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Volume XXXIV

I’ve recently been plowing through The Lexus and the Olive Tree, the book by New York Times foreign affairs columnist Tom Friedman about the era of globalization. In the book he discusses how he quickly realized upon becoming the foreign affairs correspondent that the post-Cold War world demanded a more thorough look at international relations. He discusses trying to understand the world through six lenses, the interwoven fields of foreign policy, international finance, national security, cultural determination, technological advancement, and environmental development. As we become an increasingly linked world, one where barriers become nothing as soon as we plug into the system.

Why do I discuss this now with you? Well... I have always professed to think in a non-traditional way. And this is sometimes what you get in the bargain. This week’s column is a departure from the norm. There will be no discussion of current events this week. Instead, I would like to examine with you the ways in which globalization in a post-Cold War world has affected sports. So be forewarned right now, there will be no further discussion about how Serena bested Venus in Doha ... nor will I touch (in this column) on Andre Agassi’s admissions to using methamphetamine back in 1997, a year in which he played but two dozen tournaments total, failed a drug test but had it expunged after falsely stating that a friend had spiked his drink, and plummeted to #141 in the world rankings. And the Alberto Contador sweepstakes will have to wait until another time...

Because Friedman, damn it, has stirred up the dust in the cerebral vortex and sent the gears a-spinnin’. I’m now stuck on this vein and can’t get out...

But where to start?

I think it all started back for me in the 1998/99 European football season. I had really, after starting to follow the sport back when the World Cup came to the United States in 1994, become infatuated with soccer in all its forms by this point. With the advent of the Internet -- something to which I enjoyed access early in its development thanks to having an IT director for a father -- and the benefits of satellite television newly introduced to the remote corner of Wyoming which we called home, I was able to keep up with a wider variety of sports than I had ever imagined possible. Now, in addition to watching the Packers every Sunday, I could also follow teams like Newcastle United and Aston Villa in the English Premiership. And through the wonders of the computer, I could hear live radio broadcasts piped through my headphones on Saturday mornings that used to be occupied by cartoons.

My mother probably still has it in a box somewhere two-thousand miles from where I currently sit, but I remember compiling a thick zippered binder full of statistics I had printed off. Back in high school I was working on an English-language book about the top European dynasties in club football history, and there was over a ream’s worth of printouts of league champions, UEFA Champions League, UEFA Cup and Cup Winners’ Cup statistics, and all sorts of translated documents regaling the glory days of teams like Real Madrid and Inter Milan, the tragic Busby Boys and the Total Football of Ajax and the Dutch national team.

The funny thing is, for all that research and paper printed, I can pretty much access all that information now with a few clicks of the mouse and have it all right back. The beauty of the information age is that we can access all this information immediately. The radio broadcasts of yesteryear have given way to the ability to simulcast as many different sporting events on a computer screen as your monitor can hold. Statistics are readily available and easily accessible.

But globalization is a two-way street. Whereas once Fox Sports World (now Fox Soccer Channel) was a novelty to be treasured by those few of us who were able to see it through the miracle of the satellite dish, now everyone can follow the exploits of whichever team he or she chooses. When this happens, clubs stockpile players and become global brands. The local institution falters at the hands of the conglomerate. And indeed, in a world without barriers preventing a cash grab by any means, if a business (and that’s what any sporting league or club really is, ultimately) is not growing it is dying.

This leads us back to the parallel of the preeminent club football event in the world, the UEFA Champions League. As the birthplace of the sport and the vanguard of promoting soccer for profit, Europe has always had a propensity for selling its sport to as wide an audience as possible. Globalization has allowed for teams from the traditionally strong leagues -- the English Premiership, Spain ’s Primera Liga , Italy ’s Serie A, and Germany ’s Bundesliga -- to attract a worldwide network of supporters. This following, naturally, comes with all the requisite spending on merchandise and other sales which fill the coffers of the club.

For every Unirea Urziceni or Fenerbahce or Dynamo Kyiv that shows glimmers of hope in European competition, it is the powerhouse clubs which by and large comprise the vast majority of teams vying for the spoils in the latter rounds of the various UEFA tournaments. It is nothing new to sport, though, this desire to horde talent. The Real Madrid of today is really no different than its predecessors a half-century before. Hording talent like Ferenc Puskas and Alfredo di Stefano, the Spanish club won the first five editions of the European Cup, the Champions League’s forbear. The difference now, though, is that identity is being lost in the process.

It is no surprise that FIFA is looking to enforce a 6+5 rule which would basically mandate that a majority of players proportionally on each squad would have to come from within the club’s host nation. While globalization has been great for the economic and technological growth of sports -- especially soccer -- it has also served to help dilute the sense of community cultural relevance. In several crucial ways, baseball in the United States and soccer in Europe are very much alike. Major League Baseball and the various European power leagues each have unbelievable marketing prowess, extending their reach as far and wide through the fan population as possible. So, too, do they turn their heads toward the cheapest possible place for talent.

In baseball, a system of academies has sprung up in places like the Dominican Republic to bring promising talent together in order to see each player in game conditions. In soccer, all a club like Real Madrid now has to do is turn its eye toward South America , where a flood of talent is bubbling up and waiting to be discovered in pretty much every country.

In the past, soccer’s minor leagues were always its lower divisions. The threat of relegation forced clubs to mine the most talented players and promote them into the cadre of clubs which were perennial participants at the top level. Now, in a globalized era, it is not relegated teams like Newcastle United that are the quarry for talent; it is clubs in Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Colombia, Chile and even MLS in the United States which are the new feeding grounds for clubs.

This was always a place to turn for the most deep-pocketed clubs. But the process is accelerating, with the cream of the crop always rising to the top. And that top, increasingly, involves and ever-shrinking pool of clubs that can afford their services. The key is in buying low and selling high, the same thing that Friedman’s “Electronic Herd” of global investors would be more than happy to crow at you all day long (for the right commission). Whether a feeder academy or a feeder league, the concept is all the same.

More than ever, the most successful clubs represent less and less the locale or even the nation in which they reside. Whether it is the New York Yankees or London ’s Chelsea, teams in every sport are increasingly discovering that to succeed in the present landscape a club must always be looking at the cold, hard facts when evaluating talent. Nostalgia no longer has a place in the workforce, which is why a team like the NFL’s Green Bay Packers had no qualms from a business standpoint with deferring the quarterback spot long held by Brett Favre over to Aaron Rodgers. Can Favre still play? He is proving it this season with his longtime nemesis Minnesota Vikings... but a business must realize that the useful shelf life on an athlete is finite and should not be prolonged when a talent in his prime is ready and waiting for his cue to come onstage.

A solid company must always cut ship and bail if a cog in the system is underperforming or is in need of renovation. Just like venture capitalists cannot wait for a defunct company to flounder for solutions, neither can a sports team (in any sport) afford to stand pat and allow the competition to get better, younger, faster and fitter while waiting for an aging player to rediscover his game.

The pipeline, thus, means more than ever. Leagues from Japan and throughout Latin America feed Major League Baseball. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, hockey was able to begin mining the leagues of Europe for a wider array of talent than previously imagined, growing by half again in the process. And soccer, because it is played so extensively around the world, provides no limit to the places where powerhouse clubs can go to find diamonds in the rough.

Globalization for our sports means more than just the fact that we can see an expanding variety of events and learn how to pronounce a dizzying mix of foreign names. A club that can plug into the system and use its marketing clout can expand deeper into the potential fan base (and its wallets). Clubs that have less market clout -- either due to mediocrity, mismanagement, or history -- find themselves falling faster in the gap.

No longer is parity the buzzword, whether we discuss football in America or in Europe . We are increasingly seeing the majority of the world’s talent pooling in a shrinking number of battlegrounds. No longer would a Pele be able to stay behind in Brazil and play for his home side throughout his prime -- it would be economically infeasible, and his club would have taken the transfer fee and ran. With broadcasting capabilities around the world, a scrupulous powerhouse can’t afford not to go after this talent, just as it cannot afford to shy away from exploiting overseas markets for a wider following.

So globalization certainly affects our sports. Teams become more cosmopolitan as clubs go farther to keep the talent flowing in. Fans have a broader base of knowledge available at all times via the Internet. This same technology allows new fans to discover live sports coverage of seemingly any event. No longer, as Nick Hornby wrote in his brilliant part-sociology tome/part-memoir Fever Pitch, is a club a representation of a community and the people living within it. Players rarely hail from the same district as the home stadium.

Now sports leagues and teams resemble more and more their fan bases: dispersed, diverse and utterly lacking in any local ties. Even in an individual sport like tennis, players are increasingly from several nations at once, picking their home nation more for convenience and the best tax bracket than for any binding tie to the region. So next time you find yourself flicking on the tube and tuning into a Champions League match, or watching two young tennis stars battle one another, realize that this is the culmination of market forces that began twenty years ago with the reintegration of Europe.

It is of little consequence these days where you reside in relation to your favorite teams. In a world without borders, where bandwidth is the measuring stick of success, the only barrier preventing someone from latching onto a new team is their own imagination or nostalgia. It is the greatest moment in history to be a sports fan, as one could conceivably sit and watch live action 24 hours a day every day. There is always something going on out there. For better or worse, we no longer have to ally ourselves with the home side. Globalization has made us all global citizens, and as such we all have the freedom to choose our allegiances...

Submitted 10/29

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