9/8/2019 Authentic Footballes Blogs
It’s everywhere in the sport, whether you like it or not. It’s on the jersey, in the stadium, in the heads of the players, and in the hands of the owners. If football is a religion, then to many, money is god. Each week, millions of dollars change hands between clubs and players, fans and ticket offices, and sponsors and clubs.
Professional football does indeed live up to the capitalist ideal; that if there is money to be made, someone will find a way to make it. While money is involved in almost every aspect of the game, there are a few specific areas where the influence is especially strong: In stadium naming rights, jersey sponsorship deals, and player transfer fees and sponsorships. Intro “It is the world’s most watched league and the most lucrative – attracting the top players from all over the globe” It probably makes the most sense to start any conversation about money in football with the league that makes more money than any other. On February 20, 1992, English Football League’s first division clubs resigned, and in May of that same year, formed the Premier League.
California Golden Blogs. California Golden Bears. Conquest Chronicles. Washington State Cougars. House of Sparky. Arizona State Sun Devils. Pacific Takes.
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The main motivation behind the merger was to take advantage of the lucrative television deals promised by Sky TV. In 1992, Sky TV paid £191 million for 5 years of Premier League television rights and in 2007, Sky and Setanta paid £1.7 billion for 5 years of rights. But the television deals were just the start; in 2001 Barclaycard paid £48 million for naming rights of the league, and in 2007 they renewed the deal for £65.8 million. In short, the clubs’ decision to form their own league paid huge dividends. The path to the Premier League began years earlier, starting at the end of amateur football and the beginning of professionalism.
The maximum wage was abolished in 1961 and in 1963 the transfer system became far more lenient. As the player movement and wages became more and more flexible, English Football became more and more of a free market and basic capitalist principles took over. Football was changing, and there was money to be made. Stadium Naming Rights.
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Kaka joins Real Madrid In June of this year, Real Madrid, already famous for spending £45 million 8 years earlier on Zinedine Zidane in a record breaking transfer free, broke their own record by purchasing Brazilian Kaka from AC Milan for £56.1 million. Not to be outdone by themselves, Real Madrid then purchased Portuguese phenom Crisitano Ronaldo from equally spend-happy Manchester United for £80 million. This is quite an impressive leap from the first three-digit transfer fee in 1893, when Scottish forward Willie Groves moved from West Bromwich Albion to Aston Villa for £100. This type of money just goes to show how much football has changed since its early days. Many players have gained super-celebrity status and their playing ability is not the only asset they have to offer a team. Some players are so famous, and so recognizable, that just their presence on a team is enough to attract fans to the stadium and earn money for the team. For example, when in 1975 the world famous Pele joined the New York Cosmos of the now disbanded North American Soccer League, the team felt an immediate change: “The impact of Pele’s signing was seismic. Before, they had given away tickets with Burger King vouchers and bumper stickers. Now, they had to lock the gates when the ground reached its 22,500 capacity.”.
David Beckham on a billboard outside Macy’s Beckham isn’t the first example of a football player to gain widespread fame off the pitch, and he definitely won’t be the last. What makes Beckham special is the widespread media coverage and mania over his arrival in the United States.
Posh, Spice Girls phenom, and Becks were celebrities in a town full of them. Billboards of Beckham clad in Armani underwear sprung up around LA, TV cameras followed him around and the public ate it up. What Beckham provided the Galaxy was a guaranteed stream of revenue.
Fans wanted to see him play, buy his jersey, and they would pay top dollar to do so. Sponsors recognized the increased audience and saw an opportunity. When Beckham joined AC Milan on loan in 2008, Milan owner and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi seized the opportunity and placed similar billboards around Milan. Superstars like Beckham earn more money than the rest not just because they play better, but because they generate revenue just by being on the field. Real Madrid’s Galacticos While money does play quite a large role in football, in the end, the game itself is still at the forefront of the sport.
Many of the teams could very well play to an empty stadium and still make money, there indeed is a reason football is so profitable. The beauty of the game itself and the way it captivates an audience is what makes it so special. Without the game, there would be no money to be made. While Real Madrid paid over £200 million for their ‘Galacticos’, they did play wonderful football, and fans tuned in. The fact of the matter is, fans can stomach the massive amounts of money spent and earned in the sport when they witness the results. The Premier League is host to some of the greatest teams in the world and the football it entails is arguably the most entertaining.
While owners invest in clubs as a business, it is hard to believe that they too are not captivated by the play they witness every week. Money may be the god to football’s religion, but the fans are the followers, and if there is no faith in the game, than there is no money to be made. Thus in the end, the game itself is all that really matters. Walvin, James. The Only Game: Football in Our Times.
(London: Longman, 2001), 119, 135 Walvin, The Only Game, 201 Galeano, Eduardo. Soccer in Sun and Shadow.
(New York: Verso, 1998), 95 Walvin, The Only Game, 207 http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2008/dec/19/david-beckham-silvio-berlusconi-milan-la-galaxy. ↓. Bianca D'Souza One thing I found interesting and learned in class today was that Messi makes more money from advertising than he does from actually playing soccer. This is a super important fact to keep in mind when looking at money in Europe as he plays for the Spanish Club of Barcelona. I also think the idea of stadium naming rights is interesting, especially how it turned into a strategy for clubs to be able to obtain more revenue. At the end of the day, money really is power and with soccer being so captivating, especially in Europe is is no shock that there is much money to be given and obtained through the soccer industry.
Another site gleefully shooting down the pomp and pretensions of modern football and having a laugh doing it, and probably the best in its class, the Spoiler has a laddish feel but is just about clever enough to pull it off. Communities: A relative newcomer, 3nil does not provide its own content but asks readers to post what they have seen elsewhere, and then others to vote on it, with the most popular rising to the top of their news feed. Many sites have attempted to claim the title ‘Facebook for football fans’ with varying degrees of success but Extra Footie comes closest. A network of fans site that has managed to dodge the bullet of being taken over then run it to the ground by large media organisations Vital is a great first port of call for independent news, especially if your club is outside the Premier League. Statistics: Fantastic statistical tool that allows you to to pursue results, tables and all manner of numerical records across clubs, leagues and countries stretching back to the 1800s and even see how league tables stood after any given match day in that time period.
User-friendly and painstakingly accurate reference point for results, transfers and head-to-head records of British football clubs and players. The dry presentation of this site should not detract from the sheer scope and majesty of its historical data from all corners of the globe and as a research tool it is a veritable Aladdin’s cave of trivia for anyone that way inclined.
Blogs: An open blog site but one that maintains high standards of writing in serious analysis, satire and the varied preoccupations of its writers, Soccerlens is always worth reading and offers links and direction towards other content you might be interested in and so acts as a useful entry point when exploring the tangled web of football blogging. If you live in England and want to keep abreast of Scottish football you are probably already well versed in negotiating the maze of online options, with the print editions of most newspapers largely ignoring it. This excellent blog on the game north of the border, if it isn’t already, should be bookmarked immediately. Off the Post is not, as it claims, the best football blog on the planet, but as a light-hearted distraction it is a more than worthwhile read. Has it’s own YouTube channel, though this continues to be a work in progress.
Highlights: Can’t be bothered trawling YouTube for the latest highlight packages, outrageous goals and football related clips that your friends will be sending round in a couple of days? Worry not, just let 101 Great Goals do it for you. One of the most reliable destinations for highlights from games at all levels, footytube, like the general site that inspired it, offers a community feel with people able to upload content and share with like minded fans.
Suffers from having clips pulled due to copyright infringements (be quick the morning after a Champions League night) but is easy to search and relatively comprehensive in nature. A clean, well presented highlights site with excellent picture and sound quality on their videos, though slightly less broad than the other two sites in this section. If you are sick of straining your eyes watching grainy, blurred pictures for your football fix this is the site for you. News: Despite coming under the auspices of Sky, Football 365 has retained its irreverent fans' feel admirably, combining a comprehensive news service with lively knock-about debate. A comprehensive news site with an international reach but with a strong English flavour and an emphasis on the English leagues even before ESPN’s TV channel picked over the carcase of Setanta for live rights.
Free of the need to please advertisers and with the organisation's myriad tentacles reaching deep into the game in this country the BBC is in a privileged position but uses that privilege well. Highlights packages from every lower league match every weekend have added massively to its draw for many. Truly international site that prides itself on breaking news – be that actual news or speculation – and is always lively and fresh. Comes into its own in the build-up to and during transfer windows, acting as an effective news aggregator across the globe's press, with a particularly strong take on movements across European. Probably the only site on this list to have a dedicated Indian version. Overseas football: Those of you who wistfully yearn for the days when Channel Four's Football Italia programme was part of your weekly football viewing may be disappointed to find not a sniff here of James Richardson craning his neck around an impossibly oversized ice-cream construction, but as a resource for news and features on Serie A there is no better English language version around. The Global Game is based in the US but has a world view.
Obsessed with how football plays a role in all aspects of life from politics, literature to art the thought and care put into this jewel of a site is unparalleled and I defy anyone to visit and fail to find something unknown and fascinating. The slightly cerebral approach may put some off - there are no transfer speculation stories or WAG galleries here - but will be as refreshing as ducking your head in a bucket of ice water to many more. An unpretentiously simple, even old fashioned looking site, Soccer Spain makes up for what it lacks in looks with personality. And offers links and advice for those wishing to indulge in a spot of football tourism in the home of the current European Champions. Others: Settle arguments over where exactly in Chile Deportes Temuco play their home games and plan holidays to far flung places so that top level football is on your doorstep with this wonderful world atlas of countries and their football teams' locations then follow links to sites about their stadiums and clubs. Another site that is substance over style. The home page may look like the menu screen for an early Commadore 64 game but for the travelling fan looking for information on an unchartered destination you could do a lot worse than start here, especially when looking for hostelries amenable for away fans.
If you know of a site that has been criminally left off this list email with your thoughts. Read our list of the.
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