Baloo said:
The more money a sport has, the better the spectacle
A spectacle is something one makes of oneself. The more money you have, the easier this is to accomplish.
Money is indeed the problem with sport. This is not, however, a new development. Let's look at football in the 1980s: half the clubs were broke and there were serious fears for their existence. This is not an isolated example: in England, the bulk of professional football clubs were broke and there were serious fears for their existence. At the same time, crowds at football were still extremely large in aggregate, even if they were considered small due to their steady diminishing since the golden age of spectator sport between the wars (see television, other leisure options, end of full employment, in England hooliganism etc.). With all these people still paying at the gate, and television revenues, and sponsors, there were still plentiful revenues streaming in. Miniscule by today's standards, but still a steady income. And all these clubs were in penury for what reason? Because they spunked it all up against the wall on ludicrous player wages and transfer fees. (Richmond-Collingwood tit-for-tat, anyone?) Quite simply, the clubs failed to live within their means.
Lo and behold, only a few years later there is money pouring into sport like never before. It's big business. The AFL is no different. So how come so many of the clubs are still in financial difficulties? Yes the pot of money is bigger. The players are taking home more money than ever before. (The merits of the level of player wages is a matter for another day.) In the AFL we now have a salary cap -- theoretically, each club's income should adequately cover their total player payments and general operations. However, they don't, because we have a new arms race, this time in football department spending. The poor clubs either spend beyond their means, or fall behind, or spend beyond their means yet still fall behind. The clubs whose income greatly covers their basic expenditure have more surplus to throw into the arms race, and pull further ahead.
In English football, there is no salary cap, and Financial Fair Play is still considered a matter to be dealt with at some far-off distant juncture (what do you mean, a few years from now?) For some time now we have had the situation where only a handful of really big clubs, or those rocket-propelled by oil money, are realistic chances of winning the title. Even a rich, proud club like Arsenal now have as their ambition to finish fourth (FOURTH!) so they can qualify for the "Champions League", which they will never be good enough to win. Next season, same ambition. And the season after that. The consequences of failure are devastating financially -- they couldn't afford to stay on the treadmill, which is now their only ambition. Lower down, it's even worse -- clubs spend all their money simply to stay where they are. It's the Red Queen Effect. If you get it wrong, and get relegated, disaster: hello Sheffield Wednesday, Leeds, Southampton, Portsmouth, Bradford City....
The last is an interesting case study. Indebted to David Conn's books for the details -- a fine journalist from the
Guardian. In 1983 Bradford City were technically insolvent. They'd spent beyond their means -- no surprise there. They cobbled together money from wherever they could get it, including a lot of supporter donations. Built a decent team and won promotion to the Second Division in 1985. On the day they clinched promotion, an old wooden stand caught fire, and became a raging inferno. 56 people died. In the investigation that followed, it was found that huge quantities of flammable rubbish had been allowed to accumulate below the stand. They found a copy of the local paper dated 4 November 1968. The safety certificate was out-of-date, building regulations flouted, numerous safety issues had been brought to the club's attention... but they'd spent all the money on player wages and transfers.
Bradford bumbled around the Second Division for the next decade, had a near miss on promotion in the early 90s, finally made it in 1999. They had a modest squad and made only one big signing that summer. They stayed up by the skin of their teeth on the last day. In the summer of 2000, they had what has been described as "six weeks of madness". In came average or over the hill players (Carbone, Petrescu, Hopkin) on big wages for big transfers. By October they were already as good as down. They haemorraged money and by 2002 were in administration. They came out, and went straight back into administration in 2004. On both occassions, the list of creditors included substantial sums to the St John Ambulance, who had treated so many of the injured and dying on the worst day in the city's history. If you want an example of sport's priorities, that is it.
Now they've made a League Cup Final. They're in the fourth tier and, if you believe some sources, assembled the entire team for a total of £7,500. What are they going to do with the prize money -- why, spend it on an end of season jolly to Las Vegas... and I will bet you any money they have payments outstanding to the St John Ambulance.
Sport is a basically a big sieve. Put money in, it all comes out the bottom. However much money you put in, the process and result are the same. I do not subscribe to the theory that better-paid players and bigger and better and whizz-bang off-field support mean a better quality of sport. As Richmond supporters we should all know -- we have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars, in some cases season after season, to blokes we reckon can't play. I do not subscribe to the theory that faster and fitter players mean better sport. Good sport, basically, requires two things.
1) Potential to win. No matter how remote on paper, it is still Us against Them. It's not about winning per se, but neither is it about the Corinthian spirit and all that claptrap. However, there is a lot to be said for doing things with skill, and style, and panache if you possibly can.
2) Believing that it matters. You have to suspend disbelief that you are watching grown men run around after a ball, and have an emotional attachment or involvement in the outcome. Even if you just want to see Carlton lose or QPR get relegated.
If you don't have those, you're *smile*. Imagine supporting, say, Stoke City. Spending all your income on staying exactly where you are and hoping like hell you don't go down. That doesn't sound much fun. This is the equivalent of working your entire life at a dead-end job that barely keeps you housed, clothed and fed, and still knowing that there is the worse possibility of the firm going out of business and you being cast out on the street with nothing. Does that sound like fun? Because sport is supposed to be fun. And it requires more than just money.
[/end stream of consciousness]
:wavey
