Football Is a Beautiful Business: EPL v. NBA, Part 1
My Column Gets Its Own Graphic!
Like many of you fair readers, back in the halcyon days of 2004-2005, my small sports-addled mind “discovered” three things: Deadspin, Free Darko and Bill Simmons. Perhaps it was due to the dark days of the Bush administration and the rigors of law school, but those three things gave me a daily respite and fueled endless hours of procrastination.
Like all good things, however, I’d like to think I’ve grown up a bit and moved on to greener pastures, such as this here place we call home. Today, Deadspin is a pale shadow of what it once represented to me, Free Darko is not as enjoyable now that I’ve traded the EPL for the NBA, and Bill Simmons seemed to devolve into a one-trick pony of Celtics love and Karate Kid references.
Follow me after the jump to see where this is going…. I promise that it is going somewhere!
So, with this history in mind, it was with a bit of amusement to see that Simmons has indeed decided that this is the season that he pays attention to soccer neé football. I actually think this can be nothing but a good thing…. It gives Simmons something to talk about with fresh eyes when frankly his biggest weakness at the moment is cynicism, and it gives another voice to the anti-“soc-cer?” nation. Besides, it’s always a good thing to avoid “Losing My Edge“-style claims that we were here first.
The NBA Logo... in action
So, last night I listened to Simmons’ podcast interview with Steve Nash, and after a long discussion about Nash’s playing career etc. etc. etc., there was a brief tangent about footy. Essentially, Simmons seems to get the beauty of the game, in that on a good day it is a flowing, collective as opposed to individual sport. I’m not even going to discuss the decision to support Spurs, but, much like Simmons, my first sports love was probably the NBA, and for exactly the same reasons that I know love football.
And this got me thinking, what could the EPL (suck it Barclays!) learn from the NBA, and vice versa.
I’m doing this in two parts, starting with Things that the EPL could learn from the NBA. Part two will be posted on Thursday.
One caveat, I am in no way claiming that any of these are feasible changes to either league. There are certainly some well-grounded and obvious reasons that the EPL and NBA are the ways they are. Also, this list is non-exhaustive and meant to be open to debate. Just think of this as one of those compare/contrast exercises that you were forced to write back high school. Okay? Here goes….
1. Parity Through Salary Cap/Luxury Cap: Although the idea of instituting a salary cap in the EPL is a topic for a future column, let it simply be said that the NBA caps have led to decent level of parity and as a result a broad number of NBA champions. Over the last twenty years, seven teams have won NBA crowns and seventeen separate teams have made appearances in the NBA Finals, compared to what has of course become the dominance of the Big Four in the EPL. Although bad teams do tend to stay bad in the NBA (looking at you, Clippers), the league also rewards good management. It’s no wonder that teams like the Lakers and Spurs have continually been successful even though they’ve worked under the same constraints as the rest of the league, and for the Spurs in a small market no less. Speaking of which, the luxury cap specifically has the marked benefit of supporting small market teams. So, while the New York Knicks and Dallas Mavericks have continually wasted money on excessive contracts (and yes I know the Knicks are clearing cap space at the moment, and yes I know this has improved a bit in the league of late), teams like the Detroit Pistons that manage their salaries wisely can continue operate successfully and at a profit. The EPL is now marked by big market teams with good management (Big Four), small market teams with little money but good management (Aston Villa, Everton), and of course everything else in between. A luxury tax would benefit clubs like Villa and Everton by rewarding their ability to stay at the top of the EPL while allowing them to remain financially viable. It would also leave clubs like Citeh free to spend like crazy, but they would have to provide added subsidies to all the smaller clubs in the league. Again, more on this in a future column.
2. A Powerful Commissioner: It’s a safe argument that no sports official wields more power and has done more to bring success to his league than David Stern, who is now in his 25th year in charge. That power has certainly opened Stern to some well-deserved criticism, but it has been clear that his overriding mission is simply to do whatever is best for the NBA. Contrast that to England, which has the FA, the EPL and the Football Leagues, not to mention FIFA and UEFA above that, each of which each employ a cadre of suits and seem to do nothing but occasionally issue press releases and spout off about various topics. As a result, England is essentially run by the clubs, and making any positive improvements to the league is like turning the QE2. Look, for example, at the well-publicized and disastrous “Respect” campaign last season, which had very good intentions but absolutely no enforcement. After the Malice at the Palace and various other incidents, the NBA by comparison instituted a clear rule about leaving the bench during altercations that, although enforced in a draconian manner, has been completely effective. The difference? Leadership that was unafraid to enforce the rule. Imagine what a similar figure could do for the EPL, assuming of course that he wasn’t a jackass like Platini.
3. Parity Through the Draft: I know, I hesitated to include this because it is completely antithetical to the way the EPL works and how teams develop players. But, I will say this: the NBA is perhaps one of the only leagues in the world where your hometown team can go from a cellar-dwelling also-ran one year to drafting a Lebron James or Dwight Howard the next year. Granted that the vast majority of NBA lottery picks at best only turn into decent role players, and there is certainly no guarantee against busts (as a Pistons fan I still wince when I hear the name Darko Milicic), but at least the draft gives fans hope for the future. In comparison, all a Stupid Fucking Bolton fan can hope for is to avoid relegation for another season, and nothing more.
4. Minority Coaches: For a league with such a sparkling number of players of diverse color, nationalities and ethnicities, it is absolutely shocking that there are no black coaches in the EPL and very few in England in general. Except for the notable exceptions including Paul Ince, John Barnes, and Keith Alexander (honestly I can’t think of any others), the overwhelming majority of managers in England are white. Compare this to the NBA, which is a league dominated by African-Americans, and where by my count there are currently eight African-American coaches. Ever since Bill Russell took over the Celtics, the NBA has a strong history of promoting diversity in the coaching ranks. The NBA also increasingly has shown diversity in management as well (Joe Dumars, Otis Smith, Rod Higgins and Elgin Baylor come to mind). England would be well-served to join the NBA into the 21st Century. Period.
5. Embrace the Limited Role of Technology: In comparison to the NFL and tennis, which have embraced technology but also have constant breaks to allow time for such replays, one of the great fears of using similar technology in basketball or football is disrupting the flow of the game. The NBA seems to have solved this problem by instituting an instant replay in limited circumstances, such as at the end of quarters. The most obvious use of technology in football would be to determine whether a goal has been scored, as Neil Warnock would certainly attest. Given that any such a play usually results in a stoppage for a goal kick or corner kick (or celebration if it’s an apparent goal), and that video could be viewed by the fourth official on the sideline, certainly a very limited instant replay would be feasible, right? Put it this way, no one would claim that the limited instant replays have done anything to ruin the integrity or flow of an NBA game.
6. Create Incentives for Players to Remain with Their Current Team: Without getting into the labyrinthine vagaries of the NBA salary cap (for that, see here), NBA rules allows teams that currently own the rights to a player the ability to re-sign that player in excess of the cap. In other words, next year the Cleveland Cavaliers can offer Lebron James a maximum contract, but only teams under the salary cap (which in an average year tends to be very few) can match that offer absent some sort of sign-and-trade agreement. For non-star-caliber players, this has meant a surprising amount of stability to NBA rosters, as the vast majority of free agents have ended up re-signing with their current teams (the last year has been an exception, owing to lots of cap-induced positioning). The reason being that, assuming that a team wants to keep a player, there is no real economic incentive to go elsewhere. That is, of course, a marked contrast in the EPL and to football in general, where the big teams or aspiring big teams can always offer a gross excess of wages. This essentially forces a club like Everton to sell a Joleon Lescott against their will, because they can never match the wages offered by City and thus have no real right to hold the player against his will. At least in the NBA the decision is made almost purely for on-the-court factors (e.g., will I win a championship?) rather than due to salary considerations.
7. Schedule International Games During the Off-Season: Nothing is more irritating about the EPL schedule than the constant Interlulls throughout the season. For example, in two weeks, just as the leagues are starting to really heat up, we’re going to endure a weekend of World Cup qualifying fixtures, not to mention the biting of fingernails in the hopes that our favorite players don’t come back injured. I know that international matches are terribly important to football, but the scheduling of matches has everything to do with padding the coffers of each nation’s FA and nothing to do with the good of the game. The NBA, by comparison, manages to schedule all of its international matches (the Olympics and qualifiers, and the FIBA World Championship) in the off-season. Although this has meant some problems in the past for American teams that are out of shape, it has also had absolutely no impact on the NBA season. FIFA and UEFA would really be wise to adopt a similar strategy and schedule all qualifying matches during a three-week span in May/June after the EPL season has concluded.
So, that’s that for Part 1. As I mentioned, Part 2 (What the NBA Can Learn from the EPL) will be posted on Thursday!
Comments
Gullit…although not a black Englishman.
The added bonus of a salary cap and collective bargaining agreement would be more work for attorneys.
Jean Tigana did fairly well at Fulham, if memory serves. Nowt spectacular, but a decent enough job.
Also: Tigana = French.
Speaking of Simmons, his podcast guest today is Alexi Lalas.
I think the biggest thing the EPL could get from the NBA is some sanity in the transfer market. Either keep it open till the end of January and get rid of cup-tying players, or close it 24 hours before the first game of the season.
Plus, the international football community needs to recognize that international football is no longer the top dog. Scheduling a friendly three days before the start of the season is criminal, especially since the national teams have no responsibility to the players or clubs. How often have we seen players get injured, miss games for the club, then play for the national team, re-aggravating the injury? It seems to happen to Arsenal players all the time. Clubs need to have some sort of leverage over the national teams. I’m not suggesting that Arsenal should be able to keep van Persie, say, out of the World Cup, but there needs to be some sanity. Theo Walcott (or Aaron Lennon, or another player) shouldn’t be called up to play for both the senior side and the U-21s. National teams need to extend a bit more courtesy to the clubs.
Very nice post. I agree with most, but not really number 6.
1. Plenty of NBA personnel decisions get made by teams purely for financial reasons. Every year, teams are trading for some has been player who is in the last year of his contract so they can ditch their current player who has several years left and ’start over’ next season with more money to spend after the expiring contract goes off their books. Maybe the NBA player has less financial decisions to make (since almost all the teams can offer him identical salaries) but the teams think of the $$$ first all the time.
2. “This essentially forces a club like Everton to sell a Joleon Lescott against their will, because they can never match the wages offered by City and thus have no real right to hold the player against his will.” Everton was under NO obligation to get rid of Lescott – they could have kept him and played him or forced him onto the bench if he didn’t play hard enough. That happens to NBA teams all the time – a guy wants out of a team but they don’t want him to go (or don’t like the offers they are getting in return) so they put him on some ‘injured list’ where the unhappy camper stews. Everton certainly COULD force Lescott to stay, but they would still be paying him and getting nothing in return – and most EPL teams don’t want to do that, but they sure could. And NBA players ‘force’ their way out all the time as well – Vince Carter played poorly until Toronto traded him a few years back, Iverson was ‘too hurt’ to play in Philly until he got shipped out to Denver and suddenly recovered. Other than the teams/players agreeing to tear up the old contract and start a new one with a new (usually higher salary) once the player moves to a new club – the NBA and world socer don’t really seem all that different on this issue.
Here’s one of things I don’t get about European soccer. If there is a transfer, the teams not only have to agree to a transfer fee but the acquiring team also has to come to terms on a new contract for the acquired player. It’s like they have to get a new contract otherwise the player can reject the deal. It seems like if you have a contract and it is traded, you would still have to perform your obligations under the contract. I wonder if this has to do with varying contract laws in the countries or what.
@The Fan’s Attic: I think the varying laws of individual countries as well as laws of the EU come into play.
I have a thought in mind about Simmons. Is it possible that he has restarted his interest in football because ESPN is now involved in broadcasting the EPL and La Liga? I know they had the CL before, but those matches aren’t played at a weekly clip like a domestic league is.
ESPN is now in the business of broadcasting these matches weekly. And it wouldn’t hurt if they’re most popular writer got some of his readers to watch.
Full Disclosure: I do not like Bill Simmons.
@MrRedDevil:
Funny you should say that, because Simmons just addressed that question on his podcast today with Lalas. He says lots of people have emailed him with that accusation, but basically laughs it off and says he’s really just enjoying soccer, and enjoying going off the deep end into it.
I have a love/hate thing with Simmons, but everything he’s done on soccer this year, I loved it. He’s done it well, especially for a relative neophyte, without pretending he’s some kind of expert, but without dumbing it down too much.
Nice little wikipedia entry about the football transfer system. Apparently, you can transfer only if the club agrees to terminate the contract.
Also, just go ahead and say it: Deadspin is shit and has been for a while.
… “soc-cer?” …
OK, that’s it, dammit. It is time for me to shed my fear about asking this, and just frikking ask it finally:
What is it that people are intending to convey when they write this? The whole “soc-cer” thing, I mean. With the hyphen. (And sometimes with the question mark, like in this post.)
What is it supposed to represent, exactly? Is it an imitation of somebody? Is it making fun of somebody’s speech? Is it some well-known cultural reference that I’m too dim to get?
I just see it written like this every so often, and it seems meant to relay some secondary point, but I’ll be damned if I have any clue what that point is.
‘Lil help, someone?
Vuvu-hater,
this became a long-running, to the point of being insanely inane, comment that responded to every footy-related post that appeared on Deadspin…otherwise snarky people thought they were looking smart by acting like footy didn’t even reach their consciousness, much less was important enough to comment on…
It got VERY old, VERY fast. And it continued anyway, to the point where I think even non-footy-fans got bored…
@LTSOFB: Not a dumb question at all! Back when some of us were on Deadspin more often, football/soccer posts especially Hirshey’s column would be met with an inevitable “soc-cer?” comment from one of the Deadspin droogs. Although incredibly grating, it became a little bit of a badge of honor. Anyway, above I used it as shorthand for the football-hating nation. Also, I realize that I might need to start using endnotes to my posts, which really can’t be a good thing.
@jjf3: As always someone just said the same thing much better!
No prob, Spec. Your answer was just as good as mine, just from a different viewpoint…though I did get the feeling that the first “soc-cer?” comment had its own betting line in Vegas by the time UF was being formed…
The “soc-cer” thing is a close relative of “hoc-key.” Generally these comments were made by the same people.
The implication being that the one making the comment had never heard of the word before and was repeating it like a child. I think.
Thanks for the explanation, folks. Was never a Deadspin reader, so I was unaware of the genesis of the expression.
But yeah — I can see how that would be insanely irritating after, like, the first time.
1. Parity Through Salary Cap/Luxury Cap – Whilst an interesting idea, this shows a major difference in the global structure of the sports. Basketball is far too often reduced to only the NBA (honestly, how many teams outside the NBA can you name more than three player of?), whilst football is quite resolutely global, or at least multi-national (Spain, Italy, England, France, Portugal and Germany can boast finalists or winners of the CL in the past 10 years, and then there’s the whole love affair of South America and Eastern Europe, as well as the “smaller” countries such as Holland, Scotland and Belgium who have strong teams). Also, the NBA is a closed league whilst the Premier League is an open league. In order to set up a salary cap, you need to define which clubs are affected by it : English clubs (all of them?), Premier League clubs, CL-participating clubs… No matter how you define it, two problems arise.
– Problem 1 : Closing the league. If you have a salary cap or Luxury cap, you’ve got to define who is affected, and this means generally closing the league to new teams. Whilst in the US this isn’t much of a problem, in Europe it would be a massive problem. How would clubs like West Ham or Newcastle react if they were “cut out”, on the basis that they are “too weak”, or on the other side, how would Fulham react if they were told that “London already had too many clubs”? If you have a two-tier system, then the “average” spend will be too low to allow competition to be fruitful outside of the country, and thus restrict player movement towards the country, whilst inciting the best players to prove themselves outside this “lesser” league.
– Problem 2: Teams not “in”. Say the Premier League does begin a salary cap, based on the average spend. How many top players will remain? Will Essien want a pay cut whilst he sees Chelsea drop players in order to fit “below” the cap, or will he want a transfer to Barcelona/Real Madrid/Juventus/… where he will have the same salary and a better chance of winning trophies? Salary Caps strengthen the weaker teams, but weaken the strongest. So Man Utd, Chelsea, Liverpool and Arsenal might quickly be less competitive in Europe, meaning less income (prize money + TV revenues), meaning less money to spend on salaries, meaning a decrease in the cap (or an increase slower than the rise in other leagues), which in turn makes it harder to attract foreign talent both because of a lack of funds and a lack of success.
A salary cap could work if it was established at the level of a “top European league”, with “conferences” such as England, Spain, Italy, France, Germany, etc., but would still be extremely difficult to negotiate due to the sheer number of clubs that would want to be included and the very possible risk of an “alternative” league being set up by excluded clubs based on the current transfer and salary system, which would likely very quickly attract rich investors who want to “play” (Abramovic, Ecclestone, Mittal, Moratti, Al-Suleiman…), thus being able to attract all the stars away from this “top European league”.
3. Parity Through the Draft – Erm… How? “So Ryan Giggs, as first pick in the 1993/94 season is transferred to Woking FC, and Man U as 89th pick get… ”
A draft is only possible if you close the league. And even then, it discourages teams from training youth. If the Premier League closed promotion/relegation, turned the 1st division into a youth/feeder league, then it could be possible, but it would hardly take your “local team” to any great height. Perhaps this is a difference between the NBA and the English football system, but very, very few peoples’ local League side is in the Premier League. In the NBA a “local” team for someone living in the midwest can be several states away, and even states like Virginia (7,7M people) don’t have a team… It also doesn’t recognise the sizeable international contribution to football (the NBA might be facing problems regulating the draft if teams want more foreign players in the future). Lastly, the NBA has very few players leaving it, and even fewer players leaving it at the peak of their career. This is not a situation comparable to the Premier League, where every season there are players that are amongst the best in their club that leave for foreign clubs, and Premier League clubs buy the best players in foreign clubs. I doubt LeBron James is wondering if he should move for Maccabi Haifa or PAOK if they made a big-money offer for him, but I’m pretty sure Fabregas would take his time to think over a juicy deal by AC Milan or Bayern Munich.
4. Minority Coaches – I’d have to disagree on this one. I don’t think that more or less minority coaches would be better. What would be good is to get the best coaches out there. Most coaches of Premier League sides have spent years as a manager already, often as well as being players at a high level. Black players are very common now, but twenty years ago were not, and a relatively smaller proportion of black players went into coaching than white players. In the next twenty years, the number of minority coaches and managers will surely increase, but I don’t see how this is really something that the Premier League can “learn” from the NBA. How many of the best NBA players were black, and how many of the great players in the English league system since the same time were? This could be considered discrimination (invisible or not) against blacks, but the point is that black players have only become this common in the Premier League in the past 10-20 years, and as such few have the experience required to be a successful manager. I can’t really see how encouraging teams to employ minority coaches would do anything else than undermine the quality of the league for some needless PR. The current Lakers roster is mainly “minority”, and yet I don’t think anybody would consider that ditching Phil Jackson on the basis that he isn’t “minority” is a good idea. Why should it be any different?
6. Create Incentives for Players to Remain with Their Current Team – Again, this only works in a closed league system. For as much as Joleon Lescott might be lured by City’s cash, he was lured by Moyes from Wolves for exactly the same reason. Wolves fans can rightfully complain that when Everton rocked up and started offering him more than they could pay, there was little incentive for Lescott to stay with them, even though they were close to promotion. In a closed league, teams could be given incentives, but they’d have even more incentive to sell their players to foreign clubs, since they would still be able to offer them more lucrative contracts with better chances of winning the “top” award rather than one that would be “artificially” levelled…
7. Schedule International Games During the Off-Season – Erm… You know that the Premier League isn’t the only football league in the world, right? Spain and Italy start their leagues late to allow for the international matches before the season starts, the Brazilian, Russian and Scandinavian leagues (as well as many African leagues) play from May to December, and some American leagues play in two “halves” (February to July and September to December). Why doesn’t FIFA force all leagues to play on the same schedule? A couple of reasons :
– Outdoor stadia. When the ground is frozen, there’s not much that can be done. Same problem when the temperatures are in the high 30C in the evenings. So some leagues have to interrupt the league simply because it’s impossible to play then.
– A more world-wide game. Unlike Basketball, football is really played all around the world. The African Nations’ Cup is in January to February because that is the most convenient time given the monsoon. Playing during the Premier League off-season would restrict the ANC to being hosted by a handful of countries (SA, Egypt, Morocco) where the weather is ok.
– A more democratic international setup. International basketball competitions generally allow for teams that reach a certain level in previous competitions to forego qualifying rounds. For instance, a European team that took part in the Olympics doesn’t have to go through qualification for the Eurobasket (which determines who qualifies for the FIBA WC). This greatly reduces the number of international matches played by any team. A case can be made that many of the international games in football are “useless” (i.e. Spain against San Marino has never resulted in a San Marinese win), but it does show a different approach to the sport, where countries have to repeatedly prove their worth to take part in international competitions. For instance, if the FIBA method of qualification was used for the WC 2006, then Italy (World Cup winners) would not have qualified for the WC, since they finised outside of the top 6 places in the Euro 2004, did not win the Olympics, and would be very moderate candidates for wild-card, since they finished 9th in the Euro, were third in the Olympics, but Paraguay, Spain and Colombia wouldn’t have qualified either, despite finishing higher in either their regional tournament or the Olympics.
[...] Unprofessional Foul unprofessionalfoul.com/?p=5454 – view page – cached Like many of you fair readers, back in the halcyon days of 2004-2005, my small sports-addled mind “discovered” three things: Deadspin, Free Darko and Bill Simmons. Perhaps it was due to the dark days of the Bush administration and the rigors of law school, but those three things gave me a daily respite and fueled endless hours of procrastination. — From the page [...]
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