bobloblaw

1 minute ago, Groundhog63 said:

Tbf it's the Albanians do that around here not the Saudis ?

 Mostly meth dealers around here 

21 minutes ago, Ed210 said:

I see the PIF are buying a £200m stake in Aston Martin. Would be a canny shirt sponsor. 

Car washing too, when will they stop?!

30 minutes ago, Gawalls said:

I agree with every word you said - was just checking that the people that are saying trust in howe so Hugo must be good aren’t the same people who were slagging wood off.

There is probably some degree of wiggle room between trusting someone, and thinking they are infallible. 

On 12/05/2022 at 07:37, gjohnson said:

Can open.....worms everywhere

Nah, it's the best. First video is context for the 3rd part of the second video (the Iowa wave) that's for the team I support and where I went to school.  

On 05/05/2022 at 12:26, Optimistic Nut said:

Might sound bad but I’m guessing any Russian players bought would pay tax to the Russian government? It’s a massive hornet’s nest.

Doubt that.  The US is one very few countries that collect taxes on foreign earnings of citizens living abroad.

12 hours ago, TheBrownBottle said:

 

 

The existence of those ‘fans’ are why local sporting institutions like football clubs now sell for stupid money.  To most supporters who actually attend, ‘fan experiences’, shiny merchandise, etc are utterly meaningless because the pleasure comes from a tribal sense of togetherness, not because the club shop has shiny trinkets.  Some of the best fan ‘experiences’ I’ve had have been in crumbling shitholes.  Some of the worst in shiny superdomes.  You’re in the place for a couple of hours, the vast majority of which is spent staring at a green rectangle.  I’ve rarely been arsed about the fact that the half time bar is decked out to the standards normally reserved for upmarket restaurants. 

The tribal thing is why clubs in English football’s fourth tier can pull five-figure attendances.  That’s how several clubs who have literally won nowt - ever - and don’t even have large supporter bases (Watford, Palace, Brentford etc) can be in the ‘majors’ whilst huge clubs with great histories and sizeable catchment areas can languish outside of it.  The US is so culturally different, yet because it is anglophone many assume it is somehow more alike.  I’d no sooner want to adopt the US sports model in the UK than I’d expect to tell the average American how they should change their sporting institutions.  I fundamentally don’t understand it, and it isn’t really any of my business. 

 

 

This is why college football is the best US sport.

2 minutes ago, ponsaelius said:

 

It was dull because nobody in the audience seemed particularly interested. People spent most of the game wandering back and forth for food and drink. If somebody does that at SJP other than half time they are rightly viewed as a dickhead. I've never once been to a football match where people did that en masse.

 

Sport lives and dies as an entertainment, both live and on TV, by the stakes at play and the atmosphere in the crowd. Otherwise it is just athletic people with very good motor skills. Which is dull in my opinion. You may disagree.

 

For what it's worth the NBA playoffs can be extremely entertaining and I think basketball at its core is a good game - particularly when the teams are closely matched.

So the NBA as a live experience is poor because some people wanted to get their kids a hot dog.  Nothing to do with the product on the court.

1 minute ago, Kanji said:

I’m just wondering why you have such strong opinions about live sport fan experience in the US but have this opinion based on what you’ve seen on TV and I don’t exactly know what is irking you Sewelly. Its just a genuine question.

My favorite is the one who went to a live NBA game and was just meh.  Live NBA is the peak of "holy shit these guys are athletic freaks'."

2 minutes ago, Kid Icarus said:

1. I've seen enough on T.V and experienced enough live football matches lurching towards that to know I don't like it. 2. Why do you all get so defensive about it? We're allowed to not like things.

 

 

 

1. Oh my.

2. Probably hubris.

1 minute ago, ponsaelius said:

 

Football is definitely not dying. Quite the opposite.

 

But most of the things bad about it, which would justify such a point, are a direct result of it becoming more like US sports.

What does that even mean?

1 minute ago, Kid Icarus said:

This is exactly it though, a lot of the things you do well many people don't like or want, and consider them as things that would worsen the game and what it means to them to be a football fan. 

Great.  I've seen a lot of posts from people here talking about how football is dying, and issues with the game.  I've never seen posts like that on NFL, MLB, or NBA forums i frequent.

5 minutes ago, Kid Icarus said:

There's no difference, it's all part of the same stereotypical American hubris that you should be listened to because you do things best. It's actually mad how much that stereotype exists

Is this something like the hubris of people who tell us that all of our domestic sports are boring unwatchable trash because we don't have a pyramid like you?

3 minutes ago, Kid Icarus said:

There's no difference, it's all part of the same stereotypical American hubris that you should be listened to because you do things best. It's actually mad how much that stereotype exists

Alternatively, maybe we do some things well, and others could learn from it.

3 minutes ago, Kid Icarus said:

 

My guess would be that because purists already generally hate the day out style commercialisation of the game, they look at U.S Sports, see owners from the U.S come over here and shudder at the thought of that side of things getting worse and worse.

 

U.S sports aren't as popular as football, that's no big deal, but I think it rubs people the wrong way when it's suggested that the world's most popular sport could "improve" by adopting aspects of less popular U.S sports, and U.S sports fans feel the need to get on the defensive. It tends to be very much a "you" (America) problem, that doesn't come from elsewhere.

I think there might be some difference here between things like rules changes, and the way the sport is administered.

13 minutes ago, ponsaelius said:

I can't believe it needs explaining how the free market can be exploitative like 

If the market is actually free, then it literally cant.  Scarcity is a thing.

3 minutes ago, ponsaelius said:

 

Nothing to do with viewership. A game which can decide relegation verses a regular season game with nothing at stake (because there's nothing to play for) has fundamentally higher stakes in a sporting sense. 

But you (or others) have said nobody is interested in American sports because there was nothing at risk.

2 minutes ago, ponsaelius said:

Consumer wealth inflates demand - limited capacity allows for exploitation in the form of obscenely high ticket prices which price out those who can't actually afford to ever go. Both consumer demand and exploitation at the same time.

 

In European football there is not as much wealth, but also a social contract that generally prevents obscene price gouging. In Germany there are packed stadiums but if the clubs raise prices then they will protest and not go. Tickets stay cheap. There is an inherent social contract, and underlying threat of something bordering on industrial action, which limits the degree to which ticket prices will ever rise. And it reflects the cultural history and place that football clubs have in society. It is less the case in England but remains true.

 

This social contract does not really exist in US sports. Hence why the American owners would be very keen on the ESL which pushes towards a franchise system and detached clubs further from their historic cultural and social contract.

Yeah, that's not exploitation.  That's rationing.

13 minutes ago, ponsaelius said:

 

Yeah. I was conned by this last time I was there. An ordinary season game with no consequences and therefore played as such. Bloody dreadful.

 

10th tier football has higher stakes. The food was good though.

So higher stakes lead to higher viewership right?  What's the international viewership for lower level English football.

9 minutes ago, ponsaelius said:

 

It can quite easily be both of those things. They are not contradictory in the slightest.

 

I said it has some global reach. Still completely incomparable to football.

 

Plus it was invented by a Canadian anyway.

 

 

 

It can't.  Nobody is forced to attend an NFL game.  They aren't selling insulin that people need to live.  The market sets the price.

3 minutes ago, ponsaelius said:

Wealth and disposable income in the US is enormous and people pay a lot of it to watch sport. Big whoop.

 

 

So are high prices a result of people being ripped off by billionaires, or the result of consumer demand.  You seem to be contradicting yourself.

"US sports just really aren't that popular outside of the US." "Basketball does have some global reach as it is a genuinely global sport "  Which is it?

Just now, ponsaelius said:

 

Just less being ripped off by billionaires. Sky high ticket prices I'm sure another brilliant thing we should copy though, cracking argument. 

Ah yes, the premier league just has more magnanimous owners willing to forgo profits for the benefit of fans.  They could charge more, they just choose to take the revenue hit because they are good guys.

1 minute ago, ponsaelius said:

 

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1120190/broadcasting-rights-sports-by-source/

Those numbers are from 2019 when deals were ending.  NBA and NFL have negotiated new deals since then.

1 minute ago, ponsaelius said:

What is there to learn in terms of ticket sales and resale?

 

Reselling and scalping exists here too.

 

Thankfully, despite increasing, European football remains far more affordable for match going supporters. That is literally the only thing that matters in terms of ticketing.

So less demand to view the product in person.