Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

US owners find greed doesn't play well in European soccer

eu.usatoday.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 234 posts

Re: US owners find greed doesn't play well in European soccer

#51

Post by zpeti »

formerly_proven wrote: post #30

Having UEFA people talk about how unethical, greedy and acting against football fans the new league is was almost as cringy as the YouTube CEO awarding herself a free speech price.

God, this comment has given me relief after 3 days of waiting someone to say this. HN delivers.

I can't believe the hypocrisy of FIFA and UEFA and how everyone is making some moral case for being against the super league, when we know how insanely corrupt fifa and uefa are. It's an absolute joke how everyone is taking the moral high ground here.

Re: US owners find greed doesn't play well in European soccer

#52

Post by programmertote »

formerly_proven wrote: post #30

Having UEFA people talk about how unethical, greedy and acting against football fans the new league is was almost as cringy as the YouTube CEO awarding herself a free speech price.

100% this. As a supporter of Manchester United 35 years, I get the upset toward this Super League plan. But I, on the other hand, couldn't look away at the fact that UEFA is trying to expand Champions League participant list in 2023-2024 in ways that are questionable. This is not to mention that football (soccer) has become very mercenary in the three decades that I've been supporting.

Just look at the players' transfer fees, agent fees and weekly salaries. Where are all these money coming from to pay for such inflated expenses? In the end, it is us, the average football fans, who end up paying for all this greed (I pay $40/month in cable to get NBC sports to watch SOME of Manchester United's English Premier League games; $5/month to watch Peacock, which is owned by NBC, to watch SOME of Manchester United games in Premier League; $6 to ESPN Plus for FA cup; and finally $6/month for CBS Sports, which has now become Paramount+, to watch Manchester United in Champions League, which is what the super league is trying to supplant). These fees will only keep increasing every two years or so. Of course, I do not live in England and if I do, I might end up buying match day tickets, which could easily cost me ~$100 a game. If I buy a Manchester United jersey (not including the shorts), it costs ~$120 (it used to cost $90 ~4 years ago when I last bought one).

So yeah, it's greed all around (after all, we live in a capitalistic society) and UEFA doesn't have much to hold itself over the super league group to taut its virtues in my opinion.

Re: US owners find greed doesn't play well in European soccer

#53

Post by username90 »

FredPret wrote: post #40
username90 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Private run corporations tend to add a lot of value to society. Private run football clubs not so much, people prefer their amateur run clubs. You could say the first sentence isn't true, but that is what people think and why they voted like this.

Private run corporations that don’t add value tend to have a hard time, even if it takes a few years. Recall Microsoft’s much-hated dominance 20-30 years ago and how they’ve had to change. Think of your own behaviour as a consumer, always trying to buy the best and the most for the least. You’re training the cybernetic organisms known as corporations to add value conspicuously and voluminously... or die.

Many private corporations creates a bottleneck and then squeeze it of value and gets money that way. They don't go under, they thrive since people have no options but go through that bottleneck. Using democratic votes to decide when to stop companies from doing that makes perfect sense.

Re: US owners find greed doesn't play well in European soccer

#54

Post by gerikson »

tguedes wrote: post #46
gerikson wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Spanish club Real Madrid is mentioned: > But Kroenke, Henry and the Glazers, believed to be the ringleaders of the Super League fiasco along with Real Madrid’s Florentino Perez, badly miscalculated.

I think his point is that a lot of people are blaming the Americans for this when the 2 largest and greediest clubs in the world are "run" by fans. So it has nothing to do with the Americans, it's that European football has become so greedy at the top.

That's fair.

The American franchise model has a lot of advantages (or it would not be so popular) - steady income stream, revenue sharing, lower player acquisition costs.

But I also think the average European soccer fan thinks that the current status quo is bad, and introducing measures to increase the concentration of power and money is to be decried.

Re: US owners find greed doesn't play well in European soccer

#55

Post by ilamont »

kasey_junk wrote: post #28
Joe8Bit wrote: post #17

Lots of people have talked eloquantly about the monetary greed the Super League entailed, but I think it misses the wider point, Kronke (et al) have long been pushing for a _redistribution of power_ in football, away from the 'leagues' (e.g. the Premier League, La Liga, UEFA) to the clubs and owners themselves. Which is the now the canonical model for US sports, where they're most comfortable. Another example of this…

But the NFL distributes all TV money equally to all teams as well even though no one in Malaysia wants to watch Tampa Bay. Further most of that money goes to the players not the club owners. How do you square that with your thesis?

I think some of them would like to see Tom Brady play for Tampa Bay, especially after winning the Super Bowl. About five years ago his old team the patriots played in Mexico City’s arena to 75,000 people and it was a huge hit. This is in a country which has its own strong soccer culture.

Re: US owners find greed doesn't play well in European soccer

#56

Post by username90 »

thewarrior wrote: post #41
username90 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Private run corporations tend to add a lot of value to society. Private run football clubs not so much, people prefer their amateur run clubs. You could say the first sentence isn't true, but that is what people think and why they voted like this.

Value is a highly subjective term. Some claim that social media companies don’t add value. But they continue to thrive. Even tobacco companies are only dying because of extensive regulation. They add short term value maybe. But in the long term many dont. And by the time they die the damage is done. There are also counter factuals. The value a corporation prevents from being created due to monopolies or lobbying. Tha…

People vote to regulate companies they feel detract value, like Tobacco or in this case Football. Your point doesn't contradict mine.

Re: US owners find greed doesn't play well in European soccer

#57

Post by addicted »

kasey_junk wrote: post #28
Joe8Bit wrote: post #17

Lots of people have talked eloquantly about the monetary greed the Super League entailed, but I think it misses the wider point, Kronke (et al) have long been pushing for a _redistribution of power_ in football, away from the 'leagues' (e.g. the Premier League, La Liga, UEFA) to the clubs and owners themselves. Which is the now the canonical model for US sports, where they're most comfortable. Another example of this…

But the NFL distributes all TV money equally to all teams as well even though no one in Malaysia wants to watch Tampa Bay. Further most of that money goes to the players not the club owners. How do you square that with your thesis?

The CBA gives owners 52% of football related money and players 48%. So, no, the majority of the money does not go to players.

And the way football related is defined is fairly narrow, so some obvious revenue sources (suite upgrades, parking, etc) do not fall under football related and therefore goes to the owners.

Further, the vast majority of wealth the owners make is through the rapidly increasing value of their teams.

At the end of the day the income is peanuts compared to the wealth and asset value appreciation that is generated by the teams.

Re: US owners find greed doesn't play well in European soccer

#58

Post by cloudfifty »

technofiend wrote: post #45
kome wrote: post #7

football without promotion and relegation is not football, i never understood the American style of "closed leagues". If you can't deal with relegation, don't play a game.

Not that I'm a defender of either system but US teams don't promote or relegate as a whole. Rather, the players move up or down between minor and major league teams.

> Rather, the players move up or down between minor and major league teams.

Uhm, so what? Players move between clubs all the time in football.

That doesn't make any sense whatsoever to an avid, European, football fan like me at least

Re: US owners find greed doesn't play well in European soccer

#59

Post by JohnBooty »

twobitshifter wrote: post #26

With relegation and promotion is there no tournament between the promoted and relegated teams? Without this, it seems that the same teams could seesaw back and forth year to year.

This is indeed somewhat the case.

Looking at Cardiff City's long-term fortunes....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardiff_City_F.C.#/media/File:...

There are clear long term trends over the decades, with the team slowing sinking down to the 4th tier in the late 90s and working its way back up.

In the 2010's we can see see-sawing you mention: back and forth between the Championship and Premier leagues. They fight like hell to be promoted, quickly find themselves overmatched in the Premier League, and are then relegated.

It's worth noting that the team's post-2000 rebirth corresponds with an influx of juicy cash via foreign investment:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardiff_City_F.C.#Foreign_inve...

So, I mean, it's a "meritocracy" but it's still largely dependent on who's got the money because they can afford the best players and player development.

Re: US owners find greed doesn't play well in European soccer

#60

Post by FredPret »

username90 wrote: post #53
FredPret wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Private run corporations that don’t add value tend to have a hard time, even if it takes a few years. Recall Microsoft’s much-hated dominance 20-30 years ago and how they’ve had to change. Think of your own behaviour as a consumer, always trying to buy the best and the most for the least. You’re training the cybernetic organisms known as corporations to add value conspicuously and voluminously... or die.

Many private corporations creates a bottleneck and then squeeze it of value and gets money that way. They don't go under, they thrive since people have no options but go through that bottleneck. Using democratic votes to decide when to stop companies from doing that makes perfect sense.

Agreed, especially if legal machinations are used to create the bottleneck. True competition is the key here.

In my day job as a consultant, I see many small and medium corporations, and I can tell you that the successful ones are the lean & mean value creators

Post reply on HN