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Football: (Sky-)blue raindrops over a Red parade?


A Horse Named Stranger

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1 minute ago, Heartofice said:

Thing is, viewership for Chanpions league and europa league has been declining.  I found an article from 2019 talking about a super league because the figures were dropping so dramatically something needed to be done.

Im sure the finals tend to attract record viewers but are people really tuning into watch group stage matches ?

I think the knockout rounds provide better viewing numbers. Majority of viewers want to watch the big teams play each other so I expect it's only the marquee fixtures during the group stage that sees good viewing numbers. 

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43 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Thing is, viewership for Chanpions league and europa league has been declining.  I found an article from 2019 talking about a super league because the figures were dropping so dramatically something needed to be done.

Im sure the finals tend to attract record viewers but are people really tuning into watch group stage matches ?

You would think that the ESL people would look at the declining interest in the Big Cup and Euro Vase and draw the correct conclusions, but their proposal just doubles down on it.

Big Cup and Euro Vase were the result of the big clubs wanting more "exclusive, top-tier" games, so these silly group stages with all their resultant dead rubbers came about to appease them.

The old European Cup was a straight knock-out competition, and therefor every game was meaningful.  As a fan, I was strongly interested to see if Big Club could survive a trip to Bulgaria or wherever to play the unknowns.  I don't even watch most group stage games, because the stakes are so low, and the teams are all the same rotating cast of characters.

The ESL is going to come to collect the same level of fan ennui as those group stage games.

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1 hour ago, Consigliere said:

Yeah, those are largely empty threats as we all know. Remember when the big six formed the breakaway premier league and that was being proclaimed as the death of English football. Or when the European Cup was rebranded into the CL and expanded. Football is more popular and rakes in more viewers and money than ever.

A minority of fans will probably disown their clubs but that will not have any effect whatsoever. The complaints of the same teams playing every year will be boring and result in a loss of viewers seems unfounded to me as well. By and large, this is already the case in the CL. The vast majority of viewers are clearly happy to watch the big, rich clubs with the top talent play each other all the time.

The sad reality is that if the ESL ever does come to pass it will eventually become normalised among the fans, stadiums will be full, viewers the world over will be tuning in in droves and broadcasters around the world will pay a king's ransom for the rights.

You're comparing apples and oranges here. Domestic football is much more important than European football. Always has been, always will.

And while I can't speak for all fans, most of my mates couldn't give a toss about the Champions League. Even when Arsenal were in it, I found it all a bit meh. And for the past few seasons I have viewed the Euro Vase as nothing more than an annoyance hindering our return to the upper echelons of the Premier League.

I will watch any EPL game that is on the telly. Religiously. Usually, I do not even bother to check who is playing in the CL. If it's Liverpool, I might tune in. Otherwise, I really can't be arsed. Can't remember the last time I watched a European tie that did not feature an English side. So the idea that we're all drooling over some kind of European Super League is preposterous.

I hope Stan Kroenke's moustache catches fire and burns down his entire fucking family.

 

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There was a period of time where I was excited by the champions league, but I’m talking over 20 years ago. That was when there was some scarcity value around football , and champions league matches involving English clubs was rare. And they meant something. Seeing United against Dortmund or Bayern was thrilling, there was a narrative there.

Now there is nothing. It’s just matches. Endless matches. 
 

Then they took CL off tv so of course I don’t watch it. No way would I pay for it.

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We’re just over-saturated with football.  The only real solution is to reduce the supply and focus the interest again.  It’s the one thing that the NFL does very well: only 16 games per team per regular season, and 20 max if a team reaches the SB.  And their off-season is very long, which lets the appetite rebuild.  I wouldn’t structure football the same but I’d borrow the principle that less is more.

I cannot even get too bothered about whether this ESL goes ahead or not because my PL and CL viewing has dwindled to nothing anyway.  Now I just catch the 15 minute highlights on YouTube.  It’s just not worth the time or mental energy now, and it was trending that way for a long time even before COVID put it all in harsh perspective. 

An ESL might be an improvement on economic mismatches in domestic leagues.  Is it really interesting to watch small teams park the bus every week against over-financed giants?  OTOH, it starves the game of history and local connection.  It’s just another deflection of the problem.

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43 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

You're comparing apples and oranges here. Domestic football is much more important than European football. Always has been, always will.

And while I can't speak for all fans, most of my mates couldn't give a toss about the Champions League. Even when Arsenal were in it, I found it all a bit meh. And for the past few seasons I have viewed the Euro Vase as nothing more than an annoyance hindering our return to the upper echelons of the Premier League.

I will watch any EPL game that is on the telly. Religiously. Usually, I do not even bother to check who is playing in the CL. If it's Liverpool, I might tune in. Otherwise, I really can't be arsed. Can't remember the last time I watched a European tie that did not feature an English side. So the idea that we're all drooling over some kind of European Super League is preposterous.

I hope Stan Kroenke's moustache catches fire and burns down his entire fucking family.

 

Under this proposal the domestic leagues are unaffected. The ESL clubs are not proposing a breakaway from their domestic leagues. The ESL replaces the CL and will be played midweek. 

 

ETA.

Quote

So the idea that we're all drooling over some kind of European Super League is preposterous.

Who claimed this? I said the majority of viewers (not all viewers) prefer watching the big teams play which is true whether that's the CL or in domestic football - the 'big games' get the most viewership.

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25 minutes ago, Iskaral Pust said:

An ESL might be an improvement on economic mismatches in domestic leagues.  Is it really interesting to watch small teams park the bus every week against over-financed giants?  OTOH, it starves the game of history and local connection.  It’s just another deflection of the problem.

This is now truely preposterous. The mismatch between the ESL clubs and the rest of the league would be even greater than it is now. The idea that this will improve competitiveness is laughable. That statement only makes sense if you are one of those breakaway clubs and insist on crying about City. This stupid new CL format was already designed to appease that dirty dozen (increase their spending power). To recite a small poem.
 

Quote

 

Consumption is a must spoke the pig.

Shove it all in spoke the pig.

The point is for you to eat and forget,

that you were and are stupid a pig.

 

Small wonder JP Morgan is involved. For the love of the game of course.

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2 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

This is now truely preposterous. The mismatch between the ESL clubs and the rest of the league would be even greater than it is now. The idea that this will improve competitiveness is laughable. That statement only makes sense if you are one of those breakaway clubs and insist on crying about City. This stupid new CL format was already designed to appease that dirty dozen (increase their spending power). To recite a small poem.
 

Small wonder JP Morgan is involved. For the love of the game of course.

You misunderstood.  I’m thinking of the competitiveness between the ESL teams.  There’s no path to a level playing field within the domestic leagues.  The PL has (relatively) the most egalitarian distribution of TV money, and even still has vast financial differences.  Match-day revenue, CL revenue, corporate sponsorships, kit sales, etc, are all heavily skewed to larger clubs, not to mention financial doping by some owners. And revenue is even more skewed in the other major leagues.  This is the punishment for any meritocratic system of rewards: success begets success.  (Ironically the NFL has a quasi-socialist system that levels the playing field all the time, but only because it’s good for long term profits of the collective ownership)

So the question becomes do you want to watch matches with huge or small financial disparity?  It’s kind of similar to the WC: do you enjoy a competition where a handful of teams have a permanent massive advantage (population), and you wait for the occasional upstart to briefly break their way into contention before falling away again?  But it has a sense of history.

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48 minutes ago, Consigliere said:

Under this proposal the domestic leagues are unaffected. The ESL clubs are not proposing a breakaway from their domestic leagues. The ESL replaces the CL and will be played midweek. 

Under this proposal, we're gonna be kicked out of the PL. 

I know people say that will never happen, but what choice do the PL have? This European Super League, and the closed nature of it will be devastating for the Premier League, where every year we have a bunch of really good football teams chasing a handful of European places. You take that away and, really, what is the fucking point? 

Liverpool, Arsenal, et al might believe they are untouchble in that the PL wouldn't dare expel them, but they might be in for a rude awakening. 

And nobody is going to give two fucks when these greedy bastards are forced into playing each other week in week out 'cos they've got no one else to play. The TV figures will be embarrassing. 

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The competitiveness of ESL teams is already there. We basically have sorta ESL starting at the CL quarter finals. And that's arguably more merit based. Ofc, the CL has already distorted domestic comeptions, so UEFA going after those self-declared super clubs, while cementing their status ever more with each new CL reform is ofc rich. Anyway, do you think there's one unstoppable juggernaut in the CL? If so, it sure is hell hasn't been City. They might very well win their CL title this year, if they don't get kicked, that is.

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I couldnt care, it will be like posh cunts going clubbing in boujis, let them think they are having the best time. Everyone else is with their mates in O'Neills having a laugh and drinking shit beer on sticky carpets. 

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4 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

I couldnt care, it will be like posh cunts going clubbing in boujis, let them think they are having the best time. Everyone else is with their mates in O'Neills having a laugh and drinking shit beer on sticky carpets. 

Yeah, but those cunts still want to go to your pub on some sorta poverty safari.

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It is funny than now everybody sees what is wrong with modern football.

Like it is wrong for teams to play in SL and gain shitloads more money than their other national teams, but when bilionaires buy clubs and each year invest amounts of money that the adversaries can't compete with there is no problem.

Or when a team that participates in CL receives almost 10 times the amount of money of teams that don t participate there aren t problems...

 

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3 hours ago, Soylent Brown said:

I wonder if this breaches the players' contracts? Given that they won't be able to play for their national teams, or play in the Champions League, it'll be interesting to see if anyone looks into walking away from their Super League club.

I'm not sure anyone ever predicted a situation like this so I wouldn't be surprised if players contracts say nothing about them playing for national teams or not.

3 hours ago, Consigliere said:

The complaints of the same teams playing every year will be boring and result in a loss of viewers seems unfounded to me as well. By and large, this is already the case in the CL. The vast majority of viewers are clearly happy to watch the big, rich clubs with the top talent play each other all the time.

The special feeling of "European nights at Anfield" comes in part from the fact that they are not weekly occurrence. Playing Real Madrid, Barcelona, Juventus and the rest of these top teams week in week out will make it less special. When Liverpool play Bayern, you know that tens of millions or hundreds of millions will be in front of the TV. If that becomes just another Wednesday, the interest will drop. Especially if there's no stake in it. If winning or losing the match makes no difference, a lot of people would just skip it.

3 hours ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

I have seen this argument being brought forward it's absolutely hollow. You are getting to bed with the UAE and Putin's buddy Abramovich, and the Qataris (PSG) were/are very much invited to join. So you are cutting out the middle man, and not making a great stand for human rights. If you want to make bigger point about taking the game away from those organizations, fine. But again, you are taking the game away from them to give it to whom? Hedge funds, a Russian oligarch and human rights abusers in the middle east. That's one way to fight corruption. Don't get me wrong, I am all for cynicism, but this is a bit too much, even for me. This is definately not about the grassroots game.

First of all, I'm not getting to bed with anyone.

Second of all, you may like it or not but UAE and Abramovich and Qataris are club owners. Maybe they shouldn't be club owners but that issue should've been raised before or during their club takeovers, not decades later when they decide to shake things up. On the other hand, UEFA and FIFA are these supposedly impartial organizations whose mandate is to act in the best interest of the game and yet they have  fallen flat on their arses multiple times when they were supposed to enforce the financial fair play or ban Italian teams involved in Calciopoli from taking part in European competitions, their officials were caught red-handed for accepting bribes, they are responsible for the whole mess with Qatar WC and who knows what else. And still they are getting on their high horse and talking about things like integrity, best interest of the game etc. I heard on one podcast today that UEFA takes 30% of Champions League income. For what, exactly? For their monopolist position maintained by blackmailing national federations, that's what. Sorry for not shedding a tear that someone is telling them to get stuffed. Also, the way they handled this whole thing, yelling that they'd ban players from national teams made them seem like even more of an assholes.

I feel like I need to reiterate that I'm not in favour of ESL nor am I saying that these 12 clubs are right to do this. I hate this idea as much as the next guy. It's just the notion of FIFA and UEFA getting on their high horse when they are at least as much of money-grabbing assholes and bad guys as they are trying to make these 12 clubs' owners to be that I find hypocritical and enfuriating.

3 hours ago, Consigliere said:

I think the knockout rounds provide better viewing numbers. Majority of viewers want to watch the big teams play each other so I expect it's only the marquee fixtures during the group stage that sees good viewing numbers. 

Of course knockout stages have better viewing numbers. Something's at stake there, when during group stages you still have enough opportunity to clean up some mess you make.

1 hour ago, Consigliere said:

Under this proposal the domestic leagues are unaffected. The ESL clubs are not proposing a breakaway from their domestic leagues. The ESL replaces the CL and will be played midweek. 

This is probably the worst part of the whole proposal - clubs trying to have their cake and eat it.

One of the biggest complaints was that there are too many matches in the calendar and now they want to have 18 matches in the ESL + quarterfinals (2 matches) + semifinals (2 matches) + final (1 match), in addition to domestic leagues (38 matches in PL) and cups. There is no way that even Man City (they have the biggest squad in the PL) could play so many competitive matches, without fielding youngsters and reserves. And they definitely wouldn't send the weaker team out in ESL, would they?

I'd rather watch EPL without this top 6 teams than watch them mocking it by fielding U21 teams regularly. The only time I found that acceptable was when Liverpool played youngsters in the FA Cup because of the fixture clash with Club World Cup.

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Michael Cox wrote a piece in the Atheltic about why the Super League is a good thing. His actual position is that the game currently is broken and so any attempt to fix is a positive..but only because it’s unlikely that anyone is going to agree to wage caps and redistribution of wealth so we don’t have a massive discrepancy between top teams and smaller sides.

Have to admit , it is really dull the way most matches play out. Basically half the league play in a low block and one team has 70% possession. No wonder it’s not exciting.

 

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19 minutes ago, baxus said:

Second of all, you may like it or not but UAE and Abramovich and Qataris are club owners. Maybe they shouldn't be club owners but that issue should've been raised before or during their club takeovers, not decades later when they decide to shake things up. On the other hand, UEFA and FIFA are these supposedly impartial organizations whose mandate is to act in the best interest of the game and yet they have  fallen flat on their arses multiple times when they were supposed to enforce the financial fair play or ban Italian teams involved in Calciopoli from taking part in European competitions, their officials were caught red-handed for accepting bribes, they are responsible for the whole mess with Qatar WC and who knows what else. And still they are getting on their high horse and talking about things like integrity, best interest of the game etc. I heard on one podcast today that UEFA takes 30% of Champions League income. For what, exactly? For their monopolist position maintained by blackmailing national federations, that's what. Sorry for not shedding a tear that someone is telling them to get stuffed. Also, the way they handled this whole thing, yelling that they'd ban players from national teams made them seem like even more of an assholes.

*takes a look at the founding members*.

Nope, no overlap with Calciopoli clubs, or FFP violators. I mean, you can make those points, but to start a breakaway league with those clubs and justifying it by their acts. That's problem with the CL reforms and how that money has skewed domestic competitions is rather that too much power is lying with the big clubs (ECA), not too little. UEFA takes a huge cut from the CL earnings. Question is, where does the money go.

Not all competitions are as lucrative as the CL.

Ah, check out for yourself.

Will the super league subsidize junior competions, or the womens Euros, who are not anywhere near as profitable as the CL?

So no, those 30% do not vanish into the pockets of UEFA officials.

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2 hours ago, Iskaral Pust said:

We’re just over-saturated with football.  The only real solution is to reduce the supply and focus the interest again.  It’s the one thing that the NFL does very well: only 16 games per team per regular season, and 20 max if a team reaches the SB.  And their off-season is very long, which lets the appetite rebuild.  I wouldn’t structure football the same but I’d borrow the principle that less is more.

Exactly. It's why, at least here in the states, the NFL is the sport most capable of handling all the cord cutting because it's such a limited commodity. And inversely, having a 162 game season plays a large role in the decline of MLB.

1 hour ago, Iskaral Pust said:

(Ironically the NFL has a quasi-socialist system that levels the playing field all the time, but only because it’s good for long term profits of the collective ownership)

It is indeed ironic that sports leagues in the U.S. are generally run like socialistic entities while European football is the height of cutthroat capitalism. Wonder where those wires got crossed. 

.....................................................................................................................................................

 

So obviously I get most of my sports news through U.S. media sources, and they in turn always see things through an American lens. The handful of reporting I've seen about the new SL is that this is the fault of new American owners in Europe. Is there some validity to these claims? It would be the American thing to do to come in late and say to hell with other's traditions because there's so much unrealized profits just sitting there waiting to be had. 

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