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It won’t make a huge difference if they lose local support – football is a huge business now, fanbase is a global thing
I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been watching a programme from some incredibly remote part of the world, and there are these villages with virtually no infrastructure but there are men and kids wearing ManU and Arsenal tee shirts!
Oh, and the only football team I ever went and watched was my local one, and I only went because it was kind of expected that kids at school liked football.
I think I only went twice, I was bored silly.
The only football teams I have any kind of interest in are the Seattle Seahawks and the Baltimore Ravens, and those only occasionally.
Sky Sports will the last thing to go in this house.
That's something I really don't understand. Piracy is very easy and you can watch every game, not just those shown domestically. You can even justify it now by using it to not give money to awful owners. Link aggregator sites are entirely legal and I'm not aware of anyone who has been prosecuted for viewing an "illegal" stream.
hxxps://reddt1.soccerstreams.net/ (obvious edit) is a good link aggregator.
Neither of you seem particularly interested in having explained to you why the ‘obvious’ solutions you’re proposing won’t actually make a blind bit of difference
Odd mix of naivity and condescension from the OP.
I think the whole Covid situation has shown how much/little difference crowds make to a clubs income (at least the "bigger" clubs).
Crowds were already dwindling at Newcastle (in protest against the owner), before the lockdowns started, so Ashley gave away 10,000 partial tickets to get the ground full again
These threads always brings out the non football fans who just don't get the passion.
For me I was lucky enough to be good at it. Lot of kudos in the class and students union.
My football mad mates really don't get cycling at all, most think it's for children. But then they never played to my level of football.
I'm not a football fan - not against it, just ambivalent. I used to play a bit when I was younger, but decided there were other things that I'd rather be doing. After that I've just gradually stopped watching it over the years - I'd genuinely struggle to name a single premier league player.
Anyway - seems to me that this is the outcome of a march towards total capitalism that we see in lots of things, as they move from being what they are actually supposed to be (a football club, houses, increasingly healthcare etc) and just end up being a business or an investment vehicle for a relatively small number of people. Some new wheeze for a few people to get rich.
I'm sure at one point there was an intention/pretense that these could be a win-win: a club could be a successful business AND what the fans want it to be - but unfortunately it's the nature of capitalism to push and push and push, until they've squeezed as much money out of something for it's shareholders, and the essence of what something started-as is lost or unrecognizable.
Politically, it's extremely interesting: Here you have Bojo's usual instinct to advance the interests of the rich and powerful, but confronted by extremely strong feelings unambiguously communicated by a massive UK voter demographic.
When he first came out against the ESL - I was pleasantly surprised: "**** me, Boris has done the right thing....", but then it turns out that he possibly/probably/definitely supported it in a private discussion with one of the architects a few days before. "ah yes, that sounds more likely...."
So maybe the answer is that fans should be putting pressure on the government to regulate, rather than trying to influence the behavior of their individual clubs? If recent history has taught us anything, this needs Marcus Rashford (Ha! there - I know one!) to send a couple of tweets, they'll be a few government statements/u-turns, but we'll get there within a week or so.
MSP
Owner’s have been **** up football clubs since they existed, and fans have voiced their opinions of them. The only new thing is the 24 hour media coverage getting everyone in hysterics about it and a populist government trying to use it to their advantage.
So why stick with that club when its no longer the same club?
Why not just go to a grass roots game ???
It was always going to be a problem when intense passions and historic loyalties/rivalries based on local industries and communities rubbed shoulders with global hyper-capitalism. It's amazing that it hasn't blown up before now really.
Quite funny that it's Man United supporters, the club which was the first to really embrace commercialism, who are now realising it's not all it was cracked up to be.
Lot of kudos in the class and students union.
Your university experience was very different to mine. Playing football wouldn't have got you kudos - being a drug dealer would though.
So why stick with that club when its no longer the same club?
Why not just go to a grass roots game ???
To try and help explain that a bit tongue-in-cheek -
If you are married (and not cheating) -
So why stick with that partner when it's no longer the same girlfriend?
Why not just go to a different potential partner ???
Plenty people will snort at that and think that is a stupid paraphrasing, but to the die-hard football fans, it is very much like that...which is why they can't just change.
So why stick with that club when its no longer the same club?
Owners change. Football clubs are a lifelong thing from childhood onwards. I doubt Mike Ashley will still own Newcastle in 5 years. I'm amazed that the Glazers are still there. I don't think they will be for much longer now their Superleague ambitions have been scuppered. They'll cash in and make a fortune.
Why not just go to a grass roots game ???
Plenty of people do both. We go and watch our local team, Ramsbottom United, in the glamour of the Pitching In Northern Premier League, which is quite a different experience from the Premier League 🙂
I used to be a fan. Played very regularly, but very casually, as a teenager. Just got bored of the direction the game was going, about 15 years ago. I'm now 43. I understand the passion. I just see it as a platform to advertise gambling to kids now.
Quite funny that it’s Man United supporters, the club which was the first to really embrace commercialism, who are now realising it’s not all it was cracked up to be.
They've been protesting against the Glazers since 2005 - hardly a new thing. Some of them even formed their own club:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F.C._United_of_Manchester
Indeed. And the protests were most vociferous during arguably the clubs most successful period, in 2010 with 3 back to back premiership titles and a champions league
I never thought I'd be on here sticking up for Man U fans!
Why not just go to a grass roots game ???
I do, at least did when things were open. I've been to Knaphill, Westfield and Guildford City games several times, but only as a diversion, for some Saturday afternoon entertainment (also because that was the sort of standard I played BITD). I can't raise the same interest in who wins as I can for my home town club (Reading, truly my team as an ex ST holder, followed them home and away when I was younger and had no commitments, etc) or my true first love (NUFC - my mum's home town and hence the games above with my Grandad)
I never thought I’d be on here sticking up for Man U fans!
It must have got a lot easier since we stopped winning stuff 😉
It must have got a lot easier since we stopped winning stuff 😉
It does help! Interesting article by David Conn about the Glazer protests:
So why stick with that club when its no longer the same club?
Why not just go to a grass roots game ???
Why not ask formula 1 fans why the don't just stand on motorway bridges watching the traffic go by? Why not watch middle aged men walk their bikes through rock gardens instead of watching a world cup race? Seeing anything done at its highest level is very different from watching amateurs having a go.
And I am sure you know that but you would prefer to contribute to the bottom half of the internet.
Cheers for that, fella. It's absolutely bang on. We all knew how this was going to play out when they started hoovering up shares. And so it has.
It was a hostile takeover. Nobody wanted it other than the Glazers and those lending them the cash to do it at extortionate interest rates.
The part of all of this I have never understood is the level of obsession that fans have. You just don’t see it in other sports and I don’t know what it is about football that drives this obsession
Really? Never discussed American football or Baseball with someone from that side of the pond? Never met a Ferrari obsessed F1 fan who have never driven nor is likely to drive a Ferrari?
Probably some evolutionary psychologist would attribute it to tribal mentality and feeling the need to belong. I'd suggest its not unlike religion (and indeed in many parts of the country is tied in with religion) where your club is chosen not by you, but by your family, and is blindly followed no matter what, and other clubs are the "enemy" especially if they seem to be being more successful than your club even if there is very little to separate them.
Whilst easy to confuse with a plotline from Peaky Blinders, the Glazers only managed to buy Manchester United because the Manager fell out with some Irishmen about a horse.
I'm old enough to remember that before it was a PLC, united were owned by one man (Martin Edwards) so private (or public) ownership isn't the issue, more the financial instruments and the lack of owner rules that allow the purchase by debt leverage.
I'm not a football fan but it's quite surprising that the loyalty isn't understood - ask me to stop watching the tour de france during july and I'd have the same reaction of 'xxxx off' . To further the comparison, do I like the ownership of teams like Ineos, Bahrain Mclaren or Astana? No I don't but I can't do anything about it... and I'd imagine that Binners' dislike of the Glazier family is probably the same as his dislike of the Kroenkites or MikeAshley
This looks to me like splendid news....
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2021/may/08/manchester-united-lose-200m-training-kit-deal-over-fans-anti-glazers-campaign
Very interested in your view @binners et Al?