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11
Insight
There is a similar story in the National Football League (NFL) in
America as well with strike action averted just six weeks before
the new season was scheduled to commence in September.
Player representatives and owners inked a new 10 year collective
bargaining agreement revising operating terms after the players
had been locked out all summer.
The old deal saw the revenue split between players and owners
at 50/50, with the owners evidently redressing the balance to 53%
to 47% in their favour and seeing the salary cap reduce by 6.25%
on the previous agreement - a resolution that football clubs in the
UK long for on the back of wage to turnover proportions exceeding
60% in the top flight.
So is sport in the US a more harmonious place? No, we see a
similar picture if we look at the other national sports in the US –
the most recent unrest in the National Hockey League (NHL) saw
the entire 2004-05 season lost to lockout and the 1994 strike in
Major League Baseball (MLB) was the eighth work stoppage in its
history.
Obviously greedy players and unscrupulous agents sour the
experience on UK shores but difficult players have been dealt with
without the footballing world ever grinding to a halt.
While a wage cap that would bring players’ spiralling wages into
check seems appealing to football fans in England, it is clear that
regulation in the US encourages socialist sharing of wages. An
average annual salary of £1.16m per year in the Premier League
is nothing to be sniffed at; however clubs from the Premier League
make up only one entry on the top 10 paying sports leagues in the
world. Real Madrid, Barcelona and Chelsea occupy three spaces
while the rest are shared between six NBA teams and one MLB
team (incidentally top place with the New York Yankees, paying an
eye watering £90k average per week).
European and American sport are at opposite ends of a socialist –
capitalist scale. We pride ourselves on having the most competitive
leagues and legacies of teams throughout history based on a free
market where the richest and most successful teams can buy the
best players. The Americans operate a system whereby no team is
relegated, each team’s financial clout is put in check and the worst
teams in the league are rewarded with the best player draft pick for
the next season to maintain parity across the division. We complain
about spiralling wages and the predictability and dominance of the
richest clubs. They complain about lack of competition and strike
action when respective parties argue about money.
Professional sport in the US looks very much like a group of very
rich people squabbling over how to divide their billions. There is no
relegation or promotion in American professional sport and therein
lies the problem, teams pay their franchise fee and are then entitled
to participate in the insular money making party where the income
is split between fewer people.
The recent revelation that a group of the foreign owners in the
Premier League called for the abolishment of relegation and the
subsequent fan outrage showed that we are not ready for the
‘closed shop’ franchise approach of the US. I cannot imagine
wanting to watch sport where natural competition through grass
roots to elite level was effectively eliminated and the players and
owners just got richer.
I follow sport because it is a pastime and an escape from daily
work. It is supposed to be enjoyable after all. I don’t want to pay
my hard earned cash to attend games and follow sport to see a
business being run. Where is the romance in that?
Touchline is reproducing a short
article that appeared in TIME
magazine, which took a look at
superstitions that have become
intertwined with the wide world
of sports.
Rest before the game
By denying players a bit of bedroom fun
with their wives and girlfriends, some
coaches think they will get more mileage
out of their players come match day.
Curse of the Bambino
Legendary baseballer Babe Ruth is said
to have cursed the Boston Red Sox
when they traded him to the Yankees in
1919. They went on the wait for almost a
century before they next won in 2004.
The Playoff Beard
Bjorn Borg was one of the high profile
players who would grow a beard when
the big games were about to start. This
superstition probably has major sponsor
Gillette tearing at their hair.
Lucky Shorts
A lucky item of clothes is one of the more
common superstitions known to haunt
players. Michael Jordan’s quirk was a bit
different: he wore a pair of University of
North Carolina shorts UNDER his Bulls
shorts for his entire career.
The Sports Illustrated
Cover Jinx
While many athletes have avoided the
Sports Illustrated jinx, sportspeople
have been known to suffer professional
disasters soon after appearing on
the cover of this iconic magazine.
Lindsey Vonn bruised a shin after the
cover appearance, and weirdly, of four
Yankees players featured in 2010, three
were injured within the same week.
Warming Up To
Chicken
Hall of Fame third baseman Wade Boggs
ate a meal of chicken before every game
he played.
The Ritual
LeBron James has taken pre-game
superstitions to new, attention-grabbing
heights with his ritual. It involves a range
of choreographed moves, ending in a
spectacular shower of chalk dust.
Perfect Silence
Baseball tradition demands that should a
player be approaching a perfect game or
a no-hitter, no one on the team mentions
it. This way, the player about to attain
these rare benchmarks will not become
jinxed.
Bloody Spooked
Boxing phenomenon Manny Pacquiao
refuses to have blood drawn for doping
tests any less than 14 days before a
fight. He believes that “it will weaken me
if blood is taken from me just days before
the fight.”
Jersey Numbers
Jersey numbers become synonymous
with their owners: Christiano Ronaldo’s
7, John Terry’s 26. Michael Jordan’s 23
is perhaps most famous, and when he
took the 45 after his come back, things
just weren’t the same.
Top 10 Sports Superstitions