Monday 19 April 2021

US exporting socialism to Europe: Super League

 I recall a post in the distant past where I discussed how socialist US sports are. For those that don't know, Capitalism has not role to play in US pro sports. This is a huge feature that the announcement by some of Europe's biggest football clubs to create a new league is driven. Three of the four Clubs who are leading the breakaway are UK clubs owned by US sports billionaires. 

In the US, the players are groomed at Universities for free until their early twenties, there are no Academies. From the age of graduation, players go into a 'draft' and are signed by the Professional clubs. The Pro clubs are a closed shop and allocate draft picks in reverse order from how they finished in the league the season before. So if you are bad, you get a bunch of free picks for the best young talent the next year. 

More importantly, all the US major leagues are closed. If teams are added, it is because a rich commercial group has applied and the league has agreed to expand. There is no relegation and no 'pyramid' like we have in Europe. If you have a bad year and finish last, oh well, there is always next year and you can re-stock with better players for free. 

This has a huge advantage of protecting the investment of those who put money into buying a club. The revenues are shared out and fixed and you can't have any bad years. In the US the only people who lose out are cities where the sports teams leave once the tax breaks end and there is a better TV deal to be had elsewhere - St Louis Rams moving to Los Angeles is a good recent example. 

So should socialism succeed in Europe? I really hope not, if anything the change should be the other way with the cabal or unions and owners in the US being challenged by new entrants. When the money men are in charge, all the fun will be drained away for good. 

Maybe this will be a good story to show socialism is a pure evil, doubly so when practiced by billionaires!

26 comments:

djm said...

Capitalism has no(t) role to play in US pro sports......... True for US Football, but not (for instance) in regard to professional golf.

There, the independent contractors (the players) all essentially start each year at the same level - zero winnings. As the season progresses, the better players arrive each week at the top of the scoreboard & thus scoop the most moolah.

In theory, a player could win 10 tournaments in one year, earn US$50million, & because of an injury or personal circumstances (family problems, divorce etc) win nowt the next.



Marseille Rovers said...

Surprised the French are so against.
This sporting model seems exactly the sort of thing they would insist upon.

andrew said...


I dont think the french are socialists, more that they are very mistrustful of their fellow man and so (this may be only relevant to the habitues of a bar in collioure after a few) they pay lots in taxes and almost nothing to charity because they do not trust the other b****** to make the same charitable donations.



Anomalous Cowshed said...

"Capitalism has no role to play in US pro sports."

OK.

"This has a huge advantage of protecting the investment of those who put money into buying a club."

Er, OK.

dearieme said...

The frogs: an Aussie pal of mine went to live in France while her husband took an academic sabbatical year there. She decided to do voluntary work. She couldn't - nobody understood the concept. They assumed she was trying to diddle them in some subtle way.

Not that it matters to us any more - we're boycotting the buggers. (The frogs, not the Aussies.)

Matt said...

Of course, if it were properly capitalist, then if you provide a crap service then you wouldn't have "a huge advantage of protecting the investment of those who put money into buying a club." because the customers would go elsewhere.

And so it will be in Europe, a lot of noise but in the end the fans will pay whatever the owners want to watch grown men kick around a bag of wind for 90 minutes so they only have themselves to blame.

Anonymous said...

BBC very upset about a super league.


Not surprisingly. They already pay their most generous and highest salaries to their football commentators.
They were long ago priced out if the football market.

A post on what occurred at ITV Digital, CU?

MrMC said...

Silly question time, we have many protesters all seemingly with placards ready made by the "socialist worker party" sic, worker, hmm is there any place where a socialist state has thrived and, how does equality really work in "their" minds ? union leaders seem to have quite large salaries do we all get that?

Nick Drew said...

Sport isn't the only arena in which the Americans demonstrate their supposed love of freedom & markets is not to be taken seriously

Elby the Beserk said...

Your football correspondent (disclaimer. Man City supporter since the Trautmann days, so alongside current glory, I have also witnessed 6 relegations, and the ultimate horror of nearly losing twice to Bristol Rovers in division 3). Both of which games I was unfortunate enough to attend, and they would be the worst and next worst professional football games I have ever attended.

Here's my take. This is a warning shot across the bows of the Prem and UEFA, both of whom are all they are accusing the clubs of being on the greed scale. And the proposed super league is not that different to the horrible botch UEFA want to foist on the Champion's League, already bloated and suffering to many boring or even meaningless games) - they want more clubs, and also eternal slots for the "great" clubs of history, even of they don't qualify.

So a cartel, no different to the Euro Super League.

If you are interested, the day football came big business was when the big clubs of the late 80s/early 90s hijacked the formation of what was to be the 18 clubs "FA Premier League", seeing the money coming down the line. All recounted in gory detail in David Conn's "The Football Business".

Football is now a global "brand". Sooner or later the Euro League will happen, and I will spend my Saturdays watching Frome Town FC (Who are by FAR the finest football club, the world has ever seen...)

CityUnslicker said...

All,

Billionaires are not synonymous with capitalism, they are often a product of oligopoly or monopoly - even if accidental like Bill gates. There are a lot of Saudi billionaires, they ain't capitalist.

The key thing if you are a rich billionaire is to stay one - hence their strong desire for a super League. It is completely anti-capitalist and a typical socialist policy of trying to maintain the statues quo and current system at all costs (see Unions).

andrew said...


This is just the beginning.

Footy is a global game (unlike NFL)

In 20 years time one way or another man city's home ground may well rotate between asia and america.

A repeating pattern:
We invent it
Get less good at it
Sell it
Someone else made a lot from it





E-K said...

LMAO at Elby.

Our football clubs have been foreign owned and foreign staffed for decades now. I have no problem with that (even if I did watch it.) Then Sky subscriptions and watch at home...

This was inevitable.

So long as people are prepared to pay for it what's the problem ? So long as the product is not paid for out of tax then it can't be socialist.

I happen to think they're looking for broader markets - the Far East.

This is all part of the Great Reckoning. China and India's money (and feelings) are going to be more important than ours and billionaires know it.

-------

Today it was announced by the BBC (The BBC !) that I was now more at risk of dying in a crash driving to work than of CV-19.

So why am I still allowed to drive to work ?

E-K said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Don Cox said...

I don't know what you mean by "socialism".

To me, socialism means the NHS, free schools, state pensions, unemployment and sickness benefits, and state ownership (or oversight) of infrastructure. Basically, what the Attlee government established in the 1940s.

Marxism means class hatred and revolution. Quite a different thing.

I don't see what either of these have to do with football as a show-business spectacle.

Don Cox

Anonymous said...

I told you!

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/apr/20/us-ambassador-john-sullivan-to-leave-moscow-as-tensions-rise

dearieme said...

"Basically, what the Attlee government established in the 1940s." Except that most things on your list were introduced long before Attlee formed his government.

Anonymous said...

That's a pity, Lilith, as NZ is where the globalist class like to have their SHTF boltholes.

E-K said...

Ah. NZ.

The model of a CV-19 response. Luckily CV-19 doesn't seem to affect sheep.

Four Eyes doesn't sound nearly so cool, either.

Anonymous said...

Told you!

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-leader-signs-law-call-up-reservists-military-service-2021-04-21/

Anonymous said...

Easy to stop Covid in Feb 2020, just close the borders, but rootless cosmopolitan Boris wanted UK to be "open for business". OTOH without the death and disaster there wouldn't have been the huge push for a vaccine.

Less forgiveable is the Indian variant, where Boris closes the borders... with a week's notice. I bet flights to the UK are heaving right now.

Elby the Beserk said...

Unknown said...
I don't know what you mean by "socialism".

To me, socialism means the NHS, free schools, state pensions, unemployment and sickness benefits, and state ownership (or oversight) of infrastructure. Basically, what the Attlee government established in the 1940s.

Marxism means class hatred and revolution. Quite a different thing.

I don't see what either of these have to do with football as a show-business spectacle.

Don Cox
=========================================================

A market economy means a country is NOT Socialist. Simple as that.

Worth remembering as so few seem to know it. The NHS, the Welfare State, were all agreed by the three main parties before WWII. The plan then became that it would be implemented by WHICHEVER government was in power after the war.

So nothing to do with "Socialism", and local Friendly Societies, before the Welfare state, were starting to institute pensions as well as medical cover and unemployment insurance. Up to 80% of workers were members.

And if the NHS was "Socialist", how come Aneurin Bevan had to "stuff their mouths with gold" to persuade GPs to join?

Regardless, a cracking good re-write of history. The first welfare state was of course put in place by that died-in-the-wool Socialist, Bismarck.

dearieme said...

"The NHS, the Welfare State, were all agreed by the three main parties before WWII"

Nope. The NHS was proposed by Beveridge in his famous wartime report. The Conservatives and the Liberals adopted the idea as policy. Labour rejected it.

It was only at the last minute that Labour changed its mind (forgive me for using the metaphor that Labour has a mind).

E-K said...

I suggest Boris is a socialist despite his protestations about the Super League.

We're now being told we must eat less meat. Rations ? Taxes ? Does this only apply to the working classes ?

Carbon cuts brought forwards 15 years.

Who voted for this ? We voted Boris to keep Corybinism out, not get it on speed.

The worst Prime Minister in British history.

lilith said...

As a carnivore I am a little alarmed that I am being told by a government that I must eat less meat. I only weigh 7 1/2 stone.

Sobers said...

Is it just me, or does the world seem to be accelerating towards some sort of singularity? Nothing appears to be in any way permanent, what was black yesterday is white today, everything is in constant flux, and the pace of change is accelerating constantly. This cannot continue forever, at some point it must collapse to a steady state. What I fear is that the steady state we arrive at will not be very conducive for human existence.