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    Originally posted by Hot Pepsi View Post
    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.
    But the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants were moved to LA and San Francisco. Surely they were the epitome of stability in their day?

    Comment


      Even in a city as large as NYC, "second and third" clubs are always going to somewhat fragile.

      The Boston Braves left for Milwaukee, the St Louis Browns for Baltimore, the Philadelphia A's for Kansas City and the new competition engenders by the Orioles' arrival was a significant factor in the Washington Senators decamping to Minnesota.

      And the White Sox, Giants and A's have all experienced near misses when it comes to relocation since.

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        The draft would be an illegal restraint of trade and open the leagues up to being a cartel. (I think the US has specific anti-trust exemptions to allow it.) The trading system is completely at odds with the law as well.

        You could probably collapse the entire contract and transfer system in the EU with a well aimed legal case but it’s in nobodies interest to do so.

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          In my view, the leagues are a kind of "natural monopoly." There can only be one "top league" in any sport, by definition, but it makes sense for the league as a whole to see itself as a business competing with other forms of recreation and entertainment* rather than each team competing with each other for customers, especially if they sell their TV rights as a package.

          But as such, they have to be regulated, the way public utilities are supposed to be regulated, and of course, they have to accept collective bargaining with the union.

          Too often, US team owners want it both ways. They want their league to be a closed shop with exclusive territorial rights and they use their relationships with the TV networks and cities to prevent other leagues from competing, but when either the fans or labor point all that out they claim they're merely business owners trying to compete in a free market.

          *European football clubs may not be able to see it that way because they take the dominant popularity of football for granted, like it's a fact of nature. Baseball owners used to think that too.

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            Baseball is the only sport with an anti-trust exemption. Charles Star was on Chin Music talking about it. Every time it's come up with other sports the supreme court has essentially said that it was a mistake but it's up to Congress to change it.

            I was interested by the idea that the supreme court allows actions by the leagues that may be monopolistic because there is a CBA or similar. It's ok because the players agreed to it.

            Comment


              Originally posted by ursus arctos View Post
              Even in a city as large as NYC, "second and third" clubs are always going to somewhat fragile.

              The Boston Braves left for Milwaukee, the St Louis Browns for Baltimore, the Philadelphia A's for Kansas City and the new competition engenders by the Orioles' arrival was a significant factor in the Washington Senators decamping to Minnesota.

              And the White Sox, Giants and A's have all experienced near misses when it comes to relocation since.
              Most of the team movements in baseball in the 50s and 60s were largely due to the changing demographics of the US and the possibility of cross country travel. One way or another, those cities were all eventually going to get major league teams and for the owners, it was way more attractive to be the first big league team in a new market than the second or third most popular club in a city. And it was way more attractive to steal an existing team than start an expansion team. It's easier to turn an expansion team into a winner than it used to be, however.

              Of course, race was a factor. There's an alternative history where LA and SF get expansion teams and the Giants and the Dodgers stay, but with white flight, "urban renewal," Robert Moses and all that, Shea Stadium was going to happen either way, so it's not clear if the Dodgers would have stayed in Brooklyn and/or if the Giants could have stayed in the City.

              Likewise, Calvin Griffith moved the Senators to Minnesota largely because he thought the team would be more successful commercially in a city with more white people. More or less.

              But over the past 50 years, things calmed down considerably. The only move was the Expos to Washington. Part of that corrects a mistake they made when they let the Senators leave the first time. But the history of how Montreal ended up paying for that mistake is sordid.


              Speaking of the Expos, in that book by Jonah Keri about the Rays - which I read before I learned that he's probably a bad person - points out that the Giants were all set to move to Tampa before the other owners blocked it because they realized from the Senators situation, among others, that it doesn't make sense to leave a big rich city without a team. But they had to then give Tampa an expansion team to prevent a lawsuit over blocking the Giants move because a lawsuit would lead to discovery, and under no circumstances do they want to have to really "open their books."

              In theory, moves that don't really make sense - Seattle Sonics to Oklahoma City Thunder, Los Angeles Rams to St Louis, San Diego Chargers to Los Angeles, Raiders to Las Vegas, the continued existence of the Phoenix Coyotes in Glendale - could be blocked by the other owners. But the owners generally want to let the other owners do whatever they want so that they'll be allowed to do whatever they want.

              It's a crap state of affairs, but it's too late for us to do anything about it. Congress has made it clear that the old "we'll revoke your anti-trust exemption" is an idle threat, and I'm not sure letting Congress be in charge would be an improvement anyway.


              And, I'm afraid, it's really too late for English fans to do anything about it with respect to their biggest clubs. Mammon is in charge now. I don't see how they put that genie back in the bottle.


              Comment


                Yes, player drafts are legal in the US because they are agreed by collective bargaining, though it is also true that EU competition law is somewhat more protective of individual's rights in such respects than is the case here.

                As I mentioned earlier in the thread, I believe that a collectively bargained draft and/or salary cap in the context of a SuperLeague would survive challenge under EU law, though the question is not free of doubt.

                There are obviously massive challenges to the question ever presenting itself, of course.

                Comment


                  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.
                  I saw a couple of games at Fenway when my folks lived in Brookline in the early 90s. Terrific, proper, atmospheric urban stadium.

                  Comment


                    Originally posted by beak View Post

                    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.
                    Ok. Daft question.

                    ​​​​

                    Why do artistes sign up for Spotify's terms in the first place?

                    It's not compulsory, is it?

                    Comment


                      I'm not exactly sure how Wrigley and Fenway survived the 60s and 70s when most other teams that had traditional urban stadiums replaced them with concrete, multiuse doughnuts. Perhaps they were just more profitable so they didn't think they needed to. Or maybe those parks were just better built.

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                        Both owners were of the old school patrician/racist school and not particularly interested in monetising their investment or engaging in the kind of politics that would have been needed to get a suburb or exurb to build a new ground for them (neither of them would have dreamed of paying for one on their own)

                        They also benefited from the fact that their local neighbourhoods stayed primarily white.

                        Comment


                          Originally posted by Guy Profumo View Post
                          Ok. Daft question.

                          ​​​​

                          Why do artistes sign up for Spotify's terms in the first place?

                          It's not compulsory, is it?
                          Isn't it labels that make those decisions on behalf of the artists?

                          Comment


                            It isn't necessarily on labels acting on behalf of the artists, but it is something approaching a monopoly or at least an almost-necessary-evil. I prefer Bandcamp, which I'm lead to understand offers better.

                            (caveat: it's King's Day and I'm more-than-half cut.)

                            Comment


                              Originally posted by beak View Post
                              (caveat: it's King's Day and I'm more-than-half cut.)
                              Ditto.

                              One of the reasons why earlier De La Soul albums are not on Spotify, is that those were released on the Tommy Boy label, who are now holding the albums hostage. De La Soul's latest, funded on Kickstarter and hence not released on that label, is on Spotify. So this is not entirely independent of labels.

                              Comment


                                Originally posted by Wouter D View Post

                                Isn't it labels that make those decisions on behalf of the artists?
                                It's a worse deal for the labels, really. It's rendered a lot of what they do obsolete, hasn't it?

                                They do it because they'd rather get paid something for their music than nothing and nothing is what they'd get if they didn't put their music on spotify, because it just gets pirated otherwise.

                                People like having all of their music in one place for one price. And, as it is, a lot of even big artists had kinda crappy deals with their labels and were really only making money by touring anyway.

                                Being on Spotify allows the artist to, potentially, reach more people than they ever could have just trying to flog records and that creates an audience that will hopefully see them play live and/or maybe contribute to their Patreon.

                                I feel bad for the artists*, but would rather - and have - just paid them directly via Patreon or whatever rather than have to download their music in bandcamp or some other separate app, let alone actually clutter up my house with more physical media. The artists can and do still sell limited quantities of physical media for the fans that want it, and that's fine.

                                Comment


                                  Originally posted by ursus arctos View Post
                                  Both owners were of the old school patrician/racist school and not particularly interested in monetising their investment or engaging in the kind of politics that would have been needed to get a suburb or exurb to build a new ground for them (neither of them would have dreamed of paying for one on their own)

                                  They also benefited from the fact that their local neighbourhoods stayed primarily white.
                                  I thought it was something like that. Basically, their own unwillingness to get with the times turned out to be a blessing for fans in the long run because those parks survived long enough to be renovated rather than destroyed.

                                  Comment


                                    Yes, it was the kind of thing that was sometimes raised by "forward thinkers" who wanted to buy the clubs from Wrigley/Yawkey, but they were never interested in selling.

                                    That whole trend turned out to be a busted flush for just about anything other than the NFL. Not only stadia, but arenas like the Horizon (Chicago), Richfield Coliseum (Cleveland), Palace at Auburn Hills (Detroit), Brendan Byrne (New Jersey). The Ottawa Senators are living with that very issue now.

                                    Comment


                                      It proved to be a bad idea for MLS as well. The notion was that the core audience was suburban and ex-urban families in minivans. A lot of Americans, including some invested in NWSL, still seem to think that, but it's not true and never really was, as Fire's return to Soldier Field illustrates.

                                      If the team is popular enough, football stadiums can be almost anywhere* because there aren't many games and they're almost always on a weekend. Besides, the parking lot scene is often as much of an attraction as the game itself. Playing in Green Bay and Foxboro, for example, hasn't proven to be much of a liability to those teams popularity.

                                      And yet, owners have managed to get very favorable terms to build stadiums in fairly central locations - Pittsburgh**, Minnesota, Charlotte. I suppose the more attractive location does help to get other kinds of events - the Super Bowl, some concerts, the X Games, etc, but the economic impact of those things on a city is wildly oversold.


                                      * I live near one of those areas. Beaver Stadium is literally right next to a cow field, 100 miles from any place that could generously be called a "city" and yet it is one of the largest stadiums on the planet. That never ceases to amaze me.


                                      ** I've only been to Heinz Field once and it was about 10 years ago, but it was incredibly easy to deal with even though it's right in the center of the city. Traffic moves pretty quickly and parking is not hard to find. Same with the Pirates next door.




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                                        'Real Madrid, Bar?a and Juve denounce ‘intolerable’ pressure to abandon ESL'

                                        https://www.theguardian.com/football...to-abandon-esl

                                        Comment


                                          Surely the simplest solution is for these three clubs to withdraw from FIFA and UEFA and set up on their own? Imagine the prospect of El Clasico every three weeks, with Juve v Real and Juve v Barca in the intervening weeks! The income from TV rights alone... And the clubs wouldn't even have to share it, they could keep the lot rather than financing all the other clubs and leagues, as they intended under the original plan. Let the losers go to the wall, who needs them?

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                                            I'm sure this has already been covered here , if not on this thread, but thought it worth sharing as there was information I wasn't aware of ;

                                            https://twitter.com/guardian_sport/status/1393240181751390210?s=21

                                            It's also a great graphic.

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                                              I'm actually not sure we have touched on it.

                                              Nor did it get as much attention in Italy as it should have, though the whole Italian relationship with Chinese capital has been fraught for decades.

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                                                Isn't the investment sufficient to make Inter competitive with Man City, PSG, Bayern etc in future CLs?

                                                Comment


                                                  Not even close

                                                  It kept them operating, didn't clear any of the debt

                                                  Also very important that this was a minority investment in the parent company, of which Inter is a tiny overseas appendage.
                                                  Last edited by ursus arctos; 15-05-2021, 12:21.

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                                                    Say it ain't so, Infantino! Doubtless to the surprise of no one on this board, the NYT quotes inside sources as saying that Fifa and Infantino effectively gave the super league the green light in the years up to its announcement, in return for a set number of its clubs committing to take part every year in Infantino's pet project, the revamped Club World Cup, and foregoing large amounts of cash for doing so. This would have let Fifa cash in a projected extra $1 billion a year from the competition.

                                                    Credit to Infantino for one thing - he's a consistent fucking disgrace in everything he says and does, with absolutely no let-up. Who would have thought he could fit so snugly into Blatter's fur-lined swivelling chair of conniving, power-grabbing, avaricious, piggy-eyed sleaze?
                                                    Last edited by imp; 20-05-2021, 14:55. Reason: separating 'the' from 'revamped' - very important correction

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