Is Globalisation Good for Soccer?
Don’t worry, I’m not going to turn into Franklin Foer. But economist Dani Rodrik raises an interesting question with regard to the global consequences arising from the massive influx of African players into Europe in recent years.
Consider that soccer fans have loyalties not only towards individual clubs but also to their national teams. So one question is what has the presence of foreign players in Europe done to the quality of the national teams. Following the disappointments of the English national team in recent games, some have suggested that the culprit is the dominance of foreign players in the Premier League and have recommended reintroducing quotas.
Or consider the quality of domestic leagues in Africa proper. The complaint that the exodus of players has hurt these leagues has been around since the 1970s. But I do not know of any serious evidence on this, and I would love to know.
In any case, it is likely that the globalization of the industry has (a) increased the quality of African national teams relative to European national teams; and (b) reduced the quality of domestic leagues in African leagues relative to club play in Europe. So how do we evaluate these outcomes in terms of what ultimately counts: the enjoyment of the fans?
Let’s consider that, after the jump.
I’m not sure why Rodrik picked Africa as his example, as South America would seem to be an easier situation to analyse. Leagues that have flourished in the past have been decimated by the constant drain of talent, which is starting at an earlier age than ever. There are more Brazilians in Europe’s Champions League than any other nationality. This is not good for the South American leagues, despite the cash they rake in from it.
Still, for Daniel Drezner (an academic blogger), this globalisation works out for fans — apparently presuming all consumption is more-or-less equal. Bear with us as he starts using annoying words like ‘utility’.
If we’re really thinking about the fans, then I think Rodrik is omitting a missing utility. Clearly, the migration has improved the quality of the play of European club teams. Furthermore, for most fans, the consumption of sports is a nonrival good — i.e., I don’t lose any utility from others watching or listening to a game.If African fans value high-quality play, then the decline in African domestic leagues can be offset by paying attention to the European leagues. This certainly happened with baseball, as the importation of players like Ichiro Suzuki, Hideki Matsui and Daisuke Matsuzaka have caused Japanese baseball fans to pay more attention to American baseball.
Admittedly, an improvement in the quality of a foreign sports league is not a perfect substitute for a domestic sports league. The globalization of consumption, however, suggests that the fans do not suffer as much from a decline in local sports leagues as Rodrik suggests.
Certainly, it’s wonderful that around the world, those of us who can afford to can tune into La Liga or the Premiership regularly, and watch the best players in the world. I’m grateful for that myself, living in a country with a relatively weak league. Fans do so globally to a remarkable degree, as we know, feeding the dominance of the top European leagues in world culture.
But admitting this kind of consumption is not a “perfect substitute” for a quality domestic league is absurd. For a start, unlike baseball (where we can see pretty much everything that matters at all times on the screen), soccer on television is a vastly inferior “product” (I’m going to stick with his sort of lingo) than soccer in person. Even in High Definition widescreen, just considering the game itself on the pitch, you’re missing out on so much in terms of understanding and enjoying the game. It’s like comparing watching a movie on a video ipod to an IMAX experience.
Secondly, Drezner ignores everything we talk about on this site surrounding supporter culture in domestic leagues. It would be a crying shame if all the passion we see everywhere but the Premiership died; the stadiums need to be full in leagues around the world for the sake of passionate local fans all around the world, and they won’t be if all the good players are in three or four European countries, with all the regular soccer fans sitting at home watching them on television.
Baseball is also a terrible comparison point, as there have never been dozens of good leagues in different countries in that sport: just Japan, as Drezner mentions, and they have only lost a relative handful of players to MLB. If Japan lost almost all their good players as soon as they were of age (or earlier), as is happening to many countries in soccer, their league would surely be in serious trouble too. I’m sure more Japanese baseball fans would then watch MLB, but would they really enjoy baseball more? (Incidentally, a comparison point more apt to the discussion of Africa and soccer would be the way MLB teams interact with Puerto Rico or the Dominican Republic, where much of the talent now comes from.)
There’s obviously a lot here I haven’t gotten into, including questions about the impact on national teams such as England and the disturbing exploitation of young African players by Europeans — surely it’s not only the fans that matter, as both Drezner and Rodrik seem to presume. Perhaps we can cover that in the future, but I’d love to hear your thoughts on all of this.
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Thomas Dunmore
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Stick with the economic terms: you’re comparing the value of football on TV, which in economic terms is a “non-rival good” (anybody can watch it at virtually no marginal cost), versus the value of watching football in person which is very definitely a “rival good” (which only a limited number of people can do).
The only way, in economic terms, that you can think the latter is superior to the former is if you believe you are one of the lucky ones who are going to have preferential access to the rival good.
You could, I suppose, get all Benthamite about this and argue that the
hedonic value of the rival good is so much greater than that of the non-rival good that, on aggregate, the value of the former is greater than the latter. But I wouldn’t count on getting much of a hearing on that from economists.
That all sounds logical enough on its own grounds (though I’m no expert, despite my presence at the University of Chicago, where Drezner himself failed to win tenure), but I don’t want to consider this only in economic terms, nor do I expect or want a hearing from economists.
Your last paragraph makes the point nicely, though.
I think it’s impossible to answer the question “Is Globalisation Good for Soccer?”. We rarely (if ever) think of football as a whole, rather just our own country, league or club.
Whilst globalisation probably works well for the Premier League, La Liga and the Champions League, it’s obviouly not so good for clubs at the bottom end of the football pyramid. I don’t think there will ever be a single development that benefits everyone in the game.
We often talk about the widening gaps between the big clubs and their smaller counterparts, even in the same league. So perhaps in the future people will make a clear divide between clubs they want to watch to enjoy the experience, and those they want to watch to enjoy the quality of football.
Isn’t it interesting that those sides who emphasise an enjoyable experience due to their roots in the local community (see St.Pauli, Barcelona and even Toronto FC) are the ones who receive a lot of positive press. Meanwhile clubs at the highest level can play badly for a few weeks suddenly receive criticism from all angles.
The end result of globalisation of football will be that when certain clubs have their supernova in the Champions League and eventually fade away, they’ll realise that the only thing that keeps them going is the support of the everyday fan, not the countless millions enjoying their “product”. It’s when a club can harness this support (Liverpool, Barcelona, Bayern Munich) that they can really challenge over decades rather than seasons.
for what its worth, I heard on the BBC World Football podcast, that Brazil had a net loss of 500 professional players last year. Something close to 1000 moved abroad, while about 500 came back to Brazil.
Go Maroons!
Joe, all good points. One thing I like about MLS is that being a supporter still has a community feel to it, with everything being more accessible, compared to the alien insanity of the Premiership.
Mark, those are remarkable numbers for just one year. By the way, was that on the World Football phone-in? That show is very good, especially compared to every other phone-in on BBC Five Live.
I think its clearly a problem especially when you have nations like Brazil who further the problem by shopping their national team around the world rather than playing friendlies at home. But you’ll never see quotas in the Premier League teams like Arsenal have too much power and foreign talent to accept some sort of 5 English starters rule. Not to mention I’ve already seen disgruntled quotes by foreigners (don’t remember who) that play in the PL saying how unfair it would be. Actually I believe even Moritz Volz stated his unhappiness with the idea, understandably so.
Like you said as a fan of a weaker league its hard to celebrate globalization even when we see both sides of it. Some of America’s best homegrown are parading about in Fulham and elsewhere while some of the best in our league are Mexican, Colombian, and Brazilian. So when I think of it I find it hard to complain too greatly. But I believe MLS is in the middle of the global soccer pyramid. Good enough to serve as a launching pad for unrecognized talent but not good enough to pay potential greats.
It boils down to capitalism I suppose, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. But I’ve said my part and I’m just repeating now so I look forward to what others have to say.
It seems that most people have no understanding of what it means to be a fan. The reason sports has always given meaning and excitement to fans is not just the skills they are watching. But more importantly it is a feeling of connection with the team and players. Why do most people support their local teams? Because it represents your area and your community. Now if the team is made up of no local players there is a disconnection. If I know that at least some of the players are local youth it will make the sport that much more interesting to me and I would guess many other fans. Sapp Blatter’s proposal to have a quota system is a good balance and it strengthens the historic ties fans traditionally held with their players, many of whom were local talent. That is more important to me than fielding a team that is made up of superstars who have not the first clue what the club means to means to the fans. I would rather lose with local talent, people I know or have a connection with, than win with players who are on the team because of money and nothing else.
Pietro makes one good point but misses another – yes, we want the local connection, but it’s a connection to the FANS and CLUB not the TEAM and individual PLAYERS. I’ve been a Spurs fan for decades (since the 60s), but I couldn’t tell you where a single one of the players came from. I admire individual players, but their origin is just about irrelevant and has been for a very long time
I’m a fan with other fans – we went to games together (when I was in the UK) – and supported the team together.
So the local connection is around the club, not the nationality or origin of the players.