How modern football became broken beyond repair

André Dominguez

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This has been discussed since the Bosman rule, when Italian clubs imposed their financial power all over Europe. In the end, it wasn't sustainable and a lot of clubs bankrupted because they didn't grow in revenues as they expected.

This is a problem for every sport, not just football. So how can we make it more balanced? Unless you create a general UEFA revenues for all clubs which is never going to happen, I can't see how can football money be distributed more equally.
 

Paul_Scholes18

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Interesting article. Feared the super league argument and talk would be there though. Since that would ruin it for me.
I don't think it is not fully true in the PL and England. Mainly since the tv deal is much more fair here. Also smaller clubs got often more fans too.
Obviously City have had insanly much money, but it is only under Pep they have really destroyed the league and they are not doing it this season.
We see teams like Wolves and Sheffield do well with smaller funds. Although Wolves have spent too. We have seen Leicester before.

Money and status talk for attracting and keeping players though. Modern cuture is more greedy and selfish and we see that in football too.
We have both and still mess it up. That is the fun and frustration about it.
Good players in smaller teams get targeted quickly by the big boys. Hard to stop that.

Bayerns dominance in Bundesliga has been disgusting trying to buy from the rivals most of the time both to ruin them and improve themselfes.
 

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The model adopted by US pro sports will ultimately be copied.

Closed leagues with team level salary cap and rebalancing to keep an even sporting competition, not an economic one dominated by a very few teams. This benefits the big clubs too ultimately as it will improve the overall support and viewership of the league.

No chance it's considered though until the current model starts collapsing, TV deals start plunging in value.
 

Paul_Scholes18

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The model adopted by US pro sports will ultimately be copied.

Closed leagues with team level salary cap and rebalancing to keep an even sporting competition, not an economic one dominated by a very few teams. This benefits the big clubs too ultimately as it will improve the overall support and viewership of the league.

No chance it's considered though until the current model starts collapsing, TV deals start plunging in value.
Then I would stop watching. They have closed leauges only to make money to the owners anyway. Salary cap helps them too.
Promotion and relegation is a great part of football and sport. Removing that would ruin it all.

Playoff and so on in leagues is also totally silly. Half the league games doesn't matter then if you have already qualified for playoff.
CL group stage near the end is a bit the same, but it is often only 1-2 games per group that is like that.
 

Lynty

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Not sure what the answer is to be honest.

Very hard debate, suited for people far more qualified than any of us. Unfortunately, those people are also greedy cretins who want to look after themselves.
 

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What? Oil tycoons with KGB links and literal nation states buying football teams isnt a good thing?
 

JPRouve

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The model adopted by US pro sports will ultimately be copied.

Closed leagues with team level salary cap and rebalancing to keep an even sporting competition, not an economic one dominated by a very few teams. This benefits the big clubs too ultimately as it will improve the overall support and viewership of the league.

No chance it's considered though until the current model starts collapsing, TV deals start plunging in value.
US sports aren't even, while there is a salary cap in all in the NFL, NBA and NHL owners wealth is still extremely important particularly when it comes to guaranteed money and bonus structures in the NFL, luxury tax management in the NBA and in the NHL some teams are never close to the cap roof. The only actual balancing tool is the draft where being bad is rewarded by having access to the best prospects on cheap contracts.
 

JPRouve

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Then I would stop watching. They have closed leauges only to make money to the owners anyway. Salary cap helps them too.
Promotion and relegation is a great part of football and sport. Removing that would ruin it all.

Playoff and so on in leagues is also totally silly. Half the league games doesn't matter then if you have already qualified for playoff.
CL group stage near the end is a bit the same, but it is often only 1-2 games per group that is like that.
In which league is that actually a thing? In US sports it's the opposite, every game counts because seedings are extremely important.
 

acnumber9

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US sports aren't even, while there is a salary cap in all in the NFL, NBA and NHL owners wealth is still extremely important particularly when it comes to guaranteed money and bonus structures in the NFL, luxury tax management in the NBA and in the NHL some teams are never close to the cap roof. The only actual balancing tool is the draft where being bad is rewarded by having access to the best prospects on cheap contracts.
And that brings its own problem where once you can no longer achieve anything meaningful you’re better off losing than winning.
 

JPRouve

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And that brings its own problem where once you can no longer achieve anything meaningful you’re better off losing than winning.
Not necessarily while tanking can be a strategy, in a draft where the top 10 or top 15 orders are lottery based, tanking isn't that interesting unless if you are actually really bad and have no hope of competing at a decent level. You also can't do it too often on purpose, it creates a bad culture for the younger players, losing doesn't bred winners. If you look at this season Miami were thought to be tanking hard but they eventually tried their best, they were bad but tried.
 

Paul_Scholes18

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In which league is that actually a thing? In US sports it's the opposite, every game counts because seedings are extremely important.
To win the league do not give you anything. Or at least noone rates them as the league winners etc and claim it is a title. It is the playoff winner that gets the glory.
Or I can be wrong here, but at least following hockey it seems like that.
Sure top seed is alright, but you can be knocked out first round even after having won the league.
It is like ending in 5th being better than 6th for better Europa league seeding or 3 over 4th. Noone cares much about those details about a slightly better draw.
City won the group and got Real madrid etc. Not always obviously better to end highest since teams with higher quality and capacity can be seeded lower.

Also with the drafts do not the lowest ranked team get first pick? Thus actually doing poorly could even reward you for the future.
Crazy in my view. I am all for giving more money to the weaker sides with tv deals, sponsorships etc. Although when you reward teams for doing crap it goes over my head.
Glaziers might think it apply to us too. Thus why they are making us worse and hope that will reward us somehow.
 

André Dominguez

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In which league is that actually a thing? In US sports it's the opposite, every game counts because seedings are extremely important.
There's some true on it: Look at Euroleague where Real Madrid and CSKA never care much about finishing 1st, because they know they will reach final four no matter what (unless they draw each other). But they usually make an effort to finish top4 to avoid tougher opponents.
 

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As long as millions of people pay a lot of money to watch games and on TV, there will be a lot of money in the sport. With restrictions on spending, that money goes to owners, and without it a lot of the money go to players, managers, and agents.

If the game should be regulated, it should be for ticket prices and TV subsriptions, so that the surplus goes to the consumers. But that would of course be an unrealistic Utopia.
 

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From the comments its clear a big problem is the wage disparity. So a wage gap that is "not" linked to turnover is the clear first step, so a fixed wage cap for every team in a division.

I do think we past the point of no return though, and also even without billionaire owners, we would be still going down the same path except it would be Liverpool, Manchester United, and Arsenal. The billionaire owners have simply shaken it up a bit in terms of which team's it is.
 

JPRouve

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To win the league do not give you anything. Or at least noone rates them as the league winners etc and claim it is a title. It is the playoff winner that gets the glory.
Or I can be wrong here, but at least following hockey it seems like that.
Sure top seed is alright, but you can be knocked out first round even after having won the league.
It is like ending in 5th being better than 6th for better Europa league seeding or 3 over 4th. Noone cares much about those details about a slightly better draw.
City won the group and got Real madrid etc. Not always obviously better to end highest since teams with higher quality and capacity can be seeded lower.

Also with the drafts do not the lowest ranked team get first pick? Thus actually doing poorly could even reward you for the future.
Crazy in my view. I am all for giving more money to the weaker sides with tv deals, sponsorships etc. Although when you reward teams for doing crap it goes over my head.
Glaziers might think it apply to us too. Thus why they are making us worse and hope that will reward us somehow.
The first paragraph is totally wrong. You haven't won the league, you topped the league during the regular season, the league winner is the one who wins the playoffs. Funnily enough you picked the one sport where it's actually valued with teams receiving the president' trophy. Just an example of how seedings aren't meaningless, in the NFL since 1990 the n°1 seed has reached the Super Bowl 51.7% of the time and the n°2 seed 27.6%, no wild card team have reached it since 2013. There is also no comparison to the Europa League, it's not the same type of seeding, your seed on a given year depends entirely on your record that year which isn't the case with the CL or EL who uses historical results.

As for the second paragraph it depends, the NBA and the NHL have a lottery while the NFL doesn't. The important point to remember is that parity is artificial, teams don't actually have the same means and they don't actually have the same attractivity which is why the draft system is crucial otherwise the best athletes would simply pick the largest cities and markets. Giving weaker teams access to top prospects is the main way to create an evenish closed league otherwise you end up like football where the wealthier clubs are from the wealthier cities.
 

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You raise a good point in reference to seeding, seeding teams (or players in non team sports), only serves to increase the chance of those participant's reaching the latter rounds, as usually it ensures they dont meet each other in early rounds, an obvious example outside of football is tennis. This is very likely done as it is deemed desirable to have high profile final's.
 

Paul_Scholes18

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The first paragraph is totally wrong. You haven't won the league, you topped the league during the regular season, the league winner is the one who wins the playoffs. Funnily enough you picked the one sport where it's actually valued with teams receiving the president' trophy. Just an example of how seedings aren't meaningless, in the NFL since 1990 the n°1 seed has reached the Super Bowl 51.7% of the time and the n°2 seed 27.6%, no wild card team have reached it since 2013. There is also no comparison to the Europa League, it's not the same type of seeding, your seed on a given year depends entirely on your record that year which isn't the case with the CL or EL who uses historical results.

As for the second paragraph it depends, the NBA and the NHL have a lottery while the NFL doesn't. The important point to remember is that parity is artificial, teams don't actually have the same means and they don't actually have the same attractivity which is why the draft system is crucial otherwise the best athletes would simply pick the largest cities and markets. Giving weaker teams access to top prospects is the main way to create an evenish closed league otherwise you end up like football where the wealthier clubs are from the wealthier cities.
That the top seed gets into the final might just show they are the best side and not because they might play easier teams in the first round.
Is it 16 teams in the playoff? Although it sounds like the gap between the sides can be massive given that the first one win so much easier. I can't fully judge without following it though.
Points difference can probably vary. If there is 3 good sides and the rest are much worse then being first and letting the other 2 play each other could be great.
If there are 4 good sides it might matter less etc.
In theory it could both help and make it worse.
 

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Most footballing successes have been driven by large amounts of financial backing, it's just that it's harder these days for a local businessman like Jack Walker to buy a title because of the astronomical sums of money involved

It depends what people want out of the sport to be honest. I'd love to see rules around how many Academy players you had to have in your team rather than anything relating to salary caps and/or transfer caps....but this will just never happen

Ultimately you accept the game for what it has become or you can seek out purer competition in the lower leagues
 

Mb194dc

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US sports aren't even, while there is a salary cap in all in the NFL, NBA and NHL owners wealth is still extremely important particularly when it comes to guaranteed money and bonus structures in the NFL, luxury tax management in the NBA and in the NHL some teams are never close to the cap roof. The only actual balancing tool is the draft where being bad is rewarded by having access to the best prospects on cheap contracts.
They're not even, but the structure attempts to create a sporting competition, not an economic one.

Viewership and league revenue would collapse if they used the football model. Yankees, Cowboys, Knicks, Rangers would dominate and win almost every single year as they'd stack up with all the best players. You get the idea. Now check who actually won in recent times....

I don't think it's even an argument, it's just the "legacy" nature of football that this didn't happen already and the fact revenue has been growing anyway,, for now. If you started a new professional football league in Europe, you'd copy the US system because it generates the most money in the long term.

Just wait, in 5, 10, 20 years, when everyone is bored sick of the same clubs winning everything. Kids are already off playing fortnite or whatever, not watching football. Things going to change...

This is only a recent problem in football because the top clubs have grown exponentially compared to the rest since the late 90s. What chance of Forest or Villa lifting another European Cup anytime soon...?
 

JPRouve

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They're not even, but the structure attempts to create a sporting competition, not an economic one.

Viewership and league revenue would collapse if they used the football model. Yankees, Cowboys, Knicks, Rangers would dominate and win almost every single year as they'd stack up with all the best players. You get the idea. Now check who actually won in recent times....

I don't think it's even an argument, it's just the "legacy" nature of football that this didn't happen already and the fact revenue has been growing anyway,, for now. If you started a new professional football league in Europe, you'd copy the US system because it generates the most money in the long term.

Just wait, in 5, 10, 20 years, when everyone is bored sick of the same clubs winning everything. Kids are already off playing fortnite or whatever, not watching football. Things going to change...

This is only a recent problem in football because the top clubs have grown exponentially compared to the rest since the late 90s. What chance of Forest or Villa lifting another European Cup anytime soon...?
I don't and clearly you don't yourself. You mixed different leagues with different rules and differents opinions when it comes to parity, there is no parity in the MLB and for anyone to mention the Yankees in that type of arguments is baffling, the 27 times World Champions New York Yankees have a look at the disparity of the payrolls in the MLB. There is no more parity in the MLB than there is in Football.

Why would the Knicks win, they aren't competent and have no right to win. Now check which teams are in the luxury tax and see where they are in the league table, look at how much it cost to be a repeat offender and whether you need to be wealthy to afford it. NFL and NHL have hard caps and are lot more even than the other two. Now something important that would never be transfered to Europe today, is that first athletes do not choose where they work, their contracts can be traded without their consent and in the NFL contracts figures are for a large part fictitious because not guaranteed.
 

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I think it has mainly to do with when home grown quotas were relaxed. Make the rule all teams must have half the match-day team comprising of homegrown players.
 

JPRouve

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That the top seed gets into the final might just show they are the best side and not because they might play easier teams in the first round.
Is it 16 teams in the playoff? Although it sounds like the gap between the sides can be massive given that the first one win so much easier. I can't fully judge without following it though.
Points difference can probably vary. If there is 3 good sides and the rest are much worse then being first and letting the other 2 play each other could be great.
If there are 4 good sides it might matter less etc.
In theory it could both help and make it worse.
If you take the NFL as an example it's divided in 8 divisions and two conferences. Division champions reach the playoffs and then you have 8 wild cards contenders who can't afford to not play every games, that's why your initial claim makes little sense, it's not easy to get into the playoffs, you also don't want to be the team travelling all around the country/continent during the playoffs which is one of the reasons behind the importance of the seedings on top of initially playing weaker teams. In the NBA and the NHL, you play most of your games at home when you have the top seeds which again has its importance when you play best of 5 or 7 series.
 

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I think it has mainly to do with when home grown quotas were relaxed. Make the rule all teams must have half the match-day team comprising of homegrown players.
Or youth instead of homegrown?
 

Paul_Scholes18

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I think it has mainly to do with when home grown quotas were relaxed. Make the rule all teams must have half the match-day team comprising of homegrown players.
I am not a fan of that. I am in general for strong very strong goverment influence over industry and economy. For both social and environmental reasons.
Although I want clubs to be able to recruit who they want during transfer windows.
Sport is for fun and somethig everyone should be able to be involved in.
It should be more free and I don't think freedom necessary hurts when it come to entertainment and sport.

It should be fair competition though. I do think tv money should be spread equally.
Since all teams are important for a good league. The popular teams will earn money commercially anyway. Also give money
to lower leagues since they build the foundations for the higher ones using tv gains etc.
 

Paul_Scholes18

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If you take the NFL as an example it's divided in 8 divisions and two conferences. Division champions reach the playoffs and then you have 8 wild cards contenders who can't afford to not play every games, that's why your initial claim makes little sense, it's not easy to get into the playoffs, you also don't want to be the team travelling all around the country/continent during the playoffs which is one of the reasons behind the importance of the seedings on top of initially playing weaker teams. In the NBA and the NHL, you play most of your games at home when you have the top seeds which again has its importance when you play best of 5 or 7 series.
They got 32 teams right and 16 for the playoff. Thus the bottom 8 will near the end have nothing to play for normally.
Top 8 will have very little to play for near the end. Keeping form and maybe getting a better position.
Although the most important thing is not to win those games, but to be ready for the next games.
Middle teams will probably have things to play for near the end too, but the most important thing is just to get into the playoff.

Of course for the players and managers it can be worth to put in the effort. Although as a fan it must be very boring.
Big group stages in tournament got similar problems.Think 4 teams with 2 advancing to the next round makes most sense for the balance.
When you got a group stage with 32 teams it just becomes very boring over time.

You can argue the PL gets boring too for midtable sides. Although to push higher or be safe can still be very important.
The value of the season is not what happens after the league. The value is in the league.
Of course cup qualification for EL or CL matters too and more than PL almost.
Even with that though the league and CL can both be important at the same time.

I don't think anyone care about the league table after the season in America. If someone won the league noone talks about it unless you won the playoff too.
If you ended up in 3 over 4th noone will care or remember it either.
 

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I think the PL will struggle in about 10 years, as Serie A did after its dominance.

The oil money will ruin any form of competition as smaller clubs fall away, which in turn will put viewers off watching it. That then means it's less appealing to the oil money who will feck off somewhere else. We will be left with hugely overinflated super clubs failing without their backers, and the rest who have slipped into irrelevance.

Of course English fans will still watch but TV deals are already falling there. Its international viewers the PL needs and they will happily switch to other leagues once the competition disappears.
 

JPRouve

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They got 32 teams right and 16 for the playoff. Thus the bottom 8 will near the end have nothing to play for normally.
Top 8 will have very little to play for near the end. Keeping form and maybe getting a better position.
Although the most important thing is not to win those games, but to be ready for the next games.
Middle teams will probably have things to play for near the end too, but the most important thing is just to get into the playoff.

Of course for the players and managers it can be worth to put in the effort. Although as a fan it must be very boring.
Big group stages in tournament got similar problems.Think 4 teams with 2 advancing to the next round makes most sense for the balance.
When you got a group stage with 32 teams it just becomes very boring over time.

You can argue the PL gets boring too for midtable sides. Although to push higher or be safe can still be very important.
The value of the season is not what happens after the league. The value is in the league.
Of course cup qualification for EL or CL matters too and more than PL almost.
Even with that though the league and CL can both be important at the same time.

I don't think anyone care about the league table after the season in America. If someone won the league noone talks about it unless you won the playoff too.
If you ended up in 3 over 4th noone will care or remember it either.
But it's not a group stage with 32 teams, there isn't a bottom 8 and top 8, the NFL is made of divisions of 4 teams.
 

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It wasnt broken when we dominate it.

It certainly isnt broken for psg fans, or bayern, or juve, or city.

Money has ruined football? I disagree, without money there's no spectacles like we have today.
 

Sky1981

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I think the PL will struggle in about 10 years, as Serie A did after its dominance.

The oil money will ruin any form of competition as smaller clubs fall away, which in turn will put viewers off watching it. That then means it's less appealing to the oil money who will feck off somewhere else. We will be left with hugely overinflated super clubs failing without their backers, and the rest who have slipped into irrelevance.

Of course English fans will still watch but TV deals are already falling there. Its international viewers the PL needs and they will happily switch to other leagues once the competition disappears.
Do we want competition? As in 10 teams winning the league alternately? Nope. I dont.

I want 3-4 strong team and 16 cannon fodders who can create a few suprises here and there.

But going to extreme like championship level of competition is not something I'd like to watch.
 

JPRouve

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Do we want competition? As in 10 teams winning the league alternately? Nope. I dont.

I want 3-4 strong team and 16 cannon fodders who can create a few suprises here and there.

But going to extreme like championship level of competition is not something I'd like to watch.
It's actually not bad when it's the product of actual competition like it is in Super Rugby or Top 14, while there are favorites and in-form teams, you don't really know who is going to win and who is going to surprisingly fail.
 

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Terrific read.

I was actually thinking about how successful Guardiola has been. But he is essentially going from top club to to club. As in he is going from a club dominating financially to another dominant club finacially. Prior to the 90s this was not possible.

Not to take away from his achievement. He is still the best coach in the world in my opinion. I just think that had he been around in the seventies, he would not win as much.
 

JPRouve

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Terrific read.

I was actually thinking about how successful Guardiola has been. But he is essentially going from top club to to club. As in he is going from a club dominating financially to another dominant club finacially. Prior to the 90s this was not possible.

Not to take away from his achievement. He is still the best coach in the world in my opinion. I just think that had he been around in the seventies, he would not win as much.
It was absolutely possible, financial dominance has been a thing in football from day one.
 

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But it's not a group stage with 32 teams, there isn't a bottom 8 and top 8, the NFL is made of divisions of 4 teams.
That is a bit weird though since they do play against all other 31 teams right. That was my understanding at least, but could be wrong.
So do the top 2 from each division qualify? That could be odd since in one division 3 teams can be crap and so you can top the group early. Other groups the opposite having 4 top sides.
 

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I don't and clearly you don't yourself. You mixed different leagues with different rules and differents opinions when it comes to parity, there is no parity in the MLB and for anyone to mention the Yankees in that type of arguments is baffling, the 27 times World Champions New York Yankees have a look at the disparity of the payrolls in the MLB. There is no more parity in the MLB than there is in Football.

Why would the Knicks win, they aren't competent and have no right to win. Now check which teams are in the luxury tax and see where they are in the league table, look at how much it cost to be a repeat offender and whether you need to be wealthy to afford it. NFL and NHL have hard caps and are lot more even than the other two. Now something important that would never be transfered to Europe today, is that first athletes do not choose where they work, their contracts can be traded without their consent and in the NFL contracts figures are for a large part fictitious because not guaranteed.
Just quoting most valuable teams per sport.

Yes they all have different ways to try at least to create a sporting competition.

Be it a luxury tax, hard salary cap, draft or whatever.

The point is they try to spread success around so even "lowly" teams fans can feel they have a chance.

Pro sports leagues will wither and die if they become boring and predictable, with just small % of teams having any chance to get the trophy.

Which as I've argued elsewhere explains the current situation with the premier League.
 

JPRouve

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That is a bit weird though since they do play against all other 31 teams right. That was my understanding at least, but could be wrong.
So do the top 2 from each division qualify? That could be odd since in one division 3 teams can be crap and so you can top the group early. Other groups the opposite having 4 top sides.
No, they don't play the other 31 teams, they play 16 games, 6 against teams in their division and 10 against teams from the rest of the league, the league creates new schedules for every seasons. And teams are rarely actually crap, you still need to play otherwise you will lose against the worst team in your division, the NFL is probably the least boring league in sport, every match is a contest, every match has great talents and between rivalries and general pride teams do not give up games.
 

SAFMUTD

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The model adopted by US pro sports will ultimately be copied.

Closed leagues with team level salary cap and rebalancing to keep an even sporting competition, not an economic one dominated by a very few teams. This benefits the big clubs too ultimately as it will improve the overall support and viewership of the league.

No chance it's considered though until the current model starts collapsing, TV deals start plunging in value.
That would be really interesting but its impossible to apply it in football. In the US sports it works because all those sports exist mainly in that country alone, there's no other league like NFL, NBA, LMB in the world. All the best players play in that league and 95% of the main talents are developed in the US not by the teams but by the schools.

Thats what makes the system work, all the rookies are drafted and capped acoording to the league rules. No team has inherence on a player before he turns pro, thats the main difference. Football is a global sport and every country develops their own talents, to align all the countries and leagues to build a world wide draft its impossible without mentioning that in football the clubs develop the players and not schools so the talent is breed by each club and bought by others.

Thats why the MLS doesnt have the other league systems, yes they have salary caps but each team get 2 or 3 "franchise players" which they can pay whatever they want to to them, and they use those franchise taggs to get talented players but the rest of the squad is really poor, they will never complete a competitive squad with those rules simply because the player will leave for another league with a better salary.
 

Paul_Scholes18

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Sep 13, 2014
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No, they don't play the other 31 teams, they play 16 games, 6 against teams in their division and 10 against teams from the rest of the league, the league creates new schedules for every seasons. And teams are rarely actually crap, you still need to play otherwise you will lose against the worst team in your division, the NFL is probably the least boring league in sport, every match is a contest, every match has great talents and between rivalries and general pride teams do not give up games.
So that is even worse then. If you got a good draw it can make it much easier for teams etc.
I understand why they might do it due to the distances and high numbeer of teams, but it would probably be better to split the league in half then.
30 games then against 15 teams.

I can't get away that the American sports seem just totally focused on making money for the owners.
Football have that too, but also can clearly hurt teams more that focus on that too much.
Teams that actually focus on the football side of things can at least get rewarded for it.
Even though top teams buying young talents from smaller clubs too easily is a problem.
 

fps

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Dec 22, 2018
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It’s quite remarkable in such a closed system to watch clubs like Man Utd and Milan stuff things up so epicly when they are in such a position of advantage.