Stuff Your Superleague.

[My Name Is Ian]

The numbers are mind-boggling. There are 67 clubs in the National League (three divisions), 61 in the Northern Premier League (three divisions), 82 in the Isthmian League and 84 in the Southern League. That's 294 clubs, and it only takes you down to Step 4.

[Hot Pepsi]

It’s great news that smaller clubs are getting decent crowds. The prevailing story, around the world, is that younger people only want to watch the glamour teams on TV and that kids don’t have the attention span to go to a match.

I suspect that the increase in crowds is partly due to an increase in women and families coming to matches. At least compared to the 70s.

[Hot Pepsi]

Whereas The Lord's Day Observance Act prevented "entertainments" on Sundays in Britain.

The other big thing that boosted football's appeal was the rapid growth of public transport in the mid-to-late 19th Century. Trams gave spectators from a wide urban area easy access to the home ground, and 'Football Specials,' at very generous rates, took them to away games.

In the US, a lot of parks, including zoos, were built by the trolley companies to give people a reason to ride it to the end. I don’t know if any sports facilities were built that way, though.

[Hot Pepsi]

Girls in Iowa played six on six, with three restricted to each half of the court into the early 90s

The state tournament was to Iowa what the boys' tournament was to Indiana, allowing Iowa to provide one out of every five pre-Title IX female athletes in the US

https://www.neh.gov/article/when-iow...l-ruled-courts

I think they only changed it because it was greatly hindering their girls chances of playing in college.

[ursus arctos]

Absolutely

Schools had a choice for about 15 years and they ran two state championships

[ursus arctos]

In the US, a lot of parks, including zoos, were built by the trolley companies to give people a reason to ride it to the end. I don’t know if any sports facilities were built that way, though.

I think there was at least one 19th century example, but can't come up with it quickly

That said, mass transit was key to location decisions for all of the classic ballparks. The IRT and Chicago El predated Yankee Stadium and Wrigley Field, with streetcars also nearby. Streetcars also ran on Comm Ave and Brookline to Fenway.

[Hot Pepsi]

And then the opposite happened. It was all about interstate access and parking.

[ursus arctos]

And now it has swung back, starting with Camden Yards

[Satchmo Distel]

Football was quite a violent game rather than a "beautiful" one in its founding professional years, and crowds were sometimes far less peaceful than commonly presented in myths of the period. That might have attracted a certain kind of masculine culture.

But I would need to do a lot more reading before I could explain how the Northern League, for example, was so popular even though it was supposedly amateur. Football in in the UK penetrated local communities more deeply and widely than any sport has ever done in another time and place AFAIK, at least in Europe. Male workforces seem to formed allegiances with local clubs as a rite of passage; you become a supporter as soon as you become a young adult (which then would have been at 13 or so).

[Amor de Cosmos]

But I would need to do a lot more reading before I could explain how the Northern League, for example, was so popular even though it was supposedly amateur.

Senior amateur football drew big crowds, particularly in the interwar years. For example when Dulwich Hamlet moved into their Champion Hill ground in 1932, the first match was a regular Isthmian League fixture against Nunhead, the attendance was 16,200, supposedly the largest ever attendance for a non-league match in England. The building cost of Champion Hill, who's capacity was 30,000, was raised entirely through fundraising and subscription. Northern League teams didn't get gates like that but they were well supported, and allegedly "boot-money" for good players was rife. Which meant the football was as at least on a par with top Southern amateur clubs. As their success in Amateur Cups testifies.

[blameless]

As an addendum to My Name Is Ian's excellent post about the formation, ethos and development of the various leagues in England:

The Scottish Football League formed in 1890 and allowed professionalism from Day 1 - at a time when English footbal was wrestling mightily with the amateur/professional conundrum (especially in those bits of England that are geographically closest to Scotland), it reduced any chance of a joint league from "slim" to "none".

[Greenlander]

Since the superleague has gone away for the time being, this thread has taken a most interesting diversion. Really interesting and informative stuff from everyone involved.

One question, where is the baseball stadium in HP's post of 01:30?

Was the line 'if you build it, they will come' stolen from there.

[Patrick Thistle]

Streetcars also ran on Comm Ave and Brookline to Fenway.

I took the light train from Brookline to Fenway when I went to a game there. We were staying in Brookline. It was very convenient.

[Patrick Thistle]

Thank you My Name Is Ian for the excellent post which I feel properly explained some of what I was trying to say but with the added benefits of research and knowledge.

The recency of the pyramid is often forgotten when it's discussed. Goes to show how quickly an innovation becomes untouchable and sacrosanct.

[Sean of the Shed]

The numbers are mind-boggling. There are 67 clubs in the National League (three divisions), 61 in the Northern Premier League (three divisions), 82 in the Isthmian League and 84 in the Southern League. That's 294 clubs, and it only takes you down to Step 4.

And that number is going to increase next season by possibly another 21 teams (allowing for adjustment up the league as well to replace Macclesfield and fill a slot in National South) as an eighth division is formed at the fourth level of the pyramid to complete a perfect 1:2:4:8 structure, and also at the next level, Step 5, this is due to be further enhanced by increasing from 14 to 16 divisions to maintain this structure.

[ursus arctos]

The stadium in HP's photo is Metropolitan Stadium in Bloomington, Minnesota, which was built for the Twins and Vikings in the mid-60s. The site is now home to the Mall of America, and the fields have long been replaced by suburban sprawl.

[jwdd27]

According to the Guardian, Daniel Ek, billionaire founder of Spotify, is interested in taking Arsenal off Kroenke's hands, and has approached Henry, Vieira and Bergkamp to help drum up some support for a deal. Presumably being a billionaire it won't be his money that is used in the deal, so the players are there to meet and greet the bankers.

Spotify? Spotty form, more like.

[anton pulisov]

He should support his local Swedish team.

[Hot Pepsi]

The stadium in HP's photo is Metropolitan Stadium in Bloomington, Minnesota, which was built for the Twins and Vikings in the mid-60s. The site is now home to the Mall of America, and the fields have long been replaced by suburban sprawl.

Yeah, now that location doesn't feel so "far out" as it did then.

And it was then replaced by the MetroDome in the early 80s, which was a bit more centrally located in Minneapolis, and then that was replaced now by three stadiums - Target Field for the Twins, a stadium just for the university and the Vikings' Monstrosity (I forget the names of those latter two facilities), which are all transit accessible. And Minnesota United have their own place, which I'm told is nice. The Wild play in downtown St Paul and the Timberwolves play in the Target Center in downtown Minneapolis.

As it turns out, fewer stadiums got built in the sprawl than once feared. For example, I know that the original plans for Riverfront in Cincinnati had it way out, far from downtown and possibly in Kentucky. And for a long time, there was a serious threat that Northern Virginia would get the Expos instead of DC. There was a fairly serious possibility the Pirates would move there.

When I was at BU from 1995-97, the consensus among the WEEI pundits was that Fenway would get dozed and the Red Sox would build a big stadium on some disused bit of East Boston or somewhere like that. They acted like there was nothing that could be done. I suspect a lot of people over the years have assumed that the Cubs would move to Evansville or whatever.

Steinbrenner threatened to move to NJ.

Ultimately, they all managed to get a good deal from their cities at a time when cities were looking for ways to restore interest in their downtowns.


But it didn't always work that way.

The Rays stadium is central to St Petersburg, but far from Tampa, which is the bigger city of the two. That's its biggest problem, rather than the design of the place itself, although that's not great either.

Atlanta and Texas insist on being as far from transit as possible, of course.

[Hot Pepsi]

He should support his local Swedish team.

He's apparently a long time Arsenal supporter, which is more than could be said for Kroenke.

[ad hoc]

Might have to switch to Deezer

[My Name Is Ian]

Ah yes, that's the answer. More American billionaires.

[Belhaven]

He should support his local Swedish team.

That would most likely be Hammarby. They could always do with a little bit of money.

[Hot Pepsi]

Something from several pages ago has got me thinking.

I think ad hoc asked how North Americans can support a team that could move, go out of business, or change its name at any time...more or less.

The answer is a combination of "we don't" and "we act like that's not going to happen."

The fragility of some franchises just lends a feeling of stability and worthiness to the ones that are stable, and that encourages loyalty. The Boston Red Sox are not going to move to Orlando. The Philadelphia Eagles will not become the Portland Eagles. There's not threat of that. Even if the owner was insane and moved the team over some stadium issue, the league would either block those moves or restart the team with a new owner. That just exacerbates the economic advantages the big market teams have over the small ones. But even some smaller cities can feel very confident in the permanence of at least some of their teams. The Steelers, for example.

Beyond that, fans just live for the present. The Raiders are probably the worst example of an owner mistreating his fanbase in the last 50 years. Certainly after he moved them to LA and back and probably long before that, Oakland fans didn't trust Al Davis. But they supported the team anyway.

My nephew is a big Rays fan but he knows they probably won't exist when he's 30. That doesn't deter him from caring year to year.

But minor league teams, especially in baseball, are increasingly abusing that suspension of disbelief.

There are always a few die hards who get really into it, but by and large, the assumption for everyone involved, except the players, is that it's just entertainment. A lot of people at the games aren't really paying attention and that has alienated a lot of people who really want to watch the games. And baseball can be especially dull if it feels like nothing is at stake and even worse if you feel like management is more interested in attracting people to meet the guys from Duck Dynasty or the human cannonball than serving the fans coming to watch the match (which happens. A lot).*

It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. I think it will eventually all come crashing down. If most of the fans are just there to drink beer, eat garbage and watch fireworks, eventually the owners of these enterprises will just dispense with the baseball.


Another important point mentioned a few pages back is that draft systems are illegal in the EU. I'm not sure why they're illegal in the EU but not in North America, but that makes a huge difference.

If major pro leagues in the US weren't able to control all the players several rungs below the top ranks, independent minor leagues could get much better talent and they would exist as an end in themselves and not just to serve the top level. Promotion and relegation might even take root in such a situation.




Another thing apropos of nothing, it may be interesting to follow what is going on with professional outdoor lacrosse. For years, the MLL tried to keep a semi-pro league going using the traditional US model. They had teams in cities. They drafted the best college players. Because they didn't pay a living wage, they had to work it around players jobs, but they could do that. It was never stable. Teams moved a lot. Even teams that stayed in the same market moved stadiums a lot. None of them had their own fields, of course. Teams came and went. They tried putting teams in places where lacrosse isn't especially popular - Los Angeles, Dallas, Florida, etc. The players didn't have much power. They had a crap TV situation.

The top indoor league, the NLL soldiers on with the same issues, but it survives. Some of the teams are owned by NHL teams so they share the same facility. It's a great game. I hope it can survive all of this.

Then two years ago, some of the better players decided the MLL wasn't working for them so they got some money to start a new thing called the PLL. Instead of putting clubs in cities, they'd divy up teams and do a tour such that they'd all play a bunch of games in a kind of moving festival visiting different cities each weekend. Importantly, the players own it. They got most of the top players to sign up, which led to an OK TV deal since NBC needs something to show in the summer.

It was a modest hit in 2019. COVID-19 happened and they managed to still do a weeklong event last summer - in Denver, I think. Meanwhile, MLL was finally cooked. They lost most of their top players and could no longer have fans. They did a single site tournament in Annapolis last year and put in online or whatever. But most of their investors had bailed. I think New Balance owned most of the teams.

So in this offseason, the MLL went bust. Officially, they merged with the PLL, but the PLL just wanted to be able to maybe use some of the team names for their teams. So far, they've just used one. They added a team called the Cannons named after the Boston Cannons, which were sort of a thing in the MLL from time to time.

Anyway, what's interesting about it all is that it's an example of some enterprising players asking if maybe the model of team sports that was created during the 19th century is the best way to do it now. It seems that young people today are at least as loyal to players they like as to teams. In the case of lacrosse, they all went to the 10 prep schools anyway (not really, but close) so fans, such as they are, can root for guys from their hometown. Social media blah blah blah. MLL found that it's very hard for a new team in any sport to get a good stadium deal, but any existing NFL or MLS stadium would be happy to let the league have one summer weekend at their place a year.

Anyway, it's curious.

I wonder of the NWSL would be better off with that format. Their biggest problem seems to be to get decent, reliable homes for their teams. And they seem to be very personality driven. But when the USWNT comes to town, it's a big deal. What if the USWNT brought with them six other teams and three more matches each time they came?

[beak]

Spotify? Spotty form, more like.

It'll be nice for all those struggling musicians out there, getting squeezed out of their living by Spotify's crap royalties and gaming of their own system, to think that the money they should be getting paid is actually going to David Luiz.