Money and sport

[xyzabc198]

OK, I dont know a huge amount about football, but I'll give my opinnion, let's use Leeds Utd as an example, used to be a fantastic team, top of the premiership, had a good manager, then they started losing, got thrown out of the premiership, got a new richer manager, lost even more games.
So clearly the wealth of your manager does not help...also Leeds are now in a low division, and still have a massive stadium that struggles to half fill, meaning they rarely get any money because its all going on the stadium...why don't they just sell?
Anyway, in my oppinion, Manchester dont play Liverpool, Fulham dont play Arsenal, it doesn't work like that anymore, because chelsea for example, only half there team are english...in my oppinion, only people from MANCHESTER should be allowed to play for manchester, and only people from LIVERPOOL play for liverpool, etc etc. This is why, I only ever watch the world cup!

 

[Domski]

Liverpool are a distinctly bad example: http://www.premierleague.com/page/liverpool-football-club

 

[xyzabc198]

It may be a bad example, but you understand my point right?

(By the way, I'm visiting leeds in a week...my family lives there )

 

[Expiry]

In the news today, it was announced that the average ticket price for a Premiership game in England is now at £106. That's incredible, really.

But, if people keep paying it, along with extortionate Sky and now Setanta subscriptions, then we can't really complain about it.

 

[RoryA]

Which all comes back to Roy Keane and his favourite "prawn sandwich" brigade. He was right then, and it will probably only get worse. I think there are probably quite a few people who only pay the "extortionate" Sky subscription because they can no longer afford to go to the games!

 

[Expiry]

It is crazy that we ALL, pretty much to a man, think that paying upwards of £40 to watch a football match is a rip-off. And we ALL, pretty much to a man, think that footballers on £60k a week (paid for by our £40+ tickets) is also outrageous.

Ticket prices and player earnings will change, but, as Yazz once said, the only way is up.

 

[DonkeyOte]

At the end though, to a man, we still love football so we let them do what they want don't we... We love it! Love it! Love it! Love it!

(Though at the moment cricket still rules... at least for a few more weeks...and hopefully off to India in Dec for the test matches!!)

 

[Expiry]

OK, I dont know a huge amount about football, but I'll give my opinnion, let's use Leeds Utd as an example, used to be a fantastic team, top of the premiership, had a good manager, then they started losing, got thrown out of the premiership, got a new richer manager, lost even more games.
So clearly the wealth of your manager does not help...also Leeds are now in a low division, and still have a massive stadium that struggles to half fill, meaning they rarely get any money because its all going on the stadium...why don't they just sell?
Anyway, in my oppinion, Manchester dont play Liverpool, Fulham dont play Arsenal, it doesn't work like that anymore, because chelsea for example, only half there team are english...in my oppinion, only people from MANCHESTER should be allowed to play for manchester, and only people from LIVERPOOL play for liverpool, etc etc. This is why, I only ever watch the world cup!

I'm glad you started that with "I don't know a huge amount about football". So are you saying that you think that the World Cup is full of players only playing for their own country? Money talks - even in international football.

France won the World Cup in 1998, half of their squad were born outside of France: Viera - Senegal, Zidane - Algeria, Thuram, Henry and Wiltord - Guadeloupe, Desailly - Ghana, Djorkaeff and Boghossian - Armenia.

Most of Ireland's squad for the 1990 World Cup were British with very tenuous links to Ireland and smaller countries, particularly, boost their squad by bending the rules on eligibility through grandparentage or residency (I think you have to live in a country for 5 years to be eligible to represent that country).

Today it still goes on Deco plays for Portugal, but is Brazilian. Commons just got his debut for Scotland, last week, but is English. There are lots and lots of other examples - Gullit and Rijkaard were born in Somalia, but won the European Championship with Holland in 1988.

So the international football is no less of a mix than club football.

 

[MrKowz]

First off, I am not a sports buff. I do not memorize player's names, stats, or even salary. That being said, there are times when I read somewhere that a person is getting paid large sums of money to play a game. However, I am going to take a step back and redefine what it means to play a game.

These people, say Baseball for example, work. During the offseason, they wake up at the crack of dawn, head out to the fields, and practice. They practice for hours every day. Doesn't matter if it is 30° or 100°, they are out there basically rehearsing what they want to re-enact for the fans. During the regular season, they are barely ever home to see their families for more than a couple of days at a time, then they are right back off to another city for another game.

I feel that a decently large sum of money is worth watching these players give their all 3-4 hours out of a day when in reality they work almost 6 months straight with only three to four days off a month. However, I do not like the idea that they are getting paid millions upon millions of dollars. There should be a limit to how much a person can be paid for sports, and when your team wins, there should be a bonus. A $23 million dollar contract is completely rediculous. But something under $5 million I would deem acceptable. In all seriousness, how easy is it to spend $23 million? Yeah, I could think of a few things I would spend it on, but what about the next $23 mil that comes in, or the next, or the next. I really don't think I could spend $100,000,000.

Enough rambling of me. Time for work (aka MrExcel under my real work).

 

[kgkev]

You have to remember that these sports are at the top of there game - they are litrally the best in the world at what they do.

If you compare that to any other job I'm sure you'll find that these people earn stupid amounts of money.

Bill Gates is? the most succesful software developer in the world. Google says $300 a second? Should his earnings be capped?

Who's the most succesful Banker? A google search tells me its roger Jenkins - he earns $148m a year. because he is the best at what he does.

The difference is sportsman normally only earn such salaries for 2-10 years. Unlike my 2 examples above who will continue to bring it in for many years.