Super League? American owners don’t know any better

Last week, the American owners of Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester United withdrew from the European Premier League, an elite competition that was hastily established and insulted football fans and thus led to the collapse. The plan was based on the American example: no relegation, no salary caps, and above all: a rule for owners. Americans are not used to anything different in their home country.

Yes, there is also anger in the United States when the big bosses of wealthy sports clubs once again make their own plans, but in most cases the anger quickly gives way to resignation. In American sports, the dollar rules. It is what it is.

In 2016, Arsenal owner Stan Kroenke unhesitatingly withdrew his American soccer team, the St. Louis Rams, from the territory of Missouri, the state where he grew up and built his fortune as a real estate billionaire. Kroenke declared that the soil was exhausted, and that the grass in Los Angeles was becoming greener and juicier.

He had a new stadium built in the Inglewood area, backed by multi-billion euros from JP Morgan, the bank that wanted to finance the start of the Premier League.

Kroenke, who is also the owner of the Colorado Avalanche (ice hockey), Denver Nuggets (basketball), and Colorado Rapids (football), became persona non grata in his home state, but with his move to California, he permanently established himself in one of the game’s most Profit. Sports markets in the country.

Last week, Kroenke did what he had never done before in Missouri: he knelt down and apologized to Arsenal coach Mikel Arteta, among others. Like John Henry, chairman of Fenway Sports Group and owner of Liverpool FC and the Glazer family of Manchester United, he was wrong about European soccer culture, which almost immediately regurgitated the American sporting model.

American Brad Friedel, a former goalkeeper in the English Premier League, explained to the British Sky TV channel: “They did not know how important football was to the fans. This is the mistake they made.” “They saw the dollars, but they missed the human element.”

The Glazer family also apologized to United fans. Henry, owner of the Boston Red Sox (baseball) team, sat on a bench in front of the camera to address Liverpool fans. “I alone am responsible,” he said. We heard you. ‘I heard you.’

Socialism

Although the idea for the Premier League came mainly from Andrea Agnelli (Juventus) and Florentino Perez (Real Madrid), the design of the competition clearly appeared in the backyard of Kroenke, Henry and the Glazer family. The starting 15 players cannot be relegated to the elite group, as is usual in America, and clubs can only spend part of their budget on salaries and transfers.

And the American scheme was not copied one by one. In the United States, leagues (except baseball) operate with a salary cap: a fixed amount for everyone, rather than a percentage. Clubs pay a hefty tax on every dollar over the cap (something the wealthy can still afford more easily).

Another difference: To achieve equality, lower-ranked clubs are rewarded at the next highest DraftIt is a selection round in which young talents are selected from universities or abroad. They have to choose first. In recent years, this has led to a race to the bottom in the NBA, after which the league’s rules changed: the worst team no longer automatically advances to first place.

In its quest for balance, American sports are sometimes compared to an island of socialism in a sea of ​​capitalism, but its owners are the ones who shake that statement.

Without UEFA’s oversight, Premier League participants could (by their own estimates) hand out billions in TV money, as is the case in American sports, where owners swim in dollars from lucrative TV deals. The NFL has a $100 billion television contract, spread over eleven seasons, and the NBA wants to soon double its revenue through broadcast rights to $8 billion per season.

Years ago, American sports leagues targeted a global audience, just as the Premier League aimed to do. The Chinese company Tencent pays the NBA $1.5 billion annually for broadcast rights, while the league organizes matches in Latin America, among other things. The NFL, in turn, regularly visits Europe.

It is not unlikely that an NBA or NFL team could play in Europe, for example, in the future. It’s another American phenomenon: expansion. Clubs pay large sums of money to join competitions, money that is distributed among existing teams. It has been reported that the European Super League could follow suit in the future, perhaps with clubs on another continent.