OT - US Pro Sports Socialist, European Soccer Capitalist
I am an avid redditor and was just browsing thorugh r/soccer and found this interesting post comparing US sports to European Soccer and ulitmately concluding that US sports are much more 'socialist' in nature than European soccer, which trends 'capitalist/free market'. While I'm not convinced either way, there are some interesting points and would love to hear people's opinions! Thought this would make for a great May Day discussion.
"The point I would make is these same people continually espouse free market capitalism and rail against the "elites," but European club soccer better reflects these ideals, and the "American" sports they love more closely resemble their view of "Europe."
*In American sports, failure is rewarded. The primary means by which this is accomplished is the draft. The worse you do, the earlier you pick, and therefore presumably are rewarded with better new players. In European soccer, there is no draft and it is up to each club to develop / acquire its own talent.
*In American sports, there are a group of "Elites" that dictate rules and regulate all aspects of the sport: Salary caps, luxury taxes, max contracts, minimum contracts, trade exceptions, caps on cash used in trades, matching of player salaries in trades, etc. Not in Europe. You want a player? Buy him. Want to get rid of a player? Sell him. No need to work out a complex trade with another team, ensuring that the salaries are approximately equal as in the NBA.
*The NFL is socialist! (gasp!) 32 teams that all share revenue.
*Relegation. In the US, a team like the Pirates can suck for decades and still make money. Not in Europe. Europe has relegation and promotion. What is more American (in Glenn Beck's, etc. view) than that? Survival of the fittest!"
OP: http://www.reddit.com/r/soccer/comments/t1f1k/why_european_soccer_is_the_most_american_of_sports/
this is why i love the bundesliga.
College Football.
The NFL, NBA, MLB, etc. are more like companies with branches (teams), than they are a consortium of competing companies.
You could not start a new competing team in New York without the approval of "headquarters" (the league).
There definitely is market competition, stiff competition in fact, but it is among the leagues as entertainment products, not among the individual teams within the leagues.
Make no mistake - Starbucks, McDonalds, etc. are not socialist just because they have standards of uniformity for their branches. Same thing for American sports leagues.
just now learning about the EPL thanks to Fox realizes how completely the leagues get shuffled over time. Man U.'s more or less a constant, and Arsenal, and Liverpool when they aren't getting disciplined for fan riots, but look at the table from 20 years ago:
http://www.soccerway.com/national/england/premier-league/1991-1992/regu…
Two Sheffield clubs in the top ten. Wimbledon ahead of Chelsea and Spurs. I'd forgotten that Man City was near the top back then; they sort of disappeared for much of the interim. Half the top flight then is out now, many of them buried deep in the lower divisions.
Or 30 years ago, with Ipswich Town four points from a title (what?):
http://www.soccerway.com/national/england/premier-league/1981-1982/regu…
40 years ago looks more like today, oddly, with the big 4 all firmly placed near the top of the league...behind Derby County and Leeds United, who finished 1-2.
http://www.soccerway.com/national/england/premier-league/1971-1972/regu…
An interesting take on sports. It's something that I noticed a while back.
As a free market capitalist myself, I haven't been fond of the direction that American pro sports have been going the past 20 years with an almost fanatical emphasis on egalitarianism. I guess that there's a critical dynamic at work, and that is that in order for the sports league to work, there has to be at least the perception of competitiveness. But now the Stanley Cup simply goes to the least mediocre team. Then the salary cap breaks that team into pieces almost immediately.