First and foremost, sport is about passion.
It’s about standing side-by-side with your fellow fans, about singing and chanting until your voice gives out, about living and dying on the outcome of the game being played out in front of you.
It’s about wearing your team’s colors as you walk out to defend the honor of those cheering you on, about how deep those colors run, coursing through your veins.
In the capitalist society where we live, money seems all-powerful, but as the old adage goes, “money can’t buy happiness.” And it cannot buy passion.
Since the advent of truly professional sports, many teams have been bewitched by the lure of untold riches, but you do not need to look far to find parables of the danger of this attraction. The recent financial collapse has again shown us that the greedy goal of simply amassing money for the sake of money can be an incredibly destructive human trait.
Bankers became entirely divested from those they were borrowing money from, and those they were lending money to. Instead of helping nurture growing businesses and providing financial help to consumers while taking a modest cut, they began to chase nothing but their own personal ambitions. It was clear that making quick gains and paying themselves ungodly bonuses was more important than anything else. Not the economy, not the companies they worked for, and certainly not the honest, hard-working folk who turned to them for loans and to responsibly invest their savings.
The same is true in sport. When money men spend big and risk everything for success and the prizes it could bring, it is the little guy, the fan whose life revolves around his club, who is left out in the cold as the grandiose plans crumble to nothing.
The real team is not the suits in the boardroom, or the players out on the field, it is the fans. The people who show up come rain or shine, who don’t come for the prawn sandwiches and hospitality, who don’t come because they are paid to, and who will be there long after the glory days are gone.
That owners often do not understand this is obvious. In football, there are many examples of teams committing the ultimate betrayal and deserting their fans to relocate to a new city, the Oakland/LA Raiders being one.
Over here, this concept seems an accepted business model, but back home it drives fear into the heart of every real fan. The thought of Americans owning English teams is one of our greatest fears, not because of latent xenophobia, but because of the concern that they know nothing about, and care nothing for, the teams they invest in.
Manchester United, one of the biggest soccer teams in the world, has for several years been owned by the Glazer family. Somehow they were able to buy the club by leveraging its worth against a loan, and then this loan was moved onto the team itself. Now the Glazers owe nothing while the club is in the red with phenomenal debts of over 700 million pounds (1 billion dollars).
It is unthinkable that such a big club could go bankrupt, but it is not unheard of. Smaller teams have been relegated for financial irregularities, and others have closed their gates for the last time, destroying whole communities of fans.
On the other side of the scale is FC Barcelona. This team could also put forward a case for being the biggest club in the world, but unlike others, it is owned and run by the fans. It is a rich and successful team, but it is this without needing to be all consumed by the quest for money. Instead of cashing in on lucrative shirt sponsorships, it sports the UNICEF logo, and donates 1.5 million euros (1.9 million dollars) a year to the charity.
While it is indisputable that money is an integral part of a large, modern sports team, what this highlights is that spending huge is neither a secret to success nor a requirement. Teams need to be run responsibly and need to know that their greatest asset is not the millions in the bank, nor the size of their stadiums or the overhyped, overvalued and overpaid “stars” who take the field.
It is the passion and devotion of the real fans.