In most American sports there’s salary caps to keep a level playing field. It’s beautiful bc Detroit Lions fans have ALWAYS had a garbage team, but now that they have a good coaching staff and some good talent, they can compete and are one of the better teams in the league. But in Europe, low level teams will generally NEVER compete with top teams. Is it uncommon in Europe due to the fact that every big league kinda wants a team from their league to compete in the UEFA Champions League? Therefore no league puts a salary cap on bc they’d be limiting themselves of the biggest trophy and prize money? So, the only way around that would have ALL top leagues to agree on a salary cap across the board, which would logistically be a nightmare right? And that’s why they wouldn’t do it? Like, in what universe does Hertha Berlin belong in the same league as Bayern last year? Sorry, I’m fascinated by the sport and I’m GENUINELY a fan now, just curious is all. Ty
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American sports can do salary caps because they have no competition. If you play American football, the NFL is the best league. There’s no other league that even comes half as close to the talent in the NFL. So, they can set whatever rules they want. But, imagine if Canada had a league with a ton of money and no salary caps and offered players billions of dollars to play there. I’d imagine a ton of top level American football players would go to the Canadian league instead. That’s kind of how it is with soccer, if La Liga introduced salary caps they’d lose talent to the Premier League or Serie A who have the same quality of football without salary caps.
Football is the by far the most popular sport in the world, so it makes sense that more money is involved. Huge transfers are part of the excitement of the game nowadays, but without proper management, they mean nothing. Chelsea and Manchester United spent millions (billions?) to rebuild their teams and they’re still average. PSG have spent more than a billion on transfers and wages in order to win a UCL, but they fail miserably every year.
But in Europe, low level teams will generally NEVER compete with top teams.
That is so not correct. Just look at the current La Liga table, Girona are first right now. Speaking of La Liga, Athletic Club is always one of the top 6-8 teams in Spain, but they aren’t allowed to play non Basque players as a principle, so they almost never buy players in general.
Inter were in the UCL final last year and most of their key players were either extremely cheap or free transfers: Onana, Darmian, Dimarco, Acerbi, Calhanoglu, Brozovic, Mkhitaryan, Dzeko etc. All these players costed less than 10M each (some were free) for Inter. Some of them were on really low wages too. Speaking of UCL, almost every year we get a surprise or pretty unexpected team reaching the semis, a team that usually spends far less money than their competitors. 2023 Milan, 2022 Villareal, 2020 Lyon etc.
Other obvious examples are Leicester winning the 2016 EPL or Lille winning 2021 Ligue 1. Huge salaries and transfer fees aren’t as important as most people think.
In some leagues there are regulations like you can only spend a certain amount of you revenue on players. But overall there is this ‘they earned their success, so they are allowed to use the money that comes from it as they wish’
For a smaller team it is difficult to make their way up. But with luck, good scouting/youth academies, you can work your way up.
There is still that problem, that there is no real way to handle the relative new problem of outside investors who just want to buy titles. It began with Abramowich in Chelsea and the Glazers in Manchester. There are too many people who profit from this new money, so they don’t want to restrict the inflow.
And as the leagues are no closed system and due to anti trust regulations in Europe, you can not introduce such regulations easily. American sorts leagues were founded as business entities to make money, while the European leagues had this more ‘Olympic’ spirit of an open competition.
Currently in Germanys Bundesliga is a team,.whose current coach is with with them since they were in the 5. Tier 16 years ago. They made their way up through the relegation system. These wonderful stories make this system so appealing.
It is more or less that teams only spend what money they earn or expect to earn in the next years. There are some local financial regulations in each league, like the 50+1 in the Bundesliga and other. How much money would you even need to spend as a newly promoted team to become the best team in the league? Maybe 1 or 2 billion, maybe more? You wouldn’t make that money back, and the only teams that do this are teams owned by billionaires that want to lose money or middle Eastern states. There is also close to zero reason for German football fans from a different club than Bayern to cheer for them in the UCL. The most important title for teams is ALWAYS the national championship, not the UCL.
Even if a team like Heidenheim is able to spend enough money to be on the same level as Bayern, what would bring the team expect short-term success and a lot of debt ?
If there was a salary cap, then any surplus income that can’t be paid to the team would be kept by the board members. Currently the money goes to the players. As the players are the ones generating the income and creating the value, the majority of people are pleased with them profiting from their labour.
As a footnote, leagues without promotion and relegation are not seen by many (association) football fans as equitable.
There’s definitely a problem with board members pocketing more money, but generally speaking in the US, if a team makes more money than they’re allowed to spend (they usually do) it gets pumped into city programs and such. Now some of those city programs can be corrupt forsure and in the worst case only 20% of the money goes to the school/roads/housing after politicians get their fingers on it.
Surplus money going to charitable causes is a great idea, does it work in reality? And what happens when a team like the raiders cant decide where they are from? Does Oakland still get the hand outs or did it go to Los Angeles and Las Vegas when they moved?
That’s really interesting, I never would have thought that public infrastructure would be funded by privately owned sports teams.
Well, in the US they use public money (tax dollars) to build private stadiums that the teams play in so it does seem fair
Yes but the stadium is owned by the city until the Team pays it off. If they don’t, they sell it to a company, that’s why “Quicken Loans Arena” exists. Or if a team pays it off they name it after their team like the KC Chiefs “Arrowhead Stadium.”
And in many leagues clubs are real clubs, not businesses. The club members are the owners (Barca, Benfica, Bayern…)
American sports leagues were created for profit, first and foremost.
European sports leagues were created for competition first, and then the profit question came afterwards.
owning an NFL franchise for example is probably magnitudes more profitable and less complex to navigate than owning a European football club.
That’s kind of a ridiculous thing to say. Majority of our teams started as working teams. You know they’re called the “Green Bay Packers” for a reason? They were legit a warehouse of 11 guys who were “packers” and started a football team. That’s the case for most teams. But saying America is for “profit first” while most Euro leagues have teams BUYING championships quite literally is crazy. Also, you guys legit have sponsors ALL over your jerseys. How is that not about money?