Small-time capitalism is good. But beyond a certain size, it falls apart and can even become quasi-governmental. When is somebody going to blend the best part of all political isms to get closer to the best possible form of society
What I’m looking for is perhaps more at a smaller level of local community, not “state” level.
I might consider F1 in that case as it has gained in popularity a lot, and technically it’s owned by a U.S. company, but I’d never think of it as a U.S. league.
With US leagues once it becomes clear what teams are in contention for winning the championship that year, games between the rest teams become a lot less interesting.
With Premier League, teams are fighting for the championship, just like in US leagues. The team that finishes #1 is the champion.
But they are also fighting to get into the next UEFA Champions League season. UEFA Champions League is a league for the top clubs from several European country top leagues. The top 4 Premier League finishers make it (so the Premier League champion and the next 3 teams).
There's also a fight for the #5 spot, because that team gets into the Europa League group stage.
Meanwhile the teams at the bottom of the Premier League are also fighting. The teams that finish in the last 3 places get kicked out of the Premier League!
They get moved to the the EFL Championship League. (Not to be confused with UEFA Champions. UEFA Champions is the league with the best teams from Europe. EFL Championship is a league for UK teams that are not quite good enough for Premier League).
Those 3 teams that get kicked down to EFL Championship League are replaced with the 3 top teams from EFL Championship League. (And it doesn't stop there...there are 7 more levels of leagues blow EFL Championship League, with promotion/relegation between each adjacent level).
Premier League has 20 teams and with 5 top spots to fight for and 3 bottom spots to fight to avoid you can get a long way into the season with 3/4 of the teams still having either a realistic shot of making the top 5 or in danger of not staying clear of the bottom 3.
Further, it’s the teams, not the leagues that make money, which I didn’t pick up in a brief skim of the article. Why would any team want to join an rival league? League monopoly seems like the natural fit, and let the competition happen between teams.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Darts_Organisation (BDO)
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_Darts_Corporation (PDC)
"So successful in fact that it is the fastest growing major sports league in the world, growing 20x in value since 2008 to be worth more than $16 billion today."
:)
If they are not 100% transparent about it, then it's matchfixing.
With "One Life To Live", that sort of surprise is less likely, and they can reshoot it if necessary.
The Jets are not favored to win many of their games. The expectation is that they lose.
There are multiple teams where mediocrity would be seen as an improvement.
However, people buy the jerseys, go to games, etc.
Things like the Combine and draft are becoming events on their own. The games are only there to provide the structure for why we should care about one group over another.
Sports are entertainment.
Which means that there is a sportive completion. There are just a few races happening inside a single event.
However in WWE the outcome is fixed and there is no true competition, but a show of fitness, athletism, etc., a more strength based theater piece.
But the counter argument that I have heard which I find the strongest, is pointing out the extreme physical endurance and strength that they have in order to complete their routines. It does take a pretty high level of athleticism to accomplish what they do.
I think that's a strong argument, but I don't think it's enough to make it a sport. It takes an extreme level of athleticism to do plenty of things that we don't consider sports
Is there enough "top talent" to fund a new league? Take American football: there are more players in high school, than college, because the game gets faster and better; the same goes from college to the NFL. The game changes, too; so. success in college doe not mean success in the NFL. There have been 88 Heisman Trophy winners; but, only 10 have made the NFL Hall of Fame. (The only two-time Heisman Trpohy winner is not one of those ten.)
Did (DO) the XFL and AAF have "top talent"? These were players who were not good to get drafted by the NFL. Sure, some players have from the XFL to NFL; but, that makes the XFL more like a minor league or developmental league -- a notch lower.
Most of these sports are so variable that they qualify as 'unkind' learning environments, per David Epstein's work. Meaning that a large variety of other education is preferable. Patrick Mahomes is a great example. His baseball training has made him a great quarterback.
Point is, if the sport is sufficiently 'unkind' then any player from other sports should be just fine transferring over
They are reported to generate between 50 and 100 million in revenue per season already.
Edit: Got caught not reading the article, sorry. I’ll leave this up as a monument to my shame.
> The three leagues with even an argument for being not total failures are the NWSL, League of Legends Esports (LoL Esports), and LIV Golf. All have unique advantages over their counterparts, and yet none of them are profitable today or even on a very convincing path toward profitability.
> LoL Esports: loses hundreds of millions of dollars annually, exists solely as a marketing mechanism to get people to play the actual game
Unrivaled only launched last year but its going well and I believe going to be a powerhouse in the womens basketball market as well: https://www.unrivaled.basketball/
It’s a sports league with history and has been around for a while, but I think significant popular mindshare only happened in the last 5 years.
But in global terms F1 tried to grow it's reach to China and US. (Which then turned to "night time races" for their traditional European audience.
1970-01-01•3mo ago
morkalork•3mo ago
1970-01-01•3mo ago
LocalH•3mo ago
It doesn't help that there is a partially overlapping mindset that believes that video games are for kids, something to grow out of. Since the vast majority of competitive gamers at the extreme top end are young adults, that theory is incorrect, but those who happen to be in the center of that Venn diagram would probably also deny that successful Twitch streamers have a "real job", etc.
MangoToupe•3mo ago
Many sports require full-body coordination. I would also consider, say, a skilled ballet dancer much more obviously impressive and intriguing than being the best video gamer in the world. The only reason one might not consider it a sport is that it's not as competition-oriented (and I may be completely wrong in that; I can't feign deep knowledge of ballet).
I don't think it's disparaging to not consider video games a sport, either, it just seems like a category error. Much of the skill is simply not visible to people not intimately familiar with the game, the mechanics, and what might be difficult about it. I would put it in the same category as, say, live coding, or watching an expert artisan at work. I also can't fathom, say, the skill it takes to operate a crane as a world-class expert, or ice carving, or fixing a mechanical watch, or blowing glass.
Frankly, I also don't consider most streaming to be a "real" job. But that's probably related to the fact that I don't respect most content that emerges. But you could say the same thing about podcasting, or being an opinion columnist, or a pundit/talking head. This doesn't mean it doesn't take skill or effort; I just think it's not producing much of value.
LocalH•3mo ago
The magic of Guitar Hero is that it does bring a semblance of that performance feeling to non-musicians. If what I feel while playing GH is even 1/1000th of what a real musician feels when they perform their music, then holy shit. It gives me a much greater appreciation for what musicians actually feel when they're performing.
JohnFen•3mo ago
Personally, the technical-ish definition that makes the most sense to me is "if it's a competition and people are gathering to watch it without participating, then it's a sport".
dexterdog•3mo ago
travisjungroth•3mo ago
dexterdog•3mo ago
JohnFen•2mo ago
True. I left out "athleticism" but should have included it. I just took that as a given.
That said, I don't think the idea of debate being a sport is entirely ridiculous. The Olympics had poetry as an event for 40 years or so...
vitus•3mo ago
In the second table, LoL esports is explicitly highlighted as a success by mindshare, but not profitability. And below that:
> LoL Esports: loses hundreds of millions of dollars annually, exists solely as a marketing mechanism to get people to play the actual game
jkafjanvnfaf•3mo ago
There are leagues around some games (like the ones mentioned in the article). There are also events with "league" in the name that are not really leagues (like ESL Pro League). In any case, none of them are financially successful in the US.