re: FIFA says anyone playing in “breakaway leagues” won’t be playing in World Cup

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Because the tickets to see a top club in the world are free, because all you have to do is provide an email address and they’ll send you a Messi jersey

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What the living frick are you talking about? Barcelona is big partly because they appeal to wider Catalan nationalist sensibilities, and they are a fan-owned non-profit. They were big before TV money, and would be big regardless of the TV situation.

You misunderstand what I mean. Clubs are not like stores which have to turn a profit. Clubs exist to provide sporting opportunities. It is why they were structured as clubs and not franchises. That isn't to say they are immune to economic considerations, but rather that clubs would be perfectly fine operating as they traditionally did.

The era of the owner has allowed for a new sort of economics, which is intensely stupid. Everything matters but the actual play on the field. You need shirt sponsors, practice kit sponsors, sleeve sponsors, etc. to fund an ever spurious transfer market situation, buttressed by the very billionaires who buy clubs with no regard for the club's history, but rather because the club is located in the correct metropolitan area.

It is an intensely stupid state of affairs. The need to see a "return" on investment drives the team-building projects at multiple clubs. It has become especially egregious in this transfer era, where the prices are divorced entirely from what players produce on the field, and prices rise for no real reason.