Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal included not one, but two pieces of football-related reporting. And you won’t find either one on the sports page, either. (Yes, there is a sports page in every Friday’s Weekend Journal ).
I’ll give you three guesses at what I find objectionable in Culture Clash: Soccer Fans, Art Elite Butt Heads. This fascinating story describes how Basel, Switzerland is coping with the nearly simultaneous influx of football supporters for Euro 2008 and visitors for “the world’s most prestigious contemporary art fair.” The latter include the sort of people who are prepared to pay $600,000 for a sculpture that’s comprised of numerous small rooms, each decorated with political images.
Dear readers, you’re no doubt seething with indignation, as was I. Something is wrong with the world when honest, hard-working supporters of the Swiss and Czech national teams must share Basel with denizens of art snobbatoria from around the globe. But would you believe that the WSJ has a different take on this? They’ve quoted a New York art advisor who claims that “soccer hooligans drove our room rates through the roof.” Curiously, she believes that “This has ‘Christopher Guest movie’ written all over it.”
Does she mean a film like Best in Show? And the art people are like the high-strung, status-conscious couple whose weimeraner attacked one of the judges? (You really must see this film, if you haven’t already).
We see a photo of a wild-eyed, flag-waving man and boy juxtaposed next to an elegant couple standing in front of a no doubt significant piece of modern art. Most of the article is spent describing the art crowd’s dismay, but the author did apparently speak to one footy supporter. He is a social worker who counsels “troublesome soccer fans.” Really, I’m not making this up.
In Soccer Players Drain Coffers,
Steve McGrath takes a look at a recent Deloitte report on wages, revenues, and profitability in European football. (The full article is not available online without a subscription. If you have access to the print version, please see page C2 of the WSJ, May 30, 2008).
There’s nothing offensive about this story, unless you’re a Chelsea fan. During the 2006-7 season, Chelsea paid 132.8 million pounds in player salaries to Arsenal’s 89.7 million and Manchester United’s 92.3 million. I suppose Chelsea did win two trophies in 2007 (the Carling Cup counts, right?) and United only won the Premiership. The Journal said nothing about this, noting only that neither London club has won the Champions League.
Other interesting facts: John Terry was the highest-paid player in the Premiership in 2006-7, Premier League salaries as whole are 75% higher than those in La Liga, and Bundesliga operating profits of 250 million euros exceeded those of the Premiership (141 million euros), for the first time ever. As a percentage of revenue, player salaries at top clubs are at record levels (63%). High salaries lead the clubs to take on debt and raise ticket prices…etc., etc. You won’t catch me wringing my hands over any of this, though. When fans stop buying tickets and watching televised matches, the salary spiral will stop.
There’s supposed to be no such thing as bad publicity, but I think that the tiresome, offensive tone of the Culture Clash article far outweighs the Journal’s neutral coverage of European club football finances. The former, after all, occupied a prominent front-page position in Friday’s popular Weekend Journal and “Soccer Players Drain Coffers” was placed on page two of the Money & Investing section.
That probably wasn’t obscure enough for John Terry, though. The Journal still had room to run the now-famous photo of him seated on the rain-soaked pitch after that critical missed penalty in last week’s Champions League final.
Tags: Arsenal, Bundesliga, Champions League, Chelsea, Euro 2008, football, John Terry, La Liga, Manchester United, Premier League, soccer
June 1, 2008 at 1:48 am |
[...] Original post here [...]
June 1, 2008 at 4:00 am |
Yes, Susan, it did seem that the footy fans in Basel were getting short-shrifted. However, you might have been slightly unfair to the art crowd. Need I remind you of the edifying conversations that modern art is able to inspire, like this one outside of MOMA?
(Isaac and Tracy running into Yale and Mary)
Isaac: We were downstairs at the Castelli galleries and saw the photography exhibition. Incredible, absolutely incredible.
Tracy: Yes.
Mary: Really, you liked that?
Isaac: Er, yes, the photographs downstairs – great, absolutely great. Did you …
Mary: No, I really felt it was very derivative. To me it looked like it was straight out of Diane Arbus, but it had none of the wit.
Isaac: Really? Well, you know, we didn’t really like them as much as the plexiglass sculpture, that’s what I meant …
Mary: … Really, you liked the plexiglass, uh?
Isaac: You didn’t like the plexiglass sculpture either?
Mary: Uh, that’s interesting. No, er, …
Isaac: It was a hell of a lot better than that steel cube. Did you see the steel cube?
Mary: Now that was brilliant to me, absolutely brilliant.
Isaac: The steel cube was brilliant?
Mary: Yes. To me, it was very textural, you know what I mean? It was perfectly integrated, and it had a marvelous kind of negative capability. The rest of the stuff downstairs was bullshit!
It would be fun to juxtapose a conversation like that with one about the wonderful negative capability of the Italian catenaccio. Maybe Basel will be just the place for it to happen.
I’ll comment later on the money and football article. That one I’ll treat seriously since finance and numbers are involved.
One last point for tonight: the WSJ is usually pretty soccer-friendly. They had quite a few favorable articles leading up to the last WC.
June 2, 2008 at 12:29 pm |
Sadly, we won’t hear a conversation about the Italian catenaccio mingled with some incomprehensible art commentary because the Italian side is not scheduled to play in Basel during the art fair. They’ll be there only if they make it to the quarterfinals later in the month. By then the art crowd will be long gone.
Steve, you are such a genius! (I’m not worthy, I’m not worthy)! Only you would think to look up one of our favorite film clips ever–from Manhattan (back when Woody Allen was producing his funniest material). How many times have we applied the “negative capability” quote (to The Girl, mostly)? But of course, it’s best used for Italian football, as the negative style was capable enough to win the World Cup.
You are right that the Journal is usually pretty good in its footy coverage. It has to be, as soccer is the sport of choice for so many of its readers. The world is shrinking, markets are global, and no one can afford to be captive to provincial attitudes, even in sport. But I felt that the art/soccer article was egregious in portraying every soccer fan as a troublemaker. That’s one attitude that simply will not die in the American press.
As for the wages/profits article, it’s interesting but doesn’t tell the full story. That would require a more thorough examination of the books of all the clubs involved.
June 4, 2008 at 7:04 am |
Don’t know anything in depth about the monetary aspects of the articles. The one thing that made me cringe (as it does with every media source in America), is how soccer fans are portrayed in the article (the ‘Culture Clash’). I think it’s a dumb generalization. American media always seems to be on top of the soccer rioting and hooliganism that occurs throughout the world. Most of the time the score of the match, or in other cases, who was playing doesn’t matter. Though, I’m sure some Europeans see us American football fans as beer-drinking, bratwurst-inhaling, noisy oafs. Not that there’s anything wrong with inhaling brats and drinking beer
The article gives the impression that the affluent art lovers are afraid to be around or near soccer fans. Or that soccer fans are to be “feared” or kept at a distance.
“Some visitors are staying farther afield. Munich collector Betina Gerlach says she started searching for a room in Basel six months ago but eventually gave up and booked a room in Zurich, about an hour away by train. Other fair-goers are staying several hours away in French towns such as Strasbourg or closer by at German towns like Freiburg.” (Crow, Kelly)
All because some soccer fans are going to be present? Come on. I too noticed the picture of the Greek fans and the one of the more subdued couple admiring a painting/sculpture, and thought it was a nice extreme of pictures they chose to make their point.
I will have to leave it at that for now, lest a book is written here about what I’m thinking.
June 4, 2008 at 3:41 pm |
You think exactly as I do, R.S. I think a lot of journalists are guilty of lazy thinking. It’s far too easy for them to generalize about everything and they’re always seeking a quick and provocative story. Of course, I’ve probably done that, just for fun, on Soccer Orb.
I like your new site and am pretty impressed at all of your Euro 2008 previews. I am never bold enough to predict who will win. Who would have predicted Greece four years ago? Actually, I haven’t thought that much about it and it’s only three days away. I’ve been watching French Open tennis (go Federer), and Steve & I have our anniversary today. But I’m sure I’ll be immersed in soccer starting Saturday, except for when Wimbledon rolls around.
June 5, 2008 at 6:29 am |
Well, Happy Anniversary! You like tennis too? If I have a favorite player, it’d have to be Rafael Nadal. Not because he’s from Spain but mainly because of the way he plays. The rivalry between he Federer is always a great one, almost like Sampras and Agassi. Maybe Nadal’s streak at the French Open will end this year. Federer would be the one to do it.
What’s up with your first response? “[...] Original post here [...]“, what is that?
June 5, 2008 at 10:10 pm |
I do not know what that top thing is–good question. I should probably delete it.
I’m a big fan of Rafa too. Anyone who can win the French 3 times running (is it 3 or 4) is both very patient and a tremendous athlete. But I want Federer to win this year, though I think he will not do it. I’d like to see Federer win the French and Nadal win Wimbledon, just to keep things interesting. I wouldn’t even mind Djokovic, and definitely Ana Ivanovic. That would be fun to see two Serb champions.
Are you excited about Jozy going to Villareal? I am, though I know it will be a while before he settles in and gets a spot on the first team. I just hope that he gets adequate playing time before 2010, if you know what I mean. I have BIG hopes for him. Did you see the Spain-US game yesterday? Freddy looked good–it was a shame they took him out at the half…haha, I need to leave this comment at your site, R.S.!
June 6, 2008 at 5:08 pm |
I’ve been wanting to do a little statistical analysis on that wage data you cited, Susan. Today I finally snuck in some time to locate it. What I’m interested in is not so much each club’s wage level itself, but rather what they get for their investment. Here in the states we’d call it the “bang for the buck”. In England, I don’t know they’d say. Quality for the quid? Points for the pound? Woot for the wedge? Anyway, I found the most recent player payroll figures by club, stated in millions of pounds, from the Deloitte report. This was for the 2006-07 season.
I then matched these salary numbers up with the clubs’ point total from league play that season. You might argue that cup tournaments should have a chance to add to that productivity number, but it’s cleaner to ignore it rather than to obsess over how much to weight those non-league matches. Simple point totals offer decent comparability across clubs.
As most anyone would guess, there’s a strong positive relationship between success and payroll. The plot linked here shows this:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/27428912@N04/2555637101/
What to me is more interesting, though, is to look at the clubs that appear far above and far below the fitted line. (A regression through all 20 data points shows the best fitting straight-line relationship between wages and points.) A club that had more points than its wage level alone would have predicted would appear above the line. This is a measure of how effective they were in turning wages into results. Clubs that aren’t so efficient will appear below the line.
Not surprisingly, all the demoted teams last year fell below the line. Another notable underachiever was Newcastle. It seems they’ve had a reputation for that recently. (Money alone doesn’t alleviate boredom, eh Kev?) On the other side of the “quality for the quid” spectrum is Man U. They had a whopping 17 points more than their wage level would have suggested. Others that did well by this metric were Spurs, Everton, Bolton and Reading. For the Royals, mean reversion kicked in this year, but that’s another story.
Chelsea is an interesting case. If you squint at the data the right way, you might see a kind of levelling off in Points at higher Wages. If a curved line were fit instead, with Chelsea influencing the fall-off, we’d be showing diminishing marginal productivity. (Does this make you nostalgic for your days in economics, Susan?)
Anyway, even just this simple analysis seems revealing. Of course, I’m predisposed to anything that makes Man U look good.
June 6, 2008 at 6:45 pm |
No time for much of a reply Steve, but thank you for putting together that little regression analysis! We’ll talk more about it…
So Man Utd. have a big residual…much of that must be due to Sir Alex, right?
Nostalgic for my days in econ…nah…never did I look at anything quite so interesting. Is there an audience for a more extensive soccer-metric analysis? It’s an exciting prospect…got to run!