So everyone knows and something I am not sure means for the summer as Baseballs windows are all over the place to buy players......they are 0-6 after spending loads of cash this past off-season..... looks like there is another reds in need too!! I hope it doesn't hinder Liverpool.
If anything it's more likely to be the other way round. I read an analysis from a Sox fan that the Cleveland Browns (Randy Lerner), Tampa Bay Buccs (Glazer) and the Montréal Canadiens (Gilette) all slumped after their owners bought their PL clubs. The implication was that the owners moved the commercial and financial attention to a new project and stopped focusing their attention on their old club. Could be bad news for Sox fans...
The Sox were 2–6 in the first 8 games of 2009, before they came to Liverpool, which could be called a slump. They went on a run in April and tied the division with the Blue Jays. A patchy May was followed by wins over three of the four division leaders, including their best win against the Yankees since 1912. The rest of the season was patchy but featured more records and more signings: Casey Kotchman came and got a .268 batting average (league average is between .260 and .275, though Sabrematics doesn't consider it a useful stat) and a perfect fielding % with no errors in 114 games at first base. NESV reacted to this season with a busy off-season, signing a bunch of young players and Blue Jay Marco Scutaro to take the short stop position that had been a weak point for the Sox. Scutaro had a number of career highs that season.
Fair dos. I don't follow the Red Sox, and have no idea what all that baseball jargon means! I just remember reading that article from a Sox fan saying he thought it was hard for owners to manage and finance two teams at once, and he hoped the Sox didn't have the same problems the other three had after their owners bought new clubs.
I quite agree; I propose all Liverpool fans are given Nightsticks to keep the Man U fans out. Also; considering it's my birthday - ****ing Champagne all round!
I got carried away with the stats. Typical baseball fan. My point was simply that the Sox had a slump before. They can't win the World Series every year. What's telling is how NESV reacted. They reacted by spending on talent, losing the deadwood and investing in younger players. I don't think owning two sports franchises is any different to owning a sports franchise and a bunch of malls. NESV owned more than two sports franchises before they bought Liverpool. You'd expect them all to be suffering if the theory held.
Happy birthday! How do you use a nightstick over the internet?! No worries - I probably shouldn't have talked about the Sox without knowing about the sport! It's a reassuring sign if they can bring the Sox through a slump and recover in a stable manner - that's where many PL owners and managers fall down. Look at Abramovich - oh no, we didn't win the PL, quick buy Shevchenko! Oh no, we're not top of the league, quick buy Torres! Whoops... I think it's pretty different to be honest - the malls or hedge fund or oil company are expected to raise their own capital for investment and throw off enough surplus for the owner to make good profits as well. Whereas the franchise is expected to invest all the cash it generates and often require additional investment from the owner with little or no profit generation. And the other businesses are expected to be relatively stable - if a shop loses its best customer assistant it doesn't suddenly go from being profitable to unprofitable. Also, I think a PL club is pretty different from a US franchise where you have a local monopoly and no relegation, and always have the draft picks to fall back on. Credit to FSG if they can manage both simultaneously. Btw, what other franchises did FSG own apart from the Red Sox and 'pool? I know they have half that Nascar team but didn't know they had any others.
Virtual nightstick! Never heard of them? Apparently it plants illegal material on your computer, contacts the police - and then the police use their nightsticks on you. Also, you're one of the few good Man U Fans, have a champagne on me.
We've all done it and will continue to do so. Fair enough but doesn't that suggest that the lack of a requirement to produce a profit makes a sports franchise easier to run than a large business corporation? Especially when customer loyalty is as good as guaranteed? I think the certainty is that if your other businesses aren't doing well it's going to affect your commitment to your franchises. I thought they owned New England Revolution as well but I was mistaken. They own the Salem Red Sox, a minor league team. I may also have over-generalised a little due to their extensive involvement in sports marketing, owning a TV network and having several deals similar to the LeBron one, though the LeBron one is huge and at least shows he and his people don't consider FSG a bad bet.
I'd say it's the other way round - if you're investing all the money you make then you have no margin for error. If a normal corporation has a bad year, like BP last year, they don't pay dividends, cut back on their costs, sell underperforming assets, and focus on the most profitable parts of the business. If a football club has a bad year, like Liverpool last year, they lose the revenue from the CL, don't have money to invest and can lose some of their best players. The margins are often finer, and as the Glazers and H&G have shown, loyalty isn't always guaranteed. If the other businesses struggle, you will probably find your commitment to your franchises reduces, but a lot depends on the franchises you have and their investment needs. The poor performance of the Buccs in recent years has most likely been due to the Glazer's troubles with their malls, and the need to address the PIK debt. But then it hasn't affected United too much cos the Glazers have focused on making United a business that can finance investments and also produce cash (and faced the wrath of the fans for doing so). Likewise, when Henry's hedge fund started struggling in 2007 it didn't affect the Sox cos he'd set them up to be self financing after the initial investment of capital. But then if Liverpool and the Sox both started struggling and needed more capital at the same time, that could force them to choose between one and the other.
But that's like any company. Some are able to soak up losses and some aren't. Your Liverpool example doesn't really fit the criteria because we weren't investing all the money we were making, we were paying more than one top player every season in interest payments. Eventually we were making a profit on transfers. The problem there wasn't income but the willingness of the owners to reinvest it. Even so, Liverpool were able to soak up the losses from Champions' League exit and had budgeted to do so before going out of the competition last season. Other teams maybe aren't as able to soak up losses but then BP survived the credit crunch and Woolies didn't. The banks started whining because their bad year was costing them good staff who wanted bonuses. Admittedly, a bonus isn't like a Champions League medal so the banks could've soaked up the bonuses, they just couldn't convince the taxpayer it was a good idea, whereas Torres left because no amount of income could persuade him he'd get a medal by staying. We were still able to reinvest, though, because FSG were willing to, just as the banks were willing to pay bonuses to recruit new staff. If Henry has set the Sox up as the Glazers set up Utd why would he have to choose between one and the other? The Glazers don't seem to have and there's no denying the Bucs needed investment. Did the Glazers set the Bucs up differently to Utd so they were reliant on other Glazer businesses doing well for investment or was it just their H&G-like unwillingness to invest?
The debt issue is true, but then most companies are expected to sustain debt and cover the interest before reinvesting. They're not only expected to get into debt, but to stay in debt and use the debt to boost returns to shareholders. In contrast, when most football clubs get into debt, it can often spiral out of control as it did for Leeds, Pompey and Liverpool. And ultimately, businesses are not expected to make losses year on year, whereas football clubs are often expected to make regular losses and have the owner put money in (prior to FFP of course). If you have two sports franchises both needing money, it's a lot harder to fund them both if your financial resources are limited. With a business you can take on debts, like the Glazers did with their malls, and wait for the economy to turn up or the business to turnaround, or just close it down and walk away. With a franchise, the debt can often be the beginning of the end, and no one wants to be known as the person who destroyed a sports club. Well, as has been pointed out by many Liverpool fans, if United have a sustained slump in form and lose CL football they will struggle to remain self financing. Likewise with the Red Sox - no playoffs or championships for a few years and revenue will drop and investment will be needed. I don't know the exact situation with the Bucs, but given how much smaller and less successful they were than Utd prior to the takeover, they are likely to need external investment to stay successful - they were almost bankrupt when the Glazers bought them. And considering how they slumped since the Glazers took on the extra Utd debt and their other businesses slumped, it's not unrealistic to say they were reliant on Glazer funding for their 2002 success.
That I agree with. Actually, I don't disagree that clubs aren't like normal businesses, I'm just splitting hairs now. I doubt there'd have been discussions like this prior to the Glazers and H&G. One thing they've both done is politicise people, much like Thatcher did in the 80s. Utd and Liverpool fans now take much more of an interest in the business side. So that's good.
That's true, but the problem is, as with Thatcher, that some people take very narrow views of it, and tend to be led like sheep by the people with the most vested interests. The green and gold protest is an ideal example - a few of those fans actually understand what they are protesting about, most of them just have this vague idea that debt = bad and they should do something because everyone else is. And it's now got to the point where some people are willing to sabotage the club just to try and hurt the owners
Just got back from Anfield. Still buzzing like mad. What a game! We seriously only need one or two very decent signings (wingers) and next season we could really push up the table. A far cry from the despair and gloom of Hodgson only 6 months ago!
