they're unhappy. So the best players stay in the league. But the salary cap they have in soccer is disastrous - 180 of the best Australian soccer players have gone abroad and no player of any quality has come in. The quality of the Australian National Soccer League is extremely poor and Soccer Australia on the verge of bankruptcy.
Well, the socialist governments of Europe are for the everyday people, and mostly for the poorer people. The socialist sports leagues of the US are for the owners and players, who are all rich. The competitive balance thing has everything to do with marketing (and generating more money), not with socialism. - Paul
Amidst a lot of ramblings which don't seem -- to me at least -- to really answer the question, the simple fact is that socialists may be "caring" people bent on global equality, but (contrary to popular belief), sports ain't life and when it comes to sports, socialists want their teams to win just as much as the next guy. And, and here's the real difference, sports in Europe tend to be run in a way that's free, for better or for worse, of any sort of political dogma. Basically, it's every man for himself. The reason for this is that sports, as in Europe, as in the States, are not really subject to (or at least governed by) any kind of broad government intervention. So point one is the fact that neither the US system nor the European system of sports league management really reflects the country's political ideals, but rather just the ideals of the team owners...in other words, what they (collectively) want (from their investment). Here's the interesting rub. The capitalist USA team owners are so bent on profit that the (relatively) impoverished minority (Montreal Expos, etc.) have collectively imposed a sort of socialism in the States to ensure that they get the biggest possible share of the capitalist pie. Which proves a rather interesting point; to wit, the unsuccessful capitalist will resort to neo socialism IF it helps him to achieve his basic capitalist goal (a profit). In Europe, capitalism (as you rightly point out) is not sufficiently sophisticated or entrenched as to enable the owners of struggling (financially) teams to resort to socialism in order to improve their positions at the expense of the rich. In short, we have a paradox. Really, both systems are thus fundamentally capitalist. It's just that the American system is more mature, whilst the European system is embryonic to some extent. By the way, last time I checked socialsm was quite dead and whilst a lot, if not most European countries like to co-opt the word to describe their own particular take on democracy, non are so stupid as to do more than play with a set of broad ideals. Hell, would you seriously want to lay claim to a discredited theory in the name of which genocide has been committed more than once? Even if it sounds good, I doubt it.
The American system only works (or indeed seems sensible) because of America's large population (280m compared to 50m in England). If the NFL was proportionately as large as the EPL it would go from 30(?) teams to 168. You may have 30 teams pulling in 65000 a game currently but I find it hard to believe you could ever have 168 doing so. How big is America's 168th biggest city? If you had 30 teams at one end getting 65000 and 30 at the other only getting 20000 would it seem sensible to bring in restrictive salary caps to make the small teams artificially competitive? Would it seem a great thing that a superbowl, rather than being between two large cities, could be between Fresno and Albany?
There are 32 NFL teams. And there are ~110 Div. 1 college football teams. A few of these have lousy attendance. So there are maybe 80 other teams that draw over 30,000, and average maybe 50 or 60,000. So altogether, we're not that far off from 168. And if you add in that our 4th sport, hockey, draws so many fans (how many fans does rugby skim off? cricket?), and baseball, and basketball, and NASCAR...I'd be surprised if the US population isn't more fragmented when you take into account all sports, and college sports. Ah, but what about the Football League and the Conference? That tips the scale back the other way. How much, I have no idea. So the idea that it our system only works because of the ratio of NFL teams to people is so different from EPL teams to Englishmen, to me, needs alot more info to back it up.
But how many support a college team and an NFL team? If they were in competiton then people would be unlikely to support both. They might now but if the Texas state university team were to play the Dallas cowboys in a NFL game, there'd be a few split loyalties. Also the fact that you would need to split the country up into 168 (or whatever) franchise zones means you would not be able to have all of those 110 teams included as I'd imagine a lot of them play in an area where there is a team already (I know franchising allows more than one team e.g. in New York, but you get my point?). Essentially the relationship between NFL/college teams is not the same as the relationship between EPL and the football league teams. People do not support a league club and a premier league club. The point is that currently NFL clubs are of roughly equal stature. If there were 168 then the odds of that still being true are not great. If the owners of the big city teams realised they were effectively subsidising the smaller teams I can't imagine they'd be too happy about it. And I can't imagine TV would be too thrilled about the plethora or small market teams either, especially if they were just as likely to be in the play-offs as traditional big teams. As delighted as fans in England are when Blackburn or Bolton or Southampton or any 'smaller' club challenge at the top, fans wouldn't actually want to see a title race between just smaller clubs. I think you need the big bad black-hatted bad guys like Man Utd up there to make it fun. In the FA Cup people enjoyed Coventry beating Spurs (1987) and Wimbledon beating Liverpool (1988), but they wouldn't have been too excited about a Coventry v Wimbledon final whatever the result.
I'm not sure you understand American geography. I mean, U-Cal Berkeley is in, well, Berkeley. It's in neither San Francisco (49ers) nor Oakland (Raiders.) But it's the same market. Ann Arbor (Univ. of Michigan) is within easy driving distance of Detroit (NFL Lions.) I live in Raleigh, home of NC State. There are many, many UNC fans from Raleigh. Wake Forest is located in Winston-Salem. When they host UNC, there are as many UNC fans as Wake fans. And so on. My point is, "Raleigh" alone doesn't support NC State. It's not "Raleigh" or even Wake County that supports NC State, and supports nothing else. Wherever they come from, they get their fannies in the seats. There are 30 baseball teams, 28 in the US. There are 29 NBA teams, 28 in the US. There are 32 NFL teams. I don't know how many NHL teams are in the US...a bit over 20, I think. Add it all up, and completely excluding college sports, you're over 100. And, remember, our pro athletes make much more money than yours. If the standard was to get ave. pay at the level of the EPL, there's room for many more teams. -If we had only gridiron, no baseball, basketball, or hockey -and if we had a true free market, 10 teams in New York, the whole bit -and if we had regional leagues (nobody's going to be interested in the 165th best team, and the only other way to organize the schedule would be with pro/rel, which completely changes the situation) There would, in my opinion, be well over 168 teams averaging 50,000 fans per game. 168 divided by 2 (only half the teams can play at home) multiplied by 50,000 is 4,200,000. Yes, I think that, absent all other sports, we would have 1 out of every 67 Americans at a football game. That's the point of contention.
I think Richard is on to something here though. Just trying to think of where they could place so many teams would be a task in itself.
You mean with the 168th city comment? Not really. There are 6 London teams, 3 Birmingham teams, 2 Liverpool teams....
I think Richard has a point. Even in the realm of pro-team. I know some people that call themselves "New York Sports Fans". For instance, they support the Giants but will also support the Jets if they do well. How many game do the NJ Devils sell out during the playoffs before the NY Rangers are eliminated (not including games against said team)?
...but my point is keep the NFL league structure (ignoring logistics) as it is, with the same rules. No true free market. Same rules about franchising. No regional leagues (other than the conference system as now), no pro/rel, otherwise you are not using the American system. If you are saying that the only way to have the NFL on proportionately the same scale as the EPL, is to have an English (O.K. non-American) system with promotion/relegation, a free market and no franchising then......well surely you are agreeing with me that the NFL American sports style league wouldn't work if the NFL was as proportionately as large as the EPL, even if you didn't have other sports as competition.
Dude, you have to have regional leagues. You can't have 168 teams in a league, the scheduling would be impossible. That's all I'm talking about, is making the scheduling rational. And if you're saying, America couldn't support 168 teams if you could only have 2 in NYC, 1 in Chicago, etc., that is also a ridiculous precondition. But I'll tell ya what. I'll go along with that. Let's just have the Yankees, Mets, Nets, Devils, Rangers, Knicks, and Islanders convert into NFL teams. No new Chicago teams, we'll just convert the Cubs, White Sox, Blackhawks, and Bulls into NFL teams. Etc.
If you did that i am sure you would lose a large amount of their fan base as not all of 'em would go to see a football (American) game. How many go to see Hockey or Basketball but detest Football? Richard has a good point about using the rules as they exist now and the ability of so many teams to survive. As you say regionalising it would have to be done, but, that would make it even harder to achieve anything. I mean, how many teams could Arizona support? How 'bout the NE States? Like i said earlier, just placeing such an amount of teams and trying to get support for them all would be a momumental feat. Pennsylvania has 2 teams now.It works as they are at opposite ends of the state. If PA had to have 4 teams, where would the other 2 go and how would they draw. Would they all go into the same regional group? Would there be enough support if so for all involved. I tend to doubt it. Which goes back to a point made earlier that there is parity in the NFL because of the relative small amount of teams and the salary cap. BTW, i think the collective "strength" of the teams has taken a severe nose dive because of it. Sure they are all about equal....but that is a mediocre level of equalness. There are no "Man utds" or "Bayern Munichs" or "Real madrids" in the NFL. Your system does work for creating equal teams of strength as it stands now. Looking at it in the reverse i wonder if the PL was reduced to, say, 10 teams and a salary cap imposed i wonder if it would have the same effect as to eliminate the front runners to the point that anyone could win the title.
two points from the same post To me, that appears to be a contradiction, unless you believe that teams nobody is interested in will pull in 50,000 a game. it may be a ridiculous precondition, but that's what franchising is - sole rights to a market. The size of each market must be at least 1 or 2 million per NFL club (probably more). It would be hard to find 168 markets of that size, bearing in mind that two teams in any city will cut that market in two. So are you telling me that none of the fans of those teams support an NFL team? They may not go to see them play but they might still watch them on TV every Sunday. Well the reverse would see the EPL reduced to 4 teams, say Arsenal (london franchise), Aston Villa (midlands), Man Utd (north west), Newcastle (north east). All other clubs would cease to exist. A salary cap could could make it a competitive league. Perhaps after a few years Aston Villa would lose its franchise and a team in Liverpool could take its place.
I think what you guys in England don't understand is how freakin' popular some of these teams are. I'm tellin ya', the Denver Broncos and the Washington Redskins could sell out the Maracena every week. (Well, if you moved it from Brazil to Denver or Washington. ). If there were 9 NFL teams based in the New York Metropolitan Area (and the NFL was the sole outlet for major sport fandom), within 10 years those teams would average over 50,000 per game. No doubt about it. In fact, 50K is probably a low estimate. If the Georgia Bulldogs (college) ceased to be bigtime football, the Atlanta Falcons would do alot better. If there were no San Francisco Giants, some of the money people spend on the Giants would go into the 49ers. And there'd be a team in San Jose, and one in Berkeley. And your definition of franchising is just wrong. There are two Food Lions (grocery chain) within 2 miles of my house. How many McDonald's are in your town? Franchising is when a central office doles out the rights to operate. You don't have that in England. Anyone can start up a club and work their way up the ladder. Where did you get your definition of "franchising" from? If your definition was right, there wouldn't be 3 NHL teams in the NY metro area. Let's bring it back to the beginning, a quote from Richard If you eliminate college sports, and the other 3 leagues, there's no doubt in my mind that 168 teams could average 50,000. 65,000, probably not. Like I've pointed out, there are 2/3 that number that average over 50,000 right now, with baseball, basketball, and hockey siphoning off dollars and interest. It's not the US population that makes this system work. It's the inherent interest in football in the US. One more thing Either city is bigger than Green Bay. People care about the Super Bowl, regardless of who is playing.
Not as passionate in the US? Futbol is the "only game in town" for most of the world. I just got home from the Galaxy-San Jose match at the Rose Bowl (Ruiz was offsides, but so what?) with about 15-20,000 others. I went to Anaheim the other night to see a fantastic Angels-As game in front of 40,000+. And, next Saturday I'll be attending the UCLA-Colorado college football game with somewhere around 60-65,000 others....not passionate? Do you have face-paint to be passionate? Do you have to continuosly sing songs to be passionate? Do you have to light fires in the stands to be passionate? What do you want- a hyman sacrifice?We have significantly more sports-entertainment options here in the States... I think that we have things in slightly better perspective here than a lot places.... In fact, I'm proud of the fact that my home, LA, is noted for having dispassionate fans....we've got it right: Spectator sports are simply another entertainment option....
>If you eliminate college sports, and the other 3 leagues, there's no doubt in my mind that 168 teams could average 50,000. I think that's right. The idea that the NFL setup has anything to do with "socialism" is way off beam. In fact I would call it an abuse of capitalism thus: 1) Create a monopoly by refusing promotion/relegation and severely limiting expansion of the league. 2) Maximise profits by controlling costs, in particular, don't let the wages bill get out of hand by having a salary cap. If the businessmen that run the NFL had the game's and fans' interests at heart there would be many more franchises and a structure of leagues that allowed promotion and relegation to operate. They don't do it because their first interest is to make money out of the franchise and the threat of relegation and the financial cost of that is something they just won't contemplate. Therer is no question that the USA could support many more franchises with support up around the 50,000 per match. But it would become too cumbersome if there weren't some priority structure in the leagues and that priority structure would spell "risk" for the franchises. So why take the risk? Things are running just fine as they are so let's keep it that way is their way of thinking.
I'm not doubting that for one second. I'm very much aware of how popular the NFL is. It's not a "we're more passionate than you" arguement. A question, when the Rams & the Raiders were both in LA would fans consider going to watch one team one week and the other the next? I would think not. Rams fans wouldn't want to see the Raiders and vice-versa. A sports fan in LA could easily support an NFL team (if you had one), the Galaxy, the Dodgers, the UCLA college football team, the Lakers and the Kings(?) in the NHL, and go to see them regularly (although obviously not every game). But if all of those organisations were NFL clubs in competiton with each other then that same fan would support one and one only of them. It's like you don't get West Ham fans saying "oh, the Hammers are away this week - I think I'll go and watch Chelsea instead". My team Reading average about 13,500. We share our stadium with the London Irish, a top division rugby team. They get about 7,500 a game. Not many of those fans are from London, but I don't believe if London Irish converted to being a football team then they'd still pull in 7,500 people. Nor do I believe if London Irish weren't there then Reading would be getting 21,000. That does of course make the assumption that if there are a lot of teams in a city then they will be equally popular, e.g. rather than having 2 teams in New York with 5 million fans each you would have 10 teams with a million fans each. Experience in places where there is a free market has shown that this doesn't happen. Even in cities which have two top division teams, one is generally better supported than the other. Currently Chelsea get better crowds than Arsenal, but Arsenal have more fans cross London than Chelsea do. Although location in a city is important, fans do gravitate towards the more successful clubs. Even with salary caps etc, there's no way that all 10 would be equally successful and likewise there's no way that support would be equal. As was said, nobody's going to be interested in the 165th team. Also with so many teams, each team would cease to represent the city, it would instead represent the part of the city in which it was based.
No disrespect intended here, but.. That is the basis of the whole "support" argument and something the American fan most likely will never understand. Excellent point about the Blues and Pikeys.
Re: Re: Parity in EPL vs. Parity in US Sports This is a bad example, I think. (I'm no expert on the city of Reading.) Are there lots and lots of fans who can't get into Reading games because they're sold out? Are there lots and lots of fans who can't get into games because the monopolistic situation means ticket prices are $40 per game? Because like I said, the Redskins could sell twice as many tickets as they sell. So could the Broncos, or the Chiefs. Fans with season tickets designate in their wills which of their relatives will inherit their right to buy season tickets. No, it makes no such assumption whatsoever. I'm assuming that these 9 teams' combined average will be 450,000...and that might mean two teams at 70K and two teams at 30K. There won't be a 165th best team. There'll be a whole lot of 10th place teams in a 10 team division.