Champions League revamp

[Nymzee]

Lots of quotes here:

European Super League: Josh Kroenke apologises to Arsenal fans – as it happened

The Arsenal director said the club is not for sale on day when Barcelona joined Real Madrid in insisting the project was not done and Uefa considered the punishments that may await the rebels

www.theguardian.com

Check out the bloody prototype yank on that link:


“As a North American football fan and therefore removed from the understandable emotions linked to the ESL,” writes Michael Walsh, “I just wanted to share a point that I think is being missed. I do not support the ESL and I believe that participation in any European competition needs to be based on qualification in a domestic league. However, the ESL concept does (did?) address an issue I have which is that there are not enough meaningful games between the biggest clubs in Europe. Given the current Champions League format, you can go years without seeing a matchup between certain clubs. As an example, I believe Manchester United and Real Madrid have only been paired twice in the last 20 years, granted MU has not qualified every year.

As someone who is a fan of football as opposed to a supporter specific club, I want to see as many matches as possible between the biggest clubs in England, Spain, Italy, and Germany. I realise that UEFA’s proposed revamp of the Champions League for 2024 might help address this slightly but I am not sure it goes far enough.”

 

[number4.]

I would probably concede United and Liverpool would see a short term hit. But thats all for me. I'm sorry but as I stated above, we would not miss Tottenham, I'm really not bothered what anyone says. Newcastle have bigger potential commercial draw than Tottenham IMO.

I can see the Karren Brady test, but there is probably a risk we attribute a set of behaviours to her that she might not actually have. There's a short V medium term question to be discussed here, against the principled stance which is to relegate them. I don't think they will, but they probably should, and the idea football wouldn't survive in the medium/long term is wrong. It would soon regress to the mean. Thats obviously a different point than what Karren Brady will do.

The points deduction for next season makes sense. Dock 50 points and 3 will probably go down. You kind of get the best of both worlds then. You minimise the damage but also let people know there is a consequence.

It is worth stating in all of this, that the TV will be declining, and a big factor in this is going to be the behaviour of the top 6, and essentially execs no longer being able to trust them. I do think that is going to annoy your Karren Brady's an awful lot. I also think broadcasters are likely to really tighten up terms with the next deal, and probably want huge compensatory clauses put in if clubs essentially break the terms of the agreement. So all round things are going to get very very interesting.

Again, I agree with alot of that, but can you imagine the PL negotiating with Amazon on the back of those point deductions. "we have no idea if Man United will be in the PL the year after next" - it completely undermines the TV rights, it just wont happen

 

[catcherintherye]

Completely agree; but they are also creating a huge amount of the TV revenue and sponsorship revenue

I do think this is slightly overstated. The reality is, the majority of the money generated for the PL is made by the domestic audience. You'd never guess that, but it is.

The issue is, that the international audience is obviously the one that is growing, whereas the domestic rights are stagnating, and may well have hit peak point (which is when investors and money people start becoming weary).

This is just an opinion, and I won't get into reams of details on it, but I think the markets, investors, hedge funds, execs grossly overvalue "growth". They put far too much emphasis on it, and often refuse to even define what it means. Look at Tesla if you want to see an example on this, it's got a value beyond any sort of comprehension and all you get when you quibble it is- growth company, growth, growth. Sometimes things either slow the rate of growth, or stop growing at all.

Thats more a personnal gripe than anything else, and I mean growth is significant, but there does have to be some proportionality to these discussions of who contributes what (I'm not saying you're not). My experience is, top fund managers don't discuss it in a very rational way, so you've got no chance with the lemmings running PL clubs.

 

[tsubaki]

That is just not correct though a flat competition, with drama but without the top 6 would see Global TV revenues collapse

There’d be a big drop in the short term, but it would recover because the resulting product would be better (and the rival competition worse).

The RS, United and the rest are huge clubs because of what they are in, and what they’ve won.

Take both of those things away from them and it’s questionable for how long they’d be able to sustain being giants; personally I don’t think that many of them would because most of the the SL games would lose meaning, and most of them would stop winning things. Then it would be franchise time.

 

[allen]

It may well do down the road in 10 to 15 years, but if the 6 were gone tomorrow, the TV rights which are being negotiated right now fall off a cliff.

The ultimate goal, for the good of all football, ought to be to weaken these 6 (12 Europe-wide), rather than destroy them or let them leave.

I'm hoping that legislation will have that effect. Firstly prevent them from being able to break away, and then forcibly level the playing field.

 

[tsubaki]

I do think this is slightly overstated. The reality is, the majority of the money generated for the PL is made by the domestic audience. You'd never guess that, but it is.

The issue is, that the international audience is obviously the one that is growing, whereas the domestic rights are stagnating, and may well have hit peak point (which is when investors and money people start becoming weary).

This is just an opinion, and I won't get into reams of details on it, but I think the markets, investors, hedge funds, execs grossly overvalue "growth". They put far too much emphasis on it, and often refuse to even define what it means. Look at Tesla if you want to see an example on this, it's got a value beyond any sort of comprehension and all you get when you quibble it is- growth company, growth, growth. Sometimes things either slow the rate of growth, or stop growing at all.

Thats more a personnal gripe than anything else, and I mean growth is significant, but there does have to be some proportionality to these discussions of who contributes what (I'm not saying you're not). My experience is, top fund managers don't discuss it in a very rational way, so you've got no chance with the lemmings running PL clubs.

Tesla is a fantastic example - the core bit of that firm has never made a profit, and probably never will. However it’s in loads of people’s interests to pretend that it’s on the right path to whatever in order to keep the price up.

 

[catcherintherye]

Check out the bloody prototype yank on that link:


“As a North American football fan and therefore removed from the understandable emotions linked to the ESL,” writes Michael Walsh, “I just wanted to share a point that I think is being missed. I do not support the ESL and I believe that participation in any European competition needs to be based on qualification in a domestic league. However, the ESL concept does (did?) address an issue I have which is that there are not enough meaningful games between the biggest clubs in Europe. Given the current Champions League format, you can go years without seeing a matchup between certain clubs. As an example, I believe Manchester United and Real Madrid have only been paired twice in the last 20 years, granted MU has not qualified every year.

As someone who is a fan of football as opposed to a supporter specific club, I want to see as many matches as possible between the biggest clubs in England, Spain, Italy, and Germany. I realise that UEFA’s proposed revamp of the Champions League for 2024 might help address this slightly but I am not sure it goes far enough.”

The problem with this, is that if you look at the market, and we are talking in generalisables here, nobody actually cares enough to want to watch that game regularly. The CL, where those games take place, has a small audience, and a shrinking audience. People don't like it. Having more of it, is just likely to compound that problem.

The problem is, football has got itself into a bind where it thinks Michael from America's views are not onlymore important, but so important you can ignore all elses. His views have been allowed to become prioritised at the expense of all else, and any sort of objective intepretation of the facts. And he has the entitlement to still keep assuming what he wants, is what the market wants, even when it's patently not.

 

[MikeH72]

I still have no idea why a European ban for two seasons or more for these clubs would really be ostentatious. I mean they clearly don't want to play in the Champions League anymore so at that point let's have them not play in the Champions League anymore

A European ban for Arsenal is absolutely pointless.

 

[number4.]

I do think this is slightly overstated. The reality is, the majority of the money generated for the PL is made by the domestic audience. You'd never guess that, but it is.

The issue is, that the international audience is obviously the one that is growing, whereas the domestic rights are stagnating, and may well have hit peak point (which is when investors and money people start becoming weary).

This is just an opinion, and I won't get into reams of details on it, but I think the markets, investors, hedge funds, execs grossly overvalue "growth". They put far too much emphasis on it, and often refuse to even define what it means. Look at Tesla if you want to see an example on this, it's got a value beyond any sort of comprehension and all you get when you quibble it is- growth company, growth, growth. Sometimes things either slow the rate of growth, or stop growing at all.

Thats more a personnal gripe than anything else, and I mean growth is significant, but there does have to be some proportionality to these discussions of who contributes what (I'm not saying you're not). My experience is, top fund managers don't discuss it in a very rational way, so you've got no chance with the lemmings running PL clubs.

They are about 50/50 right? (Domestic V rest of world); but things like sponsorship are all valued to a global audience. Cazoo targeting the UK is an absolute outlier on jerseys as an example.

 

[catcherintherye]

Tesla is a fantastic example - the core bit of that firm has never made a profit, and probably never will. However it’s in loads of people’s interests to pretend that it’s on the right path to whatever in order to keep the price up.

Yes. Tesla is now valued at about 10 x Ferrari, BMW, Audi, Ford, GM etc etc. All of these companies have sales, profit, cash on hand etc. And most of it is just based on growth and it being something new. I get that new is exciting but you have to actually drill down on that hype an sort of say "ok how many numbers does it do".

The other pet hate I have that is overused is "disruptive company". Most of them are not in any way dispruptive, the few that are (ie airbnb, Uber etc) are ignored. There's a bit of that with the Super League too, it's bound to be good as it's disruptive of the status quo.

You know what happens most of the time, to most companies that try to disrupt the pre existing market? They lose and go bust.

 

[catcherintherye]

A European ban for Arsenal is absolutely pointless.

Sorry I don't know if you were trying to be funny with that, but that just made me burst out laughing.

 

[Nymzee]

The problem with this, is that if you look at the market, and we are talking in generalisables here, nobody actually cares enough to want to watch that game regularly. The CL, where those games take place, has a small audience, and a shrinking audience. People don't like it. Having more of it, is just likely to compound that problem.

The problem is, football has got itself into a bind where it thinks Michael from America's views are not onlymore important, but so important you can ignore all elses. His views have been allowed to become prioritised at the expense of all else, and any sort of objective intepretation of the facts. And he has the entitlement to still keep assuming what he wants, is what the market wants, even when it's patently not.

Yanks just do not get the sport at all.

 

[Nymzee]

 

[Simon Buttle]

Yanks just do not get the sport at all.

Unless you are Big Oil and see yourself as some sort of football guru who knows more than everyone else put together

 

[Raino85]

Again, I agree with alot of that, but can you imagine the PL negotiating with Amazon on the back of those point deductions. "we have no idea if Man United will be in the PL the year after next" - it completely undermines the TV rights, it just wont happen

Another thing i can see with a large points deduction (even a small one like 3-6 points this year would stop Arsenal, Liverpool, Spurs & even Chelsea getting Europe), is the clubs coming out and saying this like ' we will have to make redundancy's if we get deducted points because if we dont make europe we lose revenue'

Its not as if they havent got a history for booting out the canteen ladys and the lad working in the club shop