Why hasn't there been a new major sports league?

https://humaninvariant.substack.com/p/why-hasnt-there-been-a-new-major

by surprisetalk • 9 months ago

27 66 9 months ago

humaninvariant.substack.com

1970-01-012• 9 months ago

Are they just going to gloss over Twitch and video gaming like that? I'm fairly sure it qualifies if you don't specifically exclude their online only influence.

morkalork2• 9 months ago

ESports is a sizeable chunk of the article?

1970-01-012• 9 months ago

And yet it's not a "new major sports league" ?

morkalork2• 9 months ago

The bit about getting the government to invest with a goal that isn't financial ROI reminds me of the Olympics during the cold war. All that investment to "prove" the dominance of one economic system or another.

LocalH7• 9 months ago

The scourge of unfettered capitalism. Everything boils down to "how much money does it make"

Small-time capitalism is good. But beyond a certain size, it falls apart and can even become quasi-governmental. When is somebody going to blend the best part of all political isms to get closer to the best possible form of society

barbazoo2• 9 months ago

Best for who though? There just is no one size that fits all. Personally I would be happy in a more equal socialistic society but I recognize that others prefer the individuality and excitement of playing the game of chance in our capitalist system.

What I’m looking for is perhaps more at a smaller level of local community, not “state” level.

foxglacier2• 9 months ago

People tried picking the best bits of capitalism and communism and they ended up with fascism. Maybe it's fine what we have now which is capitalism with piles of restrictions and government spending to fix all the little bugs that've been discovered over time. I'd say society is too complex for some invented -ism to just magically work.

megaloblasto• 9 months ago

Looks like they missed Major League Cricket (MLC) founded in 2023

walthamstow• 9 months ago

The popularity of the English Premier League in the US is a factor not considered anywhere in the piece.

itsdavesanders• 9 months ago

Probably because it’s not a “US league?”

I might consider F1 in that case as it has gained in popularity a lot, and technically it’s owned by a U.S. company, but I’d never think of it as a U.S. league.

cogogo• 9 months ago

I think OP’s point is that the demand is being met elsewhere. The Premier League has exploded in popularity in the US because of accesible TV. It is easier than ever to watch foreign sports and you do not have to deal with local blackout garbage.

tcoff91• 9 months ago

F1 has blown up in popularity too

petesergeant2• 9 months ago

Is there any market in the world where rival leagues of the same sport compete in the same geographic location? Maybe there aren’t new leagues because Americans don’t care enough about new sports?

Further, it’s the teams, not the leagues that make money, which I didn’t pick up in a brief skim of the article. Why would any team want to join an rival league? League monopoly seems like the natural fit, and let the competition happen between teams.

munchler3• 9 months ago

Both the NFL (football) and MLB (baseball) formed from competing leagues in the US.

petesergeant2• 9 months ago

Right, but they did merge, and I’d argue it’s because it’s natural for a sports league to be a monopoly. Fans wanna see the best players and teams compete with each other.

pekim• 9 months ago

Darts might not be considered a sport, but the British Darts Organisation [1] and the Professional Darts Corporation [2] co-existed (somewhat acrimoniously) for nearly 30 years.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Darts_Organisation (BDO)

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_Darts_Corporation (PDC)

fruitplants• 9 months ago

Indian Premier League (Cricket) is not a US league. Some reasons mentioned in the post apply to IPL. And IMO some don't (nerdy billionaires). There's even an acquired.fm episode on it. https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/indian-premier-league-crick...

"So successful in fact that it is the fastest growing major sports league in the world, growing 20x in value since 2008 to be worth more than $16 billion today."

munchler3• 9 months ago

Can we please stop pretending that WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) is a sport? Clue: It’s got “entertainment” right there in the name.

LocalH7• 9 months ago

Within kayfabe, WWE is a sport. Outside of kayfabe, it's not.

cwillu• 9 months ago

Medical dramas are not medicine, courtroom dramas are not court, wrestling dramas are not wrestling.

bena2• 9 months ago

All sports are entertainment. No one watches the Jets expecting them to win.

munchler3• 9 months ago

I assume you’re being facetious, but just to be clear: WWE is scripted, while the Jets have a fair chance to win any given game.

freedomben2• 9 months ago

To be clear, I agree with you that WWE is not a sport.

But the counter argument that I have heard which I find the strongest, is pointing out the extreme physical endurance and strength that they have in order to complete their routines. It does take a pretty high level of athleticism to accomplish what they do.

I think that's a strong argument, but I don't think it's enough to make it a sport. It takes an extreme level of athleticism to do plenty of things that we don't consider sports

5555624• 9 months ago

Fans only want to watch the very best players. Without TV money, new leagues can’t match salaries, and cannot attract top talent.

Is there enough "top talent" to fund a new league? Take American football: there are more players in high school, than college, because the game gets faster and better; the same goes from college to the NFL. The game changes, too; so. success in college doe not mean success in the NFL. There have been 88 Heisman Trophy winners; but, only 10 have made the NFL Hall of Fame. (The only two-time Heisman Trpohy winner is not one of those ten.)

Did (DO) the XFL and AAF have "top talent"? These were players who were not good to get drafted by the NFL. Sure, some players have from the XFL to NFL; but, that makes the XFL more like a minor league or developmental league -- a notch lower.

Balgair• 9 months ago

Top talent is also going to these lesser leagues. Mason Cox was a top NCAA basketball player and got recruited to play AFL in Australia. There's quite a pipeline now because that. Same goes for Australia to US football kickers and punters.

Most of these sports are so variable that they qualify as 'unkind' learning environments, per David Epstein's work. Meaning that a large variety of other education is preferable. Patrick Mahomes is a great example. His baseball training has made him a great quarterback.

Point is, if the sport is sufficiently 'unkind' then any player from other sports should be just fine transferring over

andrefuchs• 9 months ago

Indoor football (soccer) leagues like the Kings League and Baller League have significant potential to become major players.

They are reported to generate between 50 and 100 million in revenue per season already.

an0malous• 9 months ago

There has been, the esports leagues. The viewership on the LoL championship game had a larger viewership than then Super Bowl.

Edit: Got caught not reading the article, sorry. I’ll leave this up as a monument to my shame.

JohnFen3• 9 months ago

He did mention them.

The three leagues with even an argument for being not total failures are the NWSL, League of Legends Esports (LoL Esports), and LIV Golf. All have unique advantages over their counterparts, and yet none of them are profitable today or even on a very convincing path toward profitability.

freedomben2• 9 months ago

Tfa directly addresses LoL.

LoL Esports: loses hundreds of millions of dollars annually, exists solely as a marketing mechanism to get people to play the actual game

klooney• 9 months ago

If viewership is high, does that matter? Football loses hundreds of millions of dollars for Proctor and Gamble, if you look at it a certain way.

mozillamaxx• 9 months ago

The author omitted Major League Rugby

jleyank• 9 months ago

What significant college/HS level sport is not already producing people for a league-based game? Yeah, they can get women's alternatives, which lead to some exciting play, but I can't think of a sport that's not already covered.

frankdenbow• 9 months ago

Overtime exists: https://overtime.tv/

Unrivaled only launched last year but its going well and I believe going to be a powerhouse in the womens basketball market as well: https://www.unrivaled.basketball/

clarle• 9 months ago

I think F1 got significantly more popular in the past few years with Drive to Survive on Netflix, and then most recently with the F1 movie on Apple TV.

It’s a sports league with history and has been around for a while, but I think significant popular mindshare only happened in the last 5 years.

phpnode• 9 months ago

Popular mindshare in the US in the last 5 years - outside the US it has been huge for decades

johannes12343212• 9 months ago

I think that heavily depends on regions. In Germany it peaked with Michael Schumacher. Later drivers like Vettel were successful, but didn't attract the same mainstream attention.

But in global terms F1 tried to grow it's reach to China and US. (Which then turned to "night time races" for their traditional European audience.

AndrewKemendo• 9 months ago

I’m open to helping if anyone wants to start the violence network

patrickmay• 9 months ago

I think a U.S. rugby league has potential.

Yossarrian22• 9 months ago

I personally prefer padel or spec tennis but pickleball seems to be getting attention

augusto-moura• 9 months ago

3 of the listed leagues were created in the 90s (MLS, UFC and WNBA), even though they are from the previous century I would categorize them much closer to modern times. 30 years difference is not that big of a gap. UFC in specific just got real attention in the last 15 years or so

CWuestefeld2• 9 months ago

This is ignoring the massive surge in popularity of college sports in recent years. At a quick glance, it looks like NCAA revenue has ~tripled since 2000. While not exactly the same thing, I think the author needs to explain the phenomena in his theory.

dgeiser13• 9 months ago

Popular American sports need a version similar to Rugby sevens

Why hasn't there been a new major sports league?

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