Words are divided into two ends. Nearly three months after the start of the Premier League in the new season, leicester city, the last champion, struggled in the middle and lower reaches (ranking 14, only 2 points away from the relegation zone). At one time, he was beaten out of the water by three major teams for three consecutive away games (net irrigation 1 1 goal). At present, the top six teams in the Premier League standings are all rich and powerful teams (Manchester City, Arsenal, Liverpool, Tottenham Hotspur, Chelsea and Manchester United). The Premier League has returned from last season's chaos to this season's order. In fact, order or strict family is the normal state of the Premier League. There was only one confusion in the 24-year history of the Premier League, that is, leicester city won the championship last season.
Except last season, all previous Premier League champions are big clubs where stars gather to make a fortune. Even the top four teams in the Champions League are wealthy giants. There are only two fates for small clubs: relegation at all costs or protection with money. The situation in the Champions League is similar. In the past 20 years, all champions in the Champions League have been giants, and these giants have basically entered the top 8 and top 4 every year. In the last 5-6 years, there are always three old faces in the semi-finals of the Champions League every year: Real Madrid, Barcelona and Bayern. No wonder the fans are tired of the Champions League, and look forward to a diaosi counterattack like leicester city.
In the NBA on the other side of the ocean, it is very rare for the strong to be strong. The 2009- 10 double champion Lakers have been at the bottom of the western conference almost every year in recent years. /kloc-The bulls who owned Jordan in the 1990s once dominated the world, but after Jordan retired, they plummeted and failed to enter the playoffs for almost ten consecutive years. As the only NBA team in new york, the Knicks have the largest and richest domestic market, with the average ticket price as high as 130 USD (2.5 times that of the Cavaliers). However, the team's record has been unsatisfactory, and it has missed the finals for many years. On the contrary, the ranks of some small and medium-sized cities are thriving. San Antonio, where the Spurs are located, is a small town in Texas. He has won many championships in recent ten years, and has been standing still (mainly, the stone Buddha Duncan is evergreen and Popovich is old and strong). Cleveland, where the Cavaliers are located, is only a medium-sized city, but it entered the finals several times in LeBron's era. Oklahoma City Thunder is located in a small town in central China, but it has achieved good results in the past five years (because there are two Thunder).
In short, the Premier League Champions League is a strong alliance with few counterattacks; However, the NBA is turning. Maybe come to my house next year!
The root cause of these phenomena is the great difference between the two systems. If the game between the Premier League and the Champions League is free capitalism, then the NBA game is more like "average socialism"! Interestingly, Europe's capitalist model is social capitalism controlled by Godfrey, while the United States pursues liberal capitalism. In the way of playing sports, the two are completely opposite!
Let's take a look at the total wages of Premier League teams in the new season. Manchester City, supported by Petrodollars of the United Arab Emirates, ranked first with 225 million pounds. Manchester United, Chelsea and Arsenal followed closely, all above 200 million pounds. Liverpool and Tottenham ranked fifth and sixth with 65.438+0.6 billion pounds and 65.438+0.2 billion pounds respectively. Everton, the seventh place, has only 80 million pounds, and Hull City, the bottom, has only 25 million pounds, which is probably 1/9 of Manchester City. The situation in other European leagues is similar. In fact, in 20 16, among the players whose average salary of all sports clubs ranked first 16, European football clubs accounted for 8 places (the other two were American baseball teams, ranking 5th and 9th). The first place is Paris Saint-Germain (also the Petrodollar of the United Arab Emirates), with an average salary of $9 million. Real Madrid, Manchester City and Barcelona ranked second, third and fourth respectively, and their per capita wages were all higher than 8 million dollars. Among them, C Ronaldo's annual salary is 52 million, and Messi's annual salary is 48 million US dollars.
In the new NBA season, Cavaliers ($65.438+0.2 billion) have the highest total salary, while Warriors rank 65.438+04 ($65.438+0.3 billion). The lowest ranking (30th) is the Philadelphia 76ers ($75 million), with a total salary of about 63% of that of the First Cavaliers. Compared with the huge difference in salary expenditure between Premier League teams, the expenditure of NBA teams is very average.
There is little difference in spending between NBA teams, not because rich teams (such as Knicks and Lakers) are stingy and unwilling to spend money, but because they are not allowed to spend money. The NBA sets the same annual salary ceiling for each team. For example, the salary ceiling for the 20 16- 17 season is $94 million. If the total salary of a team exceeds the total amount stipulated by the league, luxury tax will be paid for the excess. This luxury tax is really extravagant. For example, a team whose salary exceeds $100000 now has to pay a luxury tax of $25 million. Note that these luxury taxes did not go into the pockets of the league, but were distributed to teams in small cities and small markets (typical "fighting local tyrants, rich or poor"). Under this system, super teams are hard to appear: even the richest boss can't stand the high luxury tax. It is impossible for NBA teams to have too many stars when the salaries of each team are not much different. The strongest team is the Big Three plus some cheap blue-collar players at most.
On the contrary, clubs in the Premier League and Europe have no wage ceiling. Although in recent years, UEFA has begun to implement the fiscal fairness policy (FFP, which is caused by the impact of petrodollars from Chelsea, Manchester City and Paris Saint-Germain and the pressure from traditional strong teams), it is required that each team's expenditure be linked to its income. Once a team overspends for several years in a row, it will be punished. However, the actual implementation of FFP is very loose, almost useless, only a few balls will be warned, and the punishment is irrelevant.
Because wages and expenses are not standardized and restricted, the protagonist of the European football transfer market will always be a big-name club. When they see the players they like, they will spend a lot of money. As a result, the transfer fee and the player's salary are rising. I have already mentioned the sky-high salaries of Cristiano Ronaldo and Messi. The highest paid players in the Premier League are Rooney and aguero, whose weekly salary (20 15- 16) is 260,000 and 240,000 respectively. This summer, Manchester City's net transfer expenditure reached 65.438+62 billion pounds, and Manchester United also reached 65.438+0.565438+0 billion pounds. Among them, Manchester United bought Bamba for 90 million pounds (funny, Manchester United sent him to Juventus four years ago and confiscated a penny), creating the most expensive transfer in history. The current situation is that if the big-name clubs don't buy one or two expensive players in the next transfer market, fans will accuse the boss of being stingy and not having the ambition to win the championship. Arsenal is a typical example who is often called stingy.
The result of big-name clubs spending a lot of money on people is that they always have a luxurious lineup (Real Madrid's Galaxy warships are all piled up with money, while Barcelona spends less on people because of its good youth training system). Not only is their starting lineup far stronger than that of the mid-stream team, but the level of the second set of substitute lineup of the giants is also higher than that of the mid-stream team. Once someone in the team is injured or in a declining state, the giants will buy people from other teams. Therefore, the lineup of giants is always luxurious. On the contrary, it is difficult for small clubs to keep the stars. If a player from a small club is famous for playing well, he will be bought by a big club next season. To be exact, small and medium-sized clubs are only star training bases for big clubs. Of course, some small and medium-sized clubs are keen on selling stars because they can make a lot of money. There is such a team in the Premier League: Southampton, which has made a net profit of 40 million pounds in the transfer market in the last three years.
Back in the NBA, not only the salary is blocked, but also the transfer restrictions are many. Although free agents can sign contracts at will, players can only exchange during the contract period and cannot spend money to buy them. Players exchanged by two teams generally need the same annual contract salary. Sometimes in order to make a deal and get what you want, the transfer needs three parties or four parties. To put it bluntly, the NBA transfer is still in the era of barter (hammer for dagger), and the transfer of European football is a typical monetary economy.
The NBA also has a unique draft system. Every year, when new players enter the NBA, not any team can buy the top draft at the highest bid. On the contrary, the team with the worst record in that year can give priority to the draft, pick the top pick and explore flowers; Teams with good records can only pick the remaining chicken ribs. Therefore, in the second half of the regular season, there are often teams with no hope in the playoffs vying to lose, hoping to become the vice squad leader at the bottom and pick the top pick in the draft. On the other hand, in European football, whoever has more money to buy young players will get the players' parents.
In fact, these systems in NBA are designed by the league intentionally. Its main purpose is to narrow the strength gap between teams, so as to ensure that the game is more suspenseful than one-sided. The reverse draft system also ensures that the NBA will not be as dominant as the Premier League Champions League. A club in a small and medium-sized city can build a strong team in a few years through excellent management and planning, plus some luck. Knights, thunder and warriors are recent examples. On the other hand, in European football, the lack of free trade under control leads to strict family status: the giants are always giants, the middle reaches are safe when they are young, but the relegation teams fight for relegation every year. At the same time, it also reduces the appreciation of the game when the strong team plays the weak team: the weak team always puts 10 people on the bus defense, occasionally counterattacks, and the strong team attacks fiercely but does not necessarily score many goals.
If a system similar to NBA is introduced into the Premier League Champions League, many games will probably become more exciting because of the closer strength between teams. But at the same time, we will also lose the opportunity to appreciate the dream cooperation of super teams (and the confrontation between giants). It's hard to imagine that without Sua and Messi of Neymar, without Sanchez of Auzel and Wolckart, they lead the coolies like drinking water in La Liga and Premier League respectively. NBA and Premier League Champions League still have their own advantages; Just like basketball and football, each has its own wonderful features. Let's forget the family of football, forget the feng shui of basketball and enjoy the game itself. At the same time, don't forget to cheer for the grassroots team!