Some words on sport: Sponsorship, Marketing, New Media & Sociology.

It’s been far too long- plenty of things going on and I have cast my mind onto other things recently. You could say I’ve gone on strike from the temporary musings of my blog.
Although I haven’t. Because I’m not striking against anything and also nobody cares- there is no balance of power.
The tube strike which I have had the pleasure of experiencing for a third, jam-packed-space-invading time is the opposite, with both sides locked in discussion about who is in the wrong, with neither willing to back down it seems.
This brings me on to sport…and the recent NFL international series match highlighted the growth of the game on these shores. With this increased exposure and a possibility of further matches or franchise brings huge personal excitement. This has to be tempered by the realism that a Collective Bargaining Agreement which keeps the players and owners at loggerheads over various issues including salary cap percentages and season length.
The NFL and American Sport can teach us many things and is in many, commercial or spectator-oriented aspects, lightyears ahead. The initiative run by Kangaroo TV – Fanvision, which many people will have experienced at this years Ryder Cup is one such initiative. However, the lauding of salary caps and shared, collective revenues within league structures has it’s negative side as seen within the semi-regular threat of whole seasons being lost to a strike.
Player power is not at all isolated to American sport- you only need to take the Rooney incident to see that. When just one club is ready to pay over the odds, it drives the price rapidly up. Value for money was never on the agenda- the status of prizing your arch-rivals’ best player was a huge piece of the plan.
Now many might see Rooney as the Anti-Christ for daring to ask for this amount. However, to use a Marxist point of view, if someone is willing to pay that amount, he is most likely worth more. Many people forget that injury can strike at any time, he is putting his physical status in jeopardy and a footballers career for all intense purposes is on average a very short one, with very little prospects afterwards. He is at the top of his field in a hugely lucrative industry and always in the public spotlight, providing a huge population with regular entertainment. Perhaps we should back off the players occasionally. Even if they do make it very tough to empathise with them!