Thread by @ubscenter

We are about to kick off and our speakers are already warming up. We'll be tweeting live in this 🧵
Join the live event on ubscenter.uzh.ch
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#EconomicsForSociety #soccernomics #EuropeanSuperLeague #Football

And we're live! @joachim_voth opens tonight's session, introducing our speakers: Ignacio Palacios-Huerta at @LSEManagement and @sszy at @UMKines

Ignacio Palacios-Huerta explains the fascination around the game: The clan (football club), the temple (the stadium), the war (the enemy is the other club or another city or another country), and eternity (a shirt and a flag).

"In soccer, you never walk alone." Ignacio Palacios-Huerta uses a quote from his book "Beautiful Game Theory: How Soccer Can Help Economics".

The experience for the fans is changing. The temple is expanding, and the stadium is not the temple anymore. With new technologies, new experiences are possible, complementing the live experience in the stadium and opening new possibilities, independent of time and space.

Now it's @sszy turn. He starts by saying that, being a Londoner and being an economist, he tries to teach his students in the US about the nature of sports competition in Europe.

The idea of the European Super League is based on the believe that there is huge unlimited and unmet demand for competition among leading soccer clubs.

.@sszy compares the demand for top quality football with the demand for chocolate 🍫 - there is infinite demand for both. It is a very attractive proposition of offering more high quality football games.

Highest rate of insolvency in football. The impact of Covid on top division club revenues is dramatic. A reduction of revenues between 6.3 and 7.6 billion Euros is expected over the seasons 19/20 and 20/21.

Interesting: The initiators of the European Super League were offering to subsidize the weaker clubs.

The really intense rejection to the Super League idea was manifested in England. In contrast, there were less or no protests in Spain or Italy.

The Super League failed only because European fans didn’t want it. But it would have worked for the industry, probably generating more revenues. So how long will this work?

Let's start the discussion. @joachim_voth wants to know if the European Super League could actually solve the financial problems of the industry.

Would it be able to implement the Super League without the English clubs?

Did you know? The “super league project” is not new at all. It came up regularly since the 1980s to put pressure on the football governing bodies, in particular on UEFA, in order to implement reforms favored by the “big clubs”.

@sszy: The idea to create a Super League without the English clubs is not really credible. Because you need the players from the English top clubs for the Super League. You want the best players, that's the point.

Question from the audience: Is the proposed Super League legal under the European law?

The reverse could actually be true, meaning that it is illegal to stop clubs from forming an European Super League.

Is the Super League an attempt to bring in more Asian fans, internationalizing the industry around the game?

Other markets are important from an economic perspective, of course. The fact that Europe is globally dominant in football today does not mean that it stays this way. That could change in the future.

@joachim_voth closes the event by thanking the audience ant both speakers. We hope you enjoyed our webinar and look forward to seeing you at the next UBS Center event!

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