The 39th Game
By Tom Dunmore • Feb 9th, 2008 • Category: Politics and Economics • 13 responsesEverybody is writing about it: The 39th Game, the proposed extra international round of Premier League matches, the idea whose “Time Has Come”.
Some think that for English fans to complain now about the globalisation of football is laughable: that horse bolted long ago, they say. What kind of product did you think you were buying into already?
Many of those protesting the proposal — such as the anti-Glazer Fight For United grouping — aren’t that dense, though. They well know the Premier League was set-up for, and always has been, about grasping every last piece of gold. That’s what they’ve been fighting for years. But they do see this as the final nail in the coffin: “The proposals outlined by the Premier League to play competitive matches abroad mark the final notice that football has ceased to run for the benefit of its supporters, and now exists purely as a money generator for those already fabulously rich.”
The question is whether the 39th game might finally wake up the rest of the sheep (or perhaps lemming)-like fans to this reality.
The Premier League couldn’t have handed opponents of football’s growing disconnect from is roots a better symbolic target than this: The 39th Game, as a neatly-numbered metaphor for a step too far.
The Football Supporters’ Federation already have a petition you can sign (2665 signatures) and a Facebook group you can join in protest (with 853 members right now).
Some believe such action is pointless. Richard Williams, in the Guardian, notes that “all the fans’ protests and Parliamentary speeches in the world will not be enough to halt their project.”
That might not matter, though. The point is whether or not this could finally mobilise enough supporters to say: enough.
Update: for those wondering why the FSF and thousands of fans are so angry about this, it’s also worth reading the FSF’s “reasons” page.
Tom Dunmore is the editor of Pitch Invasion.
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Was football or any sport around the world ever “run for the benefit of its supporters”?
Far be it from me to be cynical about the power of the people, but a Facebook group is, in my opinion, a lame place to start a revolution.
(Pitch Invasion is way better designed.)
It’s interesting that most people seem to think that the powers that be are simply not going to care, no matter what the local public do. I really think that corporations are impervious to mass protest (there’s a good argument that they always have been, but the folklore that has grown around the political movements of the 20th century is still very powerful) - protesting with your feet or your pocket might really have an impact in this case, since the English are still the bread and butter of the EPL. But it would need to be a project of massive scale.
I’m very interested in how governments abroad will view this. I know popular caricature paints a monochromal picture of fanatical acceptance from most parts of Asia, but I can think of at least one city, for starters (my own hometown of Mumbai) where enthusiasm from a small group of people who have both the passion and the money to attend a Game #39 will be completely outweighed the political and economic difficulties of staging such an event in the city. The EPL will probably not find it worth their while to hold a game in any part of the cost-conscious subcontinent. I know there will be a lot of enthusiastic support from elsewhere in the region, but there will definitely be problems, as well.
(And, also - how lame this idea sounds. It’d be like going to an Iron Maiden concert.)
I agree with Roswitha, with the sole reservation that I would only be about 60% opposed to the idea of going to an Iron Maiden concert.
I also think it’s important to note that the fans are not a monolithic group for whom there’s a single set of interests. Even within England, there are many different, conflicting ways of construing what a league that was run “for the benefit of the supporters” would look like. Teams in a league that wasn’t money-driven, for instance, would presumably have less money to bring in the most talented players from around the world. And while there is surely a group of fans who would embrace that possibility, there is just as surely another group who would see it as a great loss. I don’t think there’s any single metaphor that can be used to unify fan concerns in this way, and I don’t think it’s quite fair to call fans who don’t want to join a mass-movement Facebook page “lemming-like.”
I’m opposed to the 39th game because I love the competitive symmetry of the league. But the reaction seems really overblown to me. In practical terms, adding a 39th game and losing a small piece of competitive balance will have less of an effect on the outcomes of league seasons than the decision to allow seven subs in a match, which no one is talking about, and less of an effect on the future of the league than the recent Webster ruling from the Court of Arbitration for Sport, which didn’t provoke anything like this kind of outrage. The 39th game is a stupid idea, but football has endured stupider, and will do so again.
Brian, if there weren’t common interests that unite a large portion of the British football fanbase, I doubt FSF (the group organising the Facebook group) would have over 140,000 members.
That doesn’t mean there’s a monolith, but I think you underestimate how deeply rooted certain principles are in English football. It has a culture that goes beyond consumer choice. (By the way, in the few hours since I wrote this, the petition already has a few hundred more signatures).
Where’s the group organising for The Global Premier League? People prepared to actually do something should have more sway in what happens and the fact they are doing something should tell you why it matters.
The whole point of my post was illustrating that the reaction to the proposal was as much about it symbolising an unwanted change for many, many people. In that sense, you’re right the reaction is possibly overblown, but you can’t then not ask why that reaction has happened. It reflects a deeper concern.
The people I am talking about as sheep or lemmings are those who have taken an awfully long time — for example, Liverpool fans recently — to realise that the way football was being run had actually changed in a way they don’t approve of, but had preferred to ignore. I’m sure many are not in this boat and approve of change — that’s their choice. I’m referring to those who should have opened their eyes eons ago.
The substitutes comparison is deeply misleading: that rule is the same for every club. You can’t lose a “piece” of competitive balance; it either exists or it doesn’t. Ursus expressed why this matters very well on your own blog here.
I honestly don’t think that any kind of organisation against game 39 will have any impact. If the clubs want to do it, they’ll do it because they know that they can treat their fans with complete contempt, because there’ll always be other ones to take their place.
This is no different. A few pissed of traditionalists say “I’ve had enough” and don’t renew their season tickets? Well, there’s thousands waiting to take their place. At least at the very biggest clubs. (I can’t be the only one who thinks clubs with small fanbases like Boro and Wigan should be thinking very carefully about this indeed, they are the ones with the most to lose through this)
TV revenues are astronomical (despite the audience not being nearly as big as they say it is), merch sales are sky high, the profile of the league is bigger than any on earth. They can literally do what they want.
Which is why this will happen, barring FIFA telling them they can’t.
What kind of impact would this have on domestic leagues around the globe? Positive or negative? Would casual MLS fans, going to 4 or 5 local games a year, still go to MLS matches or would they save the cash to go to the EPL fixture once a year? One online article I read Saturday morning claimed said the German FA wouldn’t be opposed to EPL games being held in Germany. Wouldn’t that hurt Budesliga? From what I gather the desired location for the EPL is Asia. Couldn’t they simply arrange more friendlies and exhibitions. While this looks to be the logical path, as the EPL is the most popular league in the world, it still smells of a lame attempt to cash in on a product. As an NFL fan I wouldn’t mind pre-season games held overseas or in Canada/Mexico but regular season games should be held here in the United States. I can feel for the fans in both leagues.
For the record, roswitha and Brian, I’m flying out to Jersey in March….to see Iron Maiden!
Tom, fair point about the deeper implications of the public furor over the ban. For me, the major consideration is that even if I think the furor is an overreaction, I’m still on the side of the overreactors: I’ve signed the petition, too, and I want the international-game proposal to fail.
As a matter of assessing the potential impact of the proposal, I do think that competitive imbalance is a matter of degree. There are slightly unbalanced leagues and gravely unbalanced leagues, and a Premier League with 39 games would be much closer to the former than to, say, NCAA football, which is essentially a broken system. Thus my feeling that some of the apocalyptic rhetoric about the plan is overblown, even as I agree that retaining full competitive balance is obviously the preferable outcome.
But while I’ll go on rolling my eyes when I see sentences like “More than 93% of Daily Star readers said it was the ‘biggest rip-off in football history’ in our phone vote,” I’ll also go on hoping the plan will be dropped. That looks more and more likely based on all the news today, so the rhetoric may prove to be effective, if nothing else.
Micah — For those about to rock…we salute you.
Brian, I would concur that competitive imbalance can vary by degree, point taken there. But what I meant was you either have balance or imbalance, and there’s a big difference on principle over whether you have it or not.
And even if we start by accepting a little imbalance as not that big a deal, would it end there? Better to make a stand now. Too often football fans wait until it’s too late (which is why my original post was perhaps somewhat ill-tempered towards many of them).
Oh, and if your eyeballs didn’t rotate all the way around your head when you read any sentence in the Daily Star, I’d be concerned for you.
Micah — you raise a very good question. I would like to see what MLS (aside from Alexi Lalas) thinks of this. I suspect they will see it as a way to promote the sport in general, and welcome it, but it’s definitely worth serious consideration either way for those of us living abroad.
Few weeks ago i have interviewed Mark Longden of FSF and he mentioned to me that Setanta are not doing so well in England after this new EPL TV agreement. Setanta is also having some problems establishing itself here in Canada with CRTS not issuing them a full license and with fans (at least in my circles) not jumping to pay $15+ per month (we can get GolTv for under $3). Plus Scudamore have already said that they are not expecting same growth in TV revenues. At the same time Bundesliga and La LIga are doing a much better job marketing themselves to the English speaking public.
Do you think this move for the 39th game is a sign of a small desperation by the owner and powers that be to make as much money now, while Premier League is still “the most popular league in the world”?
On the other note i don’t think we can’t compare EPL to NFL, as NFL is the only 4 down professional american football league in the world and fan’s can’t really pick and choose. And EPL is not the only good professional league and TV fans can always use that dial. Know your place Premier League.
Had an opportunity to attend Iron Maiden show in TO last year, great stage and they still know how to put up the great show. Bruce Dickinson should sing “I’m forever blowing bubbles”
Interesting points, Davyd. I think it’s true that many who have bought PL clubs recently gambled on maximising revenue in new and innovative ways, and this is one attempt to do so. If they fail, it will not be good for the Glazers of this world.
Speaking of the FSF, there’s an odd article in the Telegraph today by Simon Hart on the proposal. The FSF wrote to all twenty teams when the idea of playing games abroad was first mooted in October, and Rick Parry wrote back on behalf of Liverpool with the following:
“Our owners have asked me to respond to your letter of October 30th. At no stage has our board ever contemplated the idea of playing Premier League fixtures overseas.
“The matter has never arisen. Given the investment we are making in our new stadium, the last thing we are thinking of is taking matches out of it.”
Hart characterises this as:
“Surprisingly, among those against the concept were the two American owners of Liverpool, Tom Hicks and George Gillett, while Sunderland and Middlesbrough also voiced their opposition, raising a question mark over the claim by Premier League chief executive Richard Scudamore that the proposal had the unanimous backing of the club chairmen.”
What Hart doesn’t see (even though he later quotes a PL spokesman who explains it!) is that their initial reaction in October is surely why the 39th game was pursued and did obtain unanimous backing: to ensure teams did not lose lucrative home games, and were just looking at extra revenue. There’s no sign Liverpool were against the concept in any other way.
[…] and questions remain. The fans have had their say, in the form of protests of both a fiscal and virtual nature (you can sign a petition here if you’re so inclined), but like most fan protests, this is […]
As a matter of assessing the potential impact of the proposal, I do think that competitive imbalance is a matter of degree. There are slightly unbalanced leagues and gravely unbalanced leagues, and a Premier League with 39 games would be much closer to the former than to, say, NCAA football, which is essentially a broken system. Thus my feeling that some of the apocalyptic rhetoric about the plan is overblown, even as I agree that retaining full competitive balance is obviously the preferable outcome.
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