Several ideas have been thrown out regarding the cost of running a football team. Wage caps and operating ceilings being some of the ideas. Professional sports teams here in North America work with operating ceilings. The lowest being the Canadian Football League with a player salary limit of around $5m -for the whole team. NHL hockey at $65m, give or take. The NHL also has a lower level of spending you can’t go below. The teams in these leagues for the most part spend up to the limit with a few bucks left over for events beyond their plans for the season. Like injuries to players. The NFL and NBA also operate on limits, albeit much higher. And – yes, teams figure out ways to circumvent the limits by finding loopholes. Major League Ball runs strictly on the owners’ size of bank roll.
As you all know, the big difference to football in Europe and North America sports is the spectre of relegation/promotion. If you don’t perform, regardless of the circumstances of the team you get relegated. The resulting loss in financial compensation by a drop into the lower or lower leagues as Wolverhampton have done has either crippled a team or done it grievous damage. The ability to bounce back up is very difficult.
Relegation/promotion is the elephant in the room regarding the differences on two different continents. Here, teams can afford to play the building game over several seasons and for a number of them they continue to build for years after that. Safe in the big leagues and guaranteed the best crop of players out of colleges and minor leagues, with all the TV money coming in regardless of the level of play on the field, the pressure of success is different than football.
Relegation/promotion has made instant success the driving force for newly promoted teams and the only focus on newly relegated teams. It has distilled the process of this success down to money spent by those teams.
Rarely do we see teams able to survive in a building environment with young or unproven talent.
In North America, these players are given several years to prove themselves not a season or in some cases a few games as in football. I suppose the upside is plenty of lower league teams to take up those players.
For Premier League teams to be able to build without massive buys of proven talent, and stay up, is a feat all on its own. For some it is a dwindling position in the league, like Wigan. (One of my favourite examples.) For others, it is success like Everton and Arsenal. Granted, Arsenal have deep pockets but their buy/sell costs are low after 16 years of Wenger (another favourite). Everton have done it on a small scale financially.
As far as the compensation players receive in either system, it is beyond our comprehension as most of us would be happy with just player’s one-week pay for our entire work year. They also have endorsements. If they are lucky, the endorsements are bigger than their playing compensation – David Beckham, for example. The more people they entertain, the more money they will make regardless of open finances, wage caps, or financial limits placed on clubs.
Instead of player trades, draft days every spring for young talent, or the eventual free agent, the Premier League uses the “first to blink” rule of building a team. The weak get eaten by the size of the transfer fee offered to them. It’s a harsher world. All the teams do it. Some on a much grander scale. Holding onto your good players and convincing them that your team is the one to carry you forward in your career is, by far and away, the most important talent your team has.
Villa has gone through the cheap years with Doug, the big spending years with O’Neil, the sharp cutbacks of McLeish and Lambert, and are now finding a more even keel. Staying up while amputating madly and buying cheap stock has been a miracle. The fans didn’t have the comfort of “next year” like fans of the NFL or NHL. It was and always will be this year or drop down. Gut wrenching. Now this year, Villa have done a fair bit of business early. They have a couple of elite footballers in the making. The MO of the team is more positive, more entertaining, and more committed to the team. The chances of all of this caving in on them isn’t lost on the fans, but the fans are enjoying the new face of the team. To be able to tear a page out of North American philosophy on building a team and being successful in such a barbaric environment as transfer windows is refreshing.
The big spenders will always be there but Villa’s new view on building is a lot more enjoyable.
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