An All-Ireland League?

irishmanmick

May be wrong, but under the propsoals, the AIL would be a completely separate entity to the two associations (& would be owned and controlled by the clubs), same as the way the permier league and the English FA are separate entities

Fr Tod Umptious

irishmanmick wrote: »

May be wrong, but under the propsoals, the AIL would be a completely separate entity to the two associations (& would be owned and controlled by the clubs), same as the way the permier league and the English FA are separate entities

I thought the FA and the premier league were under the same umbrella.

Is it not the football league that is separate from the FA ?

Zebra3

The PL in England is under the FA's auspices, but is basically a privately run entity.

The CEO of the PL runs it, but he answers to the 20 PL clubs owners, not the FA.

citytillidie

When the teams did break away from the Football League it was run for a while by the FA for a while as you seen from the sleeve badges

The latest badge is ridiculous, looks like some generic animal face and a party hat.

Zebra3

Going back to the start of the PL, it came out about as a dispute over tv money (top clubs not wanting to share with smaller clubs) and the FA saw it as a chance to destroy the power of the Football League.

AFAIK, the PL has always been run by the clubs with the blessing of the FA and the FA appeared before the Premier League brand initially as it had no central sponsor.

Liberta Per Gli Ultra

It was announced yesterday that Hypercube will be holding a number of "stakeholder summits" at the end of the month on behalf of Kieran Lucid and his group of solicitors, accountants and marketers. Most mentions of Hypercube by the journalists who have been cheerleading reporting on Lucid’s proposal have been brief and vaguely positive.

Hypercube are a Dutch "sports consultancy" firm that go around Europe telling leagues and clubs that they are experts in organising football competitions and if you pay them a lot of money they will collect a bunch of data and tell you the secret to success. They can also build you a monorail.

B.T. (Copenhagen), 5 April 2018.

He stopped the Super League backers’ Norwegian plans:

"Hypercube tampered with graphs"

Hypercube. Say the name, and it runs cold down the backs of some Danish Super League fans. It is the Dutch company that, at the request of the Divisional Association, helped to change the Superliga format from 12 teams to now 14 teams with playoffs. The new format has received a lot of criticism, and it peaked when Sønderjyske in the last round of the regular season was better off losing to FC Midtjylland than getting a draw. Most people realized that it was not just extra excitement in the form of important gold and relegation matches that the Hypercube format brought. There may also be speculation in results as well as, not least, the lack of elevated attendance numbers and viewership, as was otherwise envisaged.

Already, it is on the cards that this summer there will be changes in the Super League structure, which was adopted in 2015 based on Hypercube's recommendations. Recommendations that at least in Norway were considered to be seen as manipulation. The Norwegian clubs voted against Hypercube's proposal for a new tournament structure in 2014. And one man in particular is blamed for that. His name is Arve Hjelseth, a sports sociologist and researcher at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), and he was the man who broke through in the media with accusations that Hypercube was manipulating the graphs as they tried to convince Norwegian Topfotball (the Norwegian Division Association). , ed.) on a structural change.

You wrote a blog post in 2014 with great criticism of Hypercube's report for Norwegian football. What were your biggest criticisms?

"We had several critical points. Among the most important were: That Hypercube did not evaluate the 16-team league, which they proposed to step away from. That Hypercube manipulated multiple graphs to get the analysis to match their assumptions. This was particularly evident when they had to show a strong connection between the league's sporting level and the crowd. It does not match historical data, because when the spectator growth was greatest in Norway in 2004-2008, the sporting level declined, but the figure was made such that the two lines apparently followed each other. And that Hypercube's review of the experience of, among others, Belgium was probably so tendentious."

You say that Hypercube's review of the experience of, among others, Belgium was tendentious. Can you elaborate on what you mean by that?

"I don't remember all the details now, but in general, contrary to the norms of the research, they clearly emphasized figures that supported their point of view and ignored figures that pointed in a different direction."

You were invited to a meeting at Gardermoen by Hypercube and Norsk Topfotball after your criticism of their report. Were you asked to keep your criticism down?

"We discussed some statistical issues, and we probably corrected our views on a few things as well, and they seemed open and interested. They made no attempt to keep us quiet, but the damage had already happened anyway. We saw them as open and interested, and they admitted, by the way, to the manipulation of figures."

You say that you corrected some of your views and that Hypercube admitted manipulation of characters. Was it your impression that they had deliberately manipulated the graphs to get their ideas through?

"At least there was nothing they said that spoke against doing it intentionally. Especially the graph, which was obviously designed to make two lines as close to each other as possible. They also visually inflated some differences by removing the lower part of the bars in bar charts. Note that this is quite common when, for example, consultants provide arguments to politicians and the like, so it is not something that is peculiar to Hypercube. But it is a form of dishonesty - at least compared to what I as a researcher expect. They also said that the report was not written for people like Christian Berg and me who can statistical method. We understand that. But the more serious it is when it turns out that the bodies of football, which have very little methodical competence, are manipulated into believing in something that does not quite hold what it promises."

The Danish Super League has not really made much progress since the introduction of Hypercube's structure. What do you think about that?

"This is not surprising at all. Football fans are generally conservative and cannot be fooled by airy promises of dramatic playoff games and complicated league structures. Basically, they want a system where you play two, three or four times against your opponents according to a specific and predictable pattern. The traditional league "is our bread and butter", as Bill Shankly said. Anything that complicates this structure has detrimental effects.

It is not least important to remember that the new markets, which may be reached by means of several crucial playoff games, can come at the expense of those who disappear. And new customer groups are more volatile than football's traditional audience. Fans think like this: That even though Hypercube should have succeeded in showing that their model produces more spectators and better sporting results - something we think there is very little to suggest - they would still oppose it. One has to be very careful about challenging the traditions of football. The English league has a history dating back to 1888 and one should be careful to break such traditions just because some self-appointed experts come up with fixed ideas."

Based on your experience with Hypercube and your review of their report, what would you consider Hypercube's main goal is to travel around Europe with their reports?

"The goal is to sell different league models that they have developed themselves. That's the business idea itself. Let me also say that I have no reason to doubt that they themselves think their concepts will work. But we felt they had far worse arguments than they themselves claimed and believed."

BT has tried to get hold of Hypercube founder Pieter Nieuwenhuis, but he has not returned on our inquiries.

Ferris_Bueller

Liberta Per Gli Ultra wrote: »

It was announced yesterday that Hypercube will be holding a number of "stakeholder summits" at the end of the month on behalf of Kieran Lucid and his group of solicitors, accountants and marketers. Most mentions of Hypercube by the journalists who have been cheerleading reporting on Lucid’s proposal have been brief and vaguely positive.

Hypercube are a Dutch "sports consultancy" firm that go around Europe telling leagues and clubs that they are experts in organising football competitions and if you pay them a lot of money they will collect a bunch of data and tell you the secret to success. They can also build you a monorail.

I really don't think I care if these guys are overly ambitious with what they are planning or if they are chancers. It is hard to imagine the league being in a worse place really, so what have we got by trying something new? No funding, no advertising, poor competition structure, no TV deal, very few staff working on the league in the FAI. If things went wrong, it's hard to see how the league would be any worse off than it is now. Any of the positives coming out of the league are largely down to clubs putting in the work themselves with no real help from the FAI.

irishmanmick

Liberta Per Gli Ultra wrote: »

It was announced yesterday that Hypercube will be holding a number of "stakeholder summits" at the end of the month on behalf of Kieran Lucid and his group of solicitors, accountants and marketers. Most mentions of Hypercube by the journalists who have been cheerleading reporting on Lucid’s proposal have been brief and vaguely positive.

Hypercube are a Dutch "sports consultancy" firm that go around Europe telling leagues and clubs that they are experts in organising football competitions and if you pay them a lot of money they will collect a bunch of data and tell you the secret to success. They can also build you a monorail.

A post presenting an agrument against Hypercube complaining that they only show the statistics that support their assumptions. Using a piece which clearly supports the poster's bias against Hypercube. What's the name of that song?

I agree with Ferris_Bueller, it dosesn't matter, lets listen to their ideas & see if there is something that football in Ireland can get out of it.

The let's not change anything approach hasn't worked so maybe time for new ideas.

BYW- the final question of that piece - 'Do you think it's Hybercube's maon goal to go round Europe with their reports?' ... They are a sports consultancy firm, I assume their main goal is to go round Europe selling their services to European leagues!

Liberta Per Gli Ultra

Ferris_Bueller wrote: »

I really don't think I care if these guys are overly ambitious with what they are planning or if they are chancers.

The Corporate B.S. Generator. You could say they have a tendency to be "too honourable".

irishmanmick wrote: »

Using a piece which clearly supports the poster's bias against Hypercube.

Using a piece which clearly highlights a scam, plain and simple.

Another victim of Hypercube: Belgian Jupiler Pro League – The most convoluted league system in the world

However, overall, I think that having a league format and system that is so bent towards the best and most popular teams is not the healthiest and not always the fans choice. It is therefore not a surprise that on a recent poll, the results were almost unanimous in having this format changed and this system soundly binned for an uncluttered and more understandable one.

Liberta Per Gli Ultra

The Dutch lads who like to tamper with their own data have been making a few quid off the Swiss Football League over the last few years. The league, or the suits that run it, are having one of those panic attacks that smaller leagues have every 10 years or so. UEFA screwing over the smaller leagues by closing off access to the "Champions" League isn't helping the self-esteem; the Swiss had their automatic group stage spot robbed from them in 2018 and it cost YB this season.

It looks like they are going to replace their 10-team "Super League" with a 12-team division that splits after a certain number of rounds, which is exactly what they had before they created the Super League in 2003. They go round in a circle while a consultancy firm has a nice little earner. Hypercube will be back a few years later recommending a 10-team division with a "higher concentration of quality teams to improve competitiveness" or some other load of bollocks. Hell of a racket.

https://www.sportbusiness.com/news/swiss-football-league-to-vote-on-12-team-league-after-scottish-premiership-analysis/

Liberta Per Gli Ultra

A few examples of what happens when you place a TV deal at the heart of a league, which is what Lucid and co. (and Quinn) are all about. Not only is it wrong on principle and a giant "f*ck you" to real supporters who become secondary to the TV schedule, it is also frequently a loss-making venture for the broadcaster and therefore unsustainable. It's a great way to inflate spending at clubs that don't have the patience and discipline to build a loyal support base the proper way.

Sunday Paper Review | Brian Kerr and Ryle Nugent (Off The Ball)

The win-some, lose-some game of TV sports rights

While the actual cost of sports rights is almost always a tightly guarded secret, RTÉ and Virgin often hint that events are loss leaders that don’t quite generate as much advertising revenue as their price tag.

Pay-for-Play: Is sport on TV in danger of eating itself?

John Nicholson is a football writer who has just finished the book Can We Have Our Football Back? He believes that the tide is turning back in favour of terrestrial television as customers stop paying for subscription channels for reasons including the expense, the possibility of watching for free through illegal streams and the simple fact that TV viewing figures are consistently falling among younger generations.

"I’ve spoken to a few Premier League players and one manager and they’ve all said that if you break the TV deal then everything falls apart," he says. "As soon as you break TV and it goes back into a more sane financial situation where rights don’t cost anything near £5 billion then everything will change."

20 years on from the birth of the SPL, is Scottish football actually any better off?

By the time the SPL and the SFA quietly merged back together in 2013, the initial separation had been passed off as a big mistake. Crowds were at a nadir, the TV deal was poor, the national team was poorer, Hearts were in administration and Rangers had gone bust. By almost every metric, Scottish football is worse off now than it was at the time of the SPL’s first season in 1998…

Nobody’s Going to Sports in Person Anymore. And No One Seems to Care.

The short-term money allowed for long-term growth: that is, after all, how capitalism is supposed to work. The only potential hang-up: attendance issues become a long-term problem rather than a short-term one. The threat, of course, is that, as any of the suckers who work in media can tell you, counting on the state of play in that world to stay stable for any period of time is a fool's bet.

Right now the smart money is in all these media contracts, but any sports fan knows that the true iron of lifelong dedication to a team or a sport is forged from the in-person experience; media will change, but the sport itself will not. You need that kid and to have his or her parent, or grandparent, or whoever, take them to the game and make it a part of their lives forever.