New York
What follows has been covered ad nauseam, but I wonder why people were surprised at the planned breakaway football Super League? Professional sport in Europe now follows the American way, which means that money comes before tradition, hometown loyalty and the fans — the shmucks who live and die for their teams. The bottom line is what sport in this country is all about, and European football has a lot to learn from the closed shop that has made zillions of dollars for US sport. I’ll keep it brief.
American football, baseball and basketball teams are privately owned, and no matter how badly they perform, they cannot be relegated to a minor league, as teams can in Europe. The spectre of promotion or relegation does not exist in America, and it is viewed as an unwelcome European perversion by the billionaires’ club that owns professional sport. These owners vote and decide on the rules, or any changes to those rules.
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