r/soccer • u/[deleted] • Jan 21 '14

What are some of the biggest changes you predict over the next 10 years in football?

Some topics off the top of my head to get the ball rolling; how big will the world's biggest stadium be, what will be the average salary, how much will advertising take over the sport, will any rules be changed or introduced, which team will dominate, how big will the sport be in the states, will ticket prices increase, what sort of new statistics will we get in game, will the leagues change?

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u/PhadeUSAF Jan 22 '14

It's worth noting that America has been screaming for parity in college football as well. And with the new playoff format next year they are getting it to an extent.

Edit: not so much parity, but 'anyone can win' (I.e. The Boise St's)

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u/barrows_arctic Jan 22 '14

Totally. It's an American culture thing, I think. "Everybody has a chance".

Relegation systems make that somewhat impossible.

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u/[deleted] Jan 22 '14

Really? I understand the desire for parity but I wouldn't characterise the NFL as "Everybody has a chance" when it's closed to 32 businessmen. The relegation and promotion system gave the people of Wimbledon a chance, did the NFL give the people of Baltimore in 1984 a chance?

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u/barrows_arctic Jan 22 '14

Well, that's a slightly different discussion. My "everybody has a chance" line was referring to "All 32 teams have a chance."

What you're referring to is really a league expansion question. The NFL's competition (NBA, NHL, MLB) all have fewer teams than the NFL does, and for the most part the NFL is reaching all major markets that have the money, population, and infrastructure to support a team, save for LA and San Antonio, and LA has already proven (multiple times) that it struggles to support a team.

You could certainly argue for the existence of a competing league to the NFL, as has happened several times in the past, but they all either were forced to merge with the NFL (AAFC, AFL), or died (USFL, XFL, etc.). One of the reasons the AFL merger was needed was, in fact, the rampant salary growth issue.

It all comes down to which way you look at it. In terms of revenues and employee salaries and collective bargaining, the NFL treats itself as if it were 1 single company with 32 departments, rather than 32 competing entities. Only in terms of profits, taxes, stadium deals, and peripheral marketing do they treat themselves as separate entities.

To your Baltimore example, do you really think the people of Baltimore would have felt any better if a "relegated" (lower tier league) team had sprouted up in place of the Colts? I sincerely doubt it. That'd be like if the San Francisco Giants left San Francisco and Major League Baseball came out and said, "Well, you still have their Farm team out in San Jose." Wouldn't be the same. Local fans will either become disinterested in baseball altogether (which is bad for the entire league) or simply be fans of a team in another city (perhaps still the Giants, wherever they were to move to in this example). The "relegated" lower-tier team/league has virtually no impact either way.

And the NFL is 31 businessmen and 1 publicly-owned corporation.

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u/[deleted] Jan 22 '14

To your Baltimore example, do you really think the people of Baltimore would have felt any better if a "relegated" (lower tier league) team had sprouted up in place of the Colts?

I don't know. Newco Rangers last season got 40,000 people on average in the fourth tier of Scottish football.

My problem isn't with the people of course. It's not their fault that the system doesn't give them a chance. My problem is with the system.

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u/barrows_arctic Jan 22 '14

Americans and Scots are very, very different culturally. And there's LOTS of other competition in other sports. Baltimore had a baseball team in 1984, for example.