[Football] American invasion of the Premier League - the end of promotion/relegation?

[theboybilly]

They tried something similar with the European super league. That didn't go well for them.

You can fu$k with many things in this country, but you can't fu%k about with promotion and relegation.

You think? Most PL clubs have a fanbase, well outside their home town/City. They only want to see the best players and their team winning 4 or 5-nil every week on TV. Loads would welcome a relatively stress-free life of only having silverwear collecting to concern them. We could very well see a major shift to American ideas. One thing though, I don't think we'll ever see the Draft system come in. Blimey, Non-League, seems so inviting now

 

[Guinness Boy]

And here we go again, NSC moderator wanting to transform a thread about the consequences of Americanisation of football into a shit stirring contest.

But yeah I'm willing to play the game you're setting up: yeah I'm anti-American in a similar way to you getting a boner from every nation slaughtering Arabs.

You want a medal for always siding with the big guys shitting on the small ones?

I'm pointing out that yours and JRG's justification for your theory is basically "all Americans think exactly the same". Now, let's swap the word "American" for "Arabs" or "black people" and what have we got?

 

[Swansman]

I'm pointing out that yours and JRG's justification for your theory is basically "all Americans think exactly the same". Now, let's swap the word "American" for "Arabs" or "black people" and what have we got?

Yes, I do think most or all American billionaire business investors with a sport niche and background of running and making profits from American sports teams think in a similar fashion, namely that they want to maximise profits and reduce risk when investing in eg Premier League football teams, and that the best way of doing that is through copying the model that has worked very well for sport investors in the US.

This gets a little wonky if I do like you ask me but we can try:

Yes, I do think most or all Arab billionaire business investors with a sport niche and background of running and making profits from Arab sports teams think in a similar fashion, namely that they want to maximise profits and reduce risk when investing in eg Premier League football teams, and that the best way of doing that is through copying the model that has worked very well for sport investors in the Arab country they came from.

Hmm.. doesn't work great as Arab sports teams dont function in that way. Oh well. Lets try with the black ones then:

Yes, I do think most or all black people billionaire business investors with a sport niche and background of running and making profits from black people sports teams think in a similar fashion, namely that they want to maximise profits and reduce risk when investing in eg Premier League football teams, and that the best way of doing that is through copying the model that has worked very well for sport investors in the countries and continents where black people exist.

Still a little wonky.

Looks like it isn't quite interchangeable.

Thank you for yet another on-topic non-shitstirring contribution however.

 

[Seasider78]

Sure, clubs like Brentford and Brighton are the hopes here but there would have to be more of them.

ESL was "killed off", or rather put to rest because it will be back as a suggestion, indeed. Would it have stopped fans going to games? I don't think so. Would fans stop watching the games on TV if they threatened to remove the promotion/relegation? I doubt it. Many fans of the clubs who were bought by foreign pigs said "I wouldn't want that, I'd stop going" and yet the stadiums are filled. Never mind TV. In the Future Premier League it'll be sad in the unlikely case the English fans stopped watching due to percieved holyness of the relegation/promotion concept but as if you can grow the markets in China, the US and elsewhere - the owners could just shrug off whatever you think about it.



I think the backlash would be massive yes, and then people would adapt and watch their teams in the Super Premier League. What happens in the National League or how important it is to your community, you think some ****ing American hedgefund capitalist gives a shit?



"Uh no... the reaction".. on the other hand: money.







The same reasons teams in the US don't want relegation: profit and attention. If you close the Premier League, it would be a lot easier to make the league profitable. If you can promise a American or Chinese TV networks that the 20 most popular teams in England would play in the PL each year, they'd be willing to pay more than if teams like Aston Villa, Newcastle or West Ham - sometimes several of them at the same time - would drop into another division and be replaced by a team like Huddersfield or some other that no one has heard of.

With a closed league, there would also be more (yes, even more) investment in the not-too-fancy clubs (like... Southampton) because there's no fear of missing out on your main sources of (growing) income and make massive losses. A team like Southampton could in that case have their future American owner splash £300m of the best talent from the rest of Europe and the world, knowing that the money are guaranteed to be repaid. And when all teams become better, it has several advantages in the Chinese-American tv sofa: more teams are able to compete for titles, more teams have exciting players that mr Chang Brucewillis would like to watch, and growth would inevitably happen in today underexploited markets and by taking shares from Italian and Spanish clubs.

The reality is this:
The NFL, which is surely the dream for American PL owners, is more profitable and bring in more TV money than the PL, and this is due to its advantage compared to competing leagues, and advantage achieved by the possibility to dominate through investing in the best players without financial risk because there is zero fear that a competing league will reach those standards or that a club will fall down into the obscurity of "NFL 2".

Sure, it also has to do with the domestic market being bigger than the UK domestic market. But unlike whatever they're playing in the NFL, football is popular all over the world and there's a greater, underutilized potential that makes it creamy in the pants of these yanks. American or Chinese TV companies might not be willing to spend as much as eg Sky Sports on football today, but as seen from other sports you can significantly increase the interest (which in the case of football is more dormant than non-existent) abroad if for instance Manchester United go and play a Premier League game against Liverpool in New York or Shanghai.

Why would these American businessmen buy clubs in the PL if they didn't think there was more money to milk out of it? Why would they not try to change the format and the rules in a direction that generates more money with less risk? Because a couple of million (most would get over it and keep watching their team) of increasingly impoverished Brits would sit and sob over Bristol City not being able to go to the top flight? I call that utopian.

If you don’t think there would be a serious protest and action taken in this country if the pyramid system was under threat you know even less about English football culture than I thought you did.

The ESL was stopped and there was more than enough money at stake there and it will be fought and defeated again if it resurfaces. Yes fans seem less concerned about who own their clubs but as we saw when the fans of those 6 clubs reacted they are protective of the pyramid which is bigger than any club or owner.

That’s why it will never happen no matter how many money men run PL clubs.

 

[Guinness Boy]

Yes, I do think most or all American billionaire business investors with a sport niche and background of running and making profits from American sports teams think in a similar fashion, namely that they want to maximise profits and reduce risk when investing in eg Premier League football teams, and that the best way of doing that is through copying the model that has worked very well for sport investors in the US.

I'd argue that where they do think similarly is in an effort to beat each other and effectively be "best billionaire" which means, funnily enough, innovation and doing things their way, not colluding together. If you really think that Boehly, FSG and the guys that run Barnsley are some kind of Borg hive mind you're madder than I thought. The big clubs will only collude together until one of their interests is being damaged.

 

[jcdenton08]

I just wanted to get in on the fun of posting a long, tedious, preachy load of bollocks, which nobody gives a shit about. So I’m just going to copy/paste a chunk of Dickie Bird’s Wikipedia page;

When a knee injury put paid to playing football professionally, he followed his second love, cricket. In his early career in Barnsley, he played club cricket in the same team as Geoff Boycott, and journalist and chat show host Michael Parkinson, who became a lifelong friend. In 1956, Bird signed up with his home county, Yorkshire.[1] Boycott has spoken highly of Bird's ability as a batsman, but feels that his attempt to forge a career as a county cricketer was hampered by his inability to control his nerves[5] – although he was also not helped by stiff competition for the opening batsman's position: indeed, the very match after scoring his first (and only) County Championship century of 181*, scored in the absence of the regular opener Ken Taylor (who was playing for England), he was dropped when Taylor returned from international duty. Bird played only five more championship matches that season (plus the MCC versus Champion County match), four in the middle order rather than his preferred opener's position, and spent most of the season as "twelfth man": hardly a situation conducive to building confidence in his batting. Shortly before the start of the 1960 season he moved to Leicestershire, where he enjoyed a more or less regular place in the team at first – scoring over 1000 runs in his first season of 1960, including a century against the touring South Africans, which would prove to be his only other first-class century – but latterly faded out of the team, thanks to a combination of loss of form, confidence and a recurrence of his persistent knee injury, playing his last match in 1964. Overall, between 1956 and 1964, Bird played first-class cricket as a batsman for Yorkshire[1] and Leicestershire in 93 matches, mostly in the English County Championship.

 

[Swansman]

If you don’t think there would be a serious protest and action taken in this country if the pyramid system was under threat you know even less about English football culture than I thought you did.

The ESL was stopped and there was more than enough money at stake there and it will be fought and defeated again if it resurfaces. Yes fans seem less concerned about who own their clubs but as we saw when the fans of those 6 clubs reacted they are protective of the pyramid which is bigger than any club or owner.

That’s why it will never happen no matter how many money men run PL clubs.

I'm sure the would be protests. There's always protests. "Don't close the mines, we'll lose our jobs and communities", and then the mines may or may not close.

I'd argue that where they do think similarly is in an effort to beat each other and effectively be "best billionaire" which means, funnily enough, innovation and doing things their way, not colluding together. If you really think that Boehly, FSG and the guys that run Barnsley are some kind of Borg hive mind you're madder than I thought. The big clubs will only collude together until one of their interests is being damaged.

I think they have in the past been very collaborative when it comes to strengthen the status and widening the market of an entire league. Within the league, sure they want to be the best billionaire but if one of them suggests "if we play games in China or the US and increase the willingness for TV companies over there to pump money into the league" I don't think for one minute that they would avoid collaborating to make that happen.

 

[jcdenton08]

Interestingly, legendary Dickie Bird and famed TV personality Michael “Parky” Parkinson were lifelong friends. I wonder what their opinion on the situation would be.

 

[El Presidente]

The SuperLeague Franchise project is not dead, it is just being repackaged into a more cuddly format.

 

[Swansman]

The SuperLeague Franchise project is not dead, it is just being repackaged into a more cuddly format.

Yup.

Italian and Spanish clubs won't give it up, the SPL is essential for their competitiveness and in some cases possibly their survival Question is how the emerging American Premier League will approach it. They might sneak in, but turning football into a one league sport that no one can challenge in viewership and strength might be equally profitable.

 

[BBassic]

I think the system and the pyramid will remain. But whether the Sinister Six are part of it is the question for me.

They'll likely end up doing their Super League thing leaving the Premier League, and the rest of the pyramid, to fill in the gaps.

I personally wouldn't want to watch a competition without any stakes. What's the point?

 

[Seasider78]

I'm sure the would be protests. There's always protests. "Don't close the mines, we'll lose our jobs and communities", and then the mines may or may not close.



I think they have in the past been very collaborative when it comes to strengthen the status and widening the market of an entire league. Within the league, sure they want to be the best billionaire but if one of them suggests "if we play games in China or the US and increase the willingness for TV companies over there to pump money into the league" I don't think for one minute that they would avoid collaborating to make that happen.

It can’t just be about money, that would be quite depressing, and eventually people would fall out of love with football if that was the case.

You always have to provide something beyond that for it to be of any interest or any importance

 

[Popeye]

I do not think this will happen, at least not for a long time yet. The American model of playoffs, no promotion/relegation, etc works for us as it is the culture and the way all our other main sports are set up. Did Boehly and the other Americans invest in teams in the Premier League just to build up their image and add to their financial portfolio? For the most part yes, but their money, can do what they want with it.

I love promotion/relegation because as others have said: If their wasnt any, what would be the point for a lot of the teams to even play? Would take away the excitement of the season all the way around. I think also some just don't like Americans period messing with sports in England as it were and that is just annoying tbh. But anyway....I digress.

 

[Change at Barnham]

Swanny and JGG make some very good points.
The scenario has many similarities with the gradual erosion of county cricket.

The money boys will want to protect their investments and they will be trying very hard to adjust our much cherished pyramid to avoid their franchises chances of being relegated.

I hope JGG and Swanny continue with their valuable contributions.

 

[Change at Barnham]

I do not think this will happen, at least not for a long time yet. The American model of playoffs, no promotion/relegation, etc works for us as it is the culture and the way all our other main sports are set up. Did Boehly and the other Americans invest in teams in the Premier League just to build up their image and add to their financial portfolio? For the most part yes, but their money, can do what they want with it.

I love promotion/relegation because as others have said: If their wasnt any, what would be the point for a lot of the teams to even play? Would take away the excitement of the season all the way around. I think also some just don't like Americans period messing with sports in England as it were and that is just annoying tbh. But anyway....I digress.

I would agree with all of this, you just need to adjust the opening sentence to:
This will happen, at least not for a long time yet.

It's going to happen eventually just like the Indian Premier League which now pulls the strings of world cricket.
It may be in 10+ years, but sadly its on the way.

 

[Lyndhurst 14]

They'll need bigger carparks for the tailgate parties

 

[Guinness Boy]

The SuperLeague Franchise project is not dead, it is just being repackaged into a more cuddly format.

Of the 12 clubs who proposed it, five currently have American owners and four did when the proposal was made.

(I know you know this bit but for everyone else)

The three Spanish clubs are owned by their members as clubs over there are, Man City by Abu Dhabi (effectively), Inter by Suning who are Chinese, Juve continue to be owned by the Agnelli family and ENIC who own Spurs are considered British.

So surely the story on this piece, on which I think you. me and Swanny agree is "big clubs will act in their own self interest even if owned by the fans in a socios scheme". It's not "all these Americans are going to take over and turn the Premier League into the NFL". That's entirely different.

And I wonder how long the new "cuddly" ESL will last once you try to agree governance between the Chinese, the Americans, ENIC, Fiat and clubs owned by members (particularly Barca's left wing Catalan nationalists).

 

[Questions]

What’s the reason for the top 6 voting for no relegation? They aren’t at any risk of relegation.

Agree and we love rotating the whipping boys.

 

[Jolly Red Giant]

And here we go again, NSC moderator wanting to transform a thread about the consequences of Americanisation of football into a shit stirring contest.

But yeah I'm willing to play the game you're setting up: yeah I'm anti-American in a similar way to you getting a boner from every nation slaughtering Arabs.

You want a medal for always siding with the big guys shitting on the small ones?

it is a little bit ironic that a poster gives out to me for 'pontificating' about a country I don't live in (knowing little of the history of Ireland and England or the fact that my daughter lives in England) - yet has the username 'Guinness Boy'

 

[Jolly Red Giant]

From reading your posts over a few years it sounds like you have been challenging the system for quite a long time. Bearing in mind all the facts and figures in the rest of your post how is that going and if the answer is ‘not great’ will this tactic begin working in time to save football?

Time is relative - you cannot pluck revolutionary upheavals out of thin air - they happen organically - and we are heading into a period of revolutionary upheavals on a global basis. The outcome of these developments is much harder to predict.