A European Super League - have they learned from the American experience?

I wrote a piece for Liberal Democrat Voice which went live this morning, in which I suggested that there wasn't an awful lot that Government could do if a collection of the "richest" clubs across Europe decided to form their own league. Naturally, a slew of politicians then suggested that, not only could the Government act, but that it would. I'm yet to be convinced that it's anything but words in the run-up to a bunch of local elections, but we'll see...

One of the suggestions as to why a European Super league has emerged now after years of talk and little actual action is the suggestion that American-owned clubs see this as being no different to the way that the NFL or NBA work, in that those leagues have no promotion or relegation and, in that sense, they're right. The absence of such things has no apparent impact on the success of the sport and, indeed, it does allow teams to plan over a period of years, creating stability and a narrative for a team, even if it isn't doing particularly well at any particular time.

I'm a Tampa Bay Buccaneers fan which, at the moment, is a fine thing to be, given their success in the most recent Super Bowl. However, I've followed them since the sport was first televised on Channel 4 in the mid-eighties. Why the Buccaneers? Simple, they wore orange, like my football team, Luton Town. And, to be honest, like most of the teams I've supported, they sucked most of the time. But you keep hoping, right? There is an irony, in that they're owned by the Glazer family, who own Manchester United, but they are widely believed to have been thoughtful and committed owners in Florida, and that perhaps speaks volumes.

And the thing about the NFL is that, at its heart, is the rather socialist notion that a more equal league is actually a good thing. Thus, the player draft, where new talent is selected by teams in the reverse order to which they finished in the previous season (although slots can be traded for advantage or later reward). Baseball has a luxury tax, whereby if a team spends more on player salaries than an agreed limit, it pays 17.5% of the overspend into a fund, part of which is used for player benefits. That amount increases if they breach the limit in consecutive years, and discourages teams from spending much more than their competitors.

Most major US sports have a salary cap too, albeit at levels that many would think absurd, but, combined with luxury taxes, a genuine sense of competition exists. For example, twelve different teams have won the Super Bowl in the past fifteen years, compared to the seven teams that have won the Premier League in its twenty-eight seasons to date. Your team may be awful one year but, in a few years, it might credibly be a winner.

So, the land of the free is, for sports purposes, a bit of a socialist paradigm. I don't see a European Super League going down that route - the cult of personality is too important to allow that, I'd suggest - and thus the pressure to spend more on players will not change. Who wants to support the team that comes bottom, even if it is in a Super League, season after season? More importantly from the perspective of the owners and shareholders, who's going to want to buy the shirts, or pay to watch the games on pay-per-view or satellite TV?

But, if they can make enough money, they probably won't care...