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Citizen Kane. said:
One of the biggest differences is the culture surrounding the transfer or exchange of players. I can't speak for every American sport, but I do know that the NBA and MLB (sources of almost all of Boehly's previous experience) simply do not work with "transfers" in the same way that football does. Player trades, contract exchanges, draft waivers, free agents are generally the methods via which player x stops playing for team y and starts playing for team z in those sports. Straight-up monetary agreement for services rendered are non-existent and I wouldn't be surprised if it takes a number of transfer windows for American owners to get to grips with the system. I'm sure most of us would take a fair amount of time to wrap our heads around the concept that our ambition to sign Star Player requires an eye-watering salary of circa $50m per year as part of a contract worth circa $300m with additional contract bonuses of circa $200m, and that to do this we have to somehow convince Unwanted Players x,y & z to move in the other direction or waive their contracts.

Totally different culture. Ours is surprisingly more free market than it is in the States with far fewer hurdles to surmount before a transfer - even a marquee one - is finalised. Third party ownership or image rights are genuinely the worst it gets over here in terms of spanners. As a result, American owners are often taken by surprise by the sheer speed of player transactions here and ultimately get left behind.

The Glazers were extremely fortunate in that they stepped into a club dominated by the iron will of one man who knew how to get things done. Boehly has stepped into a club notorious for a hire n' fire culture, with a manager who has a history of belligerence. It won't be easy for him.
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Sport is too important for Americans to leave to capitalism or Europeans to leave to anything else.

Leagues are bosses in American sports. Clubs are franchises which can and are reclaimed when owners disgrace themselves. They're a social welfare experiment in which losers are coddled by salary caps, perpetual membership (though not necessarily in one place), and by being handed the top choices in the yearly draft of 22 year olds. No one ever admits to selling a player. They are always traded, theoretically for players of equal value (though of course there have been some Brock-for-Broglio doozies over the years) lest fans see one of their favorites depart for mere lucre. It actually is good for casual fans, on balance (except for the whole pack up and move in the middle of the night thing) because the best way of getting really good is by being really bad for a while...unless you're the Cleveland Browns.

So Boehly should know nothing about building a PL club. And his first moves have not looked smart. FMG also floundered for a while, but did get it right eventually. Here's hoping Boehly only imitates them for a little while.
 
redwhiteandermblue said:
Sport is too important for Americans to leave to capitalism or Europeans to leave to anything else.

Leagues are bosses in American sports. Clubs are franchises which can and are reclaimed when owners disgrace themselves. They're a social welfare experiment in which losers are coddled by salary caps, perpetual membership (though not necessarily in one place), and by being handed the top choices in the yearly draft of 22 year olds. No one ever admits to selling a player. They are always traded, theoretically for players of equal value (though of course there have been some Brock-for-Broglio doozies over the years) lest fans see one of their favorites depart for mere lucre. It actually is good for casual fans, on balance (except for the whole pack up and move in the middle of the night thing) because the best way of getting really good is by being really bad for a while...unless you're the Cleveland Browns.

So Boehly should know nothing about building a PL club. And his first moves have not looked smart. FMG also floundered for a while, but did get it right eventually. Here's hoping Boehly only imitates them for a little while.
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Does the league own the clubs?
 
redwhiteandermblue said:
Sport is too important for Americans to leave to capitalism or Europeans to leave to anything else.

Leagues are bosses in American sports. Clubs are franchises which can and are reclaimed when owners disgrace themselves. They're a social welfare experiment in which losers are coddled by salary caps, perpetual membership (though not necessarily in one place), and by being handed the top choices in the yearly draft of 22 year olds. No one ever admits to selling a player. They are always traded, theoretically for players of equal value (though of course there have been some Brock-for-Broglio doozies over the years) lest fans see one of their favorites depart for mere lucre. It actually is good for casual fans, on balance (except for the whole pack up and move in the middle of the night thing) because the best way of getting really good is by being really bad for a while...except if you're the Cleveland Browns.

So Boehly should know nothing about building a PL club. And his first moves have not looked smart. FMG also floundered for a while, but did get it right eventually. Here's hoping Boehly only imitates them for a little while.
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One interesting quirk of MLS, some teams have their won youth academies - Toronto, LA Galaxy, DC United, both the New York wings of their respective footballing empires - but the majority of franchises don't, meaning there's an imbalance when it comes to youth development as some clubs can nurture their own youngsters while others can only sign youngsters from the draft pool
 
Spurf said:
Does the league own the clubs?
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They're franchises, just like McDonald's. I'm not an expert on franchises, but I'd say a franchise is a way to enable someone to have some, but only some, of the rights of ownership. *

The bottom line is that the profits and losses are yours (minus the continuing financial obligations you have as a franchise owner to the league). But you have to meet a wide variety of league regulations, some very picayune. And your franchise can be revoked if you break the regulations. In the case of the NFL, though, unlike McDonald's, the top of the league hierarchy consists of the franchise owners, taken together. So in a sense they're beholden to themselves, or beholden to a collective of themselves.

*Since I still don't really understand exactly how franchises work, here's the first definition of franchise I found:

"an authorization granted by a government or company to an individual or group enabling them to carry out specified commercial activities, e.g., providing a broadcasting service or acting as an agent for a company's products...

On balance, to me, it's a rather plastic modern way of organizing a league. On the other hand, it does well at seeing that the interest of the league itself, rather than its individual owners, comes first.
 
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redwhiteandermblue said:
They're franchises, just like McDonald's. I'm not an expert on franchises, but I'd say a franchise is a way to enable someone to have some, but only some, of the rights of ownership. *

The bottom line is that the profits and losses are yours (minus the continuing financial obligations you have as a franchise owner to the league). But you have to meet a wide variety of league regulations, some very picayune. And your franchise can be revoked if you break the regulations. In the case of the NFL, though, unlike McDonald's, the top of the league hierarchy consists of the franchise owners, taken together. So in a sense they're beholden to themselves, or beholden to a collective of themselves.

*Since I still don't really understand exactly how franchises work, here's the first definition of franchise I found:

"an authorization granted by a government or company to an individual or group enabling them to carry out specified commercial activities, e.g., providing a broadcasting service or acting as an agent for a company's products...
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So it would appear that the league are the ultimate owners of the clubs as they sell the franchises. Just as MacDonalds sell the franchise to individual owners who also have to fulfil conditions or MacDonalds could withdraw the franchise leaving a hamburger restaurant minus the signage and and advertising and stock. That wouldn't quite work with sports clubs so I suppose they just transfer the franchise to a new owner.
 
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