European Super League announced; collapses

[Lineker]

 

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

Gillingham is my local league team so it would probably be a bump over to them. But THIRTY YEARS of supporting Tottenham will be incredibly painful and difficult to break even if this all happens (and to be honest even if it doesn't, even being part of this has disgusted me). 

When I heard it last night it immediately felt like a way to make a US-style tournament (confirmed by the US owners being front and centre) without relegation, the safety of making big money season in season out, with a big focus on Indian, Chinese, Indonesian and Malaysian fans. That's where they see the market. They can charge £100 a ticket and fill grounds with sightseers and football tourists. Everything I've heard since only supports this.

 

If players can't play for their country, it'll end up becoming the new US/China where old "big name" players come to see out their mid-late 30s for £400k a week after finishing their international careers. It'll be a circus.

 

[gunnar hendershow]

43 minutes ago, Hobo said:

The "legacy fans" and "fans of the future" thing makes me think about how how there is seemingly a shift in supporting club vs supporting players in certain demographics.  It's all part of the same general idea that erodes the local and cultural aspects infavor of the brand.

It also sounds super like some marketing firm nonsense. Which it probably is.

 

The NBA has really been a blueprint on how to do this. Yao Ming was, obviously, a huge deal in China and the league capitalized by doing what they could to market and show Houston Rockets games there. Not a lot of people in China have ties to Houston, but they had ties to a certain player who played for them.

More recently you have people who are "LeBron fans" and they've jumped from Cleveland, to Miami, back to Cleveland, and now to Los Angeles in their support. It's in part because these teams don't have true ties to their communities. Attending a game is absurd. The arenas are built less for everyday fans and more for the companies that shell out for the boxes and wealthy season ticket holders who fill in the seats closest to the court (if they show up, there's lots of empty seats at these games sometimes but those seats have had their tickets sold already). So if you're part of the primarily TV audience of the sport and don't live in the city that hosts a team then you might just latch onto a player or two. You'll follow their career and root for them and their team(s).

Basically the TV rights are sold on the backs of those fans and the tickets to stadiums are sold on the backs of companies and wealthy people who go less for the sport and more for self-marketing. 

17 minutes ago, Colly said:

Honestly I'm hoping all this shit kills that off for good.

I was actually going to use NUFC as a point in how these clubs probably felt the need to act now before a dozen other billionaires can buy up their own vanity project clubs. It can't be too crowded at the top.

[Skummy]

You have to have really fucked up for FIFA to be the voice of reason, for fuck's sake.

I'm not really a football fan. A large part of that is because of what we're seeing here. I like the grassroots game - I've really enjoyed seeing Jersey get their act together and put together a really great team, even if they're nowhere near most people's radar. My dad used to play for a team that 99% of fans will never have heard of. One of my brother's mates started his own team back in 2008, and I love that. When I speak to my friends who support tiny Scottish teams, I almost feel jealous of how much of a connection to the club, to other supporters, and to their community that gave them.

I grew up supporting Hull City, and ostensibly still do. For my entire childhood they were a joke, an answer to a pub quiz question - the largest city in Europe whose team had never made it to the top division. But that was part of the charm. I remember the tour of the old grounds at being full of jokes about the empty trophy cabinet. Because of all that, it really meant something when we finally made the premiership. That was a huge celebration. 

The idea of there being a top flight/"elite" level that the people who play for Bishop Burton FC, or Jersey Bulls, or Hull City for that matter, can never even hope in their wildest dreams to get to is ridiculous. It destroys so much of the drive behind the grassroots game if you don't have that dream to play for, no matter how preposterous that dream might appear.

 

And, yeah, it's this sort of thing that meant I was never really won over by football in the first place. I struggle to have any emotional connection to teams who no longer have anything but the most tangential connection to the communities they're supposed to represent. The further divorced the top flight is from the grassroots, the worse off the game is as a whole. And I know I'm not a fan of any of these teams, and my opinion doesn't count for much, but this feels like the inevitable result of the way football has been going for at least 20 years, and probably longer. An awful lot of people need to accept that this hasn't just started overnight, and consider the roles that they and their clubs have had in football going in this direction, sadly. 

[Kyle]

Bruno Fernandes has become the first player (as far as I know) at a team in the ESL to come out against it. His instagram story currently says "dreams can't be buy <3"

[JasonM]

 

1 hour ago, Hobo said:

The "legacy fans" and "fans of the future" thing makes me think about how how there is seemingly a shift in supporting club vs supporting players in certain demographics.  It's all part of the same general idea that erodes the local and cultural aspects infavor of the brand.

It also sounds super like some marketing firm nonsense. Which it probably is.

 

Since this is EWB, it kinda reminds me of how WWE has done business in the past decade+. Where they're fine with spitting and slapping their existing fanbase in the face, as long as they can get their hands on the 'fans of the future'.

The thing is, without the 'legacy fans', the clubs are nothing but just fancy brands playing football at a high level (well, not Arsenal or Spurs, but the idea's the same). It's 100+ years of legacy that makes these clubs the things they are today, they didn't appear out of thin air, they weren't 'super teams' since day 1.

It's the regional legacy that they have no issues in erasing for their obsession with the future fans, the lifestyle fans rather than the fans whose lives are connected to the clubs they and their (grand)parents grew up supporting.

Football's beautiful that clubs can crumble to dust and rise from the ashes. Teams that had nothing can become something through years of hard work. And clubs that had everything can end up being nothing.

And although I don't see it happen, twelve clubs deserve the latter to happen to them.

New clubs will rise, new stories will be created, new legacy's will form. But football cannot and should not be held hostage by owners that want to act like they have pillars that cannot be shattered.

[METALMAN]

1 hour ago, Colly said:

That demographic is "people who don't go to football games" which is how ridiculous the situation is. As usual it's Germany who have their act in gear.

I'm very much on metalman's POV though, Wimbledon have already proved that football clubs are more than just companies. If the PL "collapses" without these 6 teams there will still be a Newcastle United, and they'll play in a league without 6 clubs with (for at least the short term) an absurdly unfair financial advantage. There's still a domestic demand for that even if the overseas revenues diminish.

Yeah, exactly. For me Kilmarnock is a team I support because they represent the town I grew up in and because - with other traditional links like trade unions and the church decreasing in importance - they are just about the only thing that represents the town and bring people together. For me, having not lived there since I started university, it’s a something that gives me a tie to people back home. It’s obviously nice if we win stuff but that’s almost not the point of it, really.

If anything, the ones I feel sorry for out of this whole rigmarole are the fans of the teams joining the thing, because they are the ones that have seen the links between club and community grow so weak that the owners think they can get away with something like this.

[Colly]

22 minutes ago, ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster said:

When I heard it last night it immediately felt like a way to make a US-style tournament (confirmed by the US owners being front and centre) without relegation, the safety of making big money season in season out, with a big focus on Indian, Chinese, Indonesian and Malaysian fans. That's where they see the market. They can charge £100 a ticket and fill grounds with sightseers and football tourists. Everything I've heard since only supports this.

Maybe the London clubs, but there's no chance the three NW clubs can fill their grounds with tourists on a regular basis. Makes no difference to their income, but "the product" is diminished by a half empty stadium sat on their hands. 

[Hobo]

25 minutes ago, damshow said:

The NBA has really been a blueprint on how to do this. Yao Ming was, obviously, a huge deal in China and the league capitalized by doing what they could to market and show Houston Rockets games there. Not a lot of people in China have ties to Houston, but they had ties to a certain player who played for them.

More recently you have people who are "LeBron fans" and they've jumped from Cleveland, to Miami, back to Cleveland, and now to Los Angeles in their support. It's in part because these teams don't have true ties to their communities. Attending a game is absurd. The arenas are built less for everyday fans and more for the companies that shell out for the boxes and wealthy season ticket holders who fill in the seats closest to the court (if they show up, there's lots of empty seats at these games sometimes but those seats have had their tickets sold already). So if you're part of the primarily TV audience of the sport and don't live in the city that hosts a team then you might just latch onto a player or two. You'll follow their career and root for them and their team(s).

Basically the TV rights are sold on the backs of those fans and the tickets to stadiums are sold on the backs of companies and wealthy people who go less for the sport and more for self-marketing. 

I was actually going to use NUFC as a point in how these clubs probably felt the need to act now before a dozen other billionaires can buy up their own vanity project clubs. It can't be too crowded at the top.

I'd be certain this is the exact kind of model the owners of the clubs involved would prefer. Matches just become events that offer nothing more than marketing opporutinites and experiences for wealthy tourists. While the plebs watch at home on TV.

I could also see them getting rid of the traditional transfer system for teams within the ESL. Going with a US style trade system. Something that on the surface makes the league seem more competitive. While not bothering with things like relegation or promotion.

On top of that, I could totally see even further adoption of the traits of American like drafs and the creation of new franchises to take part in the league. So you could end up with, for example, a team from Dublin or some other big European city that doesn't have a major football team coming in as an expansion club.

 

[FLiam]

As it stands, I’m done with Arsenal. Which is something I can’t quite get my head around. It won’t be as easy as just switching off, it’ll be a thing that takes some time I am sure. 

Half of the reason I wanted us to win the Europa League was so that we could finally return to the Champion’s League and play those bigger teams - now we’re just going to play them by default? Over and over again? Every season the same teams? So that eventually they can become touring games being played in Asia, America etc? Nah. Not having it. 

Sad thing is, it’s not the club persé, it’s these billionaire owners that have hijacked our clubs. It makes me so sad to see my club being dragged through the mud like this. Honestly don’t know what I’ll do in terms of football in the future. Just be a casual I guess. If this does proceed, that’s it - done. I cannot support this. Legacy fan I am.

[Skummy]

2 minutes ago, Colly said:

Maybe the London clubs, but there's no chance the three NW clubs can fill their grounds with tourists on a regular basis. Makes no difference to their income, but "the product" is diminished by a half empty stadium sat on their hands. 

Genuine question - do you think we would be that far removed from an NFL-like situation where the owners would be prepared to effectively sell up and move to another city in this respect? If it becomes about super-teams and brands, does the geographical location of the grounds cease to matter? Or are there rules preventing that?

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

I feel that if football is determined to become more and more global and I feel I can't support my own team anymore, maybe I won't constrain myself to England.

St Pauli and FC Union Berlin are much closer to how I feel about things anyway.

[Hobo]

4 minutes ago, Skummy said:

Genuine question - do you think we would be that far removed from an NFL-like situation where the owners would be prepared to effectively sell up and move to another city in this respect? If it becomes about super-teams and brands, does the geographical location of the grounds cease to matter? Or are there rules preventing that?

I don't think there's anything currently to stop them (outside of fan protests, I guess). MK Dons are the only example I can currently think of in England that have relocated and rebranded in that kind of way.

[Colly]

1 minute ago, Skummy said:

Genuine question - do you think we would be that far removed from an NFL-like situation where the owners would be prepared to effectively sell up and move to another city in this respect? If it becomes about super-teams and brands, does the geographical location of the grounds cease to matter? Or are there rules preventing that?

MK Dons showed there's nothing stopping it (unless something has been put in place since), but I don't really see it as feasible. In the US you're essentially buying a place in one of the limited places in their leagues, over here in theory (until now) the pyramid goes all the way from grassroots to the world club cup or whatever it's called, hence the purchase of Salford and their crawl up the leagues. Moving Manchester United to London is incredibly costly in terms of finding space for a stadium, especially when gate revenue is going to be bottom of the pile compared to tv money. Also I really don't think that there's enough "non legacy fans" to plus that gap, and football fans won't stand for it. Phoenix clubs would appear in the north west, and the clubs that move would go down like a lead balloon, our population (and density of football teams) is so different to that of the US.

[DavidMarrio]

17 minutes ago, metalman said:

If anything, the ones I feel sorry for out of this whole rigmarole are the fans of the teams joining the thing, because they are the ones that have seen the links between club and community grow so weak that they think they can get away with something like this.

This is the big thing for me. I understand the uproar from other teams fans but as a fan of one of the club's it's heartbreaking. Been supporting the club all my life, I'm from the area, a club built on a lot of socialist values and the values of the city and sold based on the passion of the fans and these owners have completely spat on everything the club and the fans stand for. The anniversary of Hillsborough was only last week and within a few days you've got this announcement. 

You'll never walk alone is sold across the world and yet the owners couldn't give a single fuck about that mantra

[Lineker]

 

[gunnar hendershow]

29 minutes ago, Hobo said:

I'd be certain this is the exact kind of model the owners of the clubs involved would prefer. Matches just become events that offer nothing more than marketing opporutinites and experiences for wealthy tourists. While the plebs watch at home on TV.

I could also see them getting rid of the traditional transfer system for teams within the ESL. Going with a US style trade system. Something that on the surface makes the league seem more competitive. While not bothering with things like relegation or promotion.

On top of that, I could totally see even further adoption of the traits of American like drafs and the creation of new franchises to take part in the league. So you could end up with, for example, a team from Dublin or some other big European city that doesn't have a major football team coming in as an expansion club.

 

I would anticipate a form of revenue sharing, where all clubs participating have the same amount of money to spend. With that might come a salary cap, but to do so is playing with fire since players won't blink at unionizing if they suspect that profits from the league itself are being withheld from them. Trades instead of transfers make sense. But no idea how that then ties back to their respective domestic leagues (if they're allowed to continue to participate).

Right now this is just a closed Champions League but I do expect it to become so much more if left unchecked.

[DFF]

https://theathletic.com/news/european-super-league-woodward-agnelli/gbu60vj70rXE

UEFA pres Ceferin has branded Woodward and Agneli as 'snakes' and 'liars'. Apperently the former called them as recently as Thursday giving support to the new look Champs Lge. 

[The Lusophone]

58 minutes ago, ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster said:

They can charge £100 a ticket and fill grounds with sightseers and football tourists.

TBH a lot of Barcelona's current issues are because they've tried to do this - they don't sell out Camp Nou any more for precisely this reason.

[Matt]

38 minutes ago, Skummy said:

Genuine question - do you think we would be that far removed from an NFL-like situation where the owners would be prepared to effectively sell up and move to another city in this respect? If it becomes about super-teams and brands, does the geographical location of the grounds cease to matter? Or are there rules preventing that?

There's a reason this is called The Super League and not The European Super League. Why have 2 teams in Manchester and one 30 miles down the road but not have one in New York, Beijing or Tokyo.