Sports Views

[DJ FC]

Broad View #1: America may be the land of capitalism, but when it comes to sports it's the land of communism.

Reasons for this belief: You can't just start a professional franchise, it would have to be voted on and approved and dicks would need to be sucked. And even then you'd only be allowed to have an expansion team in a 3rd rate city somewhere in bumfuck. In theory, in England, you can start a sports franchise anywhere, and if the team is good it will advance via promotion into the top league, which brings us to our 2nd piont:

American sports do not have promotion and relegation, which is the force of evolution in European sports. When you force a team to be good to be financially successful teams suddenly have incentive to be good. Unlike the Kansas City Royals whose incentive is just sit around and wait for the Yankees to come to town to sell tickets. You also reward fans for being fans. If a team gets good support they will have a healthier balance sheet and will spend this cash on players.

Reason 3: The draft is GAY. In no other industry do we allocate resources to those which cannot afford them. In European Soccer players are bought and sold and therefore end up at the teams which will utilize them the most and are willing to spend the most on them. Capitalism.

Reason 4: Salary caps. WTF? Gay.

Reason 5: Advertisng. Teams get great revenue from selling ads on their shirts. Why doesn't America do this? Maybe the fans prefer the American system, but it's not the capitalist way.

These 5 reasons all relate to America being far less "free market" when it comes to sports than Europe. I will share more broad views if people care to hear them. In some of them America is better.

[Ugly Bastard]

Call me a communist, but I love watching my favorite American sports without having to look at ads on players' jerseys. I was upset when the NFL agreed to put ads on training camp jerseys because it represents one step closer to ads on uniforms and when that happens, I will die a little as a fan. Aren't there enough ads?

[Cocktooth]

Regardless of where you are, or what sport it is, money talks. Your telling me the best clubs in Europe aren't generally the teams with the highest payroll, get real! Also, your point about the money being thrown around here, would throw your draft argument, and salary cap argument out the door. The last thing that I want is to see teams turn their uniform into a huge billboard with marketing. Take hockey for instance. The ice and boards are now covered in advertisements. It's kind of sickening to be honest.

[DJ FC]

Originally Posted by Shaw

Regardless of where you are, or what sport it is, money talks. Your telling me the best clubs in Europe aren't generally the teams with the highest payroll, get real! Also, your point about the money being thrown around here, would throw your draft argument, and salary cap argument out the door. The last thing that I want is to see teams turn their uniform into a huge billboard with marketing. Take hockey for instance. The ice and boards are now covered in advertisements. It's kind of sickening to be honest.

Read my post again please shaw.

I concede the point that advertising on teams isn't pleasant. But it does go to show that Europe is more free market than America,

[Beebs]

Originally Posted by Shaw

Regardless of where you are, or what sport it is, money talks. Your telling me the best clubs in Europe aren't generally the teams with the highest payroll, get real! Also, your point about the money being thrown around here, would throw your draft argument, and salary cap argument out the door. The last thing that I want is to see teams turn their uniform into a huge billboard with marketing. Take hockey for instance. The ice and boards are now covered in advertisements. It's kind of sickening to be honest.

The teams with the highest payroll don't have to pay a luxory tax, or revenue sharing, or any of that shit.

In Spain the clubs get to divide the TV revenue up individually, 90% of it goes to the 2 most popular teams, Barcelona and Real Madrid. The top teams in any given league get to play in the champions league the next year, which offers enormous sums of money, that goes directly to each club individually.

Teams in Italy are publicly traded companies; you can buy shares in Lazio and Juventus I know of for sure.

Anybody with the money can buy a club given that the owner is willing to sell, which in the case of team with shares listed is able to be bought with money gained by taking out debt which can be then put on the club, as happened with Manchester United and Liverpool among others.

Pro teams run their own youth set-ups, and keep or sell the players they produce, none of this draft bullshit.

In Italy, Spain, and France every player you see is going to have a buyout clause in their contract, so that if a team, any team, wants to come any get that player, they could simply pay that clause and buy the players rights.

It's not even remotely close as to who is more capitalistic.

[Beebs]

Also shirt advertising isn't that large of source of revenue for the club; Barcelona pay Unicef to put their logo on Barca shirts; so negative revenue.

[Ugly Bastard]

That's a charitable donation and an awful example for your point.

[f3lix]

Anybody else see all the advertisements all over the floor during the Duke/K-State bball game tonight? It made me sick.

[DJ FC]

Originally Posted by Beebs

Also shirt advertising isn't that large of source of revenue for the club; Barcelona pay Unicef to put their logo on Barca shirts; so negative revenue.

I think it's something like 100 mil a year for the English and German leagues each per year.

[Cocktooth]

Originally Posted by f3lix

Anybody else see all the advertisements all over the floor during the Duke/K-State bball game tonight? It made me sick.

Yes and I totally agree. Pretty soon, every court, field, rink will just be covered in advertisments. I asked a guy that runs the marketing a few years back at a minor league hockey game how much revenue they make on even the small logos. He said he wasn't allowed to tell me the exact amount, but it is something that makes them a hefty chunk of change. He said they would never think about taking them off again with the amount of revenue it makes them. They are one of the few minor league hockey teams that actually turn a profit. Even with the worst record in the league, this year they ave. more fans then any other hockey team in the country. They overtoke Hershey for the first time in a very long time.

[DJ FC]

It's fine for autosports for some reason. Why not others? You get used to it. And it allows the teams to be profitable with lower ticket sales, essentially allows for better sports once it's all said and done.

[Beebs]

Originally Posted by DJ FC

I think it's something like 100 mil a year for the English and German leagues each per year.

No, it's not. It's 20m a year for the biggest clubs.

Originally Posted by Ugly Bastard

That's a charitable donation and an awful example for your point.

No, that was my point; that it isn't a make or break deal for the clubs. A club with quite possibly the most exposure in the world, meaning the most potential to profit on an ad, doesn't need a shirt deal to make money.

[f3lix]

Originally Posted by DJ FC

It's fine for autosports for some reason. Why not others? You get used to it. And it allows the teams to be profitable with lower ticket sales, essentially allows for better sports once it's all said and done.

Ticket sales won't go down for pro sports, it will just allow the organizations to pay the players more money.

[thekremlin]

Teams taking in money or spending less money doesn't result in lower tickets sales. As a red sox fan i am 100% certain of this

[Fruitacious B]

As a karate expert, I refuse to talk about any of this.

[DJ FC]

Originally Posted by thekremlin

Teams taking in money or spending less money doesn't result in lower tickets sales. As a red sox fan i am 100% certain of this

This is just untrue. It makes a big difference for less elite teams.

[DJ FC]

Originally Posted by f3lix

Ticket sales won't go down for pro sports, it will just allow the organizations to pay the players more money.

Would they pay players more if it meant the same ticket sales? That makes no sense.

[DJ FC]

Originally Posted by Beebs

No, it's not. It's 20m a year for the biggest clubs.

I meant for the entire league.

[f3lix]

Originally Posted by DJ FC

Would they pay players more if it meant the same ticket sales? That makes no sense.

Ticket prices go up because they organizations are paying out too much money in salaries. The ads allow for increases in staff salary (peopler running the game, and there are a LOT of them) and the extra revenue is used to play players more, too. Show me one time ticket prices went down on an event after the floor or uniforms got covered in ads.

[DJ FC]

Originally Posted by f3lix

Ticket prices go up because they organizations are paying out too much money in salaries. The ads allow for increases in staff salary (peopler running the game, and there are a LOT of them) and the extra revenue is used to play players more, too. Show me one time ticket prices went down on an event after the floor or uniforms got covered in ads.

You seem to be ignoring basic economics here.

There's no incentive for a club to pay players more unless the team can get some benefit from it. If ticket prices stay high it probably means the team bought better players and therefore is providing a higher quality product.

[thekremlin]

Disagree. The supposition that owners of sports teams behave rationally is a fallacy.

[f3lix]

The number of completely unwarranted max contracts in the NBA suggests you are wrong, as well.

[Beebs]

Originally Posted by f3lix

The number of completely unwarranted max contracts in the NBA suggests you are wrong, as well.

You're thinking inside the restraints of the US system. In Europe, players are paid at exactly market value; there are no caps, no minimums, no collective bargaining agreements like here. If salary expenditure is going to go up, the quality of player is going to go up; teams don't just start paying players more.

Prime example being Manchester City, they became the richest club in the world overnight, but the money was spent on new players, not resigning current players to more lucrative deals.

[DJ FC]

I think the better examples are at the lower end. Small teams are able to provide good entertainment for fans because they are more economically free to sell advertising and able to sell players to good teams.

[DJ FC]

Not sure why I didn't think of this before, but American advertising is actually worse than Soccer. Why? You may ask. Fucking television time outs. Yes players in Europe have corporate sponsors on their shirts, but at least the actual game isn't affected by advertising. 45 minutes of uninterrupted Soccer is a beautiful thing and TV time outs make me want to vomit.