changing names from corporations to city works like we see it in the case of IPL, HIL. but cricket is nationwide sport, football is not in India. but fans are divided not only by city/region but also like you see in the case of <br><br>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_association_football_rivalries<br><br>There are ethnicity divides, regional or religious rivalries or rivaly based on social class-like you see in Iran or Turkey. We will never see Mohun Bagan or East Bengal closing shop and forming Calcutta FC.<br>the only way forward is slow and steady-take care of infrastructure and TV telecast. Once clubs start earning, corporate interest will develop and city franchise will come,not now but say after 5 years.<br>
<font face="Arial, Verdana" size="2">I dont mind religious naming or historic names like East Bengal and Mohun Bagan. Mohammedan for example I am fine with but lets be real here: How many successful leagues in the world have clubs that are named after a company fully? </font><div style="font-family: Arial, Verdana; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"><br></div><div><font face="Arial, Verdana" size="2">I am fine with other forms of sponsored names like they do in South Korea with Ulsan Hyundai.</font></div><div><font face="Arial, Verdana" size="2"><br></font></div><div><font face="Arial, Verdana" size="2">As for the only way forward. I agree but I think we need to do other things as well. We need the AIFF to take a stronger stance on the clubs. Also I would like to see more parity in Indian football. I dont think that the usual English way of "Only Chelsea, Man U, Arsenal, City can win the league while the rest suffer" will work in India. Indians like winners, not losers and if they know a team has no chance of ever winning the league they will never support the club. How do we do that? More financial regulation. Simple. </font></div>
by the way no IPL team either spent a penny on infrastructure or youth development. just google how much tax BCCI owes?<br>
<br><div><br></div><div>Give it a few years. I dont even think any of the IPL teams have made a profit yet. Its to early in there history to focus more on infrastructure and youth development. For now tie ups with schools is the best they should be doing.</div>
the only way forward is slow and steady-</span><b style="font-family: Arial, Verdana; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal;">take care of infrastructure and TV telecast</b><font face="Arial, Verdana" size="2">. Once clubs start earning, corporate interest will develop and city franchise will come,not now but say after 5 years.</font><br><font face="Arial, Verdana" size="2">
</font><br><div style="font-family: Arial, Verdana; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal;"><br></div><div><font face="Arial, Verdana" size="2">Also may I add that where will the money come from for this? We already have a TV broadcaster but the clubs get no money for it at all. Also we have no money for infrastructure. You look at teams in countries like England, Germany, Spain and even countries like Japan, the United States, and South Korea, they all have great training facilities with multiple fields.</font></div><div><font face="Arial, Verdana" size="2"><br></font></div><div><font face="Arial, Verdana" size="2">Many clubs in these countries even have teams that have the proper needs. Not just the head coach and assistant coach but also the medics, the kit managers etc. </font></div><div><font face="Arial, Verdana" size="2"><br></font></div><div><font face="Arial, Verdana" size="2">All this requires money but where will this money come from? None of the clubs have owners who can splash the cash (and honestly they shouldn't if they want to remain away from debt) and the sponsorships are less than satisfying.</font></div><div><font face="Arial, Verdana" size="2"><br></font></div><div><font face="Arial, Verdana" size="2">And not only that but we also need youth development but none of the clubs can afford proper youth development. Look at the Pune FC Academy for instance. Yes they have Academy teams from the U15s up but the facility they play at is not so good, specially on bad weather days and the training I can guess is not really the best either based on how I saw them play in the Peninsula Pune Cup. </font></div><div><font face="Arial, Verdana" size="2"><br></font></div><div><font face="Arial, Verdana" size="2">Many people, including Chirag Tanna, believe that the way to change this is through the German model yet I don't believe that it will work. I do believe that the German model would work perfectly if implemented in Italy and England. Their fortunes would really change but not in India. Germany may not be where they are today if it was not for the mega TV deal they have or the mega government help given in order to fund new stadiums for the 2006 FIFA World Cup and the very bright German economy which allows for more commercial partnerships. Plus they had what India does not have... fans!!! The Bundesliga averages 40,000 a season while the I-League averages maybe 3,000-5,000 a season. That ticket revenue thus allows for even more sponsorships and thus more money.</font></div><div><font face="Arial, Verdana" size="2"><br></font></div><div><font face="Arial, Verdana" size="2">Can that work in India? Again no. We dont have a mega TV deal. We dont have the infrastructure. We dont have the commercial partnerships. And we dont have the fans. That is why I want an American style league in India. Obviously I dont want all aspects of American sports in India like conferences as I know that it would not work in India. In fact I am fully aware that many aspects of American sport would not work in India on a cultural affect but there are aspects that I believe will work.</font></div>
Clubs are getting some money. AIFF gives money to clubs for hosting home game and also to away team for hotel/travel expenses. Then club dont have to build stadiums, they rent it. Next Clubs also get to keep Gate money/ticket receipts. sponsorship / jersey deals are separate. Take shillong lajong for example-make it average 100 rupees per ticket and 10000 crowd per match. That makes 1 crore 30 lakhs atleast from I-league only. sponsorship will make it even more. What they need is that Ten Sports should share the feed with local channels like north east or local konkani/bengali channel and share ad revenue. <br>
Clubs are getting some money. AIFF gives money to clubs for hosting home game and also to away team for hotel/travel expenses. Then club dont have to build stadiums, they rent it. Next Clubs also get to keep Gate money/ticket receipts. sponsorship / jersey deals are separate. Take shillong lajong for example-make it average 100 rupees per ticket and 10000 crowd per match. That makes 1 crore 30 lakhs atleast from I-league only. sponsorship will make it even more. What they need is that Ten Sports should share the feed with local channels like north east or local konkani/bengali channel and share ad revenue. </font><br><font face="Arial, Verdana" size="2">
</font><br><div style="font-family: Arial, Verdana; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"><br></div><div style="font-family: Arial, Verdana; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">But overall none of the clubs are making a profit. Again there are many things within a football club you need to pay for. Rent for example and also player salaries and non-playing salaries. Also most teams dont even own their training grounds (the Kolkata clubs for example... Prayag United trains at the Salt Lake Stadium most times) so you obviously need to pay in order to use those. And sponsorship deals dont do anything in I-League because they are not big. Sometimes they are not even payed. Look at Churchill Brothers and the fact that they are now taking to court some of their sponsors for non-payment. Also look at East Bengal and all the sponsors they have and yet the board at East Bengal still complain about how hard it is to travel and rent for the AFC Cup matches (they still can't even afford a kit-man). And the gate money is horrible as well. Most fans either get in for free or very cheap. There is no incentive to even keep them or increase ticket revenue at all.</div><div style="font-family: Arial, Verdana; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"><br></div><div style="font-family: Arial, Verdana; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">And speaking of Shillong Lajong, tell me when they even have enough money to pay the player salaries in full. They cant even afford to sign players from outside the North-East and they cant even revamp the stadium to look decent. That club is in as much shambles as United Sikkim with the only difference being better media service and better support. Heck, I bet you that Blackburn Rovers is paying the majority of Edinho's salary still.</div><div style="font-family: Arial, Verdana; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"><br></div><div style="font-family: Arial, Verdana; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">As for TEN Action. I agree. I have seen it here in America too... where we have regional broadcasts along with the national tv provider so that every game is telecasted. But the sharing of ad revenue or the sharing of money with the AIFF will never happen until the popularity of the televised games go up. I wonder what the numbers are. It was already reported that the Hockey India League get broadcasts that gain more than 24 times of what I-League can get.</div><div style="font-family: Arial, Verdana; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"><br></div><div style="font-family: Arial, Verdana; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">Lets just face it. There is no easy fix. At this moment I bet you that IMG-Reliance is just waiting for the I-League to crumble before our knees. They know very well that this is a failed product... in fact everyone does. I bet you they want so much to create a brand new league along the lines of the IPL and MLS but they can't for legal reasons. If they could they would have a long ago. No Japanese system or German system can save the I-League.</div><div style="font-family: Arial, Verdana; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"><br></div><div><font face="Arial, Verdana" size="2">I mean look at what we are doing now. 2-4 franchises (2 are already most likely going to be based in cities which already have I-League teams) in which we hope they can somehow build infrastructure while also financing the AIFF youth academies. You know how much investment is going to be needed for that... so much. These franchises will never make a profit. And at the same time we could be seeing 2 more Kolkata teams enter the I-League. Next season we could be faced with 6 Kolkata, 4 Goa, 4 Maharashtra, 2 North-East.</font></div><div><font face="Arial, Verdana" size="2"><br></font></div><div><font face="Arial, Verdana" size="2">And its ironic how the goal in 2007 was for the I-League to spread around India yet since 2007 we could now see 4 more Kolkata clubs than there were in 2007, 2 more Goa clubs, 2 more Maharashtra, 1 less Punjab, 1 less Kerala, and 2 more North-East. That is basically going from 5 regions being represented to 4 regions (or 5 states to 5 states).</font></div><div><font face="Arial, Verdana" size="2"><br></font></div><div><font face="Arial, Verdana" size="2">Just goes to show how much of a disaster this league has been since its inception in 2007.</font></div>
Priorities are wrong. If you look at ten action schedule<br>http://www.tenaction.com/schedule/<br><br>French ligue match is at 8:30 PM which noone watch. but East Bengal vs Sporting Clube de Goa game is at 3:30 PM ONGC and Pune FC will have to slog at 3:30 PM. Both have stadiums which have floodlights still. Only Lajong is utilising lights.<br>
Comments
<br><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>Haha really funny. Fine, who cares. </div>
<br><div><br></div><div>Give it a few years. I dont even think any of the IPL teams have made a profit yet. Its to early in there history to focus more on infrastructure and youth development. For now tie ups with schools is the best they should be doing.</div>
</font><br><div style="font-family: Arial, Verdana; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: normal;"><br></div><div><font face="Arial, Verdana" size="2">Also may I add that where will the money come from for this? We already have a TV broadcaster but the clubs get no money for it at all. Also we have no money for infrastructure. You look at teams in countries like England, Germany, Spain and even countries like Japan, the United States, and South Korea, they all have great training facilities with multiple fields.</font></div><div><font face="Arial, Verdana" size="2"><br></font></div><div><font face="Arial, Verdana" size="2">Many clubs in these countries even have teams that have the proper needs. Not just the head coach and assistant coach but also the medics, the kit managers etc. </font></div><div><font face="Arial, Verdana" size="2"><br></font></div><div><font face="Arial, Verdana" size="2">All this requires money but where will this money come from? None of the clubs have owners who can splash the cash (and honestly they shouldn't if they want to remain away from debt) and the sponsorships are less than satisfying.</font></div><div><font face="Arial, Verdana" size="2"><br></font></div><div><font face="Arial, Verdana" size="2">And not only that but we also need youth development but none of the clubs can afford proper youth development. Look at the Pune FC Academy for instance. Yes they have Academy teams from the U15s up but the facility they play at is not so good, specially on bad weather days and the training I can guess is not really the best either based on how I saw them play in the Peninsula Pune Cup. </font></div><div><font face="Arial, Verdana" size="2"><br></font></div><div><font face="Arial, Verdana" size="2">Many people, including Chirag Tanna, believe that the way to change this is through the German model yet I don't believe that it will work. I do believe that the German model would work perfectly if implemented in Italy and England. Their fortunes would really change but not in India. Germany may not be where they are today if it was not for the mega TV deal they have or the mega government help given in order to fund new stadiums for the 2006 FIFA World Cup and the very bright German economy which allows for more commercial partnerships. Plus they had what India does not have... fans!!! The Bundesliga averages 40,000 a season while the I-League averages maybe 3,000-5,000 a season. That ticket revenue thus allows for even more sponsorships and thus more money.</font></div><div><font face="Arial, Verdana" size="2"><br></font></div><div><font face="Arial, Verdana" size="2">Can that work in India? Again no. We dont have a mega TV deal. We dont have the infrastructure. We dont have the commercial partnerships. And we dont have the fans. That is why I want an American style league in India. Obviously I dont want all aspects of American sports in India like conferences as I know that it would not work in India. In fact I am fully aware that many aspects of American sport would not work in India on a cultural affect but there are aspects that I believe will work.</font></div>
</font><br><div style="font-family: Arial, Verdana; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"><br></div><div style="font-family: Arial, Verdana; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">But overall none of the clubs are making a profit. Again there are many things within a football club you need to pay for. Rent for example and also player salaries and non-playing salaries. Also most teams dont even own their training grounds (the Kolkata clubs for example... Prayag United trains at the Salt Lake Stadium most times) so you obviously need to pay in order to use those. And sponsorship deals dont do anything in I-League because they are not big. Sometimes they are not even payed. Look at Churchill Brothers and the fact that they are now taking to court some of their sponsors for non-payment. Also look at East Bengal and all the sponsors they have and yet the board at East Bengal still complain about how hard it is to travel and rent for the AFC Cup matches (they still can't even afford a kit-man). And the gate money is horrible as well. Most fans either get in for free or very cheap. There is no incentive to even keep them or increase ticket revenue at all.</div><div style="font-family: Arial, Verdana; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"><br></div><div style="font-family: Arial, Verdana; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">And speaking of Shillong Lajong, tell me when they even have enough money to pay the player salaries in full. They cant even afford to sign players from outside the North-East and they cant even revamp the stadium to look decent. That club is in as much shambles as United Sikkim with the only difference being better media service and better support. Heck, I bet you that Blackburn Rovers is paying the majority of Edinho's salary still.</div><div style="font-family: Arial, Verdana; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"><br></div><div style="font-family: Arial, Verdana; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">As for TEN Action. I agree. I have seen it here in America too... where we have regional broadcasts along with the national tv provider so that every game is telecasted. But the sharing of ad revenue or the sharing of money with the AIFF will never happen until the popularity of the televised games go up. I wonder what the numbers are. It was already reported that the Hockey India League get broadcasts that gain more than 24 times of what I-League can get.</div><div style="font-family: Arial, Verdana; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"><br></div><div style="font-family: Arial, Verdana; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">Lets just face it. There is no easy fix. At this moment I bet you that IMG-Reliance is just waiting for the I-League to crumble before our knees. They know very well that this is a failed product... in fact everyone does. I bet you they want so much to create a brand new league along the lines of the IPL and MLS but they can't for legal reasons. If they could they would have a long ago. No Japanese system or German system can save the I-League.</div><div style="font-family: Arial, Verdana; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"><br></div><div><font face="Arial, Verdana" size="2">I mean look at what we are doing now. 2-4 franchises (2 are already most likely going to be based in cities which already have I-League teams) in which we hope they can somehow build infrastructure while also financing the AIFF youth academies. You know how much investment is going to be needed for that... so much. These franchises will never make a profit. And at the same time we could be seeing 2 more Kolkata teams enter the I-League. Next season we could be faced with 6 Kolkata, 4 Goa, 4 Maharashtra, 2 North-East.</font></div><div><font face="Arial, Verdana" size="2"><br></font></div><div><font face="Arial, Verdana" size="2">And its ironic how the goal in 2007 was for the I-League to spread around India yet since 2007 we could now see 4 more Kolkata clubs than there were in 2007, 2 more Goa clubs, 2 more Maharashtra, 1 less Punjab, 1 less Kerala, and 2 more North-East. That is basically going from 5 regions being represented to 4 regions (or 5 states to 5 states).</font></div><div><font face="Arial, Verdana" size="2"><br></font></div><div><font face="Arial, Verdana" size="2">Just goes to show how much of a disaster this league has been since its inception in 2007.</font></div>