MLS Expansion Will Result in a European Super League
I tried to explain the structure of European football leagues for two reasons. First, I don’t think that many American sports fans understand it and I believe that failure to understand it is an impediment to appreciating the game. But more importantly, I do so because I believe that the future of MLS will rest at least in part on the steps that the European leagues take to counter the rise of MLS as a legitimate player on the world stage.
The Massive Clubs of Europe will eventually see MLS as a rival. While MLS obviously has some serious disadvantages to the European game, it also has a few not insignificant advantages. The most important of these advantages is that MLS will eventually find a national scale that is similar to that of the Big Four American sports leagues. The current structure of European soccer leaves the Massive Clubs economically disadvantaged as compared to an MLS that spans the entirety of the United States, Canada (and Mexico?).
In order to stomp out MLS as a competitor, the Massive Clubs will need to take an action which they’ve been wanting to do for a long time but from which the world’s governing football bodies have so far prevented them from taking: the creation of a Pan-European Super League.
The Super League
The Massive Clubs have wanted a Super League for a long time. The growth of MLS might just be the catalyst they need to get it.
At some point, near or far in the future, the Massive Clubs of Europe will begin to see MLS as a threat. MLS will steal one too many star that is not quite past his prime. MLS will scoop one too many prospect (who will eventually be sold to the Massive Clubs for tens of millions). MLS will get a not insignificant contract from a European television operator looking to bolster its summer schedule.
Eventually, all this will prove too much and the Massive Clubs will have to do something about it. The Massive Clubs are self-interested. They will look to defend their own economic interests. The perceived threat from the States will require them to create a European Super League. A Super League to rule them all.
Unfortunately for the rest of the teams in Europe, the creation of a European Super League will do irreparable harm to current domestic European leagues. A European Super League would increase even further the income disparity between the haves and the have nots.
Already, television revenue received by the Premier League in England has created an ever-widening gulf between teams in the Premier League and teams in the tiers below. Perennial participation in UEFA Champions League by Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool has exacerbated the revenue disparities between those teams and the rest of the teams in the Premiership.
Revenue disparity creates significant disparity on the field itself.
A Premier League Without Man U?
What happens to the Premier League if Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool leave it to join a Super League full time? If Aston Villa, Everton and Fulham were fighting it out for first place in an English first division that didn’t include the Big Four, would anybody really care? Would anybody care who won a Serie A title if the league didn’t include Milan, Roma, Inter or Juventus?
Yes, some Italians would continue to care about their local Serie A team. English fans would continue to follow the Premiership at some rate. Even today, the second and third division teams maintain some sort of fan base.
But for the most part, all eyes would turn to the Super League. In Europe, in the Americas and in Asia, the Super League would become the only league that mattered. The only European league garnering significant television revenue.
And if the fan’s aren’t watching and the television dollars aren’t rolling in, why would a young player from Africa or Belgium or Costa Rica want to go to Fulham? Why would you want to play in a depleted Premiership if MLS was a viable alternative?
And if the Premiership is depleted without its big clubs, how do the remaining clubs continue to pay their bills if revenue is declining? They’re barely paying the bills as it is.
| Club | Revenue (2007-08) | Wages % Revenue | Profit | Debts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stoke City | (Championship) £11.2m (up 41%) | 106% | – £5.6m | £2.3m |
| Wigan Athletic | £43m (up 59.2%) | 89% | -£11.2m | £66.4m |
| West Bromwich Albion | (Championship): £27.2m (up 13%) | 80% | £11.3m | £8.9m |
| Portsmouth | £70.5m (up 75%) | 78% | -£17m | £57.7m |
| Hull City | (Championship) £9m (down 5.6%) | 77% | -£2m | £1m |
| West Ham United | £57m | 76% | -£22m | £36m |
| Newcastle United | £100.8m (up 16%) | 74% | -£34m | £106.2m |
| Middlesbrough | £48m | 73% | -£8.3m | £93m |
| Fulham | £53.7m (up 35.2%) | 73% | £3.2m | £197m |
| Blackburn Rovers | £56.4m (up 30%) | 70% | £3m | £17m |
| Chelsea | £213.6m (up 12%) | 68% | -£84.5m | £701m |
| Aston Villa | £75.6m (up 105%) | 66.7% | -£7.6m | £73m |
| Bolton Wanderers | £59.1m (up 16%) | 66% | -£8.4m | £52m |
| Liverpool | na | na | £280m | |
| Manchester City | £82.3m (up 44%) | 66% | -£32.6m | £147m |
| Everton | £76m (up 50.1%) | 59% | £26,000 | £39m |
| Sunderland | £63.6m (up 144%) | 58% | – £4.9m | £69.2m |
| Manchester United | £256.2m (up 22%) | 47% | -£44.8m | £699m |
| Tottenham Hotspur | £114.7m (up 11.34%) | 46% | £3m | £65m |
| Arsenal | £222.5m (Up 11.4%) | 45% | £36.7m | £416m |
(Source)
Making Losses Out of Nothing At All
In case you cared: Liverpool, Manchester United, Aston Villa are owned by Americans. Stan Kroenke, who owns the Rapids, the Avalanche and the Nuggets might make it four after he recently became Arsenal’s biggest shareholder.Compare the shape Premiership Clubs are in to those in the NFL. NFL owners, who have mandated debt limits of $120 million (£72 million), are very seriously considering locking out the players two years from now because payroll has reached 60% of revenue.
All this can really only lead to one conclusion. If the top clubs in the Premiership join a Super League, the remaining clubs will be in receivership and their players will be out on the free market looking for jobs.
Looking for jobs in MLS.
The creation of a Pan-European Super League would be the second greatest thing that ever happened to MLS. The first best thing? If the Massive Clubs didn’t create a Super League.
Either Way, MLS Benefits
No matter what happens to the European football, MLS stands to benefit. Remember these old adages?
- A house (Europe) divided against itself (into domestic European leagues) cannot stand
- The enemy (a Super League) of my enemy (domestic European leagues) is my friend.
or
If the Massive Clubs of Europe attempt to fortify their places at the top of the food chain through the creation of a Pan-European Super League, MLS will become the default alternative to that league.
If the Massive Clubs of Europe fail to create a Super League, MLS competes against fragmented, weakened competition. As MLS climbs the football ladder, MLS will continually weaken the middle tier European clubs, increasing on-field disparity, and making even more domestic league games unwatchable.
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Go Schalke 04!
Is your comment because of this:
Schalke 04 midfielder Jermaine Jones has notified the German Football Federation that he intends to change national teams and plans to play for the U.S. national team. Jones is taking advantage of the new FIFA rule that allows players of any age to change national teams if they are eligible for multiple national teams and have yet to play in an official match for either.
Or something else? 🙂
It wasn’t that, though, that is pretty cool if it works out. I’d love to have him over here.
No, I was in Germany for a period in 97 during “Schalke” fever and I’ve always kind of continued to be a fan. I don’t follow soccer as much any more, but when I do, I always love the blue. I even started drinking Veltins, which was a major sponsor. Wow, that is NOT good beer.
A european super league won’t happen for the simple reason that it probably is against EU law, and secondly the fans won’t have it and i’m serious the fans will revolt no doubt, whenever it’s brought up there is always angry debate, and given that governments are far more involved in sport over here, i can see things like them making it illegal to win votes.
As much as i agree that if MLS was ever to become strong it could be the elephant in the room that destroys football. I don’t ever see the MLS becoming strong or strong enough, you’d need MLB style revenue given the greater travelling costs you have.
I just don’t see it, and then I just don’t see European clubs allowing it. There will be outlaw league style sanctions without a doubt, by that i mean the smaller leagues would cry to FIFA who would then say unless you introduce promotion relegation as well as other factors you’ll be blacklisted.
And we all know that promotion and relegation is totally unfeasible in a country your size because of costs. Thus it will have detrimental effect.
FIFA want the states because they are a greedy organisation, but I don’t they’d ever let it get to the stage where the MLS is like the NBA is towards FIFA.
Basically MLS doesn’t really stand a chance.
It’s a non-starter because it would be a disaster for most of the breakaway clubs. The majority of the fans would not accept it, and would set up rival clubs that would be viewed as the legitimate inheritors of the club history (read up on Wimbledon/AFC Wimbledon/Milton Keynes Dons). And those that stayed loyal would not be able to live with the idea that they would finish in the bottom half of the league half the time. Some of the “big clubs” would soon have smaller crowds than the biggest teams still in the domestic leagues (and you overlook the degree of overlap that their is already, with ten clubs in the Championship with higher average attendances than the smallest Premiership club).
The clubs know all this, which is why they took a brief look at the idea over a decade ago and then forgot about it.
The debt position of the English clubs is not really a league threatening issue. For a start your numbers are out of date. Chelsea’s debt was all in interest free loans to their owner, and he has converted all of it into equity. Manchester City, Newcastle, and Fulham’s debt is also in the same form, and will probably receive the same treatment in the future. Arsenal’s net debt is well under £300 million, all of it spent on a profitable new stadium. The only other clubs with over £100 million in external debt are Liverpool and Manchester United. Both clubs that make large operating profits. Both had debt loaded on them by speculators to fund their own purchases of the club. Both Americans too. Thanks.
Americans are the worst owners in the world for English football clubs because they are the only people who think it is normal for “sports franchises” to make regular profits. English football has always proceeded on the assumption that it will make an overall loss, which will be funded by sugar daddies and creditors taking less than 100 pence in the pound in the administrations (think Chapter 11) that are just part of the way things work – but almost never destroy the underlying club. This system has been in place since the 1880s, and there is no particular reason for it to come to an end.
Certainly in the UK, and almost certainly in the rest of Europe, when clubs go into what you call “receivership” this does not terminate the players’ contracts, which continue unaffected.
The problem with the idea of MLS causing heavy competition with the european leagues is fan base. European teams have fans all over the world boosting TV revenue. there’s just not enough interest in the US to pull that kind of revenue. In the US their’s too much competition for the sports fans $ with baseball, football, hockey and basketball. Teams in Europe pull large fans at the games, attendance at most MLS games is on par with second tier in Europe. Big name players won’t becoming in their prime as it damages their chances of playing for the national team, The Beckham experiment has been a failure from the David Backham point of view thats why he’s at milan from Jan – May, not many will follow. Sure some top tier teams in Europe have small attendance but those are the ones who likely won’t be top tier for long, and a fair number of second tier teams do have large gates. Fifa and Uefa are dependant upon national leagues survival so i can’t see them backing breakaway teams to a superleague possibly invoking sanctions to those teams that do.
MLS would rank about 6th/7th in Europe in attendance (1st division leagues). After England, Germany, Spain, and Italy… the drop off is pretty dramatic.
But you are right, the fact that these leagues have fans all over the world (especially here in America) is a huge factor in tv revenue and also merchandising.