By way of an apology, please accept this short, old, but pleasing video:

The average score this week was a reasonable but not outstanding 37.65 points . . . → Read More: Week 3 Results: JTP – Skillful or Spawny?]]> Week 3 was an interesting one. Looking at the Week 3 table you’d be forgiven for thinking it was a very high scoring week. Loads of red usually means loads of points, and there’s no doubt that this has been the most productive week so far this season. But looks can be deceptive. One long black line represents the difference between a decent week and a superb week. One long black line ruined it for all of us. I’m looking at you, Tottenham.

The average score this week was a reasonable but not outstanding 37.65 points per punter. Spurs shock home defeat to hapless Wigan cost punters dear, and had the 0-1 scoreline been reversed the average score would have been 53.35 points. Cheers boys, thanks for that.

So on to our Week 3 winner. Now, at this point I usually congratulate the punter at the top of the weekly table for their skill and perception. This week, however, I am less inclined to. You see, JTP is my mother, and as soon as I saw a 10 and some 5s on scores I knew she’d rushed her predictions and accidentally gone for a high-risk strategy rather than the usual points on results. I put this to her on Saturday and she was surprised and disappointed to hear she’d done this. 5 points on Arsenal’s 2-1 win at Blackburn and 10 on Chelsea’s 2-0 later and she was well on her way to taking the week. So “good” was her performance this week that she became the first punter to reach the 100 point mark, earning her an extra £5 bonus. So, by sheer luck she’s the Week 3 Punter of the Week, takes £15 to spend at Amazon, sits in second place in the League and is leading the race for the season’s High Score prize. No wonder she looks so happy.

League Table	Week 3

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That may sound like a rather confused, garbled statement (and it is!) but let me explain. Product One is the football club. In the Premier League there are twenty varieties, brands if you like, offering . . . → Read More: Professional football does not work, Part 1.]]> Run as a business, professional football is simply unworkable and doomed to failure. The problem arises due to there being two products whose desires oppose each other, plus the fact that one of those products is also the market place for the other. If market forces alone are allowed to influence the game’s direction, football as we know it will collapse upon itself.

That may sound like a rather confused, garbled statement (and it is!) but let me explain. Product One is the football club. In the Premier League there are twenty varieties, brands if you like, offering pretty much the same product. Just like any firm, each club wants to improve to the point of domination. Each and every club, their players, staff and in particular, fans, want the club’s team to win every single game.

That’s the basic function of a football club: Try to win every game.

Product Two is the League. You could take the whole 92 club ladder as a League, the nPower group of three, or each separate division if you like, but the function of this product is to provide competitive, entertaining football.

So, Product One, the team, strives to become a monopoly. Product Two does not want any if its members to dominate, it wants balance and competition. Product Two, as well as being a product in its own right, provides the environment in which Product One exists. This is a rare, possibly unique model. I’m trying to think of another industry where such a strange relationship occurs, but I’ve come up with nothing.

The problem for Product Two is that it relies on the success of Product One for its own success, so Product One has all the power. Football clubs strive to win every game. The more games they win the more prize money and sponsorship money they will earn. They will also attract more fans who buy replica shirts and pay to watch games. As the money comes in they can invest in better players, bigger stadiums. The money will grow and grow. The club will grow and grow. Eventually, either one club or a very few clubs will dominate. This is a problem for Product Two as they will see their value diminish if the game becomes too predictable. But, at the same time they need Product One to succeed and grow because the quality of Product Two is inexorably linked to the quality of Product One. Product Two is therefore hamstrung. If it is too restrictive the quality of Product One could drop.

Product Two faces another problem. Whilst providing an environment in which Product One exists and competes, Product Two itself exists within the wider environment of the international marketplace which means they’re bound by the laws of the land. Any rules they may add to their product could be challenged by Product One if they contradict standard business or employment law. So Product One uses any and all opportunities available in order to gain an advantage over its rivals, Product Two can do little to restrict this.

Of course, it would be ridiculous to suggest that the Premier League is suffering hardship as a product at the moment. In fact, they’re milking the golden cash cow for all the, er, golden milk they can get. Or something. And it’s this that illustrates the main problem with the way the game is going at the moment. Success has led to riches, and chasing further riches has become the number one priority, not just for the teams but for the league too. Product Two is now so in bed with Product One it has forgotten its other responsibility as manager of the marketplace. All hell is breaking loose, and it won’t end until there are tears.

Many people agree that English professional football has become a massively over-inflated bubble which at some point will have to burst. TV money has been pouring in for years but is now slowing. Meanwhile, costs have spiraled out of control both for the Premier League clubs desperate to hold onto their status and also aspiring Championship sides desperate for a slice of the pie. More and more clubs are going into administration as debts rise. And while the huge revenues available to the Premier League teams exist, this isn’t about you change. It’s true that football clubs should be disciplined and prudent in the way they are run. But the authorities have to realise that the greater the prize, the more risks the clubs are going to take in trying to win it. Their responsibilities as governing bodies have increased, not the other way around.

In a nutshell, this post has hinted at two distinct problems in the game, problems that market forces alone can only exacerbate. Firstly, the reduced competitiveness of the league due to increasing dominance of a few powerful clubs. Secondly, the financial timebomb that the success of the Premier League has produced. I shall look into these two issues in more detail soon. Hopefully in a slightly more coherent manner!

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So it would have seemed wrong whilst we were here not to take in some truly American events, the main one being the New York Yankees at home to Seattle Mariners . . . → Read More: Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?]]> As a few of you will know I’m in the USA at the moment on hols, which explains my absence from the site during the first few weeks. It’s a tried and tested formula – we work like crazy over the summer changing the site, and then I bugger off and leave Rob to deal with the consequences. We are touring the East coast – Boston, Connecticut, New York, Philadelphia, Washington.

So it would have seemed wrong whilst we were here not to take in some truly American events, the main one being the New York Yankees at home to Seattle Mariners last Friday. What I should declare upfront is that that the only things I know about Baseball are what I have learned whilst I’ve been here – watching the fleeting moments of sport between the adverts on ESPN, plus talking to people.

The first thing that most people had told us before we came over was that going to the Baseball was a brilliant experience, but a rotten sport. I’m not sure I agree. The experience was brilliant – but I suspect the sport itself could grow on me. Sure, there seem to be some very odd things about it, but it was intriguing enough to make me wonder about watching more. That said, it was frustrating to watch in some ways, with the advantage seemingly loaded with the fielding team.

Yankee Stadium

We turned up pretty early – 90 minutes or so before it was due to start. No matter though, it turns out that the concourse at the new Yankee Stadium is an event in itself. Loads of shops, loads of food, loads of space. The food is an amusing sideshow – they have a law (may just be NYC, I’m not sure) which says that you have to display the number of calories against food that you are selling. So you have these stalls selling the normal stuff (pizza, chips, burgers, hotdogs) with a number next to it to make you think twice. Get this: the chips (and dear lord did they look good) had 1300 calories in them! The bloke next to us had TWO portions, a burger and a hotdog. Amazing. But just to wander off subject for a moment, the perception that most of America is obese seems wide of the mark to me, from what we have seen. I reckon it is worse in England.

Once the game got going, there were a few things which stood out. Firstly that I had bought Angela to see a team that was going to be on the end of a hiding. Again. I seem to have form in this area. Indeed, they lost 6-0. No matter, nobody else seemed to care. In fact it seemed to me that there was a big event going on around the sides, and there happened to be a bit of baseball going on in the middle. People don’t concentrate. In fact half the time, they don’t really watch! We reckon there was a time, around the 4th innings, that the seats were full. The rest of the game it was half full, because people were out eating or shopping.

The other major oddment for me was between the innings. It seems that no gap can be left unfilled, and so you’d get these weird little games going on. An example: between the 2nd and 3rd innings we had the “Subway Train Race” on the big screen. Sponsored by…well yes, Subway. This was a race between 3 computer generated trains. People around us decided who was going to win, and the whole place was enthralled. The cheer for the winner was as big as any of the night!

At various other points the evening took a strange twist into national pride which was cringe worthy. I’ve nothing against a little patriotism, and understand them playing the anthem before the game. But why did we have to do it all again half way through? We had a rendition of God Bless America at what seemed like the least appropriate time of the evening. Apparently they started doing it after 9/11, and haven’t stopped. Talking to American friends here, they find it just as weird.

Then there was the singing of “Take me to the ball game”, and a bizarre bit where everyone danced to the YMCA. You start to suspect after a while that the whole thing is a cheese inspired dream. Either that or maybe the game is a bit rotten, and they are doing anything possible to disguise it. That didn’t seem necessary to me though – the game was alright.

As the 8th innings drew to a close, pretty much everyone left. We followed, unsure how easy getting the subway home would be. But I’d go again – it was fantastic. But trying to compare it to lower league football, as I originally was going to do for this post, is simply not possible. For a start they play so often that getting a thrashing was met with complete indifference. When we get a thrashing it can ruin the weekend. But also the “event” side of things was completely different from football. Most of it wouldn’t work in England anyway, it just wouldn’t translate – and I don’t think we should try either. It worked perfectly though over here – a definite highlight of the holiday so far.