From: "Rosser Jr, John Barkley" <rosserjb-AT-jmu.edu>
Subject: M-TH: Re: The Pack
Date: Tue, 28 Jan 1997 18:11:32 -0500 ()


    Sorry for my earlier abbreviated response, but I was 
running out the door.  I do not have all the answers to all 
your questions, but a few further remarks.
     1)  First of all we are talking about American 
football which is not the same as "football" everywhere 
else.  That is known as "soccer" in the US.
     2)  It is a close race between football and baseball 
for #1 in total revenues, but the trend has been for 
football to be gaining on baseball over the longer haul.  
Baseball has been traditionally the "national sport."  
Basketball is gaining but still definitely third and ice 
hockey is much further back in total revenues.
     3)  In both baseball and football there are two major 
professional leagues.  The final showdowns of the seasons 
are between the leaders of each league, the "World Series" 
in baseball, ridiculously named given that baseball is 
played very well in Japan and many Latin American 
countries, and the Super Bowl in football, just won by the 
Green Bay Packers for the first time in 29 years.
    4)  The egomaniacal billionaire owners tend to have 
elements of both "hobby" and "business as usual."  They are 
usually really into the sport and the team, but also are 
usually out to make money off the team as well.  Hence the 
high stakes negotiations with cities for funding stadiums 
and the increasingly regular phenomenon of owners moving 
teams from one city to another, often a team that has been 
long entrenched in the city (the move of the Cleveland 
Browns to Baltimore being the latest example in football).  
This is something that has really gotten a lot of people in 
the US upset and is one of the reasons there has been so 
much talk about the Packers and their unusual setup.  No 
way they are leaving there, even though Green Bay has a 
small media market (only 100,000 population) compared to 
other major league cities, usually over 1,000,000 pop.
Barkley Rosser

On Tue, 28 Jan 1997 16:54:23 -0500 () "Rosser Jr, John 
Barkley" <rosserjb-AT-jmu.edu> wrote:


>      Professional football in the US is a very big business 
> with huge entertainment value.  Most teams are owned by 
> arrogant billionaires.
> Barkley Rosser
> On Mon, 27 Jan 1997 23:16:18 EET+200 Jukka Laari 
> <jlaari-AT-dodo.jyu.fi> wrote:
> 
> 
> > Congratulations for all "cheeseheads"! 
> > 
> > All of us aren't U.S. Americans, therefore not very familiar with 
> > American football and its organizational structures and ownership 
> > issues. 
> > 
> > Will you clarify us how big business, for example, football is? Which 
> > is the number one: football, ice hockey, baseball? Are team owners 
> > usually some filthy rich billionaires? Do they think their teams as 
> > hobbies (I've understood that this is the case in UK with some 
> > football club owners) or as business as usual? 
> > 
> > How do sports match with other genres of entertainment (film and 
> > record industries, TV-networks &cetera) financially? 
> > 
> > As a former (quite clumsy) ice hockey junior of 'Giants of East' I've 
> > sort of hoped that all-European hockey league could be possible in 
> > order to compete with NHL. But as necessarily fully 'professional' 
> > and commercial it would mean that teams would concentrate to central 
> > European major cities (only such cities as Helsinki and Stockholm 
> > could have teams). Peripheral (northern) areas would lose best 
> > players to euro-league.  Finally the quality of Finnish and Swedish 
> > icehockey would come down - we won't have such national leagues, as 
> > today, in the future if euroleague will someday be realized. What do 
> > you think about it? Has such concentration happened in USA with other 
> > sports during 20th century? (Obviously ice hockey teams have went to 
> > south but what about, say, baseball and football? Have there been 
> > such concentration?) 
> > 
> > Jukka L 
> > 
> > 
> >      --- from list marxism-thaxis-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
> 
> -- 
> Rosser Jr, John Barkley
> rosserjb-AT-jmu.edu
> 
> 
> 
> 
>      --- from list marxism-thaxis-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---

-- 
Rosser Jr, John Barkley
rosserjb-AT-jmu.edu




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