Sheffield United's owner's half brother was executed with a gold-handled sword for assassinating his uncle, King Faisal.
Yes, it makes money. Why do things make money? Or, more to the point ... how many NON POPULAR things make money like the NFL, NBA, MLB, and even the NHL do? Soccer is much more easily spread by nature of playing the game itself and availability to do so (literally anything can be made a ball and a field or the many variations of one). Basketball, hockey, and baseball are played globally. That's a fact. Basketball is actually very popular in MANY places. Baseball is pretty popular too, and hockey is limited for obvious reasons but does enjoy a relative global reach as well. American football is actually a global sport too. The relative "lack" of NFL popularity doesn't illustrate the sport, as a whole in terms of global reach. It's been stated for quite a while ... there's no substitute for time. Soccer in England already had three professional divisions when the precursor to the NFL kicked off for the first time. Hell, it wasn't even until the 1980's that the NFL truly began to overtake college football in popularity.
Soccer isn’t a sport it’s a European lawn activity (which is fine if that’s what you want). Okay not really but I heard some variation of that all the time growing up. I used to even bash American football as a kid to defend the honor of soccer. Then I grew up.
Explained: The ‘terrible’ state of Premier League clubs’ finances The Athletic, April 7, 2020 The Athletic has analysed all the Premier League club accounts filed at Companies House over the last few months and the answer for the majority of them would appear to be there has been very little DIY done ahead of this storm. “The accounts are awful,” says John Purcell, the co-founder of financial analysis firm Vysyble. “The numbers had fallen off a cliff for some of the clubs long before this crisis.” Sheffield United spend £1.95p on wages for every £1 that came in. Exactly half the league spent more than 70 per cent of their income on wages, a level that automatically raises red flags for European football’s governing body UEFA. If they capped salaries at 55% the EPL would probably be hugely profitable. But the financial struggles of the smaller teams is what creates the volatility in terms of promotion and relegation.
And yet Watford (relegated last season) and Burnley (who could be this) are above the line. That should tell you something.
It's not about 'profit' though is it! It's about points gained by winning football matches! This isn't the stock market! It's far more exciting than that. I couldn't give a rat's ar*e how Chelsea are doing financially I only care that they keep winning football matches!
This is a good example of just how differently people in the US and people in the rest of the world look at how sports should work, like M I think a team that finished 12th shouldn't be anywhere near being crowned champions - that, to me, just makes a mockery of the whole thing! The champions should be the best team, not a team that gets lucky over one game.
USL strikers struggle to score goals in MLS, though Daniel Rios scored tonight. Having better players than the top flight in the lower divisions always seemed strange to me. Equally, not having the best markets in the top flights of Europe seemed odd to me.
The American tradition is that champions are forged in the playoffs. I'm glad Philadelphia Union won the Supporter's Shield and get a berth in the CONCACAF Champions League (hopefully).
While obviously possible due to the system, when has this actually happened in practice? The only example I can think of is Leeds, and that’s been rectified. And it’s not like the U.S.’ 2nd largest market went without an NFL team for over two decades.
Also, what determines “best market”? Seems very relative to the product. Let’s also not forget that MLS and its proponents swore for 20 years that the entire southeast had no worthy market at all.
Top English cities by population without a Premier League team: Bristol Coventry Derby Top ten English conurbations by population without a Premier League team: Nottingham Bristol Top ten German cities by population without a 1. Bundesliga team: Hamburg Dusseldorf Essen Top ten Russian cities by population without a Premier League team: Nizhny Novgorod The obvious one in Spain is Gijón but there's also Las Palmas in the Canary Islands, in Italy there's Bari and in France there's Toulouse.
Gelsenkirchen borders Essen, so Schalke have been the "traditional" big team in that area since Rot Weiss Essen's decline. Really, the only one in that list that surprises me for its long top-level absence is Bristol. And that's probably due to divided loyalties in that city. Of course, this is all decided on the field of play rather than the whims of having a cartel membership fee accepted.
Hamburg is Germany's second biggest city. The Beatles spent their formative years there. It was nearly decimated during WW2. It's the Liverpool of Germany.
Neither Bristol City or Bristol Rovers were promoted to the Football League. Both were admitted based on the whims of its owners.
Touché. Of course Bristol Rovers have been promoted to the Football League and City to the top division. And pro/rel allows them the opportunity of doing it again.
I had considered Bristol, but, honestly I think the whole notion of these “markets” being unserved or underserved has a very Americentric bent to it. England is really one market, wholly dominated by the cultural and financial black hole of London. Which is not to say that there aren’t other large cities (Birmingham and Manchester, most notably) but I think big football clubs in places like Liverpool or Newcastle skew how we’re really talking about how, by British measures, Stamford CT would be a major metropolitan area. It also ignores the fact that it’s a league system, not a private club. Fans in Hamburg and Nottingham are supporting their clubs in getting to the top flight. No amount of rooting is bringing top flight teams to San Diego, San Antonio, or Raleigh in the sports they’re lacking. Hamburg and Bristol at least have opportunity and, more importantly, potential top flight teams to support now.
Fans coming out in droves got Nashville, Sacramento, Cincinnati and kept Columbus in Columbus. So while those teams didn't get promoted in the european sense, fans showing up convinced people to invest in those teams.
When the Football League was 25 years- old teams were either invited, or elected to join. The decisions had a lot to do with popularity, financial solvency and stadiums. Teams continued to fold a they had done virtually since the start. Once they joined the Football League teams were split hierarchically, until 1921 when the 3rd Division was split regionally. The regional split was abandoned in 1958. Promotion to the FL was introduced in 1987.
But that’s a very finite resource: them getting “called up to the bigs” narrows the window of any other group to follow behind.