Are they just going to gloss over Twitch and video gaming like that? I'm fairly sure it qualifies if you don't specifically exclude their online only influence.
The bit about getting the government to invest with a goal that isn't financial ROI reminds me of the Olympics during the cold war. All that investment to "prove" the dominance of one economic system or another.
Is there any market in the world where rival leagues of the same sport compete in the same geographic location? Maybe there aren’t new leagues because Americans don’t care enough about new sports?
Further, it’s the teams, not the leagues that make money, which I didn’t pick up in a brief skim of the article. Why would any team want to join an rival league? League monopoly seems like the natural fit, and let the competition happen between teams.
"So successful in fact that it is the fastest growing major sports league in the world, growing 20x in value since 2008 to be worth more than $16 billion today."
> Fans only want to watch the very best players. Without TV money, new leagues can’t match salaries, and cannot attract top talent.
Is there enough "top talent" to fund a new league? Take American football: there are more players in high school, than college, because the game gets faster and better; the same goes from college to the NFL. The game changes, too; so. success in college doe not mean success in the NFL. There have been 88 Heisman Trophy winners; but, only 10 have made the NFL Hall of Fame. (The only two-time Heisman Trpohy winner is not one of those ten.)
Did (DO) the XFL and AAF have "top talent"? These were players who were not good to get drafted by the NFL. Sure, some players have from the XFL to NFL; but, that makes the XFL more like a minor league or developmental league -- a notch lower.
What significant college/HS level sport is not already producing people for a league-based game? Yeah, they can get women's alternatives, which lead to some exciting play, but I can't think of a sport that's not already covered.
Unrivaled only launched last year but its going well and I believe going to be a powerhouse in the womens basketball market as well: https://www.unrivaled.basketball/
I think F1 got significantly more popular in the past few years with Drive to Survive on Netflix, and then most recently with the F1 movie on Apple TV.
It’s a sports league with history and has been around for a while, but I think significant popular mindshare only happened in the last 5 years.
3 of the listed leagues were created in the 90s (MLS, UFC and WNBA), even though they are from the previous century I would categorize them much closer to modern times. 30 years difference is not that big of a gap. UFC in specific just got real attention in the last 15 years or so
This is ignoring the massive surge in popularity of college sports in recent years. At a quick glance, it looks like NCAA revenue has ~tripled since 2000. While not exactly the same thing, I think the author needs to explain the phenomena in his theory.
21 comments
[ 4.1 ms ] story [ 40.8 ms ] threadFurther, it’s the teams, not the leagues that make money, which I didn’t pick up in a brief skim of the article. Why would any team want to join an rival league? League monopoly seems like the natural fit, and let the competition happen between teams.
"So successful in fact that it is the fastest growing major sports league in the world, growing 20x in value since 2008 to be worth more than $16 billion today."
Is there enough "top talent" to fund a new league? Take American football: there are more players in high school, than college, because the game gets faster and better; the same goes from college to the NFL. The game changes, too; so. success in college doe not mean success in the NFL. There have been 88 Heisman Trophy winners; but, only 10 have made the NFL Hall of Fame. (The only two-time Heisman Trpohy winner is not one of those ten.)
Did (DO) the XFL and AAF have "top talent"? These were players who were not good to get drafted by the NFL. Sure, some players have from the XFL to NFL; but, that makes the XFL more like a minor league or developmental league -- a notch lower.
They are reported to generate between 50 and 100 million in revenue per season already.
Edit: Got caught not reading the article, sorry. I’ll leave this up as a monument to my shame.
Unrivaled only launched last year but its going well and I believe going to be a powerhouse in the womens basketball market as well: https://www.unrivaled.basketball/
It’s a sports league with history and has been around for a while, but I think significant popular mindshare only happened in the last 5 years.