UK Pro Sport

[Levin]

I've been thinking about professional sport in the UK since I saw Ray's post in the NHL thread regarding the Manchester Phoenix.

What sports are maintained on a professional basis in the UK? My initial list is;

Football
Rugby (both types)
Cricket
Golf
Tennis
Motor Sport
Ice Hockey
Basketball
Athletics
Edit: Snooker
Darts

For some reason I'm leery of including sports that are govt/lottery funded to be professional but I'm not certain that's fair.

The thing I've been thinking of though is how Basketball and Ice Hockey keep going as professional sports. I read something from a couple of years ago that said average wage in the uk for basketball players was £7k. That can't be enough to be regarded as pro can it? Where does the money come from to keep basketball and hockey leagues going? Match takings? Sponsorship? Or rich, sport loving, owners?

I don't see how it's economical.

[Ray de Galles]

UK Pro Sport

You need to add Boxing to the list. Many boxers are funded through UK Sport and other bodies but the pro circuit is completely separate

I often wonder how sports like Ice Hockey and Speedway keep afloat, I think it is largely through people willing to lose money to support the sport.

[ursus arctos]

UK Pro Sport

I think that there is a general categorisation issue here with the definition of "professsional".

The traditional idea that acceptance of any compensation made one "professional" never made much sense to me and surely makes no sense now, as the UK basketball example demonstrates. A more workable definition would focus on a participant earning enough from the sport so as not to require other employment.

There perhaps should also be a requirement that a minimum number of participants reach that level in order for the sport to be considered professional. For example, there are a handful of "professional" UK participants in e-Sports, but I wouldn't consider it to be professional in the UK (as opposed to South Korea).

[Ray de Galles]

UK Pro Sport

I generally agree that "full-time pro" is a more useful definition but do those basketball players actually have other jobs?

I've read about English Championship rugby players earning £10,000 or less a year who have no other income.

[ursus arctos]

UK Pro Sport

I don't know, but I do know that it was very common for "minimum wage" players in MLS to have other jobs (at least in the offseason) when that figure was around USD 25,000 (it only went up recently). The same is true for women's ice hockey here and rugby union here. Minor league baseball players generally rely on spousal on familial resources in order to make ends meet, as the majority of them make less than USD 1500 a month.

[Kevin S]

UK Pro Sport

Road cycling.

Specifically, men's road cycling.

https://cyclingtips.com/2015/09/inside-the-business-of-womens-cycling-until-its-profitable-wages-are-lacking/

[Ray de Galles]

UK Pro Sport

ursus arctos wrote:

Minor league baseball players generally rely on spousal on familial resources in order to make ends meet...

My guess is that's the most common situation in the UK sports/leagues mentioned above too.

These articles illustrate the English Rugby Championship situation ;

"Why I left professional rugby to start a family"

‘The RFU Championship has become the wild west of professional rugby’

[Janik]

UK Pro Sport

If Tennis counts, then so would Squash. The money is substantially less for sure, but Brits are concentrated at the top of the Squash rankings to a much greater extent, with 23 of the top 100 men and 14 of the top 100 women. The numbers of players in each sport that earn enough to support themselves without additional funding is probably pretty similar, a handful in both cases.

Worth noting that ursus definition of a participant earning enough from the sport to not need additional income sources doesn't quite work; lots of top level players in less well funded sports make ends meet by earning from that sport in ways other than simply prize money/salary from a club. Guest appearances, paid exhibitions and even coaching social players can all contribute without the need for a job outside the sport.
Squash is a perfect example of that. I was talking literally last night with one guy who said he was building up to giving the PSA a proper go next year. He currently mixes coaching, being paid to play for various teams and appearing occasionally in British-based prize money tournaments.
He estimated that the budget for a club wanting to run a England Premier Squash League team was £3000 per match. The mix of what you do changes as you go towards the top, but earning a bit extra from playing for clubs never goes away. I wouldn't class people like Nick Matthew, James Willstrop, Laura Massaro or Alison Waters as anything other than professional Squash players, and yet they are still turning occasionally in these sort of events.

[Levin]

UK Pro Sport

Cheers guys. I can't believe I forgot cycling and boxing.

I feel I've allowed myself to be misled by the BBL's self description as a professional league, I also noted that they run under a franchise system.

I've just remembered the watch adverts on the underground with skiers and horse riders I've never heard of. I suspect i'm drifting from the OP with this but someone must have funded them, unless the fund themselves.

I can sort of understand the red bull funded people as it meshes with the brand development.

Sorry, I'm struggling to string all these thoughts together.

I guess I can understand people getting paid for sport when there is money to be made by club owners (and latterly media organisations) and when it happens organically but just plumping down a pro sport without a wide support base seems illogical.

(another aside, there are loads of American Football teams in the uk! 66 teams in the pyramid with promotion and relegation)

[ursus arctos]

UK Pro Sport

Janik, I guess I wasn't clear, but I would consider the kind of sponsorship and other income you cite as part of the money participants "earn from the sport".

The single most common outside employment for US Olympians is driving trucks for UPS (as they are very accommodating of training schedules).

[ursus arctos]

UK Pro Sport

On basketball, I think it is instructive that British clubs haven't participated in any European competition for a decade (there are three levels, with over 100 teams involved), while Britain has had some representation in the Champions (Ice) Hockey League (though the clubs have always been eliminated in the group stage).

[Ray de Galles]

UK Pro Sport

Nottingham Panthers just won Europe's secondary trophy, which is progress.

Nottingham Panthers won the Continental Cup final to become the first British ice hockey team to claim a major European trophy.

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

UK Pro Sport

I used to watch Newcastle Vipers in the ice hockey Elite League and they always seemed to be in a desperate financial position - think they were propped up by a Scandinavian company that had a foothold in the north east and liked the 'prestige' of a pro ice hockey team. When they were on their last legs they were using university players to fill out the squad, but until then were largely populated by North Americans and Eastern Europeans, though no idea how much they were paid.

By the time I started watching them they'd moved to Whitley Bay having been kicked out of Newcastle's arena, because it wasn't worth the arena turning down weekend entertainment bookings for an ice hockey team to play in front of 2,000 or so.

Not really much to do with the original post but I'm keeping with the random evolution of the thread since I guess.

[Levin]

UK Pro Sport

Oh I think it fits in. 2,000 people paying, what? £5 - £10 isn't very much once you've hired the venue etc. And games aren't every week.

That many people attending is quite impressive for a 'minority' sport.

[ursus arctos]

UK Pro Sport

It all depends on the alternatives, doesn't it?

Earlier this week, it was reported that the NHL's New York Islanders risk eviction from Brooklyn's Barclays Center because the arena (which is controlled by the Russian oligarch who also owns the Isles' co-tenants, the NBA's Brooklyn Nets) believes that it can make more money from concerts and other events than the 41 dates (plus playoffs) the Islanders provide.

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

UK Pro Sport

I'm guessing at 2,000 as I didn't go to any games there but certainly they took a hit on attendances when they moved to Whitley Bay. They would have been playing every week (think all the Elite League teams have at least one home game per week).

Raises another point though that minority sports tend to have to keep prices low and often discount them further to get a crowd. Without opening a code comparison tangent, RL tends to do this a lot, as someone I know commented (without sarcasm) it must be good for me being a League follower cos you get tickets to any game you want, and they don't cost much.

It's not just RL of course, at ice hockey we would get really good family deals, and I took my son to a basketball final in Glasgow that cost next to nowt with a whole afternoon's entertainment built round the game.

[Hot Pepsi]

UK Pro Sport

ursus arctos wrote: I don't know, but I do know that it was very common for "minimum wage" players in MLS to have other jobs (at least in the offseason) when that figure was around USD 25,000 (it only went up recently). The same is true for women's ice hockey here and rugby union here. Minor league baseball players generally rely on spousal on familial resources in order to make ends meet, as the majority of them make less than USD 1500 a month.

Minor league baseball is one of those situations where you have a wide disparity in incomes. Because the top prospects get a signing bonus - up to multiple millions of dollars (I believe Stephen Strasburg's $20m is still the record) in addition to their paltry wage playing with guys making just paltry wage (as portrayed in the classic film Bull Durham). The minor leaguers also often live with host families during the season and the club feeds them most of the time too, so that stretches their budget. But it's definitely a grind. It amazes me how many guys with virtually no chance of being major leaguers will stick it out in the minors for years.

[Snake Plissken]

UK Pro Sport

Off the top of my head, the wage cap in the Elite League was around £6,000 a week. However, the imports would have flights, equipment, housing, even education all paid for. Add in that the salary is tax free then £500/week it isn't that bad a deal when you have few outgoings. The Brits are on a much lower wages, too, and generally have a second job. Some of the imports end up with a second job as well.

The Vipers had a link up with Jokerit for a while, then when the ISL went bust it was MobilX. The only legacy of that move is John Hall managed to kill both the biggest rivalry in UK hockey, Durha Wasps and Whitley Warriors. From memory, the Wasps became the Newcastle Cobras under Hall, part of a sporting banner that included NUFC, the basketball side and a motor racing team. (Lister?)

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

UK Pro Sport

Newcastle Falcons RU too.

The Vipers were also previously the Riverkings, though that was before my time so at least I never had to shout it. I believe the fact that they were essentially a rebranded Durham Wasps cost them a lot of potential local support when they moved to Whitley Bay - the Warriors still living on at a lower level and were playing on Sunday nights in the days when we would go to Vipers games on Saturdays.

There's a bit of crossover with the RL thread in how minority sports can be maintained in towns sometimes better than they can in big cities (in the case of ice hockey in Manchester and Newcastle, having to cover large fees to use arenas that can otherwise be cramming them in for Strictly, or boxing, or gigs, or comedy, or darts) - in the days before the Newcastle move, Durham and Whitley Bay used to get decent coverage on local ITV, as did the Solway Sharks in Dumfries.

What we're not really discussing on this thread is what a fucking juggernaut football is in this country, particularly Premier League of course, and that most other sports do well just to hang on in there.

And re the original list, Horse Racing is certainly a pro sport and stacks up well in terms of live attendances compared to many.

Which brings me to a last point, which I've always wondered about but never though it warranted its own thread - why do only certain sports publish attendance figures? Back in the day only football and RL used to publish figures as a matter of course, though upper levels of pro RU have for the last couple of decades. Germany seems quite keen on this, I've often got lost in a German newspaper sports section looking at attendance figures for handball and the like, probably cost it's the only thing I properly understand.

[Snake Plissken]

UK Pro Sport

Cobras -> Riverkings -> Jesters -> Vipers for the required amount of WSC pedantry.

Also, not helping in the Wasps/Warriors rivalry was that the Warriors moved to Newcastle Arena when it opened, but were elbowed out a year later by Halls rebranded Wasps for the formation of the Ice Hockey Superleague. Ironically, the Wasps/Cobras/Riverkings/Jesters/Vipers ended up going to Whitley Bay for their final season.

The Nynex/MEN arena was built on the US model of two sporting tenants to give a regular income and then concerts. There were plenty of interest for the Giants basketball but pretty much no-one wanted the Manchester hockey team and some deal was cobbled together where the Trafford Metros became the Manchester Storm and ended up being owned and run by the same company that operated the Arena (the name of which escapes me). Ironically, the attendances for the hockey far outstripped those for the basketball, so it was a nice earner for a few years.

Once SMG took over the operation of the Arena, they got rid of the Storm ASAP, and very much focused on making the Arena the most visited in the world and it still very, very heavily used. However, the sporting tenants thing is still what kept the place ticking along before 2002.

FWIW, when the Phoenix were playing out of the MEN, their nightly rental was a very heavily discounted £9,000 a night.