m
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Jun 3, 2008 15:29:13 GMT -5
Post by m on Jun 3, 2008 15:29:13 GMT -5
question for the Americans..
how does a 'draft' work? i dont understand the concept of it, as we dont have anything like that in non-US sport.
explain..
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Jun 3, 2008 15:36:26 GMT -5
Post by manintheshadows on Jun 3, 2008 15:36:26 GMT -5
...leave the window open a bit?
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m
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Jun 3, 2008 15:40:38 GMT -5
Post by m on Jun 3, 2008 15:40:38 GMT -5
hehe.
and is it also true that in US sport you dont have relegation/promotion..?
i could research this myself, but id rather just ask.
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Jun 3, 2008 15:48:34 GMT -5
Post by manintheshadows on Jun 3, 2008 15:48:34 GMT -5
Badum and, indeed, tish. Anyhoos, the Draft. If I remember rightly, teams who finish last in whatever league they're in (NA Sports leagues seem to be determined by invitation rather than promotion) get first pick of new players who have graduated from college leagues, to try to keep the whole thing competitive. Presumably their contracts are at least partially-owned by whichever organisation runs the league. Or I might have just made that all up. I have no idea.
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Jun 3, 2008 16:28:31 GMT -5
Post by manintheshadows on Jun 3, 2008 16:28:31 GMT -5
Farewell Gretna. Was inevitable though. Small team gets bought up by billionaire investor and piss a load of money on short-term success without thinking about creating a solid long-term foundation should the investor bugger off, and then go straight to the wall when the investor gets bored and buggers off, leaving behind an unworkable debt. Not that it'll ever happen to Chelsea. Oh no. Not at all. On the plus side, congrats to Sven Goran Eriksson on getting the Mexico job. Did exactly what was asked of him in his first season at Manchester City, but got sacked anyway because the club's owner (ousted Thai president Thaksin Shinawatra, who now insists on being called "Doctor" for some unfathomable reason) is a despot.
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Jun 3, 2008 16:44:41 GMT -5
Post by gr0undzer0 on Jun 3, 2008 16:44:41 GMT -5
question for the Americans.. how does a 'draft' work? i dont understand the concept of it, as we dont have anything like that in non-US sport. explain.. well I dont know if this is soccer related (i have no idea how soccer works) , but for REAL sports its where college athletes say they want to be eligible for the draft, if the player hires an agent they MUST go where ever drafted, if they dont hire an agent they can chose to go back to school based on where they are projected to be picked (it does not matter what year of college they are in) basketball has a rule that you must complete at least one year of college. The worst teams in their respective sports usually pick first based on last years record, they basically get to chose the player they want, then it goes to the rest of the teams in the league until all teams have chosen, basketball has 3 or 4 rounds, football has 10 and baseball who the fuck knows. Teams can trade away draft picks for say an established veteran player.....some teams build thru the draft others trade them away to get players already in the leagues. Football and basketball players drafted usually start playing right away for their new pro team, hockey and baseball usually let them season a bit in a minor league system
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m
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Jun 4, 2008 3:56:15 GMT -5
Post by m on Jun 4, 2008 3:56:15 GMT -5
question for the Americans.. how does a 'draft' work? i dont understand the concept of it, as we dont have anything like that in non-US sport. explain.. well I dont know if this is soccer related (i have no idea how soccer works) , but for REAL sports its where college athletes say they want to be eligible for the draft, if the player hires an agent they MUST go where ever drafted, if they dont hire an agent they can chose to go back to school based on where they are projected to be picked (it does not matter what year of college they are in) basketball has a rule that you must complete at least one year of college. The worst teams in their respective sports usually pick first based on last years record, they basically get to chose the player they want, then it goes to the rest of the teams in the league until all teams have chosen, basketball has 3 or 4 rounds, football has 10 and baseball who the fuck knows. Teams can trade away draft picks for say an established veteran player.....some teams build thru the draft others trade them away to get players already in the leagues. Football and basketball players drafted usually start playing right away for their new pro team, hockey and baseball usually let them season a bit in a minor league system hehe. you might find this hard to believe, but the rest of the world doesnt operate it's pro sports policies on college teams. college teams barely exist. like i say, the peculiarities of American sport really are totally foreign to most of the world, which is why i was interested.. (i am sure i will have to reiterate that i am not belittling or trying to offend anyone before everybody starts crying and swearing) in football (soccer), if you're good, you'll get scouted from a local amateur/school team when you're about 12 (maybe younger if you've got real potential), signed to a club for a youth period, then maybe get an apprenticeship when you're 16 or so, during which time you'll get £70 a week (ish) and clean the boots of the professionals while you're training. if you're really good- you could even be in the first team, on a proper pro contract, at the age of 16-17. regarding the worst/best teams... the worst teams in football get relegated (moved down a division) while the top teams of the league below get promoted.. (there are 4 tiers of professional football in England, each with 20 or more teams in them). thus, a once huge/great European Cup winning side like Nottingham Forest FC were languishing in the third tier of English football last year. no one is guaranteed a place at the top table, and no one gets first pick on anyone. you have to get out there and scout/develop your own youth players. the lack of development of young english players is a hot topic at the moment- because we have the richest league in the world and the most successful clubs, but a total dearth of young english players. England havent even qualified for the European Championships (while Poland have). because there is no limit on European players (at the moment, due to ridiculous european working laws that shouldnt apply to professional sportsmen), the richest clubs here simply buy 'already established' star names and the cream of the young foreigners (like Christiano Ronaldo, etc..) anyway, i just thought it was an interesting difference. totally different approach to professional sport. i actually think the idea of lower teams getting a 'first pick' would be useful in football, but it's totally unworkable when you can sign/buy any player from any team from any country. that's the problem with international sports i suppose..
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Jun 4, 2008 5:20:34 GMT -5
Post by siner on Jun 4, 2008 5:20:34 GMT -5
Whoop I'm going to Munster GAA Hurling Championship Clare v Waterford, 1st of June, kick ass for those of you not in the know youtube.com/watch?v=AM-kB1e96CAWe have that in America. We call it Lacrosse. It is really popular on the East Coast. Not so much anywhere else. I went to a Major League Lacrosse playoff game that was incredibly boring. Not biting your head of but hurling has pre-historic origins, theres no net type thing (like in lacrosse) its balanced on a piece of ash/oak wood (it has to be made from an ash tree its tradition where I'm from ) and often players don't wear any protection i.e helmet, gloves or a cup; the ball it balanced on the hurl as players run, the ball "sliotar" is flicked into the air above the player head and is hit on the way down, the ball can reach nearly 100 miles an hour in the air. this is how is passed from player to player at either end of the pitch or it can be hand passed where they use the palm of their hand to "slap" it to the other player (throwing it like you'd throw a normal ball is a foul). If the ball is in your hand you cant take more than 4 steps before you have to balance it back on the hurl but it can be balanced on the hurl without a time limit. there are 15 players on each team and despite it being an official sport of Ireland the players are kept on a purely amateur basis, in other words they don't get paid any cash (outside of endorsements) for playing, training and competing, training is done in their spare time while they hold down jobs, families etc. sorry to sound mean but I was brought up in a very "enthusiastic" hurling house hold and lots of people who haven't sat down and watched a 70 minute match often make the La Crosse comparison cos there's a ball, a stick type thing and a net to score goals in, the equipment looks similar but the game is completely different
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Jun 4, 2008 7:57:56 GMT -5
Post by gr0undzer0 on Jun 4, 2008 7:57:56 GMT -5
and to make things even a tad bit more interesting in basketball the bottom 15 teams in the league have a lottery system to see who gets the first pick in the draft. The team I follow (Portland) had a 5% to get the first pick and the worst team had say a 70% chance, and somehow Portland got it last year. Its an interesting system that has its flaws, but I do like having dedicated professional teams.
One thing I strongly feel makes the game better is a hard salary cap, each team can only spend so much money on the rosters. Football has this system and it has the most parity of any of the professional sports here.
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Jun 4, 2008 13:24:20 GMT -5
Post by manintheshadows on Jun 4, 2008 13:24:20 GMT -5
Salary caps are very wise things indeed as they stop the gap between the richest clubs and everyone else becoming an insurmountable gulf. It's workable in North American sports as, although they aren't the sole preserve of NA, all the money is there. This isn't the case for European Football (for want of a better term. And Soccer isn't a better term), as the game is global and a lot of very rich nations/individuals are involved. Certainly in Europe, where employment laws allow EU footballers (not just Europeans - it's quite easy for anyone outside the EU to get naturalised EU status after a couple of years or less) freedom to play anywhere in the EU, a salary cap simply can't be done unless they all do it, and if they do, the talented players will bugger off to South America like they did in the 1950s (when the salary cap was last in place).
It is a worry though. Here is a list of the 20 top-earning footballers in the World last season (flat salary - excludes bonuses or endorsements etc):
1. Kaka (Milan) £6.9m 2. Ronaldinho Gaucho (Barcelona) £6.53m 3. Frank Lampard (Chelsea) £6.24m 4. John Terry (Chelsea) £6.24m 5. Fernando Torres (Liverpool) £6m 6. Andriy Shevchenko (Chelsea) £5.9m 7. Michael Ballack (Chelsea) £5.9m 8. Cristiano Ronaldo (Manchester Utd) £5.8m 9. Thierry Henry (FC Barcelona) £5.8m 10. Steven Gerrard (Liverpool FC) £5.8m 11. Didier Drogba (Chelsea FC) £5.65m 12. Wayne Rooney (Manchester Utd) £5.6m 13. Iker Casillas (Real Madrid) £5.5m 14. Michael Owen (Newcastle Utd) £5.1m 15. Sol Campbell (Portsmouth) £5m 16. Raul (Real Madrid) £4.9m 17. Ruud Van Nistelrooy (CF Real Madrid) £4.9m 18. Rio Ferdinand (Manchester Utd) £4.6m 19. Darren Bent (Tottenham Hotspur) £4.55m 20. Carlos Tevez (Manchester Utd) £4.5m
13 players from one league alone, which explains why the semi-finals of this season's Champions' League contained 3 English clubs. It doesn't explain how Darren Bent earns more money than Carlos Tevez though. The sole comfort to be taken from this is that the powerbase does shift - not long ago, Italy had all the best players and paid them the most. Now they have just 1 representative in the rich list (albeit at No.1). The bubble doesn't so much burst as move round every now and then.
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Jun 4, 2008 13:48:28 GMT -5
Post by gr0undzer0 on Jun 4, 2008 13:48:28 GMT -5
interesting indeed, how long are the contracts for these players? another problem we have here is we over pay based on potential (or one good season) we lock these players up to say a 6 year 100 million dollar contract and the player plays like crap for the next 6 years because he has no incentive........I wish I could get myself a contract like that ;D
We have a baseball player who's yearly salary is more then entire teams.....its crazy, but then again baseball has no salary cap, we have teams with a 200 million dollar payroll and other that are 20 million
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Jun 4, 2008 14:08:23 GMT -5
Post by manintheshadows on Jun 4, 2008 14:08:23 GMT -5
Ah, contracts.
Footballers' contracts tend to run between 3 and 5 years on average, although the better players seem to have theirs extended on an annual basis. This is more to protect the players' values rather than anything else, as EU players whose contracts have expired can sign for any other EU club without a transfer fee being applied - which makes players with a year or so left to run practically worthless to the club who owns him. Not that they're worth the paper they're written on anyway, as their agents (who only make money from their clients when they're being transferred from club to club for lots of money) are a bunch of unscrupulous bastards who will move their players about whenever they feel like it. Case in point at the moment is Cristiano Ronaldo. In April last year, he happily signed a new contract with Manchester United for 5 years (he signed a previous 5-year deal in 2003, which was "extended" by a further 2 years in 2005). One year later, he all of a sudden is umm-ing and ah-ing about his dream move to Real Madrid. He will almost certainly leave - if not in the summer, then by the end of January - and there's not much can be done about it. United's owners (the same family who own the Tampa Bat Buccaneers) have said that he can sit out his contract in the stands for the next 4 years (something that Dutch player Winston Bogarde did at Chelsea), but at £120,000+ a week, it makes no business sense to do so.
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Jun 4, 2008 14:09:27 GMT -5
Post by thalia on Jun 4, 2008 14:09:27 GMT -5
Those people on 20 million must feel really hard done by....
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Jun 4, 2008 16:53:50 GMT -5
Post by manintheshadows on Jun 4, 2008 16:53:50 GMT -5
I drew Sweden in the office Euro 2008 sweepstake today.
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Jun 5, 2008 11:21:11 GMT -5
Post by manintheshadows on Jun 5, 2008 11:21:11 GMT -5
And speaking of Salary Caps, Real Madrid are to offer Cristiano Ronaldo £300,000 a week if he signs for them.
They could probably afford it, as one thing Real do is retain 100% of their players' image rights while they're at the club so much of this salary would be raised from merchandise sales. Where the problem then lies is that this figure is so far above what anyone else in the world is on (Kaka is on about £133,000 a week), that other players (and their agents) will start asking why they're not being paid similar amounts. And it's already happening. Once-great footballer Ronaldinho will probably sign for Manchester City in the summer, under a partial deal with Nike that will net him £180,000 a week - not bad for someone who by his own admission is fat, and who was left on the sidelines by Barcelona for the last part of the season because he couldn't be arsed to turn up for training...
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Jun 5, 2008 15:03:35 GMT -5
Post by Fields at Midnight on Jun 5, 2008 15:03:35 GMT -5
Would he be the highest paid athlete in the world at £15 Million per year? Alex Rodriguiz is the highest paid over here at $27 Million per year.
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Jun 5, 2008 15:07:08 GMT -5
Post by gr0undzer0 on Jun 5, 2008 15:07:08 GMT -5
Would he be the highest paid athlete in the world at £15 Million per year? Alex Rodriguiz is the highest paid over here at $27 Million per year. and the Florida Marlins entire team payroll is 22,650,000 and have a better record then ARods yankees by I think 5 games ;D
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Jun 5, 2008 16:06:22 GMT -5
Post by manintheshadows on Jun 5, 2008 16:06:22 GMT -5
It's really hard to gauge, as the flat rate they get paid by their employers isn't the full story - there are endorsements, win bonuses and suchlike that can put their "earnings" through the roof. David Beckham was very highly-paid at Manchester United for a footballer at the time, yet his advertising work and boot endorsements/sponsorship added another 200% to his incomings.
Beckham is probably currently the highest-paid sportsman in the world as his 5-year deal is worth $50million per annum. Then again, it's a bit of a stretch of the imagination to class playing for LA Galaxy (which I believe isn't even the best MLS team in Los Angeles) as sport. Although that's still quite piddly compared to Michael Schumacher's Formula 1 contract with Ferrari ended with a salary of $80million, which isn't bad for a job where you get to sit down for a living. And a quick peep at Tiger Woods' 2006 doings shows just short of $100million, although that's almost exclusively winnings and ads rather than a regular wage...
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Jun 5, 2008 16:13:06 GMT -5
Post by manintheshadows on Jun 5, 2008 16:13:06 GMT -5
Interestingness: Just as one hyper-rich, obscenely talented and outrageously marketable player is set to leave Manchester United, another might be joining.
AC Milan's Brazilian genius and current No.1 highest-paid footballer Kaka (well, nobody's perfect) has apparently been on the radio in Italy this evening, and has expressed a desire to swap the doldrums of Milan for the glitzy sun of Manchester...
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Jun 5, 2008 17:05:20 GMT -5
Post by Fields at Midnight on Jun 5, 2008 17:05:20 GMT -5
Just in guaranteed salary. Not counting winnings or endorsements.
There are two MLS teams in Los Angeles?
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Jun 5, 2008 17:58:33 GMT -5
Post by manintheshadows on Jun 5, 2008 17:58:33 GMT -5
Club Deportivo Chivas USA? I'm not too up on MLS to be honest, although I'm sure they at least used to groundshare with Galaxy...
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Jun 6, 2008 1:51:37 GMT -5
Post by Fields at Midnight on Jun 6, 2008 1:51:37 GMT -5
Well what do you know. They do. I had no idea.
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Jun 6, 2008 2:53:58 GMT -5
Post by ShotByTheBlues on Jun 6, 2008 2:53:58 GMT -5
Kaka has just signed a new contract to 2012 I believe, and Ancelotti has reiterated that he won't sell, they declined a bid from Real Madrid for about 90-100 million pounds last year, well an enquiry in that range area. After that, Calderon the president in Real Madrid said Kaka wouldnt even make the first team, yet they keep trying to get him, year after year Kaka > Every single player on Real Madrid two times.
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m
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Jun 6, 2008 5:21:32 GMT -5
Post by m on Jun 6, 2008 5:21:32 GMT -5
i think you all need to start thinking about supporting the mighty.......
Aston Villa.
we've got a great history (founded in 1874)... we've spent more time in the top league of English Football than ANY other club (err, except Everton).. we're one of only 4 or 5 English clubs to have won the European Cup.. we've also won the European Super Cup... we've won the league 7 times... the FA Cup 7 times... the League Cup 5 times. great history.
our famous fans include.. Nigel Kennedy (violin virtuouso and former child genius).... Prince William... Tom Hanks...
beautiful club, total underachievers in recent years, but good times are coming again.. we just finished 6th in the league (the top 4 are almost impenetrable because they are so huge/rich).. but we're nearly there. we will be there.
We've got a great new chairman who stepped in a couple of years back (Randy Lerner - owner of the Cleveland Browns if that means anything to anyone)... and we've got one of the best, and most sought-after coaches in the game (Martin O'Neill)..
in a sporting world full of expensive foreign stars, we have a great youth system and we regularly field a predominantly English team, including young players pushing their way into the England squad, and Gareth Barry, who captained England for the first time the other week (although i have a feeling he's going to prove himself to be a wannabe scouse scumbag within a week or 2).
anyway..
i will even consider a onewhiskey day out at a Villa game next season if you all book flights.
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Jun 6, 2008 11:25:02 GMT -5
Post by manintheshadows on Jun 6, 2008 11:25:02 GMT -5
Kaka has just signed a new contract to 2012 I believe, and Ancelotti has reiterated that he won't sell, they declined a bid from Real Madrid for about 90-100 million pounds last year, well an enquiry in that range area. After that, Calderon the president in Real Madrid said Kaka wouldnt even make the first team, yet they keep trying to get him, year after year Kaka > Every single player on Real Madrid two times. Trouble is, AC Milan (like most Italian clubs nowadays) don't have much money - not for no reason is only one Italian-based player in the top 20 rich list. And that's Kaka. Milan rely on Champions' League money to pay their wage bill, and they didn't qualify this season - and if they had done anything other than won on the last day of the season, they wouldn't have qualified for the UEFA Cup either. Their incomings this year are going to be massively reduced, so any instant cash injection plus the removal of one huge strain on the finances (they are reportedly going for Drogba and Lampard in the close season, and they won't come cheap) will be welcomed by the suits. There's also the thing that Kaka might not want to play 2nd-tier European football (which the UEFA Cup certainly is), and if that's the case then his contract won't mean a thing - Ronaldo's contracted until 2012 also, yet he's almost certainly going. One thing that could change it all though is the problems with the Champions' League next season. Portugal's FC Porto have already been kicked out after being found guilty this year of bribing the referees in 2 matches in their 2003-2004 domestic season, and CSKA Sofia of Bulgaria have also been excluded for financial irregularities. So, with two teams removed, I fully expect Berlusconi to be on the phone to his chums at UEFA HQ, and there may well be 5 Italian clubs in the CL next season...
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