They finished in their highest standing in the modern premier league (second only to Chelsea). I’d say they can shake off bad purchases fairly well

For the incoming owners, though, they’re buying smaller and smaller pieces of the pie. And it’s a pie whose value isn’t really known — yeah, MLS paid $450m (if Bloomberg is correct) to regain 100% control, but we can’t tell if they overpaid without seeing the revenue figures, and SUM keeps those on some sub-level of…

Yeah, I’m down with that clarification.

I’m not an economist, but Noll and Szymanski are. (It’s my journalism degree that I got from a vending machine.)

You have no idea what you’re talking about. Neil deMause is one of the best-respected writers in the U.S. on the subject of franchise economics and stadium finance. He’s been covering this subject for decades, in greater detail than just about anyone. His book, Field of Schemes, was on the leading edge of covering the…

You’re leaving out such things as stadium debt, which is a thing for most teams, even those that got significant subsidies.

But, sure, I don’t think any of these teams are going bankrupt anytime soon. Just that it’s pretty unlikely that $150m valuation will hold up, especially if the next TV deal isn’t dripping with…

“First, let me assure you that this is not one of those shady pyramid schemes you’ve been hearing about. No sir. Our model is the trapezoid!”

Is that the one where they use two keepers?

clearly the part in quotations, stupid

the part where you say its not a mainstream sport and its a niche market...

Probably the biggest copout argument ever to fall back to the Premier League vs NFL example. “I don’t know what I’m talking about so I’ll just throw it against the behemoth that is the NFL and try to look smart!”

Soccer in America isn’t just the PL - it’s MLS, Liga MX, Bundesliga, La Liga, etc that make up an amalgam…

“Niche market” explains how Premier League clubs are selling 80,000 tickets for summer friendlies and MLS clubs struggle to get 20,000, right?

You were in Arizona and your experience doesn’t sound current, and in fact you sound like you completely lost touch on any pulse within the community here. In fact, there’s…

Sure, but English soccer is not a major sport in the United States. It’s the same for the NFL here, you have to pay far more to watch every game. My only point is that the games were not airing in the U.S. for free. I still pay for cable and have to sit through commercials and advertising that NBC makes money off of.

This is a ridiculous comment, most people on this thread are paying for it NBCSN was not free, you needed a more expensive cable package to watch it. Also most are saying they would pay the fee (even more) if it included everything, but the gold package is piecemeal and is a classic case of NBC / Comcast double…

What’s the local game in America?

No one is really arguing about the cost. It’s more the fact we’re paying for cable and can’t watch those “non-marquee” games on tv or if online/app you can only watch non-televised games and then adding the $50. .

This is a classic double dip; and I excuse my French but it fucking sucks. NBC/Comcast wants the carriage fees they charge cable subscribers to shell out for MSNBC, NBCSN, E! etc. which requires a premium tier to get NBCSN and then they want $50 for possibly 2 or 3 games a year on the streaming service.

It’s not free in the first place. You’re still paying for cable, and they make money off viewers watching advertising. Nothing on television is free to watch.

In effect, then, NBC has taken what was a single great product and sliced it into two unsatisfying parts, making it worse, more expensive, and less convenient than the previous unified whole.

Nope, worse. This is like if Sunday Ticket was streaming only and didn’t allow you to watch what’s on your FOX/CBS/NBC broadcasts. You now need to pay $50 to stream Extra Time matches and have a TV package to see the NBCS/CNBC/USA/NBC matches.