Newsgroup: it.sport.calcio.milan
Titolo: [Eng-Lungo] Da Friends ai diritti collettivi del calcio in England

Rich cannot get richer without help from friends
Martin Samuel
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/columnists/martin_samuel/article2303042.ece#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=796995
Before Liverpool's new owners attempt to send English football to the 
poorhouse, it may be worth checking in with Phoebe Buffay, one of the gang 
in Friends, the American TV sitcom.
You remember Phoebe. She was the blonde, kooky one - a tad out there, a 
little bit dangerous.
"You want to hear something weird?" Ross asks her.
"Always," Phoebe says. She was played by Lisa Kudrow, a biology graduate of 
Vassar, a liberal arts college in Poughkeepsie, New York, whose alumni 
include Vera Rubin, the astronomer who proved the existence of dark matter, 
and Crystal Eastman, co-author of the first equal rights amendment to the 
United States Constitution.
Kudrow is fluent in French and was going to follow her father, the 
neurologist Lee Kudrow, into the field of medical research until acting 
called. No fool, then. And it was Kudrow who came up with the idea that made 
the six twentysomething co-stars of a feel-good hit series set in the lofts 
of Greenwich Village, some of the highest-paid performers in the history of 
television.
When Warner Brothers, the makers of Friends, renegotiated contracts at the 
end of series two, it was Kudrow who suggested that the six lead players 
should negotiate as a collective. That way, she reasoned, the studio could 
not divide and rule. There would be no chance of one character being 
promoted as the star and paid more at the expense of others; no possibility 
of a character being written out if he or she was in dispute over money. 
Warner Brothers would either pay them all or get none.
At the time, Friends was an NBC staple, drawing 29.4 million viewers. That 
year, Kudrow's tactic led to a pay rise of 150 per cent, to $100,000 per 
episode. As the ratings improved, so it continued. Before each round of 
negotiations, rumours circulated that the cast would quit unless its demands 
were met, which, with an audience that peaked at 52.9 million in 1996, would 
have been bad news for the executive that failed to close the deal. By 2000, 
group bargaining had led to an increase to $750,000 per show and in 2002, 
two years before a 66-minute finale brought down the curtain, the magic $1 
million mark was breached.
Male leads had achieved that level of salary before, but with that deal, 
Kudrow and her female co-stars, Courteney Cox Arquette and Jennifer Aniston, 
became the highest-paid actresses in television history.
As Tom Hicks and George Gillett, Liverpool's new American owners, made their 
first fortune in the media and communications industry - Hicks with radio 
stations, Gillett with three small television networks - they will no doubt 
be aware of the Friends story from the sharp end. Yet last week, confirming 
a fear that many have harboured since the new era of club ownership began, 
the pair dropped the first ominous hint that the biggest clubs might seek an 
end to collective negotiation in the Premier League.
"We don't know if the Premier League plays collectively that well," Gillett 
said. "The four top clubs definitely do. We are trying to sort that out." 
The rest was left hanging. It may have been a harmless indication of a 
desire to exploit revenue streams that are already under individual control, 
such as websites and club television channels. The implication, though, was 
that Gillett was answering a direct question about the present television 
agreement and was suggesting that Liverpool would be open to a breakaway. 
This is entirely different.
There are 20 clubs in the Premier League dividing a domestic pot of Ł2.1 
billion over three years. The first 50 per cent is shared equally, 20 ways; 
another 25 per cent is paid according to the number of times a club has a 
match shown live, with a minimum guarantee of ten payments; that leaves 25 
per cent, which is paid as league table prize-money, divided into 210 equal 
shares, with the top club receiving 20, the second club 19 and so on down to 
the bottom club, which gets one. Even that is worth Ł833,333 each season. No 
other league rewards failure so highly.
Then there is the overseas contract, worth another Ł650 million over three 
years and split 20 ways. In the English system, a comfortable, yet 
unexceptional mid-table club can receive approximately Ł40 million from 
television rights alone, achieved by the Kudrow principle of all-for-one 
bargaining. Richard Scudamore, the Premier League chief executive, has 
attracted plenty of criticism of late, but his greatest achievement is 
successfully defending that right when it was under attack from a European 
Union commission.
Hicks and Gillett are not the first rich men to attempt to get richer at the 
expense of the last remnant of the level playing field left in modern 
football. When Peter Kenyon was chief executive of Manchester United, he 
proposed a similar individual arrangement and put it to the test at a 
meeting of Premier League shareholders. He lost 19-1. Unsurprisingly, now 
occupying the same job at Chelsea, he has not appeared as keen to switch to 
a procedure that would potentially send one rival into the stratosphere 
while keeping the remainder earthbound, perhaps for good.
What Hicks and Gillett have failed to factor in is that, Manchester United 
aside, there is no certainty that any English club would be substantially 
better off for going it alone, not even the other members of the big four. 
Chelsea are playing catchup, taking on gruelling preseason tours in an 
attempt to carve a slice of the overseas market, while Arsenal have made 
little attempt to cultivate their share since the arrival of Arsčne Wenger, 
who does not believe that traversing the continents is any way to prepare 
for the new season. Under Wenger, Arsenal may one day be big in the Austrian 
Alps, but no more.
As for Liverpool, the club has a large following overseas as reward for its 
triumphs in leading European tournaments and domination of the domestic 
competitions before the Premier League was formed, but even that cannot be 
relied upon once the great beast that is United is let loose in the 
marketplace. No club has the potential to be as big as United and whatever 
wealth Hicks and Gillett may believe can be generated by moving away from a 
20-club deal, United's reward would be greater. Imagine, as a Liverpool man, 
being responsible for the decision that made your most bitter rivals an 
unbeatable force. They might then allow you to buy the reserve left back, 
but it would have something of a hollow ring.
So why, as the club with most to gain, do United not seek divorce? In a 
document drawn up in July 2006 by Red Football Limited and JP Morgan as part 
of the Glazers' most recent refinancing package, it was spelt out. "The 
central selling of the collective rights is essential to maintain the 
integrity of the competitions and to manage a fair and equitable 
distribution of those revenues to the participating clubs. The Club and the 
Glazer Family fully support this structure and believe it underpins the 
competitive spirit of the competitions in which they participate." Indeed, 
the minimum ten payments for televised matches - whether the club has 
appearances in double figures or not - is a recent alteration, designed to 
spread extra revenue through the league.
The Glazers as good guys: are we sure about this? The explanation is 
twofold. Certainly, David Gill, the United chief executive, is a staunch 
believer in collective negotiation, and the owners do listen to him on 
football matters; but, secondly, Gill knows that at a shareholders' vote, 
any proposal that would lead to greater financial disparity between top and 
bottom will be shot down in flames, as was Kenyon's. The result: defeat and 
even greater unpopularity. This way, United can look like plain dealers 
around the table and keep their powder dry for winnable wars.
That is certainly not this one. Any changes to Premier League rules have to 
be passed by a majority of 14 and there is no chance individual television 
negotiations would attract such support. If, as the league believes, only 
three clubs might do better on their own, Hicks and Gillett then need 11 
more owners recklessly to vote for a pay cut.
The smaller clubs have already been terrified by events in Italy, where the 
decision to end collective negotiation in 1999 precipitated slow decline to 
insolvency and corruption. The first crisis came in 2002 when the season 
failed to start, as a result of a mismanaged television deal. The bigger 
clubs having broken away, the smaller clubs grouped together and were 
offered a pitiful sum by RAI, half the expected figure. By 2004-05, the 
pay-TV deals struck by Juventus and Brescia differed by ?63.1 million (about 
Ł43 million) annually and, while some will argue there is also a significant 
gulf between United and Watford, at least that is largely linked to 
achievement. It is ridiculous to remove all aspects of meritocracy from 
sport. If it pays as well to come first or last, there is no competition 
anyway.
The final aspect of the debate that Hicks and Gillett appear to have 
overlooked is the simplest one. Liverpool can negotiate its own television 
deal; but it still needs an opponent to play. That is what Kudrow understood 
about collective bargaining; without the actors, Warner Brothers had no 
show. And if nobody turns up at Anfield, what will Liverpool's burgeoning 
television audience be forced to watch? Repeats of Friends, maybe?

 in Friends, the American TV sitcom.
imho il problema e' a monte. e' vero che juve, itner e milan hanno bisogno 
di avversarie per giocare, ma e' altrettanto vero che un campionato con 
milan-catania, itner-treviso o juve-genoa non ha piu' senso di esistere. 
infatti, e' un po' di anni che il livello qualitativo sta calando 
vertiginosamente. bisogna avere coraggio e la lungimiranza di iniziare 
finalmente un campionato europeo (non la CL). allora si' i diritti, 
televisivi e non, potrebbero essere discussi collegialmente, "a la kudrow".
e poi sappiamo tutti che phoebe non era la migliore... :D 

 e poi sappiamo tutti che phoebe non era la migliore... :D
non certo come personaggio!:pPp
Pero` l'idea della contrattazione collettiva dei personaggi di Friends e` 
stata ottima, ed ha imho anche giovato alla buona riuscita del TF
Carol 

 finalmente un campionato europeo (non la CL).
p.s. a me il campionato europeo non interesserebbe, mi piace come sono fatti 
i campionati. Ed e` anche bello vedere giovani emergere dalle piccole 
squadre.
Carol 

 stata ottima, ed ha imho anche giovato alla buona riuscita del TF
quoto 

 ha scritto nel 
messaggio news:fagran$l4h$1...@tdi.cu.mi.it...

uno non escluderebbe gli altri. accanto al campionato europeo (stile NBA con 
le franchigie oppure gestito da una federazione), i singoli campionati 
nazionali potrebbero rimanere inalterati...