Quote:
Originally Posted by albionmoonlight
Back when soccer was something that Americans only noticed every four years, it was easy to pretend like it was a pure sport and all about love of the game and patriotism, etc.
As we get more into following the professional leagues, etc., we are realizing that--like every sport on Earth--it is mostly about billionaire owners trying to squeeze as much out of their teams as they can.
Nothing wrong with that, of course. But it does bust the myth a bit.
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That's a relatively new development though in the last 10-20 years. So you can understand why fans across Europe have reacted the way they have to this. It's basically the death of the sport as most people know it - and it's been going that direction for a long time but this will move the schedule up quite a few years. Although the money that the EPL passes down to the clubs in the lower leagues is desultory, it does keep them afloat not to mention the impact this is going to have to the finances of the individual FAs.
The closest I can compare to the social impact this has in the UK is if 20-30 years ago the 8 biggest MLB clubs decided they were going to now play in a tournament with the biggest 4 Asian clubs and take a huge chunk of the TV money that MLB had. Even then I don't think it's apples to apples. There's nothing in US sport that even closely compares to the Football League.