Way to bring their wages down
Stop paying SKY
Stop going to matches.
Done.
Academic research is always best when it confirms your preconceptions, and a pair of data scientists from Lawrence Technological University have done just that. Writing in the International Journal of Computer Science in Sport, Lara Yaldo and Lion Shamir say they have created a computational model that will estimate how much a …
Stop paying Sky, and stop going to matches won't bring wages down.
Sky's football viewership had already fallen nearly 20% at the beginning of last season, straight after the huge money they paid to secure the rights (you can actually "thank" BT for that one). The income that the Premier League generates is through TV deals but through deals with other broadcasters across the world. China, Spain etc.
The TV money that comes in to the Premier League is so vast that every team in the Premiership could've set prices for tickets to every seat in the stadium for £20. No matter what seat, no matter what game, £20. Except that didn't happen, and the money is now syphoned off not really to the footballers themselves but to their agents. They're the parasite in the whole business. I think in the deal that's taken Neymar from Barcelona to PSG, Neymar's Dad who's his agent (I'm led to believe) has earned more money out of Barcelona than Messi has! That's insane!
But ultimately every single person who goes to the football on a Saturday could decide not to go, and not bother turning up. You could have whole stadiums empty. The clubs would still make a huge fortune via the TV Deals from companies that aren't Sky. Then there's the money from shirt sales (which I don't think was taken in to account), the money from companies wanting to associate their brand with the likes of Ronaldo or Manchester United.
For a bit of a laugh, Google the Manchest United wine advert that featured Wayne Rooney and Ryan Giggs. I'm telling you now, the desk you're sat at reading this is less wooden than Rooney's acting.
You can blame the EU for it actually. They insisted that football rights be split over two companies, which means you now have to get two subscriptions to watch all ( except 3pm on a saturday, for some reason) kickoffs.
I forgot about that wine advert - that was truly spectacular.
The "not showing matches in pub at 3pm on a Saturday" part is a UK only idea. The Football League set it up in the 60's to prevent people from going down the pub to watch a match rather than going to their local club.
Perhaps that's the reason for the downvotes.
I know that, but the rule that you now have to pay two separate companies to watch all televised football was dreamed up by the EU.
I now have to subscribe to Sky and BT. As a bonus, I can't get 4k BT Sports on Sky and I couldn't get 4k Sky Sports on BT when I was with their TV service.
Stop paying SKY
Stop going to matches
It would be physically impossible for me to give Sky less money , or attend less matches. So, happy that non of their overpaid money has come from me , I dont mind how if other people fund them , although why they do is beyond me.
"happy that non of their overpaid money has come from me"
Are you sure? You never bought anything that may have used some of the advertising budget at a match or on TV during a match? It might only be pennies, but it's almost certainly not nothing at all. And even those few pennies from million of people mount up.
Like you, I never watch the footie, but I have no doubt some of my cash ends up in their pockets one way or another.
"Did they include how much the crowds are willing to pay to see them?"
It appears not, but then neither did they factor in their cheatingi, actingii and arguing with the ref abilities.
Professional is football entertainment, not sport, hence the ridiculous wages.
i for a non-contact game there's a lot of grabbing of other players kit.
ii the way they can pretend to be tripped up and sustain what appears to be a life-threatening injury would put a professional actor to shame.
As a counter-example, when David Beckham moved from Manchester United to Real Madrid, something like £30-£50 million of merchandising sales went with him. Taking Madrid to number one in the club turnover league, and knocking Man U down to no. 2.
So even if you accepted that you could account for all the possible variables with a statistical algorithm, in a dynamic team-game like football - you're still left having to account for marketing and kit sales.
Stats are bound to be more important in games like baseball and cricket, which are also team games, but much more focused on the performance of the individuals separately.
The chap in Nambia says your wage is obscene too.
Quite possibly. However you also have to take local prices into account (which apparently are about a third lower in Namibia than in the UK). It looks like the average salary in Namibia is the equivalent of £14400, where the UK's is about £26000. So it's not as great a difference as you might think.
"
A more important comparison is that life expectancy in Nambia is less than 65 years.
"
A very misleading figure which is in fact nothing to do with "life expectancy" but is the average lifespan of a large sample of people who were born in the same year. But the average lifespan has little to do with life expectancy. Consider that if 600 out of 1000 people born in a certain year died before their first birthday, but the other 400 lived to be 120, the average lifespan would be reported as being 48. Yet the fact is that in such a place anyone who survives to adulthood would have the expectation of a much longer life than in the West.
Many people are misled into thinking that people of a few centuries ago had short lives and died in middle age because the average lifespan is reported as being so low. It is the high infant mortality rate that brings the figure down - survive childhood and your life expectancy was not that bad at all.
Galileo lived until 77, Copernicus until 70, and Newton died aged 84. Hippocrates was 90 (370 BC)
I expect downvotes from those who read only the first line or two of a post before voting. And from those who read all the way through to the end. Some of the bits in the middle are OK, though. :)
Football bores me. I'd rather watch 90 minutes of a slow-motion replay of paint drying. So from my personal perspective, the players are all vastly overpaid. Don't get me wrong, I hate all sport and consider football to be more interesting (on a relative scale) than most other sports. On an absolute scale of interesting, though, I'd put it in negative numbers.
That said, we all have different tastes, and there are enough people who like football that players deserve paying some amount of money. So I don't begrudge them a salary.
Once you accept that they deserve payment, you also have to acknowledge that they have a limited career span. Eventually, their body is no longer able to perform at a top level, or they get caught in a "spit roast" scandal, or whatever. And because many of them left school as early as possible in order to go into football, they have no qualifications or experience that would allow them to enter any career more demanding than one where they repeatedly ask "Do you want fries with that?" So they try to earn as much as possible during that limited career span so they can afford to drink themselves to death in their old age.
So the question is, should they be protected from circumstance such that they don't have to work in MuckDonald's or sign on at the Jobcentre++ once their career is over? Most people's jobs don't provide them with that luxury, so if you're an egalitarian you'd answer no, they made their bed and should piss in it. On the other hand, if you're a free-marketer you'd say that people are prepared to pay enough for matches/TV for that to happen, so you'd answer yes.
I don't begrudge them their extra money, even though some of them aren't bright enough to hang on to it for post-career income and instead suck it up their nose. What really annoys me is the celebrity these twats get after their footballing days are over. I really don't care about non-entity Becks and his marriage to non-entity Posh, or the state of Gazza's liver or any of the rest of it. I'd be happy for them to have all that money if they then disappeared into obscurity. Hell, I'd even chip in a few quid of my own if Becks, Posh, Gazza and the like would just fuck off out of the news.
You only think you are joking.
In the US studies have shown that shortly after they retire, nearly four of five NFL players are bankrupt or under financial stress. Joblessness and divorce are the main reasons. It’s marginally better in the National Basketball Association, where after retirement nearly two of three players are broke within five years.
And that includes players who made tens of millions while playing.
It's getting better. There are programs available to teach some finance and fiscal responsibility to the players these days. Slowly it's changing from a culture of throwing the college kid a million bucks and watching as they blow it all on parties, fast cars, and faster women and then trying to maintain that lifestyle after they're done playing.
The thing is, a good deal of it is something that should be taught in high school. I'm sure there's plenty of room to drop one elective course and add in a mandatory class in basic finances. It doesn't need to be so in depth as to dissect a companies beta as it compares to its short ratio but it should at least cover basics like interest rates, inflation, and compounding in addition to balancing a check book.
There has been some talk down under about getting sports people to pay back what the government invested in them once they start making lots of money. It is much like the university repayment system currently in use. Of course the government just offered some nice tax breaks for footballers due to "their fame" so I don't see it getting enough traction to get the kids at the local youth football club taking out footy loans.
There apparently used to be a lot of shennanigans with paying a portion of players' wages into foreign trusts and companies ten years ago, but I think most of that's been stopped now. It would be funny if they were on PAYE, but I assume they're contractors. There also used to be a distinction in the way players got paid for "image rights", merchandising cash and their playing wages - another area ripe for possible tax exploitation.
There was some sort of system to recognise that foreign players who came here to play Wimbledon say, probably shouldn't be paying tax here, as they're not really "working" here, so much as playing a 2 week international tournament that happens to be in South London. As I understand it, this got abused and so was changed.
But that left people complaining about having to pay 45% tax to the UK government on their Wimbledon winner's cheque. Threats of foreign sportspeople not coming here for events etc. I've lost track of what the situation is now.
If you don't like your pay, do something else. If you're getting more than money out of your job, consider it part of your renumeration.
Stop blaming the system for you choosing to earn less money than you could because you enjoy the work.
I don't believe Mr Anon up there was complaining that he didn't earn enough, I suspect he was commenting on the fact that society appears to value a bloke who can kick a ball goodish over someone who assists in saving lives for a living.
But that's a stupid comparison. He's comparing somebody who is near the top of their field with somebody who's an average nurse or junior doctor ( I assume ) .
If he were one of the top cardiologists in the world, he would see his pay rise commensurably. But he's not.
In the grand scheme of things, an average nurse is comparable with a league two player - better than most at what they do, but not so good at it that their skills are very rare.
Politicians - If you think your local politicians don't do anything positive, then vote in somebody else. It is through politics that we enjoy a stable country with a good economy and a health service that is the envy of the world (despite its failings).
Actors - Most actors struggle to earn a crust. There are a handful of stars who earn megabucks, but they are definitely in the minority. What you seem to be suggesting is that the arts aren't worth putting money towards, and for this I call you an idiot.
Sportsmen/women - Nothing brings this country together like a national team doing well or a big sports event. Wimbledon, London 2012, RWC 2003, Wendyball 1966. Even gallantly failing near the end like Italia '90 or Euro '96 united the country.
Not having read the paper I may be missing something, but it looks to me as if the thing that is wrong is the transfer function. With pay for certain jobs, scarcity makes the people at the top very much higher paid than you would expect on a linear transfer. Taking the law as an example, if QC A is somehow objectively 2% better than QC B, that doesn't mean A will win 51% of cases versus B. It may mean he will win 99% of cases.
The government follows this rule, see the result of a recent referendum, and it explains why the price of ever smaller advantage goes up so much faster.
There is a double-standard in much of this - high salaries/bonuses paid to TV presenters/bankers etc. are generally perceived as worse/undeserved/more evil than that paid to footballers.
It is all market forces and - in the end - the entities involved must me making enough money after paying these costs to warrant it (although certainly in the football side of things doubts are being voiced about the sustainability/affordability to clubs of the salary levels)
Footballers abilities are frequently and publicly tested and their pay comes from willing consumers.
So:
Bankers, well, fuck knows what they do all day , and they fuck up things for everyone.
Presenters: I am very sure that Messi is a much better footballe than A N Other, Melchester reserves.
But I dont really know that Gary Lineker is any better at presenting MoTD than A N Other personable retired ex pro.
After all, they are *PLAYING* a *GAME*. If I want to play a game of most sorts (and they definitely do not include football), I have to pay to use the facilities provided for me. If I want to use the local climbing wall in our leisure centre, I have to pay £6.50 for an hour's session. If they want to chase a ball around the pitch, let them pay for their entertainment.