181–190 of 234 posts
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EPL is higher if you normalise by population.
Whose population? The EPL makes so much money because it's a global sport, so why should I normalize by the population of the UK?
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Leicester.
Yes, a team bought by a foreign billionaire willing to spend money suddenly got good, so good they ended up winning it all. Great for fans of Leicester, but what about all the fans of, say, Bolton? That's a team where the ownership has fallen apart and the team is insolvent and is now down in the 4th tier. Sucks to be them. What if I told you there was a magical way to make sure that all teams competing were on an eq…
I think everyone in the country rejoiced when Leicester won. Everyone loves an underdog story.
> and is now down in the 4th tier
Wolves were in the 4th tier, now they battle to get into europe. These things are cyclical over the generations. Sometimes you're up, sometimes you're down, but you're always there.
Out of interest, are you British or American?
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…
It's not deliberate arrogance, it just comes from the same core belief that thinks the USA is the best in everything {insert newsroom speech}
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I think that's why the golden era of Man Utd (last 15ish years with Fergie at the helm) wasn't that good for American fans. Yea, it brought in some (me)... but after a while, I found myself not caring about seeing a game if it wasn't against Chelsea or Liverpool. Even then... After 2 years of that... whoopie... Man Utd got another win against, oh look an ant is struggling to carry a cookie crumb. That and diving. Ser…
If you're relatively new to football, you may not remember what we used to call the "cloggers" in the UK, players who were specifically tasked with going around and injuring opposing team members with violent tackles. (Although if you're a Man U fan you may remember someone called Roy Keane...?) The pendulum has probably swung too far in the opposite direction but, for example, Maradona had his ankle broken in a famo…
I get it, there's a want to avoid injuries. I respect that. Rewarding stupidity and blatant cheating was beyond a pendulum swing. Retro punishments isnt enough. It has to be consistent red card, ejected from the game, multi game ban if you're going to fix the image of the sport. Also, cant remember what it's called, but when they intentionally kick a ball into an opposing player so it bounces off them, then out of bounds so they can get a throw in. Yea, that I hate too. I watched a 70s MU vs Liverpool game, none of that shit was going on. Just a pure game. I think that was when I was becoming disillusioned with the sport, because I saw how it used to be played... like an actual fucking sport.
Maybe The Code from hockey needs to leak into soccer/football. That's a better way to fix diving and injuring strikers. Put the beat down on that player, continue the game. Itll sort itself out eventually. Until then, I'll choose a sport that has itself sorted out.
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Not saying that I want it, but I do think it would be interesting to see what would play out if the American sports leagues adopted relegation and removed salary caps/luxury taxes at the same time.
It would get worse. There would be a set of 10 or so teams that would churn through promotion/relegation, a set of 5 or 6 teams that would win every year, then 16-ish teams that would basically serve as farm teams for the 5 or 6 big teams. The money available overall to each team is vastly different.
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>They cant figure out how to deal with diving and playing for time I always find these complaints strange coming from American fans. "Playing for time" is hugely important and mainstream strategy in the NFL. Coaches will be criticized if they don't run the ball enough when they have the lead in the 4th quarter. Meanwhile flopping is hugely common in the NBA. You can just search Youtube for "LeBron flops"[1] for plent…
I think in the USA playing for time is considered acceptable and a good strategy so long as it isn't overdone. It's different in the NFL though, where there is an inbuilt limit to how much you can really delay. But anyway, you're right -- I don't think it's generally considered bad, at least not anytime I've ever watched sports with friends and colleagues. Diving though; that's universally considered to be unquestion…
What I didn't know was the owner of these club were Americans.
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> Rugby and hockey have that shit figured out, why cant they? Something else they could learn from rugby, respect for the officials. The number of times you see football players chasing after or arguing with the referee is just embarrassing. Rugby officials don't stand for it, neither should football officials.
As someone who grew up watching rugby and only got into football as an adult, I couldn't believe the amount of disrespect players show to officials. I think I spent the first two years constantly saying "in rugby this guy would have been sent off by now" on repeat...
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This seems to miss the point entirely. The furore wasn't from further commercialisation, it was because a cartel of greedy clubs tried going solo and breaking tradition with the ladder system, where Leicester can win the Premier League or Greece the Euros. Most footballers are born into humble backgrounds, meritocracy matters.
Except it's not a meritocracy. The same clubs tend to win year over year. Those clubs then get the most money which they then invest into players so they win again the next year. That something is possible doesn't make it a meritocracy if the the system stacks the odds against it by favoring incumbents.
It's not about the winning either. The romantacism of being able to win, when Bradford knocked out Chelsea in 2015, when Oldham beat Liverpool, fighting for 5th/6th place in the premier, or fighting to avoid relegation, this is the essence of football, where everyone, no matter what their team, can support their team and have those dreams.
This article presents a simplistic "UK football good, American football bad" viewpoint, but there some aspects to how the NFL is run that are desirable. Primarily here I'm talking about negative feedback. In the Premier League (as well as Formula 1, for example) there is positive feedback that keeps the top teams at the top. Being successful means that you make more money (whether directly through prize money, or ind…
And I doubt you'd get those kinds of rules and still have pro/rel. Ultimately investors don't want that fair of a playing field. And pro/rel in Europe is brilliant if you get past the very top of the table. If all you care about is "who wins the league/cup" every year it may become boring, but the best games in the UK can be the lower league playoffs to see who goes up. There's a constant refreshment of new teams getting promoted which changes the league every year.