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Giro d'Italia 2022 Giro d'Italia, Stage 21: Verona – Verona 17.4 km ITT (Sunday, May 29th)

Page 4 - Get up to date with the latest news, scores & standings from the Cycling News Community.
I wouldn't use Florentino Pérez' arguments as a particularly key point here. That was part of his justification for the ESL, and essentially saying that people are losing interest in football because there are some teams that can't afford to throw endless money at problems à la Real, and that as the financial crisis and the issue of the pandemic meant that the reckless overspending of the billionaire clubs might actually see some consequences, he needed to protect his own hide to make sure that what has happened in Turkish football with the reckless overspending of the Istanbul teams, because of status and rivalry, leading to a top heavy league that has then collapsed upon itself, couldn't happen to him.

The problem for football is, as a kid, how do you get invested in your local teams and not the three or four big teams per country? This leads to a ridiculously top-heavy league with massively increased predictability. In Spain it's exacerbated because unlike the Bundesliga or the EPL which have TV deals which share out the TV money equally between teams, in Spain teams sort their own TV deals, so teams like Real and Barcelona's position at the head of the table can be perpetuated; they command the biggest audiences so they can get the most lucrative TV channels and prime viewing times, but as a result that means more people get the chance to watch them and become invested in them, and they get more money from the TV deals to spend on signing top players that attract more viewers and making the big European tournaments that draw bigger audiences and get more of your games on TV, and the divide increases.

Last season there was a genuine sense that Real and Barcelona might have to face up to the financial implications of their overspending and it would cost them, so a lot of people quite enjoyed seeing Pérez squirm and contort things a bit, essentially his argument boiled down to "Real Madrid deserve to be handed everything on a silver platter because we're Real Madrid!"
 
I wouldn't use Florentino Pérez' arguments as a particularly key point here. That was part of his justification for the ESL, and essentially saying that people are losing interest in football because there are some teams that can't afford to throw endless money at problems à la Real, and that as the financial crisis and the issue of the pandemic meant that the reckless overspending of the billionaire clubs might actually see some consequences, he needed to protect his own hide to make sure that what has happened in Turkish football with the reckless overspending of the Istanbul teams, because of status and rivalry, leading to a top heavy league that has then collapsed upon itself, couldn't happen to him.

The problem for football is, as a kid, how do you get invested in your local teams and not the three or four big teams per country? This leads to a ridiculously top-heavy league with massively increased predictability. In Spain it's exacerbated because unlike the Bundesliga or the EPL which have TV deals which share out the TV money equally between teams, in Spain teams sort their own TV deals, so teams like Real and Barcelona's position at the head of the table can be perpetuated; they command the biggest audiences so they can get the most lucrative TV channels and prime viewing times, but as a result that means more people get the chance to watch them and become invested in them, and they get more money from the TV deals to spend on signing top players that attract more viewers and making the big European tournaments that draw bigger audiences and get more of your games on TV, and the divide increases.

Last season there was a genuine sense that Real and Barcelona might have to face up to the financial implications of their overspending and it would cost them, so a lot of people quite enjoyed seeing Pérez squirm and contort things a bit, essentially his argument boiled down to "Real Madrid deserve to be handed everything on a silver platter because we're Real Madrid!"
La Liga most definitely has the bigger predictability problem than the league that has had only one champion for the past 10 years.
 
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Football needs a salary cap & a transfer cap, F1 needs a driver academy program which is accessible to mortals & leads directly to 20 drivers on the grid earning their place on merit whilst tennis needs a cap on the amount of grunts a player can audibly emit during a game.

Cycling meanwhile exists in the real world, I mean just look at the prize money in this Giro so far:

#RIDERAMOUNT
1DÉMARE Arnaud€ 55.741,-
2LÓPEZ Juan Pedro€ 37.438,-
3VAN DER POEL Mathieu€ 37.030,-
4BOUWMAN Koen€ 34.997,-
5CARAPAZ Richard€ 26.420,-
6HINDLEY Jai€ 25.826,-
7YATES Simon€ 24.396,-
8GIRMAY Biniam€ 24.326,-
9BUITRAGO Santiago€ 20.724,-
10CAVENDISH Mark€ 19.093,-
11KÄMNA Lennard€ 19.041,-
12CICCONE Giulio€ 17.889,-
13GAVIRIA Fernando€ 17.697,-
14HIRT Jan€ 15.767,-
15DAINESE Alberto€ 15.291,-
16DE BONDT Dries€ 14.586,-
17OLDANI Stefano€ 13.536,-
18DE GENDT Thomas€ 13.460,-
19COVI Alessandro€ 12.710,-
20LEEMREIZE Gijs€ 11.564,-

Yeah I know teams have their own contracts & the money is comfortably 'good' for most riders but it's still numbers attainable by most humans in whatever line of work they pursue themselves.

Like I said, 'relatable'. I mean I can't speak for others but the tears & 'drama' football fans participate in is completely mad considering all the players make more money in a week than average people do after years of working. This was already crazy 20 years ago & it's gotten way, way worse since.
 
Today, I hope Hindley wins the final GC of the Giro. Then next Sunday, I hope Primoz starts his dream summer 2022, with victories in Dauphine GC, Tour GC and Vuelta GC plus in Lombardia.

But if Pogi would win the Vuelta in front of Primoz, it would be OK for me, too.

Most important thing for Primoz is to win the Tour. Giro for Hindley, Tour for Roglic, Vuelta for Pogi, that would be OK… :)
 
Today, I hope Hindley wins the final GC of the Giro. Then next Sunday, I hope Primoz starts his dream summer 2022, with victories in Dauphine GC, Tour GC and Vuelta GC plus in Lombardia.

But if Pogi would win the Vuelta in front of Primoz, it would be OK for me, too.

Most important thing for Primoz is to win the Tour. Giro for Hindley, Tour for Roglic, Vuelta for Pogi, that would be OK… :)

If Roglič makes the summer last until October it would be a bigger feat than winning the Tour. It would also make me happier.
 
Yes it is. There are loads of articles & graphs on the subject, but here's Florentino Perez giving his opinion last year:

Real Madrid | European Super League: Florentino Perez's ten messages | Marca



There was an article in L'Equipe recently which featured "ideas" designed to make football attractive again because its audience scores are falling.

I don't see cycling having such existential crisis. It just goes on & on, with its niche audience & 'relatable'' champions.
If audiences are falling it's more to do with the cost associated with watching football in the prestige leagues than anything else. Not that I'd take Perez's word for it (or anything else).

The real problem with football is of course the money. Not so much the money players earn as the financialisation of the sport and its complete integration into capital markets. Owners buying clubs and then saddling them with debt for various dodgy reasons, sportwashing on a grander scale than you see anywhere outside the Olympics, money laundering, organised crime, transfer market fraud, super league, everything that's gone into making Qatar happen (primarily the massive worker death toll) etc etc. The world game really is a cut above everything else at the elite level.
 
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