Friday, March 29, 2024
logo economy journal
< view full issue: The football business
Juan Pablo Sanz García

​Market forces change football fans' landscape

Sports journalist

There is a substantial business built around football - this is as much in plain sight as there was illegal gambling in Rick’s Café in Casablanca. It was a business since the first grounds were fenced in and began selling entrance tickets. There was more to come when those involved realized that they were the centre of a exhibition that drew thousands of people and that they deserved to be paid for it. Being amateur lost its meaning and, from there on, the ways of extracting financial return from the football environment have multiplied and become sophisticated in such a way that we wonder what is more important these days: the sporting or the economic factor. To put it another way: is football a sport that does business, or rather has it reached the point where it is a business based on a sport?


Negocio del futbol


I am not able to answer this question. What I can do is share is my experiences as an amateur. From this perspective, we view changes in the football landscape from the standpoint that they express reality: in a more that a few occasions, sporting priorities are subservient to business demands that have little to do with the game.


Many of the common places where a "football fan" went to twenty years ago have disappeared or have been transformed due to marketing demands.


Writing this in September facilitates the task of referring to one of the areas that has changed the most in recent times: the pre-season. Until twenty years ago, the planning of the pre-season was structured in two phases: first the physical and tactical work, which used to be done in some lush green area of northern Spain or Europe, and in which the training was punctuated with friendly matches with local teams; then secondly, the prestigious summer tournaments, usually in our own country's coastal towns: Valencia Naranja, Teresa Herrera, Colombino, Ramón de Carranza..


It was precisely during the Carranza competition where the idea was born, then exported to all tournaments, that draws were to be resolved with a final dramatic round of penalty shoot-outs. Large international teams dazzled on those warm August nights: for example in the summer of '92, the Sao Paulo Spanish tour was particularly resounding. Their exhibitions in Cádiz and Coruña had the two greats of Spanish football as their victims.


It was said that, from the point of view of physical preparation, the best possible was to start playing against weak teams and then go up in level. Moreover, this was the conviction summer that planning was adjusted to. Currently, the desire to expand markets leads to pre-seasons in which long trips are made to America and Asia, with a calendar of matches between the leading European blades already scheduled in July. At the same time, muscle injuries proliferate and big clubs usually start at half throttle, forced to make proper preparations on the fly with the official season already under way.


Neither does the team configuration meet strictly sporting criteria


Both in evaluating who to buy and who to sell, the commercial projection of the player weighs heavily, either because of their fame or because they come from a country where the brand wants to expand. In this way, players are incorporated into positions already occupied or high performance players are let go. How many centre-halves can a leading Europe team have? Normally, they don't need even half of what they have already got. In addition, we have to add the vested interests of intermediaries and all kinds of commission-takers that intervene in operations and transfers. This affects the team volatility and hinders their emotional connection with the stands. The fact that a line-up was repeated on a whim was once considered a badge of honour that characterised legendary teams. Currently, Real Madrid is being criticised because they have kept their starting eleven almost intact for the past five years.



Economic motives that push football towards relocation


Physical relocation means that finals of national competitions are played thousands of kilometres away from their home country. Moreover, just a temporary relocation. The football that I remember from my childhood was played on Sundays at five in the afternoon. There were exceptions, but the bulk of the matches were played on that day at that time. Now we have to fill the television schedule with matches from Friday to Monday. The mythical radio evenings with several matches on the go at the same time have already been consigned to fans' sentimental past.


Nor are the stadiums the same. The previous concrete skeletons that European stadiums used to be have given way to futuristic glass and steel cladding. An rash of places providing every imaginable form of leisure, in which the central presence of a meadow marked out with lime lines appears as if it were the occurrence of a postmodern designer, rather than the actual raison d'être of the entire complex. Normally, all of this would be crowned with the name of the corresponding sponsor.


Of course, due to public health regulations, but also because of the globalisation of the football market, the stands no longer give off that distinctive aroma of cigars and pickles. Faithful season ticket holders, suffering and protesting, are gradually being replaced by tourists who generally show a childish enthusiasm for the vicissitudes of the game and the competition. Managers can expect a ’selfie’ from them and profitable visits to the club store, never waving white handkerchiefs in disapproval.


Finally, we might wonder if the backdrop of economic interests does not generate such pressure that it has ended up transforming the game itself, taking away spontaneity. Football has often been defined as a sport of errors, but how can we tolerate error in an event with so much money at stake? Obviously, tactical evolution implies refining the game, making it more complex and demanding a greater technical and strategic level from those involved. However, behind the hyper-tacticism there may be hidden a drive to control by those who do not want to leave loopholes open for the unexpected to happen. Moreover, remember that, as Woody Allen affirmed, it is the capacity for the unexpected turn, for the sudden loss of the plot, which makes the sport such an unmatched spectacle.

Previous
Next

THE ECONOMY JOURNAL

Ronda Universitat 12, 7ª Planta -08007 Barcelona
Tlf (34) 93 301 05 12
Inscrita en el Registro Mercantil de Barcelona al tomo 39.480,
folio 12, hoja B347324, Inscripcion 1

THE ECONOMY JOURNAL ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

THE ECONOMY JOURNAL

THE ECONOMY JOURNAL ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Aviso legal - Política de Cookies - Política de Privacidad - Configuración de cookies

CLABE