Todd Boehly: "You could do a North vs South all-star game from the Premier League to fund the pyramid very easily"

little.triangles

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An American idiot is talking about fundamentally altering the nature of football in the country - i.e. replacing genuine rivalries with fake ones - and you have Chelsea and Arsenal fans here bickering about who would get into the South team :lol:
 

WeePat

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An American idiot is talking about fundamentally altering the nature of football in the country - i.e. replacing genuine rivalries with fake ones - and you have Chelsea and Arsenal fans here bickering about who would get into the South team :lol:
Bit overdramatic, no? :lol:

He's talking about a poxy all star game here, not getting rid of relegation or adding playoffs to the top race ffs.
 

Ayush_reddevil

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This is not strictly correct. Rugby in Australia has both an All-star game and 'State or origin'. No one gives a crap about the all star game however "state or origin' is massive yes. Aside from representing Australia being picked in the state or origin team is the highest level of representative rugby a player in Australia can aspire too. There is also a very fierce rivalry between QLD and NSW which are the two states that are involved in the game. Players would prefer much to be picked for the state or origin team rather than the all star team

The main difference I can see between an EPL 'North v South game' and a rugby league 'State of origin' game is that players picked to play state of origin are representing their home state so there is an additional level of pride that im not sure would be felt by an EPL player who has no real ties to the north or south of England except for the fact that he happens to play for a club located their

That’s fair. I have only started watching the last couple of years and so wasn’t aware of the all star games. I just found the state of origin games real fun. Obviously this is not the same but I was responding more to the idea of players & teams being open to such an idea
 

duffer

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An American idiot is talking about fundamentally altering the nature of football in the country - i.e. replacing genuine rivalries with fake ones - and you have Chelsea and Arsenal fans here bickering about who would get into the South team :lol:
North v South in England is not a fake rivalry. It's as real as any footballing rivalry.
 

TheMagicFoolBus

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How would an all-star game generate more money down the football pyramid?
He's proposing distributing all the revenue generated down the pyramid?

A broadcaster would almost certainly pay more for this type of exhibition than they would to air random lower league games at 3 PM.
 

RoyH1

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Next he's going to want to introduce a draft isn't he?

Pizz off with that
 

SilentWitness

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Can someone offer a decent reason why it's a stupid idea without saying it's a bit cringe? I don't think there is one.
 

VP89

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Boehly is suggesting the extra money it would bring in goes to the pyramid.

How would televising a few 3pm games do that?
And why would top flight clubs agree to risking their players for revenue they wont receive?
 

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Can someone offer a decent reason why it's a stupid idea without saying it's a bit cringe? I don't think there is one.
Can anyone offer a decent reason as to why it isn’t?

It’s another attempt at a cash grab. As I posted on the last page (I think) the talk of the football pyramid is no different to Barcelona being sponsored by UNICEF for a year or two before cashing in.
 

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Can someone offer a decent reason why it's a stupid idea without saying it's a bit cringe? I don't think there is one.
The biggest issue is the amount of games the players have to play allready. In the US sports it works because they have so much time off during the season, that is not the case for players in the premier league.
 

hellhunter

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The biggest issue is the amount of games the players have to play allready. In the US sports it works because they have so much time off during the season, that is not the case for players in the premier league.
NHL, NBA and MLB have a stupidly high number of games
 

SilentWitness

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Can anyone offer a decent reason as to why it isn’t?

It’s another attempt at a cash grab. As I posted on the last page (I think) the talk of the football pyramid is no different to Barcelona being sponsored by UNICEF for a year or two before cashing in.
Increases worldwide and american coverage of the PL and football / why is a cash grab a problem if money from the game would be plunged into the lower pyramid? People moan about dirty money in football all the time but this to me seems to be a relatively lesser problematic way of gaining high revenue for minimum effort. It just seems another reason to jump on the hating americans bandwagon when there are no other decent alternatives by footballing people being put forward to try and help the lower pyramid.

The biggest issue is the amount of games the players have to play allready. In the US sports it works because they have so much time off during the season, that is not the case for players in the premier league.
If it's one game it's not much of an issue as it would clearly not be two teams playing at 100%.

Fixture congestion and giving players who are already over worked a break.
If you have it in pre-season when friendlies occur or replace the Community Shield with it there is no issue here for me.
 

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The ESL was the first swing at Americanising the sport.

This is only going to continue.

We have "all star" games. The Community Shield and Super Cup. It could maybe even be argued the early rounds of cup competitions.

Creating a national divide to make a game seems so artificial. Who is going to manage these teams? Are teams obligated to release their players? What happens if a player gets injured in this glorified friendly? How is the pot shared down the pyramid? These are just a few of the problems an idea like this raises.

This Bohely seems like a bit of a twat.
 

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Same reason they do for International games, they'd have no choice.
Its one thing being strong armed to let your players operate in unnecessary international friendlies at inconvenient times, and a complete other matter of some daft draft testimonial match with nothing to play for
No one gives a feck about north v south.

In America the east v west is more of a thing because its a massive country. Boehly is just adding to a growing list of dumb suggestions. Not worse than 443, mind.
 

duffer

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Its one thing being strong armed to let your players operate in unnecessary international friendlies at inconvenient times, and a complete other matter of some daft draft testimonial match with nothing to play for.
A one off match to fund the lower leagues is far more worthy than yet another England v Poland friendly.
 

HalfBaked22

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The biggest issue is the amount of games the players have to play allready. In the US sports it works because they have so much time off during the season, that is not the case for players in the premier league.
That can be said about the football season since it's one game per week and every team gets a bye week but take a look at the NBA and MLB schedule. Those guys don't have time off during the season outside of the all star break. In baseball they are lucky if they get two days off in a week and play 162 games.
 

VP89

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A one off match to fund the lower leagues is far more worthy than yet another England v Poland friendly.
They scrapped friendlies at international for nations league, which still provides some tangible benefit toward rankings and qualification routes.
 

Lyng

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Increases worldwide and american coverage of the PL and football / why is a cash grab a problem if money from the game would be plunged into the lower pyramid? People moan about dirty money in football all the time but this to me seems to be a relatively lesser problematic way of gaining high revenue for minimum effort. It just seems another reason to jump on the hating americans bandwagon when there are no other decent alternatives by footballing people being put forward to try and help the lower pyramid.



If it's one game it's not much of an issue as it would clearly not be two teams playing at 100%.



If you have it in pre-season when friendlies occur or replace the Community Shield with it there is no issue here for me.
This is all true, and fair. But would the players care enough for the match to be even semi entertaining?
 

Abizzz

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Can someone offer a decent reason why it's a stupid idea without saying it's a bit cringe? I don't think there is one.
Because just as in the NBA it will be a low quality game made up of individuals who never play together, never train together, and have no interest in helping each other out in any way. It kinda works badly in a sport where there's set positions, only 5, or everyone is half a figure skater, but football isn't any of that. (Even in the NBA it's only entertaining if great players call isolation and actually play 1 on 1, for all of the rest of it the Harlem Globetrotters are better entertainment).

Fans want to watch their teams play, not some random assortment of quality players put into the worst position to actually show that quality. There's a limited amount of weeks in a year and this would waste another week from a footballing perspective. All to further enrich the overloards that buy football teams these days.
 

duffer

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1, Who is going to manage these teams? 2, Are teams obligated to release their players? 3, What happens if a player gets injured in this glorified friendly? 4, How is the pot shared down the pyramid? These are just a few of the problems an idea like this raises.
1, Out of work managers who want to help out. Same as with the Soccer Aid thing.

2, Yes.

3, Same as if they get injured in other frirendlies.

4, Equally.

Sorted.
 

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There’s a lot of focus about the “for the football pyramid” part, but it’s clear from the interview that he’s focused on revenue for owners, not doing some North V South game in order to help fund lower league football.
 

SilentWitness

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This is all true, and fair. But would the players care enough for the match to be even semi entertaining?
I think so. You'd probably get a lot of players trying high risk things like tricks and trying to score wonder goals. It wouldn't be a high level game tactically but could be relatively fun and for new or casual football fans it's fine.
 

b82REZ

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1, Out of work managers who want to help out. Same as with the Soccer Aid thing.

2, Yes.

3, Same as if they get injured in other frirendlies.

4, Equally.

Sorted.
It's doesn't work though does it. You'd require full cooperation of every top league club and none of them are going to willingly risk their assets.

The FA have insurance for clubs if players get injured on international duty. Who is the governing body for a North vs South match?

He's clearly bought Chelsea to get his foot in the door to football. I expect another ESL type debacle in the not too distant future and I can see Todd being at the forefront of that. If I were a Chelsea fan I'd be massively concerned what he was going to do to my club. We've seen first hand how an American owner can feck things up.
 

duffer

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He never said that though
“People are talking about more money for the pyramid; in the MLB All-Star game this year we made $200m from a Monday and a Tuesday. So we’re thinking we could do a North versus South All-Star game for the Premier League, for whatever the pyramid needed quite easily.”