European Super League – doomed to fail?
May
27
06:00 PM - 07:00 PM
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Livestream
Is it really doomed to fail?
Is it really true that competition between big clubs only will attract more attention and ultimately generate more value? And even if this is the case, what about the fans? No club is bigger than its fans – or so it seems. The leagues in Europe and the United States operate in a distinct manner and generate different revenues for the clubs. Both systems have their advantages and disadvantages. What were the reasons for the top clubs to initiate a system change and why was there so much resistance? In fact, the two finalists of this year's Champions League final were part of the plan.
An interested crowd joined us live for this UBS Center webinar with Ignacio Palacios-Huerta, Professor at the London School of Economics and former board member of Athletic Bilbao and Stefan Szymanski, Stephen J. Galetti Collegiate Professor of Sport Management at the University of Michigan. They discussed questions including Is there more value to be generated through a “super league”? Are the “big clubs” convinced that they can appropriate more value through a “super league”? Was this the final nail in the coffin in terms of the idea of a European Super League?
UBS Foundation Professor Joachim Voth hosted the hour-long discussion which included an interactive Q&A session with both panellists.
Read our Twitter thread.
This was a public event with free access via livestream on our website.
This session was supported by the Center for Research in Sports Administration (CRSA) at the University of Zurich.
Is it really true that competition between big clubs only will attract more attention and ultimately generate more value? And even if this is the case, what about the fans? No club is bigger than its fans – or so it seems. The leagues in Europe and the United States operate in a distinct manner and generate different revenues for the clubs. Both systems have their advantages and disadvantages. What were the reasons for the top clubs to initiate a system change and why was there so much resistance? In fact, the two finalists of this year's Champions League final were part of the plan.
An interested crowd joined us live for this UBS Center webinar with Ignacio Palacios-Huerta, Professor at the London School of Economics and former board member of Athletic Bilbao and Stefan Szymanski, Stephen J. Galetti Collegiate Professor of Sport Management at the University of Michigan. They discussed questions including Is there more value to be generated through a “super league”? Are the “big clubs” convinced that they can appropriate more value through a “super league”? Was this the final nail in the coffin in terms of the idea of a European Super League?
Ignacio Palacios-Huerta, Professor of Managerial Economics and Strategy, LSE; former Athletic Bilbao board member
Stefan Szymanski, Stephen J. Galetti Collegiate Professor of Sport Management, University of Michigan; best-selling author
Relevant reading
Speakers
Professor of Managerial Economics and Strategy, LSE
Prof. Ignacio Palacios-Huerta
Ignacio Palacios-Huerta has been a Professor of Management since 2007. Prior to joining LSE, he was Assistant Professor and Full Professor of Economics at Brown University, Assistant Professor at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College, Visiting Professor at the University of Chicago, and National Fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University. Professor Palacios-Huerta's research mainly focuses on identifying and studying novel questions concerning individual and aggregate human behavior, including strategic behavior in competitive settings, human preferences, incentives and human capital, among others. Ignacio Palacios-Huerta sat on the board of Athletic Bilbao from 2011 to 2018.
Dr. Stefan Szymanski came to the University of Michigan School of Kinesiology as the Stephen J. Galetti Professor of Sport Management in 2011. Before that he had appointments at London Business School, Imperial College Business School, and Cass Business School, all in London. As a leading expert in the economics of sports in general and soccer in particular, he is widely quoted in the media and has written op-eds for the New York Times, Washington Post, and Financial Times. Dr. Szymanski has authored more than one hundred academic papers published in reviewed journals, mostly on the economics and history of sport. He is the author of several books, including the New York Times bestseller Soccernomics (with Simon Kuper), the fourth edition of which appeared in 2018. The book has been translated into fifteen languages. A history of sports in Detroit (co-authored with Silke Weineck) was published in 2020. Dr. Szymanski has appeared as an expert witness on the economics of sport in numerous court cases on issues such as the collective sale of broadcast rights, the valuation of soccer clubs, and recently for the US Department of Justice on the economics of corruption in relation to the trial of former FIFA executives.
UBS Foundation Professor of Macroeconomics and Financial Markets, Research Fellow CEPR
Joachim Voth received his PhD from Oxford in 1996. He works on financial crises, long-run growth, as well as on the origins of political extremism. He has examined public debt dynamics and bank lending to the first serial defaulter in history, analysed risk-taking behaviour by lenders as a result of personal shocks, and the investor performance during speculative bubbles. Joachim has also examined the deep historical roots of anti-Semitism, showing that the same cities where pogroms occurred in the Middle Age also persecuted Jews more in the 1930s; he has analyzed the extent to which schooling can create radical racial stereotypes over the long run, and how dense social networks (“social capital”) facilitated the spread of the Nazi party. In his work on long-run growth, he has investigated the effects of fertility restriction, the role of warfare, and the importance of state capacity. Joachim has published more than 80 academic articles and 3 academic books, 5 trade books and more than 50 newspaper columns, op-eds and book reviews. His research has been highlighted in The Economist, the Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Guardian, El Pais, Vanguardia, La Repubblica, the Frankfurter Allgemeine, NZZ, der Standard, der Spiegel, CNN, RTN, Swiss and German TV and radio.
Professor of Managerial Economics and Strategy, LSE
Prof. Ignacio Palacios-Huerta
Ignacio Palacios-Huerta has been a Professor of Management since 2007. Prior to joining LSE, he was Assistant Professor and Full Professor of Economics at Brown University, Assistant Professor at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College, Visiting Professor at the University of Chicago, and National Fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University. Professor Palacios-Huerta's research mainly focuses on identifying and studying novel questions concerning individual and aggregate human behavior, including strategic behavior in competitive settings, human preferences, incentives and human capital, among others. Ignacio Palacios-Huerta sat on the board of Athletic Bilbao from 2011 to 2018.
Dr. Stefan Szymanski came to the University of Michigan School of Kinesiology as the Stephen J. Galetti Professor of Sport Management in 2011. Before that he had appointments at London Business School, Imperial College Business School, and Cass Business School, all in London. As a leading expert in the economics of sports in general and soccer in particular, he is widely quoted in the media and has written op-eds for the New York Times, Washington Post, and Financial Times. Dr. Szymanski has authored more than one hundred academic papers published in reviewed journals, mostly on the economics and history of sport. He is the author of several books, including the New York Times bestseller Soccernomics (with Simon Kuper), the fourth edition of which appeared in 2018. The book has been translated into fifteen languages. A history of sports in Detroit (co-authored with Silke Weineck) was published in 2020. Dr. Szymanski has appeared as an expert witness on the economics of sport in numerous court cases on issues such as the collective sale of broadcast rights, the valuation of soccer clubs, and recently for the US Department of Justice on the economics of corruption in relation to the trial of former FIFA executives.
UBS Foundation Professor of Macroeconomics and Financial Markets, Research Fellow CEPR
Joachim Voth received his PhD from Oxford in 1996. He works on financial crises, long-run growth, as well as on the origins of political extremism. He has examined public debt dynamics and bank lending to the first serial defaulter in history, analysed risk-taking behaviour by lenders as a result of personal shocks, and the investor performance during speculative bubbles. Joachim has also examined the deep historical roots of anti-Semitism, showing that the same cities where pogroms occurred in the Middle Age also persecuted Jews more in the 1930s; he has analyzed the extent to which schooling can create radical racial stereotypes over the long run, and how dense social networks (“social capital”) facilitated the spread of the Nazi party. In his work on long-run growth, he has investigated the effects of fertility restriction, the role of warfare, and the importance of state capacity. Joachim has published more than 80 academic articles and 3 academic books, 5 trade books and more than 50 newspaper columns, op-eds and book reviews. His research has been highlighted in The Economist, the Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Guardian, El Pais, Vanguardia, La Repubblica, the Frankfurter Allgemeine, NZZ, der Standard, der Spiegel, CNN, RTN, Swiss and German TV and radio.