#1- The first is this overwhelming idea of equality. There's the draft, collective bargaining agreements, salary caps, all sorts of things to supposedly level the playing field. My first problem with this is when the hell are sports supposed to be about equality? And that's one thing about the Lebron->Miami trade I don't understand, everyone is moaning about how they are building the strongest team. So? Some players have said Lebron will now never be remembered as one of the greatest players because he chose not to carry Cleveland on his back, and I don't follow NBA at all, but he made a choice of some championship trophies over personal glory. in some ways..you can say it's unselfish. (particularly that he's giving up money to do it)
But there's this idea of equality, that just to me, doesn't fit in sports which seems like the most primal "survival of the fittest" battles left in society today. We give medals to the best athletes in the Olympics, but try and maintain parity in the leagues. It doesn't make sense. Is it more interesting than one team buying the league? Maybe, but as European soccer can tell you, "buying" the league doesn't always work. The Galacticos era of Real Madrid (in which they spent ludricrous amounts of money on the best players in the world) is largely regarded as a sporting failure, a marketing triumph no doubt, but otherwise a failure. Last summer, they spent a massive sum of 250million euros (most clubs spent net 30-40million per summer) on players like Cristiano Ronaldo, Kaka, etc. And they won nothing last year. Barcelona won the Spanish league, Sevilla won the Spanish Kings Cup (a sort of year round playoffs tournament), an Italian club won the premier European competition, and Atletico Madrid, their bitter city rivals, won the secondary European competition.
And as any LA Clippers or Oakland Raiders fans will tell you, the whole parity thing in America doesn't always work.
#2- League structure, involving promotion/relegation and no playoffs. First, the playoffs. As I'll discuss later, it seems to me more of an entertainment thing than sporting competition. It ensures plenty of drama, but is the best team the one that has a mediocre record in the 6 month season, then goes hot for 6 weeks? I personally don't like it. I like the European way better, in all your games, you play each team twice, whoever finishes the end of the season with the most points wins the league, and are deserved champions. It rewards teams for a season-long performance, not just the ending.
Promotion and relegation are a favorite of mine. In European soccer, if you suck badly enough, you get sent down a division below, to essentially a minor league. And so it continues, all the way to amateur levels. It makes for more of a meritocracy, again, equality be damned, and makes the end of seasons more interesting. In America, there's sort of a perverse incentive for teams to do poorly if they are already bad, in that if they lose their last few games, they'll get a better draft pick and a better player. I'm not saying teams throw the game, but I definitely have seen some 3-10 NFL teams phoning in the last 3 games, going through the motions. In the European model, the worst teams fight like hell at the end, to avoid relegation which usually isn't decided until the last week or two of the season. If they get relegated, they lose a lot of money via sponsorships, TV rights, etc...and a lot of players don't want to play in the 2nd/3rd division and so they leave. Lot of incentive for those players (who might have bonuses tied to avoiding relegation) to fight hard at the end. And you do. Teams like Cagliari and Fulham in 07-08 were seemingly doomed to drop down to the 2nd division, only to fight like hell and defying all logic and expert opinion, magically remain in the top flight. Plenty of drama there, for sure.
Another difference in the more "hyper-capitalism" environment of Europe is trades. There are multiple leagues, and have been court rulings. There's no "restricted/unrestricted free agents" once your contract expires, you can sign with whoever you freaking like. And if you want to go to a different club, the other club pays cash. (typically, although players as makeweight does happen occasionally) You're not tied to a country or a league.
#3- American sports is mostly entertainment. There's less passion, worse fan support, and the market is saturated.
Bill Simmons, a writer for ESPN and non-soccer fan, put it excellently this way. While writing about his browsing of various English Premier League teams:
You know how Red makes the comment that, after a life spent in Shawshank, he can't even squeeze a drop of pee without asking for permission first? I feel like that's happening to us. American sports have been ravaged by TV timeouts, ticket price hikes and Jumbotrons that pretty much order fans how to act. Just look at what happened in the NBA playoffs. Miami fans were urged to wear all white like a bunch of outpatients from a psych ward; the Detroit announcer screamed, "Let's give it up!" and "Lemme HEAR YOU!" as the crowd responded like a bunch of trained seals; Clippers fans weren't able to stand and cheer after an outrageous Shaun Livingston dunk in the Denver series because disco music was blaring at deafening levels. And it's not just basketball. During Angels games in baseball, the crowd waits to make noise until a monkey appears on the scoreboard. You can't attend an NHL game without hearing the opening to "Welcome to the Jungle" 90 times. Even our NFL games have slipped -- you cheer when the players run out, cheer on third downs, cheer on scores and sit the rest of the time. It's a crying shame.
Not to pull a Madonna on you, but European soccer stands out because of the superhuman energy of its fans -- the chants and songs, the nonstop cheering, the utter jubilation whenever anything good happens, how the games seem to double as life-or-death experiences -- and I can't help but wonder if that same trait has been sucked out of our own sports for reasons beyond our control. And no, that same energy hasn't completely disappeared; you can see a similar energy on display at Fenway, Yankee Stadium, Lambeau, MSG (if the Knicks and/or Rangers are good, a big "if" these days) and any other city with enough history and passion to override the evils of the Jumbotron Era. Still, these are aberrations. By pricing out most of the common fans and overwhelming the ones who remained, professional sports leagues in this country made a conscious decision: We'd rather hear artificially created noise than genuine noise. That's the biggest problem with sports in America right now. And there's no real way to solve it.
Quite right. American sports have been franchised to a point that in many cases, it's in search of entertainment for your dollars, and you cheer for the franchise. But what is a franchise? In America's corporatist league structure, it changes. If the fans suck, the team moves. Indiana Colts used to be the Baltimore Colts. DC Nationals were the Montreal Expos for some time, and the Buffalo Bills will probably be leaving as soon as their owner dies, simply because Buffalo isn't a big enough market.
I know every team in America has the city/region name starting, but it's a bit different in Europe where teams are simply named after the city/region, and FC/AC/CF. (Football Club in 3 languages) Each team is very attached and/or tied to the city they are located in. In Italy, only 2 teams don't bear their cities name, Juventus and Sampdoria, though both have an emblem of the city on their crest. (Juventus has a bull, the symbol of Turin, and Sampdoria has the image of a famous sailor) Think of all the big names you might have heard of- Manchester United, Real Madrid, Chelsea (the area of London it's in), Barcelona, etc.
And with that commitment to the city comes a more loyal fan base. In Europe, there is no draft, each team has their own youth teams that come through the ranks and eventually, if good enough, can play with the senior squad. In America, there are farm systems, but that doesn't really impress me. A friend of mine, a big fan of the Red Sox once proudly mentioned that this pitcher people were talking about came through the farm team. "Is he from Boston?" I responded. He said no. "Has he ever lived in Boston before this?" "I don't think so," he responded. So what real commitment does he have to Boston? Only the tie through the team that showed some kind of faith in him. In European soccer, it's different. Sure, not every player plays for his home team, there's plenty of movement around. But it makes it that much more special. Take Manchester United- The captain and alternate are both born and bred in Manchester, and have since played for the team for 15+ years. Milan just said farewell last summer to Paolo Maldini, born in Milan, and not even including the time spent in the youth system ended up spending 24 seasons wearing red-and-black. In Rome, there's "er Pupone" the local dialect for the Big Child, the captain Francesco Totti who was born local, and spent his entire career at the club. There's a deeper sense of tradition between the club and city, but you can generalize that among people in Europe in general, we Americans are much more fluid in our "hometowns" and perhaps our sports system reflects that.
It's a stark difference, and quite ironic. In the more equal quasi-socialistic European continent, they practice a form of ultracapitalism. Few regulations, large amounts of freedom for clubs and players. Whereas here in America, where we abhor the idea of collectivism, our sports are ultrasocialized. Less equality, and maximum power to the league over its teams and players.
I've said plenty for now, just some thoughts for American sports fans to consider.
4 comments:
Some thoughts:
1-You may have a point on pro franchises(I'll address some of that after this), but college sports franchises(especially college football) have as much passion(if not more) than Euro Soccer clubs. I've been to some big euro soccer games and it doesn't come close to the atmosphere at a big college football rivalry game.
2-Bringing up parity isn't fair for a couple reasons: American sports have playoffs where anyone who can get in can win it all, and European soccer(at least the national leagues) are often about who can build the deepest and most talented team and not about who's the "best" team. Secondly, parity only exists in one American sport(football). Of the last 30 NBA titles, 25 have been won by the lakers, celtics, Spurs, Rockets or Bulls. Baseball has more different champs, but its all about money spent. No small market team can win a title in the NBA, hockey, MLB or Euro soccer. Anyone can win in the NFL.
3-There can't be relegation in any American sport since there's not multiple levels of teams in any sports that can switch places. Not even in baseball. And the college sports system destroys any possibility for 2nd tier football, basketball, etc.
4-European sports exist for the same reason American sports does: to sell tickets/merchandise. Don't kid yourself about anything else. As much as I love my sports teams, I don't have any illusions about some higher purpose with them.
5-European soccer teams, more or less, started as local sports clubs in the cities where they began(and some are still owned by the cities/local sporting clubs of the city. American sports franchises were exactly that. I don't know what makes one better and the other not.
6-As for "homegrown players," its very hard for American players to end up staying in one city or region their entire lives as compared to Europe since the population is so much more spread out than in Europe(along with there generally only being 30 franchises in any given sport). The NBA used to force players to play for the franchises in their areas, but that was dropped 40 years ago. Also, considering how much players change teams in European soccer, I don't understand how it can be touted that there's more loyalty(or something) on that side of the Atlantic. I believe there's only 1 player from Turin who grew up in the Juve system on the current Juventus roster(Lanza). Man U only has a few players from Manchester also. Liverpool has Gerrard and a few others from Liverpool. Arsenal has a couple minor players from London who grew up in their youth system to make the top roster. There's only 1 player who grew up in Milan and came up through their youth system. There's no one at Inter who's from Milan and grew up through their system. Chelsea only has John Terry who fits this description. In Spain, where clubs are generally owned by the cities(or by public clubs attached to the city), Real only has 3 players from Madrid(Casillas and a couple backups) who grew up in their system. Barca and Bayern Munich seem to be the only major clubs who have a significant amount of players from their home area who grew up through their youth system. It doesn't seem like there's enough of these examples of players playing for their hometown teams in Euro Soccer to criticize America for not having the same thing.
7-There's actually much more freedom of movement in the US for the players than for Euro soccer. Players can't be stashed for years in the loan system which forces the franchises to make decisions on the players they have and the free agency system in the US sports is much more advanced than the European free transfer system. And as I pointed out before: the constant movement of players in Soccer in the transfer/loan systems undermines any argument that there's more loyalty or local connections in soccer than in US sports.
#1- No disagreement on college football. It's one of the last remaining vestiges of fandom.
#2- American sports do aim for a sort of parity. That's exactly what the whole draft/salary cap is aimed at. Miami Heat are going to have a hell of a time putting together a bench, not because they have no money, but because the league has effectively handicapped them for having 3 big-ticket players. As I said, the whole equality notion doesn't always work.
#3- You're right, and I'm not calling for the immediate implementation of regulation/promotion. College sports are the feeder leagues as it turns out, which is one reason I think the whole "amateur" stuff is nonsense. If Reggie Bush knows he's going to get a crapload of money in the future, what's the difference between getting a nice car now and simply taking out a loan against your future salary? (But that's a whole nother deal) Relegation/promotion could happen in baseball and soccer in the US, I think. And it could happen if you changed the leagues. Turn the NFL into say 3 leagues of 11 teams give or take.
#4- Yes, I agree, though to different extents. I'm a fan of NHL/NFL (shoulda mentioned that) and whether at the games or on TV, sometimes I get the feeling I'm being sold a product, not watching a real athletic competition. It can be both. And as far as atmosphere goes, well, Bill Simmons summed it up nicely.
#5- Point is it's unthinkable for a European soccer team to leave its' city. In America, it happens all the time. Jerry Seinfeld put it best once- "Loyalty to any one sports team is pretty hard to justify, because the players are always changing; the team could move to another city. You're actually rooting for the clothes when you get right down to it."
#6- Del Piero, Marchisio, and De Ceglie all also played in the Juventus youth system, Marchisio and De Ceglie are both from Torino. Like I said, not every player is from their hometown, but there are plenty. 3/4 of the EPL big 4 captains were born and raised in their hometown, in their hometown club youth system. It makes their commitment to the cause that much more real. As a Saints fan, I like Reggie Bush and all but what tie does he have to the New Orleans area? Not really much of one.
Not sure where you're getting your information from though, no Spanish club is owned by the city they reside in. Can't think of any European soccer club where that's the case.
#7- I don't understand your point, I don't know what the "loan system" is. And freedom of movement doesn't mean there's less connection. Each team generally seems to have 2/3rd domestic, 1/3rd international players. Freedom of movement applies more to the international players, but regardless, it's not really a beef of mine with the American sports system, I just find it confusing.
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