Sports business, not delivering on its promises, it’s just more money for equal excitement.

The sports business (set apart from sport), is an entertainment business, just like film, music, theatre etc. The ‘actors‘ involved rehearse and then perform, albeit in competition with one another.

We all grew up playing some form of sport, irrespective of whether we loved it or hated it. This participation, even if it just remains an occasional hobby, allows us to better appreciate the skill, talent and achievements of the sportspersons who excel at our sport.

And, it goes without saying, elite sportspersons have abilities that are far greater than our own; further prompting this sense of wonderment. Personally, I am lucky to have been friends with, and trained alongside, Triathletes who were at the pinnacle of the sport, and I can attest, they were/are truly extraordinary people.

Like it or not though, the aim of the sport ‘business’, like the entertainment business, is (sports), entertainment. And, I would argue, that despite all the skill, talent, effort, training, preparation, and obscene quantities of money that goes into (certain), sports, they are no more entertaining to modern audiences now than they were to audiences 25, 50, or even 100 years ago. This is not a criticism of the sports stars, it’s just reality.

It begs the question - is it worth all that money; or better put, has money hijacked (certain), sports to manufacture a sense of awe (that was frankly already there), with the aim to value the golfers, tennis players, athletes and footballers etc. far beyond the value they actually create for their fans and audiences? Yes, is the simple answer.

Watching the recent Olympics, no one is more excited by a race in which first, second and third are separated by hundredths of a second, than they were 50 years ago, when the margin was perhaps an appreciable 1 or 2 seconds. Audiences are not more thrilled by a world record being broken at these 2024 Paris Olympics than they were in 1924 at the last Paris Olympics - In fact, I would suggest, the pioneers of sport were more exciting than modern-day athletes, as they achieved more with a lot less, and their achievements more appreciable to audiences.

So, if the aim of sport, for its audiences, is to be thrilled, excited and entertained by the spectacle, then it certainly achieves that, but it is not achieving it any more, or any better, than it ever did.

Which begs the next question - why pay more for the same level of entertainment?

Football a good, bad example.

I am not interested in football (soccer); but it is a good example. I always argue that nothing happens in football, despite the ridiculous amounts of money spent on players and the enormous cost of tickets etc. In fact, since the 1970s, there are on average 1.5 less goals scored per professional match than at anytime before, going back to about 1860. So football has actually gotten worst over time, as it has become a lot more expensive to watch.

The monetisation of football tries to create a mythos around teams and players simply to merchandise them, and convince you their value is somehow higher than other players, or those of yesteryear. It is not. What the Premier League and others are really saying is, if you believe that we have created something special, we can milk you (and our own business model), for more money. If you stop believing we can‘t; so for god’s sake, please keep believing, and we’ll help you by continually evangelising about how much excitement we’ll deliver, and charge you even more for our ‘premium’ experiences.

If there is any improvement in football, it is subjective and imperceivable to most fans - as mentioned, it is not evidenced in goals scored. Professional football is now just a marketing platform; over charging audiences for tickets, and selling fans overly priced shirts, to help pay for its overly priced players.

￡3.6M is the current average annual salary for an English Premier League player, which compares very badly to that of a Division 1 players in 1966, which was around ￡1.2K, when England actually won the World Cup.

That is a 3000% increase, for players who can‘t perform as well; or to be generous to them, are just not as entertaining. The nostalgic excitement of the 1966 World Cup win, which is relived nostalgically, and monotonously, in England, was won for peanuts. (Please don‘t tell me World Cup players today only get 2K per match which they donate to the Football Federation charity - I know, but how can they afford to, save up in advance…?).

Yes, stadiums cost money, as does travelling with players and teams, but football‘s business model is not the business of football, it is advertising, and it’s not even advertising football.

In brief, they sell the broadcasts of their games to TV companies who encourage third-party businesses to pay to advertise during their broadcasts; over-promise on the idea that the games are going to be amazing, just so audiences will watch the third-party Ads interspersed with some football - remember, the football is a cost, the Ads are an income.

It’s a model which creates a perpetual circle of increasingly paying too much - for broadcast rights, for players, for subscriptions, for match tickets, for ad nauseam pundits; all ultimately supported by the persons who can least afford it, the fans. Who are just not getting any more excitement for all the extra costs they bear.

Frankly, this is what happens when you permit private equity to get involved. The fans who are really passionate about their team get fleeced and the team ladend with debt. Manchester United currently owes circa 990M$, and they finished 8th last season, from 20. That‘s 7th loser. Lose lose for ManU.

The only differences between Premier League football and the lowest divisions‘ football are its availability on TV and Ads, and the fact that the players from the lower league teams may well actually come from the town or city they play for. The games are no more exciting, and the supporters no more enthusiastic. Perhaps, the quality of football is imperceivebly better (everyone is a pundit), but they are not scoring any more goals in the Premier League than in the third division, and that‘s the ultimate aim of football, surely. It’s how teams win trophies.

For the Liv of golf!

Football is not unique to this advertising business model. It’s the same with F1. Which in 1930‘s with the like of Tazio Nuvolari or Rudolf Caracciola was actual racing, and not a carnival procession of 'look how much digital tech we can squeeze into a car‘, and still not win.

And, I am sure you can think of many other examples, like tennis, or golf (with seriously stupid Saudi money and a change of format to try and make it more entertaining, it ain’t). Or ski racing in which the difference between first and second is frankly impossible to appreciate.

Not all sports are alike. Triathlon, for example - triathletes, despite training considerably harder than footballers, being fitter than footballers, and providing an equal level of entertainment value to their fans, get nothing like the salary. Because, business cannot package it up for advertising and merchandising purposes in the same way. Thank god, as is preserves the sport as a sport, not a consumerised marketing gimmick. The fact that amateurs can also race alongside professionals in the top races also makes it special.

Merch‘.

Then there is that merchandising, another means for you to participate in the sports (business). It is just overpaying players and athletes to be what is effectively modern-day sandwich-board persons. But instead of sports stars getting the fans to do what their ‘sandwich-board‘ says, ‘Give yourself to God’, or ‘Eat at Joe’s’; the fans are actually buying the sandwich-boards for themselves. The merchandising message is, ‘buy this sandwich-board and you can be just like me, the sports star‘. Spoiler alert, you can’t. Not even close.

How blind are we, or more accurately, how dumb have we become to have allowed ourselves to get into this position? Surely the shirts etc. which promote third-party sponsors should be free, or the firms displayed on the shirts should be paying fans to wear and advertise for them, isn‘t that how it works on TV and in social media?* Firms pay to advertise, not suckers being told ‘you will part of the team‘, and paying heavily to be walking advertising billboards, necessitating costly annual updates.

(*Actually no it isn‘t…other suckers are actually paying to watch football, and other sports, in between Ads breaks. Imagine that, paying money to be advertised to!)

Sorry Ronaldo, you just ain’t worth it mate.

Elite sport, as I have said, is played by extraordinary persons, and is truly a spectacle to wonder at; but it always has been, that has not changed. The cap wearing moustachiod gentlemen playing football in the 1860s were as extraordinary to their fellow citizens as the players of today are. The likes of Eric Liddell winning the 400m in the 1924 Olympics, dressed in his cotton vest and shorts and leather shoes, was as great a hero to his fans (they even made a film about him, Chariots of Fire), as Quincy Hall was this year (but no one will make a film about Quincy).

The enthralment and the excitement they all created; and, value they all created for their audiences was equal. But the money audiences now pay for this equivalent excitement is ridiculous and unjustifiably incomparable. Note, Eric and colleagues were all amateurs, admirably demonstrating that sport does not need money to be amazing. In fact Olympians were primarily all amateurs until the late 1980s.

The sports business is not improving sport. Sportspersons are not thinking, I want to be the best because I’ll be on Sky TV, or wearing a sponsor‘s name on my chest - I would argue this added pressure, and the necessity of becoming a (social) media personality, is actually a massive distraction for them, just ask Simone Biles.

No, they want to do their best, to be the best, for the wholly intrinsic reasons of just doing their best and being the best - which is the primary point of sport, is it not? And the reason you and I were encouraged to do sports at school and after. And, why it has contributed so much to my, perhaps yours, and others‘ lives. The sports business has made the reasons for sport wholly extrinsic for wholly selfish business reasons, offering little in return to the fans other than costs.

The Olympic Values are: Striving for excellence, Demonstrating respect, Celebrating friendships. How does the sports business contribute to any of these? The short answer, it doesn‘t.

We don’t need the sports business. Let‘s make sport wholly amateur again, it will be just as exciting, and a whole lot less expensive for everyone.

So go out and support your local amateur (whatever), club, race, event etc., you’ll be just as thrilled, and it will cost you nearly nothing, you may even be better inspired to participate yourself, and you don’t need a bloody screen to watch it!

Go well, SimonQ