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DerSchwarzfalke
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The NFL is not too keen on Glazer owning Manchester United either, it seems. There are apparently league rules that prevent dual ownership, so Glazer might be forced to relinquish Tampa Bay if he wants to hang on to his share of ManU. That is an interesting extra twist to throw into the mix, but I am a bit surprised Tagliabue and his bunch are only speaking up now about it. This has been in the works for longer than a year now, if I remember correctly.
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Locutus
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ACS CTP1/2 Manager & Civ4 Co-Manager
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Hengelo, The Netherlands
Nov 1999
time: 06:20
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quote:
Originally posted by DanS
They are the same type of business simply because they are both sports teams. The business pieces of each sport (sponsorship, gate receipts and upkeep, TV revenue, merchandising, payroll and team management, community outreach, etc.) are similar and I think that the similarities are greater than the few differences. |
That's like saying that running a business in a communist economy is the same as running a business in a capitalist economy, because they both involve the same aspects: salaries, stock managament, building maintenance, supply & demand, advertising, personnel training, etc. Of course, it's ridiculous to think that a successful businessman in a communist nation would just as easily be successful in a capitalist economy.
Sports in no different. The difference between American sports and European football is like day and night. As pointed out, American sport is aimed at making a profit, and at ensuring all owners make a profit. Football is basically an expensive hobby for millionairs, for owners it's more philanthropism than anything else. Chelsea's owner Abramovich has spent over 200 million pounds on players in the last 2 years (and still Chelsea failed to even reach the final in the Champions League) -- there's no way he's ever gonna turn a profit on that. And there's a huge amount of competition and often even hostility between owners and clubs, rather than collaboration as in the US. Not to mention the huge differences in just managing a club, as mentioned by others: promotions, relegations, player rights, player transfers, fan attitudes, scale of audiences (in the US one team represents an entire state, in Europe it usually only has fans in one city or even one neighbourhood -- Glazer is grossly overestimating the international potential of ManU), the huge importance of cups and esp. international tournaments, etc.
Last edited by Locutus on 17-05-2005 at 07:17
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DanS
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Kickball Capital of the World
Jan 1970
time: 00:20
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quote:
That's like saying that running a business in a communist economy is the same as running a business in a capitalist economy, because they both involve the same aspects: salaries, stock managament, building maintenance, supply & demand, advertising, personnel training, etc. Of course, it's ridiculous to think that a successful businessman in a communist nation would just as easily be successful in a capitalist economy. |
The differences aren't as dramatic as you make them out to be for the Bucs and ManU. For instance, over the last decade or so, most teams in the NFL have changed the way they handle gate receipts and season tickets. Experience in those tests applies directly to ManU. Glazer has experience in managing sold-out gate for two stadiums of similar size to Old Trafford (the old one was larger by about 7,000, the new one smaller by about 2,000) and figuring out what works for his market. Indeed, comparable gate management experience probably is unavailable in European football except for a handful of teams.
quote:
The difference between American sports and European football is like day and night. As pointed out, American sport is aimed at making a profit, and at ensuring all owners make a profit. Football is basically an expensive hobby for millionairs, for owners it's more philanthropism than anything else. |
That may be true for European football in general, but that's not quite the case with ManU. It is a plc that had mostly profit/loss investors. If you want to make the argument that a plc isn't a good way to run a football club in Europe -- especially against the likes of Abramovitch -- then that would seem to be another discussion entirely.
Last edited by DanS on 17-05-2005 at 07:55
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Locutus
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ACS CTP1/2 Manager & Civ4 Co-Manager
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Hengelo, The Netherlands
Nov 1999
time: 06:20
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quote:
Originally posted by DanS
The differences aren't as dramatic as you make them out to be for the Bucs and ManU. For instance, over the last decade or so, most teams in the NFL have changed the way they handle gate receipts and season tickets. Experience in those tests applies directly to ManU. Glazer has experience in managing sold-out gate for two stadiums of similar size to Old Trafford (the old one was larger by about 7,000, the new one smaller by about 2,000) and figuring out what works for his market. Indeed, comparable gate management experience probably is unavailable in European football except for a handful of teams. |
That's just not true because European audiences are fundamentally different from American audiences. For Americans, sport is just another form of entertainment, an American Football match is a fun day out for the family. In Europe, football is more like religion, European fans live and (sometimes literally) die for their club.
Stadium size and things like that are utterly irrelevant for gate receipts in Europe. The single most important factor that determines visitor numbers and gate receipts in football is the amount of success a team has. The more successful you are, the more visitors you can support and the more you can charge for tickets. It's already becoming clear that Glazer will raise ticket prices for next season to pay off the cost of buying the ManU, while the club has had several bad seasons in a row now. ManU fans simply will not under any circumstance be willing to pay a higher price for their tickets unless they get a really strong guarantees that ManU will perform better next season. And in football, unlike in American sports, the only guarantee for short-term success is a big budget for player purchases and salaries, something which Glazer already announced there won't be.
Profit and success in the US sports are almost entirely independent factors, in football they are one and the same thing. Glazer's experiences in the closed-circuit system of the NFL have absolutely no bearing on the harsh competitive reality of football.
If Glazer will push through his plans of rasing ticket prices without significantly raising the player budget, ManU will be playing with a sub-par team in a half-empty stadium (at best) next season, which would inevitably lead them into the same downward spiral that other clubs such as Blackburn, Newcastle, Everton, QPR, etc went into in the 90s when they tried to maximize profits at the expense of success.
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DerSchwarzfalke
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Seconding that bollocks. You should have seen me after the Yankees lost Game 7 this year ...
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child of Thor
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Well ManU does have one of the biggest non local fan bases in world football - maybe the plan is to target and expand that market over the home market?
Also i think the whole agressive approach is what upsets the ManU fans most, to them he's a 'flash yank' with all the money but no idea of what ManU really is about(this may not be true, but i think its how it seems to the majority of fans/onlookers).
This in itself may be a PR disaster with no fix?
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17-05-2005 05:48
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