New Euro Super league to be announced Sunday

Morgan's Magic Snowplow

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It's an attempt to align the players against ESL. Players are going to be very wary (a salary cap is the obvious move for ESL once they lock in never worrying about relegation). Basically UEFA says... play on ESL and you can't play in the Euros of WC, with the hope players say.... "my contract doesn't cover ESL, and I won't sign one to play there if it costs me international play", with the threat to follow being that if the clubs are really banned by their leagues, the players can request (and likely get in most countries) release from their contract.

He's basically making the (likely empty) threat that if you go to ESL as a club, the best players will desert you for no compensation. So you have your big name, but 2nd and 3rd tier players, while the top players move to the big money clubs left behind. Also interesting... if that happened, big money would be lining up to invest in the West Ham and Newcastles of the world.
That may be part of the calculus but I think its mainly a desperate threat being bandied around in the heat of the moment, rather than part of any kind of well-considered strategy.

I think the reality is that this change, if it happens, would probably benefit players on the ESL clubs, at least from a purely financial standpoint. There is going to be a massive influx of revenue to those clubs, there will be competition between them for players, and the players are going to reap benefits from that in their wages and other compensation.

If UEFA really does try to ban ESL players from participating in international competition, I think you're more likely to see protests and lawsuits from the players against UEFA than an exodus from the ESL clubs.
 

Cellar-Door

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That may be part of the calculus but I think its mainly a desperate threat being bandied around in the heat of the moment, rather than part of any kind of well-considered strategy.

I think the reality is that this change, if it happens, would probably benefit players on the ESL clubs, at least from a purely financial standpoint. There is going to be a massive influx of revenue to those clubs, there will be competition between them for players, and the players are going to reap benefits from that in their wages and other compensation.

If UEFA really does try to ban ESL players from participating in international competition, I think you're more likely to see protests and lawsuits from the players against UEFA than an exodus from the ESL clubs.
yeah.
Honestly UEFA isn't the group I think has the most power... (though banning the clubs from CL is their biggest stick really). It's the FA. The Super League sound's great for Spurs for example... but is it great to be the bottom of SL if it costs you your PL place? How big do we think the money is long-term compared with the long-term PL and CL money? I mean, a lot of the fanbase for some of these clubs is tied up in people liking to support a winner. If you're now a loser.... why does the person who picked Spurs with no connections 6 years ago stick with them over Everton or West Ham or Leicester if those teams are winning the PL and competing in the CL?

Edit- to make an American Sports analogy... nobody who isn't from Cleveland chooses to be a Browns fan.
 

SocrManiac

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I have "voted" in the only way I can by severing all social media connections and canceling any subscriptions I had with Juventus and Liverpool. I canceled ESPN+ and would have killed Peacock if I hadn't (stupidly) paid for a full year.

I don't think this can actually happen, but I do think that every voice is needed. I do think that serious damage has been done between the clubs and their fan bases.

It seems like everybody from the players and staff down to the employees of the company are bystanders. I hope the folks depending on these clubs to make their living are not adversely impacted by this intensely stupid and unnecessary situation.
 

singaporesoxfan

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I find this galling, but at the same time the UCL proposed new format stinks and at the end of the day I'm going to watch the most competitive and high level of the sport no matter what. I mean, I grew up watching the sport and in the 90s I believed that the WC was the pinnacle of the sport. As I've aged, I recognized that the highest level of the sport was really at the club level. And now I recognize that the highest level of the sport is the final stages of the UCL and UEL. So while I'd be bummed if the WC became more watered down, I'd still watch because of the pageantry and the scarcity of it. But I'm not going to watch more La Liga/EPL drubbings if the clubs focus on the ESL.
I think part of what's really galling for me is that the ESL concept waters down the most competitive and high level of the sport. If you're Spurs, what's stopping you from being the Washington Football Team of the ESL and just coasting on the revenue?

(Separately, but related to your post, I actually think there's a case to be made that it wasn't only your realization as it aged, the WC was the pinnacle of the sport before and that it transitioned to clubs in the 1990s and after in part because of things like Bosman ruling, EU expansion bringing an even larger player base benefiting from freedom of movement, the rise of the EPL as a global economic force etc.)
 

Cellar-Door

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Hey so if you buy that:
1. The ESL moves forward
2. The PL will immediately boot all clubs involved

You should go bet West Ham to win the PL... they'd be 9 points clear if all matches vs, ESL participants were voided.
 

teddykgb

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Every SL team should play their youth teams in the league if allowed to continue in the league. At least if you come out of the blocks early, why continue to invest in the league of you don’t need to qualify? All that will matter is the upcoming match in the SL midweek as there will be more revenue there both initially and over time. And of course now they’ll look to host matches all over the world to make even more money.
 

singaporesoxfan

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yeah.
Honestly UEFA isn't the group I think has the most power... (though banning the clubs from CL is their biggest stick really). It's the FA. The Super League sound's great for Spurs for example... but is it great to be the bottom of SL if it costs you your PL place? How big do we think the money is long-term compared with the long-term PL and CL money? I mean, a lot of the fanbase for some of these clubs is tied up in people liking to support a winner. If you're now a loser.... why does the person who picked Spurs with no connections 6 years ago stick with them over Everton or West Ham or Leicester if those teams are winning the PL and competing in the CL?

Edit- to make an American Sports analogy... nobody who isn't from Cleveland chooses to be a Browns fan.
This is the big question. The ESL has projected huge revenues in its first year because it's being backed by American owners and American money making a bet that what fans really want to see is the top ("top", I suppose, is probably more appropriate if we're talking about Spurs and AC Milan) European teams play each other regularly and consistently, which is what happens in the NFL or NBA. I'm not convinced that's really true, I think fans also want to see their teams win, which is why all the SEC teams schedule a bunch of games against cupcakes.
 

Morgan's Magic Snowplow

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yeah.
Honestly UEFA isn't the group I think has the most power... (though banning the clubs from CL is their biggest stick really). It's the FA. The Super League sound's great for Spurs for example... but is it great to be the bottom of SL if it costs you your PL place? How big do we think the money is long-term compared with the long-term PL and CL money? I mean, a lot of the fanbase for some of these clubs is tied up in people liking to support a winner. If you're now a loser.... why does the person who picked Spurs with no connections 6 years ago stick with them over Everton or West Ham or Leicester if those teams are winning the PL and competing in the CL?

Edit- to make an American Sports analogy... nobody who isn't from Cleveland chooses to be a Browns fan.
I agree completely that the big clubs still want and need to participate in domestic football. Ceasing to participate in domestic leagues is basically a non-starter for every supporter and the big clubs generate a huge amount of matchday, commercial, and broadcast revenue from their domestic participation. So I think the FA does have some leverage. But the reality is that they can't afford to kick the clubs out either. What would the next Premier League TV deal look like? The two sides need each other.

I have no clue how this all shakes out in the end. But I am betting on the bigger clubs largely getting their way because money tends to win out and because people like Henry, Kroenke, and Agnelli are too smart to have taken this plunge without gaming out all the legal, political, sporting, and financial scenarios and ramifications.
 

Pesky Pole

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So I had to look at the Premier League Champions League spots for the last ten years. How many non Super League founding members are on that list? One, Leicester. And they’d be the wildcard presumably in the new format. How about we go back 20 years back? You can add Everton and Newcastle (not in the same year, by the way, so the wildcard again).

I get that this is only the PL and I understand the complaints fully but the new format may actually increase English participation at this level. The shrapnel right now is UEFA trying to maintain their cut of the new league. Football is already broken. This doesn’t help things but neither did the new CL plan. Until I see option 3, I’ll have to reserve my contempt for rich owners taking advantage when UEFA was planning to do the same. All they did was cut out the middleman.
 

teddykgb

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Honestly UEFA isn't the group I think has the most power... (though banning the clubs from CL is their biggest stick really). It's the FA. The Super League sound's great for Spurs for example... but is it great to be the bottom of SL if it costs you your PL place? How big do we think the money is long-term compared with the long-term PL and CL money? I mean, a lot of the fanbase for some of these clubs is tied up in people liking to support a winner. If you're now a loser.... why does the person who picked Spurs with no connections 6 years ago stick with them over Everton or West Ham or Leicester if those teams are winning the PL and competing in the CL?
Point of order: the English Football Association has almost no power over the Premier League. It runs the FA Cup and the national team, and that's it. It's the Premier League itself that has the power.
 

teddykgb

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There's a report that any SL players would be banned from the World Cup. Does UEFA have the power to do that?
Not Uefa but Fifa. Fifa are supporting uefa to this point but with both organizations it’s usually safe to assume that just means a check hasn’t cleared yet.

Either way I don’t think a Ban would hold up if challenged in court by a player
 

Cellar-Door

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There's a report that any SL players would be banned from the World Cup. Does UEFA have the power to do that?
In a roundabout way... probably. They would simply make restrictions on who qualifies to be a member of their constituent teams. Or require that the member FAs do so. Might hold up, might not. Hard to say, lot of different legal systems involved.

Point of order: the English Football Association has almost no power over the Premier League. It runs the FA Cup and the national team, and that's it. It's the Premier League itself that has the power.
Good call forgot about the split.
 
The stupidest part of the proposed Super League for me is that the organizers could have avoided a lot of the backlash we're seeing if they had kept promotion and relegation on the table. I've been involved as a commentator in the Champions Hockey League - European ice hockey's attempt to emulate UEFA's Champions League - since it was formed in 2014, and it had a series of founding members who were guaranteed involvement in the CHL for three years, after which qualification would strictly be on merit. (About 2/3 of the participants in the first few CHLs were founding members.) If the ESL founders had been willing to announce a similar compromise, I wonder how the project would have been received. Something like, "We're taking the risk in founding the ESL, so for the first three years there will be no relegation for the founding clubs, but after that, the bottom X clubs in the league will be relegated and their places will be taken by the best clubs in the domestic leagues." If this proves to be as much of a money-spinner for the ESL clubs as they think it will be, they ought to be so far ahead of everyone else in Europe after the first three seasons that a) they should be able to fend off every challenge from non-founding clubs anyway, and b) if they do somehow get relegated, they should have the resources to pop straight back up on merit. But they can't help themselves in their greed to try to remove all risk from the equation, even if doing so actually increases the risk that this thing either never gets off the ground in the first place or feels totally illegitimate because the best German clubs (and maybe PSG) don't sign up to participate.
 

67YAZ

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It took my friends and I a little bit yesterday to figure out that this ain’t really another league, but a UCL replacement. They are definitely laying the ground work for a proper league, with the potential irony that the current leagues could hasten the rise of a true Super League by booting all the member clubs.
 

Morgan's Magic Snowplow

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View: https://twitter.com/MiguelDelaney/status/1384178817963462669


Bayern comes out pretty strongly against the Super League (not that surprising, the current system works great for them, and they're one of the few who aren't in a debt crisis).
That statement reads pretty lukewarm to me. They're saying that they didn't come up with the idea and they're supportive of the CL reform process as an alternative. But they're not slamming the idea of the ESL, they're not throwing any jabs at the clubs or individuals involved, and they're not offering to take any kind of leadership role in opposition.
 

bosox4283

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Real Madrid’s is around 900 million EUR.

Atletico is over a billion USD in debt. They do not have the level of revenue of the other two (who are 1 and 2 in the world), but they did post a small profit in 2020.
Atletico just built a new stadium, which I have to assume is the main cause of debt (if I remember correctly, Atletico greatly reduced debt the last decade).

It is quite remarkable that Simeone's success has vaulted the team into the top 15 conversation. If the ESL happens, the new revenues will radically improve the club's finances.
 

Captaincoop

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I think part of what's really galling for me is that the ESL concept waters down the most competitive and high level of the sport. If you're Spurs, what's stopping you from being the Washington Football Team of the ESL and just coasting on the revenue?

(Separately, but related to your post, I actually think there's a case to be made that it wasn't only your realization as it aged, the WC was the pinnacle of the sport before and that it transitioned to clubs in the 1990s and after in part because of things like Bosman ruling, EU expansion bringing an even larger player base benefiting from freedom of movement, the rise of the EPL as a global economic force etc.)
I believe the bolded is called Boston Colleging.
 

Vinho Tinto

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The debt is backed by assets, but they still have to service it in the short term. And who knows when Spain will allow even 50% capacity for match day events.Their revenues are high, but it’s a dicey situation due to the pandemic. I see the need to squeeze every dollar out of this competition as obvious.

The remarkable thing about Barca’s debt is they haven’t started their new stadium yet.
 

teddykgb

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67YAZ

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The Guardian got its hands on the Super League's strategy document. Looks like someone forgot to delete www.thesuperleague.com/diabolicalplan

In short, it appears a lot like John Henry's baby, Project Big Picture, in that the top clubs get more money and total control in exchange for larger solidarity payments down the pyramid. Why Henry & friends thought it would work this time when it backfired so splendidly last time...
 

Clears Cleaver

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Bayern has to come out against it, they win every year, they are 51% owned by fans and if it happens, it will materially hurt their brand long term
 

teddykgb

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“It is a new format that will sustain the drama, passion and most importantly, the unpredictability that is the lifeblood of our sport,” the document claims.”

my god who had the balls to even write that. Unpredictability of having the same teams in the competition for 20 years!
 

coremiller

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I agree completely that the big clubs still want and need to participate in domestic football. Ceasing to participate in domestic leagues is basically a non-starter for every supporter and the big clubs generate a huge amount of matchday, commercial, and broadcast revenue from their domestic participation. So I think the FA does have some leverage. But the reality is that they can't afford to kick the clubs out either. What would the next Premier League TV deal look like? The two sides need each other.

I have no clue how this all shakes out in the end. But I am betting on the bigger clubs largely getting their way because money tends to win out and because people like Henry, Kroenke, and Agnelli are too smart to have taken this plunge without gaming out all the legal, political, sporting, and financial scenarios and ramifications.
Maybe. Or maybe a few of the big clubs saw the huge money JPM was willing to put up, looked at all the red ink in their books, and decided to take the plunge, and the rest followed for fear of getting left out.
 

Morgan's Magic Snowplow

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The Guardian got its hands on the Super League's strategy document. Looks like someone forgot to delete www.thesuperleague.com/diabolicalplan

In short, it appears a lot like John Henry's baby, Project Big Picture, in that the top clubs get more money and total control in exchange for larger solidarity payments down the pyramid. Why Henry & friends thought it would work this time when it backfired so splendidly last time...
That documents reads like a PR release from the ESL itself. I kind of wonder whether they wanted it to be found.
 

Zososoxfan

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The stupidest part of the proposed Super League for me is that the organizers could have avoided a lot of the backlash we're seeing if they had kept promotion and relegation on the table. I've been involved as a commentator in the Champions Hockey League - European ice hockey's attempt to emulate UEFA's Champions League - since it was formed in 2014, and it had a series of founding members who were guaranteed involvement in the CHL for three years, after which qualification would strictly be on merit. (About 2/3 of the participants in the first few CHLs were founding members.) If the ESL founders had been willing to announce a similar compromise, I wonder how the project would have been received. Something like, "We're taking the risk in founding the ESL, so for the first three years there will be no relegation for the founding clubs, but after that, the bottom X clubs in the league will be relegated and their places will be taken by the best clubs in the domestic leagues." If this proves to be as much of a money-spinner for the ESL clubs as they think it will be, they ought to be so far ahead of everyone else in Europe after the first three seasons that a) they should be able to fend off every challenge from non-founding clubs anyway, and b) if they do somehow get relegated, they should have the resources to pop straight back up on merit. But they can't help themselves in their greed to try to remove all risk from the equation, even if doing so actually increases the risk that this thing either never gets off the ground in the first place or feels totally illegitimate because the best German clubs (and maybe PSG) don't sign up to participate.
I think that gets rid of the benefit these clubs are after--i.e. copious amounts of guaranteed revenue, regardless of performance for now and always.
 

Zososoxfan

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If this truly is a smoke screen to take control of the UCL format negotiations, $10 says it was Levy's idea. This has all been pretty convincing.
 

Section30

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I just caught an English podcast where they were proposing to the English government raising the the taxes on the breakaway teams to 75% of all SL income.

Also, the Glasers have pulled millions of dollars out of the team but they still haven't repaired the leaking roof. From 2019!

https://www.givemesport.com/1546849-manchester-uniteds-potential-buyers-are-being-put-off-by-the-dreadful-state-of-old-trafford

Other Super League docs also refer to match day fans as "Legacy Fans" and they seek to concentrate on building fans in other countries over domestic development. (heard on the podcast)

They got these banners up pretty fast.

lfc1.jpg

Liverpool fan groups to remove all banners from the KOP.
https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/liverpool-fans-flags-banners-anfield-b1833766.html
 

Gunfighter 09

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yeah.
Honestly UEFA isn't the group I think has the most power... (though banning the clubs from CL is their biggest stick really). It's the FA. The Super League sound's great for Spurs for example... but is it great to be the bottom of SL if it costs you your PL place? How big do we think the money is long-term compared with the long-term PL and CL money? I mean, a lot of the fanbase for some of these clubs is tied up in people liking to support a winner. If you're now a loser.... why does the person who picked Spurs with no connections 6 years ago stick with them over Everton or West Ham or Leicester if those teams are winning the PL and competing in the CL?

Edit- to make an American Sports analogy... nobody who isn't from Cleveland chooses to be a Browns fan.

How does this threat have any weight in a world with no return of profitable levels of match day fan attendance anywhere in sight? The moment the EPL kicks out the ESL 6, Sky, NBC and all of the other TV rights holders cancel their checks and the EPL goes bust.
 
I think that gets rid of the benefit these clubs are after--i.e. copious amounts of guaranteed revenue, regardless of performance for now and always.
My point is that if they would settle for a smidgeon of uncertainty and maybe 90% of the billions they might get with their optimal solution, they'd be much more likely to get all of that now with relatively little opposition. Instead, they want it all, but in theory they might not get any of it - at least not immediately.

Meanwhile, though - I just had to take something out to my car, and on my street in my relatively small Scottish town I saw a boy who is maybe 10 years old wearing a PSG shirt with "MBAPPE" on the back. So maybe the war is already lost, even if some of the battles might be won. (Alternative interpretation: Scottish football is so crap, you can't blame anyone for looking abroad for idols...)
 

Cellar-Door

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How does this threat have any weight in a world with no return of profitable levels of match day fan attendance anywhere in sight? The moment the EPL kicks out the ESL 6, Sky, NBC and all of the other TV rights holders cancel their checks and the EPL goes bust.
I don't think that's really true. The next TV deals would be lower, but I don't think they disappear. PL matches without the big 6 still do well, and considering the money thrown around on far smaller sports deals (Championship, Bundesliga, etc.) the deals will still be there even if reduced, might lead to a short term adjustment in spending. Additionally, do you really think NBC is going to walk away, especially if they don't get the SL TV deal? No, they built US Soccer viewership, they'll just push new teams, direct people to the Everton, Leeds, etc. They'll have featuretts on West Ham's working class roots (carefully excising the racist 70s/80s era) and giantkillers Leicester, etc. etc.

People overestimate that the big 6 (which have been around what 10 years basicly) will always be that. Man City was a joke 15 years ago, Chelsea had little international draw then, same with Spurs. A lot of the international market that they are chasing really only started picking up teams the last 6-10 years, NBC can make a new big 6 for the US market. If anything they'll sell how competitive the league is. (also weekends beat mid-week). The CL is a better level than the PL... it doesn't do as well in the ratings.
 

Zososoxfan

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I don't think that's really true. The next TV deals would be lower, but I don't think they disappear. PL matches without the big 6 still do well, and considering the money thrown around on far smaller sports deals (Championship, Bundesliga, etc.) the deals will still be there even if reduced, might lead to a short term adjustment in spending. Additionally, do you really think NBC is going to walk away, especially if they don't get the SL TV deal? No, they built US Soccer viewership, they'll just push new teams, direct people to the Everton, Leeds, etc. They'll have featuretts on West Ham's working class roots (carefully excising the racist 70s/80s era) and giantkillers Leicester, etc. etc.

People overestimate that the big 6 (which have been around what 10 years basicly) will always be that. Man City was a joke 15 years ago, Chelsea had little international draw then, same with Spurs. A lot of the international market that they are chasing really only started picking up teams the last 6-10 years, NBC can make a new big 6 for the US market. If anything they'll sell how competitive the league is. (also weekends beat mid-week). The CL is a better level than the PL... it doesn't do as well in the ratings.
I disagree with this. People don't care about the Big 6 in a vacuum. They care about the Big 6 because they (theoretically) represent the sport at the highest level (from England). If the Big 6 join a ESL and the resulting EPL has lower quality, people outside of England will stop caring for the most part. People will typically tune in for title-deciding matches and high quality matches no matter what, but they'll lose regular (weekly) interest.

To wit, I love my Buenos Aires club River Plate, but I don't watch their league matches weekly because it's just not the highest quality (and because AFA can't ever seem to keep the same format for more than a couple of years, but I digress). But I'll tune in for title-deciding matches and the Copa Libertadores for the prestige.

It's also why I just can't get into MLS that much. I don't have enough time in my life for anything less than the best product. NCAA bball versus the pros is the one example I can think of where the lower quality competition is more important to me. I also still love NCAA football even though it's clearly lower in quality than pros. Perhaps that's an analogy I need think about a bit more.
 

RSN Diaspora

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Maybe this is an American outlook (or as a Spurs fan, because my team is included), but I'm struggling to think of a reason why I *wouldn't* want a pan-Europe league with the best of the best.
 

Kliq

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I simply don't know enough about soccer economics to put this in proper context. How can all of these teams be losing so much money? They couldn't have been that dependent on live gates. My impression is that most, if not all, major American sports franchises lose that much money. In a system that is much more capitalistic than American sports, how are these giant franchises operating at such a deficit?
 

Joe D Reid

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I simply don't know enough about soccer economics to put this in proper context. How can all of these teams be losing so much money? They couldn't have been that dependent on live gates. My impression is that most, if not all, major American sports franchises lose that much money. In a system that is much more capitalistic than American sports, how are these giant franchises operating at such a deficit?
I'm not sure where this ended up, but the EPL was on track to repay 330M in TV rights money as well, with the more successful clubs paying back more because the TV money is divided up partly based on finishing order. The finances of the Spanish and Italian clubs have traditionally been...opaque, even in non-COVID times.

EDIT: And UEFA apparently rebated another $680M in Champions League and Europa League tv money, also because of COVID-related disruptions.

I imagine part of the issue here is that organizations outside of the clubs (the PL, UEFA, etc.) had the final say on the rebates. The clubs clearly weren't thrilled with the outcome and have decided to cut out the middlemen.
 
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Kliq

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I'm not sure where this ended up, but the EPL was on track to repay 330M in TV rights money as well, with the more successful clubs paying back more because the TV money is divided up partly based on finishing order. The finances of the Spanish and Italian clubs have traditionally been...opaque, even in non-COVID times.
Yeah, I've heard that before, I just don't know how to correlate it with my USA-based experiences. The impression I have is that American franchises continue to rake it in as TV money gets larger and larger, and depending on the sport, international expansion brings in more and more fans and outlets for revenue. The players make more money, the owners make more money, and the business just gets bigger and bigger. I assume that gigantic franchises in Europe would be in a similar boat, especially given the global popularity of the sport and the fact that the system is less egalitarian and thus more favorable to the bigger clubs.

For a team like Barcelona, with a 100,000 seat stadium, a global fanbase and eating up like, 25% of the La Liga TV money, I don't know how they can be so far in the hole. Is the business model in American sports just that much more successful?
 

coremiller

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5,846
I don't think that's really true. The next TV deals would be lower, but I don't think they disappear. PL matches without the big 6 still do well, and considering the money thrown around on far smaller sports deals (Championship, Bundesliga, etc.) the deals will still be there even if reduced, might lead to a short term adjustment in spending. Additionally, do you really think NBC is going to walk away, especially if they don't get the SL TV deal? No, they built US Soccer viewership, they'll just push new teams, direct people to the Everton, Leeds, etc. They'll have featuretts on West Ham's working class roots (carefully excising the racist 70s/80s era) and giantkillers Leicester, etc. etc.

People overestimate that the big 6 (which have been around what 10 years basicly) will always be that. Man City was a joke 15 years ago, Chelsea had little international draw then, same with Spurs. A lot of the international market that they are chasing really only started picking up teams the last 6-10 years, NBC can make a new big 6 for the US market. If anything they'll sell how competitive the league is. (also weekends beat mid-week). The CL is a better level than the PL... it doesn't do as well in the ratings.
You can't directly compare US CL and EPL ratings because of the time slots. CL plays all their matches (except the final) on weekday afternoons, EPL plays most of their matches on weekends. That has an enormous impact.