It is often wrongly assumed that a supporter of capitalism has no business complaining if a beloved sports institution, like a cricket or football team, becomes a vast, worldwide brand, or if sports contests are held outside the venue from which the institution sprang. Well, up to a point, Lord Copper (to quote a line from Evelyn Waugh’s Scoop). As a libertarian, the key thing for me is that autonomous institutions, set up and created under certain rules of association by their members, should continue to be run on said principles since otherwise, the whole point of the association is destroyed. Since no coercion is involved, there is no reason, for instance, why a group of socialists could not join together to create their own communes. The only proviso being that people who live in these places have the right to quit and form their own, ‘break-away’ groupings or just leave if they so wish. The same applies to say, professional football. I happen to think that the influx of non-British players and oodles of cash into the game has been a mixed blessing; just because I support the right of people to spend their money how they want emphatically does not mean that good things always happen when they do, nor is it contradictory for a free marketeer such as yours truly to wonder whether sports can be ruined by wrangles over money.
Take the current controversy over the idea of staging Premier League football matches outside England, for example, in order to appeal to the hundreds of thousands of folk who allegedly are desperate to watch English Premier League football. Well, sorry guys, the whole freaking idea of an English premier league is that the games are played in England, not Planet Zog. If fans in England are increasingly priced out of their clubs’ games – which means that crowds often have all the passion of wet cement – and if players become exhausted by a 365-a-year playing season, then the game will suffer. And that, in the end, will damage the game that the heads of sports associations are supposed to be taking care of.
Yes, I know that the purist idea of autonomous sports institutions has been badly eroded in recent years by the attempts by governments to muscle in on sports. That is a key, if separate issue. But stay with me on this: in a free society, it is nevertheless the case that good things, like friendships, clubs and voluntary organisations, do not revolve around the desire just to make pots of money. Sport is something one enjoys and plays for its own sake, not just to win. As Michael Oakshott, the conservative philosopher said, some things, like being a member of a club or having a good friendship, have no external ‘end’. As a supporter of Ipswich Town, I think that is probably just as well.
As a proponent of libertarian principles I am neither for nor against capitalism per se; what I am is a proponent of choice and free decisions, from which free enterprise capitalism is an emergent property.
The issue isn’t capitalism, but rather free choice, and in many ways I agree. I would prefer it if the English Premier League chose to remain English. If It does start performing internationally, then it WILL become an international league, with a preponderance of teams based in England. Simply to enhance its popularity in some existing teams will move elsewhere, and new and existing teams from elsewhere will be formed or invited to join. England will no no longer have a high level league.
In fact, I would not be surprised if there was not already talk, internally, about inviting Beijing, Jakarta and Los Angeles to build teams capable of joining.
Australian Rules Football used precisely this approach, to create interest in the rest of Australia, when it spread from it’s home city of Melbourne.
365-a-day!
Bloody hell! These lads really do earn their 70k pw!
Anyway, JP, do I detect partisan thoughts here? Ipswich are sixth in the CCC. Are you doubting they can maintain that to get into the play-offs and therefore a chance for the Premiership trough that floweth-over? Hell, it’s looking dicey, 5 points behind Charlton and only GD ahead of Hull & Palace (and it’s pretty tight all the way down to Wolves in 12th. Last game was a home defeat… Time to tighten the sphincters at Portman Rd, me thinks!
Well at least you’re ahead of Norwich and Colchester. I assume you lot have a niggle with Colchester as well?
Disclosure: As a Geordie, I am a supporter of NUFC. I also own share in Northern Rock. The commentariat can now enjoy 5 minutes of guffawing schadenfreude.
Whilst capitalism must be allowed to hold sway I feel that in the long run if this plan goes ahead the premier League will overreach itself. We already have the “prawn sandwich” brigade much in evidence at many of the big clubs. People who dont really go to watch the football but to be seen in the company of their invited guests. Prices already are astronomical and at least if you stay at home and watch it on the telly you can always switch off and do something else if the game is a bore as very often prem games are.
Nick M – I too am an Ipswich supporter. The feeling amongst fans at the start of the season was that we would do well to finish 8th. Even allowing for the recent injection of capital we shall do well to make the play-offs – and our record in them isnt good! If luck holds and we do go up, we shall promptly go down again but with a huge parachute payment to make a serious challenge in the following season.
To repeat:
Capitalism is not an “ism” in the same sense (and pupose) as socialism or all the other big and little “isms” of the world.
Of course when defined by those opposed to the results of its workings, the word means for them whatever they say it means (or implies).
Capitalism, in the way it actually functions in open societies is nothing more than a system of distribution.
That system of distribution is based on exercise of choices. Those are the choices in the exchanges of goods and services (or service for service -Bastiat).
There are those who try to impute to the system an inherent force to direct the capacities for choice, rather than accept that it is the differentiation of the actors (“agents”) within the system that directs those capacities.
So, what is being “distributed” here in professional sports that involves Capitalism? How are the choices of venues, the flows funds, talents, etc. being affected and directed ? Is it not the same old “service for service?” You want it, we will bring it to you. You want it more than they, show us, and we will keep it for just you.
Over-simplified of course.
Indeed. I’m an American who is typing this while watching Chelsea battle the Red Shite from thousands of miles away in Florida. As the NFL will learn after a few years of watching the “prawn sandwich” crowd gather at Wembley to gaze at something they dimly comprehend.
They are each obsessed with becoming a world brand rather than a national brand, but the nature of the beast is that not many Americans “get it” while watching Premier League and it will never be more than a niche product here. Much the same with NFL overseas. Can’t address the impact in Asia. Just sharing what I see from here. Give ’em a chance to expand – gotta do it. Still hope they don’t kill the golden goose.
Everton to Champions League – go Chelski!!
I will sincerely hope that the EPL does not go the way of the NFL or NBA here in the states, with their astronomically expensive tickets, deafening music and Jumbotron screens (all of which contribute to lifeless crowds), their arenas and stadia built with taxpayer money, and countless salary rules intended to ensure “parity”.
Hunter S Thompson wrote some good articles about the changes that took place in the NFL crowds when those salary rules etc were first brought in… makes for interesting reading.
Once you get beyond the stage of ‘local teams comprising local players’ it doesn’t really matter where you stage the games, so you might as well have the players play wherever the market for live seats is the most lucrative and relay it all back home ‘proms-in-the-park’ style.
It’s not a measurable either, which makes things tricky. Why do people support any particular team, if not a local team? Does the question have any more relevance than ‘what tribe are you in?
As a fellow Tractor Boy, I implore you to have a little more faith: we’re doing ok!
All these binmen comments! Who knew Poorman Road was such a hotbed of Hayekian Liberalism?
On The Ball City!
I had a somewhat parallel experience with a local professional society society a couple of years ago. I was developing a staffing service for dental professionals, and sought the endorsement of the local District Dental Society. After contacting their secretary, I was presented with a list of conditions for endorsement; buying ads in their newsletters, donating to their annual golf event, putting up money for another event, discounts for their members, giving a percentage of sales to the society, and so on. In all, after a succession of discussions with him, I’d agreed to paying everything they asked for (a few thousand dollars a year, for which I’d receive a couple lines of text in their directory and a link from their web site as their endorsement), but they declined endorsement on the grounds that I wasn’t charging their members for the service, so they’d only be collecting “five percent of nothing”.
It gave me cause to consider the nature of such an organization — ostensibly, for the betterment of the profession in their district, and for the benefit their practicing members — and how it contrasted with what I’d actually experienced, and other things I learned along the way. The first three meetings were full of questions about what I could offer to the organization; it wasn’t until the fourth meeting that the question of what I could offer its members was broached, and dismissed quickly. A no-cost service to their members wasn’t worthy of endorsement, because it would “only” bring the organization a few thousand dollars a year.
I concluded what you essentially stated – that the focus of the organization had shifted at some point, and its founding principles of serving the profession and practitioners had been subverted by a profit motive. Of course they have bills to pay, need and deserve to make money, and should pursue such revenues as are required to remain solvent, but in the final analysis I find just one adjective for an organization that’s lost its focus as a result of this sort of shift – corrupt.
There are organizations whose focus is and should be making money. We call them “businesses”. The notion of sports organizations being simultaneously sport clubs and businesses is just a fig leaf for corruption.
Personally, I don’t like the idea. But if all 20 clubs agreed with it, then, well, that’s their choice, isn’t it? If fans don’t like it, they have options – they could stay away and refuse to buy tickets, merchandise etc. Or they could group together and buy shares in the club. Fan ownership seems to work fine for Barcelona, so why not English clubs? But the simple fact is, the Premier League is basically just a representative of England’s top 20 clubs, and if this is what the clubs, i.e. their owners, want, then who are we to say they can’t do it?
As for the idea itself, what on earth are they thinking, adding an extra game that will count towards final league positions? I’m sure the team that gets lumped with an extra match against Man Utd will be happy when the team just behind them on goal difference gets an extra match with, say, Derby. And avoiding all such problems from top to bottom of the league simultaneously would be an incredible headache.
Secondly, they say this is for all teams. Now, I’m currently living in Seoul, and I’m fairly sure that if one of the top teams, or any team with a Korean player, turned up, they’d pack any stadium in the country – and some of them are pretty big! But otherwise, I doubt they’d bother. I can’t see 60,000+ Koreans turning up to watch Sunderland vs Wigan, for example – no disrespect intended to those teams, but they’d basically be flying half way round the world for bugger all reason.
No. In fact, smaller clubs like Ipswich would probably benefit, financially, from being able to play abroad; the biggest clubs get so much dosh already that a few added games abroad will, other things being equal, be harmful. Liverpool and ManU have both come out against the idea.
Well! Small world. I work for the guy who owns Ipswitch!
However, I am a Liverpool supporter. And yes, it’s an identification thing.