It really doesn’t bear thinking about and the damage it’d have done to the Hull economy. How many jobs would have never been created? How many more unemployed? etc Which raises the question, does RL in this city ever offer ambition, aspiration or even a view beyond its parochialisms? Does it genuinely contribute to the wider Hull economy and bring money and jobs into the city? I know everything can’t always be reduced to a monetary value and in truth, I don’t mind RL at all and I’d like the Hull clubs to prosper but their fans and traditions ‘seem’ to carry a disproportionate weight in this city and RL’s traditions seem almost like some quasi dogma that have to be acknowledged to the oft detriment of the wider city’s progress and economics. That said, the RL pawned its history and identity for the Sky money in the 90s – so perhaps these seemingly prominent views are just local?
Does anyone have any stats on how successful clubs owned by non-family consortiums (presuming that's the case here) have been? If the investment and commitment required to run a club is shared by several people, then surely the club is vulnerable to how long the least enthusiastic member maintains interest. Then if that member decides to withdraw investment the whole structure becomes unsteady resulting in all sorts of negative possibilities.
Lots and lots of teams here are owned in this way (we call them sports groups) it's probably even the majority form of ownership. In general it's normally considered safer to have your team owned by a sports group rather than one individual as the sports group tends to think long term while a single owner can be nuts (like the racist basketball owners, or teams with racist names that won't change them etc.). My hockey team has been owned by a sports group for probably 15 years. we are far better ran now than we ever were before.
Yea I don't have any stats, and there are major differences between sports in our two countries (namely that teams here are not allowed to take a financial loss). Perhaps someone has stats for the UK but my guess is there probably won't be a link to that type of study.
Yea it's a racist term. The name will be changed, either he will do it or the next owner will. They have already lost their copyrights to their logo and name, most sports reporters will no longer say their name, charity's have been refusing donations from the team etc. It's not some vague PC issue, it's a racist term, and has been for forever.
so just to clarify then, we`re 5 pages in to a thread about a proposed consortium, of which Adam Pearson is NOT part of, we`ve discussed everything about Pearson, PC brigades and potential racism in American football, but we`re still none the wiser as to who it is that is behind this consortium, glad i just wasted 20 mins of my life reading that lot.
I suppose it depends on the wealth of the consortium and whether it can continue if members leave. Leicester is a family consortium which arguably has a stronger bond than individual businessmen. I'm not sure about Reading, but Crystal Palace is owned by 3 life-long fans of the club (so again that's quite a good bond). I didn't think Brentford was a consortium and Sunderland's success is debatable.
Sky just referred to them as "The Redskins" racist bastards. Is Adam part of this rumoured consortium?
