Archive for the ‘Cricket’ Category

NFL remains by far the best attended domestic sports league in the world

Friday, January 4th, 2013

*

By Sportingintelligence

4 January 2013

The NFL has increased its attendance levels from an average of 67,394 fans per regular season game in 2011 to 67,591 in 2012, Sportingintelligence can reveal on the eve of the 2012-13 season NFL play-offs.

As our updated global attendances league table shows (also below), the new figure keeps the NFL comfortably in the No1 place as the best attended professional domestic sports league in the world, by average attendance per game.

There are better attended sports leagues in US College football, as a previous feature on this site explored.

But the NFL holds sway in the world of professional sports.

The German Bundesliga’s top division keeps the No2 spot thanks to a new seasonal record of 45,116 fans per game in 2011-12, up from 42,673 the season before.

The English Premier League has leapfrogged Australian’s Aussie Rules AFL league into third place. Both those leagues saw season-on-season declines but the decline was sharper in the AFL.

The top 10 leagues are shown below, as are the two biggest indoor leagues, the NBA and NHL, with the NHL overtaking the NBA in 2011-12.

Big crowds don’t always mean big paydays for the stars involved. The NBA is the best-paid league in the world by average earnings per player.

Sportingintelligence’s Global Sports Salary Survey in 2012 showed that MLB baseball players, Premier League football players, Bundesliga footballers and NHL ice hockey stars all had average annual salaries higher than NFL players.

MLB baseball attracts more fans in total per season than any pro league in the world (almost 75 million in 2012), but fewer on average per game than the NFL.

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Tags: AFL, baseball, basketball, Bundesliga, CFL, cricket, football, IPL, La Liga, MLB, NBA, NFL, NHL, NPB, Premier League, Serie A, soccer
Posted in Baseball, Basketball, Cricket, Football, News, NFL | No Comments »

Graphically speaking: the world’s best paid sports teams from Barca to the Crew

Friday, May 4th, 2012

By Nick Harris

SJA Internet Sports Writer of the Year

4 May 2012

As revealed earlier this week, Sportingintelligence’s Global Sports Salaries Survey 2012 has again found Barcelona to be the world’s best paid sports team.

CLICK HERE to read more detail about the 278 featured teams from 14 leagues in 10 countries from seven sports, employing 7,925 first-team sportsmen earning £10bn a year between them.

This project, in association with ESPN The Magazine in America, has natural ‘accounting lag’ in some sports: seasons finish at different times in the calendar year. The wages we’ve considered include the current ongoing seasons in the NBA, NHL, MLS and MLB and the 2011-12 NFL, as well the most recently completed seasons in all the other leagues, no further back than seasons ending in summer or autumn 2011.

One significant reason for compiling our annual report is to explore the relationship between money and success in different sports.

Regular readers will know this is a recurring theme, and we will publish more in-depth league-by-league analysis in the coming weeks and months, as well as a 10-year breakdown of precisely how money has fueled on-pitch success (or not) in the English Premier League, and a special feature on the global sports tycoons who are increasingly becoming multi-sport owners of major clubs.

To illustrate how different leagues are polarised by money, or not, below are the wage distribution graphs of the 14 featured leagues.

In crude, general terms, where the distribution is flat, the league should tend towards ‘fairness’, because most teams get similar sorts of money.

So the flatter the line between the best paid and worst, the fairer. And the sharper the descent from left to right, the more dominant the best-paid teams are likely to be.

And on that theme, this is …

… Spanish La Liga football

The SPL in Scotland.

Serie A in Italy

The Premier League in England

The MLS in North America

The Bundesliga in Germany

The MLB in North America

The NPB (baseball) in Japan

The NHL in North America

The NFL in America

The NBA in North America

The IPL (cricket) in India

The CFL (gridiron) in Canada

The AFL (Aussie Rules) in Australia

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Posted in Baseball, Basketball, Cricket, Football, News, NFL | No Comments »

REVEALED: The world’s best paid teams, Man City close in on Barca and Real Madrid

Tuesday, May 1st, 2012

By Nick Harris

SJA Internet Sports Writer of the Year

1 May 2012

Barcelona remain the best paid team in global sport measured by average first-team wages, with Real Madrid in second place but Manchester City of the Premier League have stormed into the top three and continue to close the gap on the Spanish giants according to the Sportingintelligence Global Sports Salaries Survey 2012, published this week.

The average first team pay at Barcelona – employees of the world’s best player, Lionel Messi – has been calculated at £101,160 per player per week, or £5,260,313 per year in the period under review. That represents a year-on-year increase of 10 per cent at the Nou Camp as Barca hold their No1 spot.

Real Madrid’s players in No2 place earned £90,859 per week (£4.7m per year, a rise of six per cent).

First-team stars at City, at No3, earned an average of £86,280 per man per week, or £4.5m per year, the highest salaries ever paid in the English Premier League, the world’s richest football league. City’s numbers represent a 26 per cent year-on-year increase in average first-team pay and demonstrate the depth of the pockets of oil-rich owner Sheikh Mansour.

Another Premier League team, Chelsea, climb from No6 to No4 this year, with average first-team pay of £4.1m per player, a reminder they are hardly paupers, despite a perception in some quarters that their Russian petrodollar billionaire owner Roman Abramovich has eased off his spending recently.

Chelsea’s progress to the 2012 Champions League final at the expense of Barcelona was a shock in footballing terms but not unsurprising set against the reservoirs of cash Abramovich has spent on players, managers and salaries since 2003.

Click on graphic (above) to enlarge to see the top 12 in detail. The full list is below. AND IN GRAPHICS BY LEAGUE HERE

This year’s report has been again been compiled in association with ESPN The Magazine in America, for a special ‘All About the Money’ issue, on sale this week.

The salaries report (available as a PDF here) features average salary information from 278 teams in 14 leagues in seven sports across 10 countries. It includes information from the dozen most popular sports leagues in the world (by average attendance per game) plus the MLS and SPL as examples of smaller leagues from the world’s most popular sport, football.

Figures are from the in-progress seasons in NBA basketball, NHL ice hockey, MLB baseball and MLS football, and from the most recently completed seasons for all the other teams, including the major leagues of European football to IPL cricket, AFL Aussie Rules, CFL Canadian football and NPB Japanese baseball.

The full list is below, while ESPN The Magazine also carries details online at this link, where there are more links to other content and details about the special issue of the magazine.

Sportingintelligence’s first global salaries report was published in 2010, to compare average first-team pay on a like-for-like basis for the first time at clubs in the world’s richest and most popular sports leagues. The New York Yankees were No1 that year, and the top 10 included seven American sports teams, six of them from the NBA.

By last year, the Yankees had been knocked off their perch by Barca and Real, and Manchester City had soared from No86 in the 2010 list into the No10 spot in 2011. The top 10 in 2011 had five American teams and five from European football.

This year’s top 10 has three American teams (the Yankees and Phillies from baseball and the LA Lakers from the NBA) and seven European football teams.

As the introduction to the main report notes: “This is a function of the unrelenting growth in football income – and expenditure – among the elite clubs in European football, which is also unhindered by any wage caps, and the relative stability and restraint in America’s major sports leagues.

“It is possible but by no means certain that some wage restraint at some European football clubs is on the horizon as a result of new ‘Financial Fair Play’ rules (FFP) being introduced by Uefa, the governing body of football across Europe … But the effectiveness of Uefa’s policing remains to be seen. And in any case, the biggest, richest clubs will almost certainly continue to generate massive sums, and therefore continue to fund growing salary bills.”

The top 20 in the 2012 review includes six teams from the NBA, five from the Premier League, four from MLB baseball, two each from La Liga and Serie A and one from the Bundesliga.

The full report includes an overview of average salaries across each league, and considers the pay differential between the best-paid team in each league and the lowest-paid team.

The NBA remains the best-paid league overall per man, with average annual salaries of £2.65m a year, or £50,883 per player per week on average. The LA Lakers are the highest paying team in the NBA and the Indian Pacers the lowest, and the difference between the two is a ratio of 1.86 to 1.

This is tiny compared the ratio between the best paid and worst paid in Spain: 22.81 to 1. That is why Barcelona and Real Madrid are way head of everyone else in that league. Even the Scottish SPL is no longer as stretched as that (with a ratio of 19.18 to 1 between top and bottom).

This year’s full 18-page report, available as a PDF, includes introductory analysis on trends, has the full list of average salaries, contains the summary information about leagues as a whole. More in-depth league-by-league analysis will be published over time on this website.

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Global Sports Salaries Survey 2012: the richest teams by average first-team pay

The sports are colour-coded: football, basketball, baseball, cricket, gridiron, ice hockey, Aussie rules football

* Highest paid in that league. NB: IPL annual figures extrapolated, pro rata, from weekly figures.

Rank (last year) – Team – League – Ave player pay, £ per year (week) - Ave player pay $ per year (week)

1 (1) Barcelona * La Liga £5,260,313 (£101,160) $8,680,569 ($166,934)

2 (2) Real Madrid La Liga £4,724,662 (£90,859) $7,796,637 ($149,935)

3 (10) Manchester City * EPL £4,486,580 (£86,280) $7,403,754 ($142,380)

4 (6) Chelsea EPL £4,118,227 (£79,197) $6,795,899 ($130,690)

5 (4) LA Lakers * NBA £3,804,441 (£73,162) $6,278,088 ($120,732)

6 (3) New York Yankees * MLB £3,748,831 (£72,093) $6,186,322 ($118,968)

7 (14) Milan * Serie A £3,699,411 (£71,143) $6,104,769 ($117,399)

8 (12) Bayern Munich * Bundesliga £3,579,961 (£68,845) $5,907,652 ($113,609)

9 (13) Philadelphia Phillies MLB £3,525,612 (£67,800) $5,817,965 ($111,884)

10 (7) Internazionale Serie A £3,454,681 (£66,436) $5,700,915 ($109,633)

11 (16) Manchester United EPL £3,345,911 (£64,344) $5,521,423 ($106,181)

12 (43) San Antonio Spurs NBA £3,302,712 (£63,514) $5,450,135 ($104,810)

13 (28) LA Angels MLB £3,228,139 (£62,080) $5,327,075 ($102,444)

14 (42) Chicago Bulls NBA £3,226,329 (£62,045) $5,324,088 ($102,386)

15 (15) Boston Celtics NBA £3,224,721 (£62,014) $5,321,435 ($102,335)

16 (22) Arsenal EPL £3,199,678 (£61,532) $5,280,108 ($101,541)

17 (58) Miami Heat NBA £3,188,496 (£61,317) $5,261,657 ($101,186)

18 (20) Liverpool EPL £3,169,631 (£60,954) $5,230,525 ($100,587)

19 (8) Boston Red Sox MLB £3,086,731 (£59,360) $5,093,724 ($97,956)

20 (27) Memphis Grizzlies NBA £3,040,693 (£58,475) $5,017,751 ($96,495)

21 (21) Dallas Mavericks NBA £2,989,371 (£57,488) $4,933,060 ($94,867)

22 (24) Atlanta Hawks NBA £2,933,753 (£56,418) $4,841,280 ($93,102)

23 (19) Philadelphia 76ers NBA £2,909,924 (£55,960) $4,801,957 ($92,345)

24 (52) LA Clippers NBA £2,874,816 (£55,285) $4,744,022 ($91,231)

25 (38) Juventus Serie A £2,845,701 (£54,725) $4,695,976 ($90,307)

26 (66) Texas Rangers MLB £2,808,773 (£54,015) $4,635,037 ($89,135)

27 (47) Detroit Tigers MLB £2,764,555 (£53,165) $4,562,069 ($87,732)

28 (5) Orlando Magic NBA £2,757,779 (£53,034) $4,550,887 ($87,517)

29 (123) Miami Marlins MLB £2,650,139 (£50,964) $4,373,259 ($84,101)

30 (£6) Portland Trail Blazers NBA £2,641,418 (£50,797) $4,358,869 ($83,824)

31 (39) Phoenix Suns NBA £2,608,333 (£50,160) $4,304,271 ($82,774)

32 (35) Milwaukee Bucks NBA £2,594,772 (£49,899) $4,281,893 ($82,344)

33 (37) New Orleans Hornets NBA £2,543,396 (£48,911) $4,197,111 ($80,714)

34 (56) Schalke Bundesliga £2,537,706 (£48,802) $4,187,722 ($80,533)

35 (31) Detroit Pistons NBA £2,528,854 (£48,632) $4,173,115 ($80,252)

36 (29) Kolkata Knight Riders * IPL £2,525,129 (£48,560) $4,166,968 ($80,134)

37 (49) NY Knicks NBA £2,524,456 (£48,547) $4,165,858 ($80,113)

38 (11) Utah Jazz NBA £2,517,627 (£48,416) $4,154,588 ($79,896)

39 (44) Mumbai Indians IPL £2,509,657 (£48,263) $4,141,436 ($79,643)

40 (34) Golden State Warriors NBA £2,474,790 (£47,592) $4,083,898 ($78,537)

41 (51) Aston Villa EPL £2,464,831 (£47,401) $4,067,464 ($78,220)

42 (9) Denver Nuggets NBA £2,463,222 (£47,370) $4,064,809 ($78,169)

43 (53) New Jersey Nets NBA £2,417,102 (£46,483) $3,988,701 ($76,706)

44 (48) St Louis Cardinals MLB £2,387,175 (£45,907) $3,939,317 ($75,756)

45 (55) Washington Wizards NBA £2,385,681 (£45,878) $3,936,851 ($75,709)

46 (33) San Francisco Giants MLB £2,375,887 (£45,690) $3,920,689 ($75,398)

47 (62) Roma Serie A £2,361,932 (£45,422) $3,897,660 ($74,955)

48 (23) Chicago White Sox MLB £2,349,279 (£45,178) $3,876,780 ($74,553)

49 (32) Charlotte Bobcats NBA £2,339,193 (£44,984) $3,860,136 ($74,233)

50 (-) Pune Warriors IPL £2,326,765 (£44,745) $3,839,628 ($73,839)

51 (110) Tottenham EPL £2,308,494 (£44,394) $3,809,476 ($73,259)

52 (87) Minnesota Timberwolves NBA £2,296,463 (£44,163) $3,789,623 ($72,877)

53 (18) Houston Rockets NBA £2,292,551 (£44,088) $3,783,167 ($72,753)

54 (73) Milwaukee Brewers MLB £2,276,040 (£43,770) $3,755,921 ($72,229)

55 (26) Royal Challengers Bangalore IPL £2,262,072 (£43,501) $3,732,872 ($71,786)

56 (46) Toronto Raptors NBA £2,222,318 (£42,737) $3,667,270 ($70,524)

57 (50) Oklahoma City Thunder NBA £2,220,345 (£42,699) $3,664,013 ($70,462)

58 (-) Kochi Tuskers Kerala IPL £2,186,099 (£42,040) $3,607,500 ($69,375)

59 (60) Delhi Daredevils IPL £2,184,618 (£42,012) $3,605,056 ($69,328)

60 (54) Chennai Super Kings IPL £2,154,524 (£41,433) $3,555,396 ($68,373)

61 (69) Sacramento Kings NBA £2,118,801 (£40,746) $3,496,445 ($67,239)

62 (25) Minnesota Twins MLB £2,111,641 (£40,608) $3,484,630 ($67,012)

63 (30) New York Mets MLB £2,095,234 (£40,293) $3,457,555 ($66,491)

64 (59) Cleveland Cavaliers NBA £2,056,330 (£39,545) $3,393,356 ($65,257)

65 (17) Chicago Cubs MLB £2,055,626 (£39,531) $3,392,194 ($65,234)

66 (41) Indiana Pacers NBA £2,050,492 (£39,433) $3,383,722 ($65,072) <<<<< NBA lowest paid

67 (45) Deccan Chargers IPL £1,990,571 (£38,280) $3,284,840 ($63,170)

68 (126) Rajasthan Royals IPL £1,968,040 (£37,847) $3,247,660 ($62,455)

69 (57) Los Angeles Dodgers MLB £1,921,859 (£36,959) $3,171,453 ($60,989)

70 (86) Borussia Dortmund Bundesliga £1,892,391 (£36,392) $3,122,824 ($60,054)

71 (68) Valencia La Liga £1,857,660 (£35,724) $3,065,511 ($58,952)

72 (109) Buffalo Sabres * NHL £1,833,553 (£35,261) $3,025,729 ($58,187)

73 (78) Chicago Blackhawks NHL £1,826,261 (£35,120) $3,013,696 ($57,956)

74 (40) Kings XI Punjab IPL £1,785,180 (£34,330) $2,945,904 ($56,652) <<<<< IPL lowest paid

75 (105) Pittsburgh Steelers * NFL £1,779,939 (£34,230) $2,937,255 ($56,486)

76 (92) Cincinnati Reds MLB £1,779,083 (£34,213) $2,935,843 ($56,459)

77 (71) Seattle Mariners MLB £1,774,203 (£34,119) $2,927,789 ($56,304)

78 (65) Baltimore Orioles MLB £1,701,549 (£32,722) $2,807,897 ($53,998)

79 (64) Atlanta Braves MLB £1,682,825 (£32,362) $2,776,998 ($53,404)

80 (85) Oakland Raiders NFL £1,673,000 (£32,173) $2,760,784 ($53,092)

81 (76) Werder Bremen Bundesliga £1,657,329 (£31,872) $2,734,924 ($52,595)

82 (84) Stuttgart Bundesliga £1,648,984 (£31,711) $2,721,154 ($52,330)

83 (158) Cleveland Indians MLB £1,638,888 (£31,517) $2,704,493 ($52,009)

84 (139) Toronto Blue Jays MLB £1,633,767 (£31,419) $2,696,043 ($51,847)

85 (61) Colorado Rockies MLB £1,631,350 (£31,372) $2,692,054 ($51,770)

86 (100) Washington Capitals NHL £1,623,137 (£31,214) $2,678,500 ($51,510)

87 (98) New York Rangers NHL £1,619,638 (£31,147) $2,672,727 ($51,399)

88 (77) Boston Bruins NHL £1,610,158 (£30,965) $2,657,083 ($51,098)

89 (142) Arizona Diamondbacks MLB £1,607,702 (£30,917) $2,653,030 ($51,020)

90 (88) Vancouver Canucks NHL £1,606,647 (£30,897) $2,651,288 ($50,986)

91 (122) Washington Nationals MLB £1,589,957 (£30,576) $2,623,747 ($50,457)

92 (135) LA Kings NHL £1,566,792 (£30,131) $2,585,521 ($49,722)

93 (106) Hamburg Bundesliga £1,563,389 (£30,065) $2,579,904 ($49,614)

94 (91) Atletico Madrid La Liga £1,560,739 (£30,014) $2,575,531 ($49,529)

95 (119) Carolina Panthers NFL £1,543,485 (£29,682) $2,547,059 ($48,982)

96 (104) Sevilla La Liga £1,542,974 (£29,673) $2,546,216 ($48,966)

97 (117) Tampa Bay Lightning NHL £1,538,324 (£29,583) $2,538,542 ($48,818)

98 (82) Dallas Cowboys NFL £1,531,603 (£29,454) $2,527,451 ($48,605)

99 (67) Detroit Red Wings NHL £1,530,481 (£29,432) $2,525,600 ($48,569)

100 (81) Philadelphia Flyers NHL £1,530,009 (£29,423) $2,524,821 ($48,554)

101 (121) New York Jets NFL £1,520,909 (£29,248) $2,509,804 ($48,265)

102 (118) Toronto Maples Leafs NHL £1,501,726 (£28,879) $2,478,148 ($47,657)

103 (124) New York Giants NFL £1,481,698 (£28,494) $2,445,098 ($47,021)

104 (136) Fulham EPL £1,469,616 (£28,262) $2,425,160 ($46,638)

105 (97) Detroit Lions NFL £1,457,934 (£28,037) $2,405,882 ($46,267)

106 (93) Montreal Canadiens NHL £1,454,370 (£27,969) $2,400,001 ($46,154)

107 (101) Pittsburgh Pengiuns NHL £1,451,914 (£27,921) $2,395,948 ($46,076)

108 (120) Everton EPL £1,437,370 (£27,642) $2,371,948 ($45,614)

109 (128) St Louis Rams NFL £1,436,546 (£27,626) $2,370,588 ($45,588)

110 (130) Sunderland EPL £1,434,654 (£27,590) $2,367,467 ($45,528)

111 (83) San Jose Sharks NHL £1,429,269 (£27,486) $2,358,580 ($45,357)

112 (151) Bolton EPL £1,419,805 (£27,304) $2,342,962 ($45,057)

113 (94) West Ham EPL £1,417,310 (£27,256) $2,338,844 ($44,978)

114 (103) Houston Astros MLB £1,413,605 (£27,185) $2,332,731 ($44,860)

115 (96) Calgary Flames NHL £1,410,498 (£27,125) $2,327,604 ($44,762)

116 (148) Arizona Cardinals NFL £1,410,405 (£27,123) $2,327,451 ($44,759)

117 (90) Green Bay Packers NFL £1,402,088 (£26,963) $2,313,725 ($44,495)

118 (125) Columbus Blue Jackets NHL £1,391,807 (£26,766) $2,296,759 ($44,168)

119 (164) Tampa Bay Rays MLB £1,388,868 (£26,709) $2,291,911 ($44,075)

120 (114) Indianapolis Colts NFL £1,386,641 (£26,666) $2,288,235 ($44,005)

121 (113) Miami Dolphins NFL £1,385,453 (£26,643) $2,286,275 ($43,967)

122 (108) Houston Texans NFL £1,381,888 (£26,575) $2,280,392 ($43,854)

123 (165) Bayer Leverkusen Bundesliga £1,380,595 (£26,550) $2,278,258 ($43,813)

124 (75) Minnesota Vikings NFL £1,378,324 (£26,506) $2,274,510 ($43,741)

125 (102) Baltimore Ravens NFL £1,373,571 (£26,415) $2,266,667 ($43,590)

126 (138) Anaheim Ducks NHL £1,364,380 (£26,238) $2,251,500 ($43,298)

127 (63) Newcastle EPL £1,357,295 (£26,102) $2,239,808 ($43,073)

128 (115) Philadelphia Eagles NFL £1,353,371 (£26,026) $2,233,333 ($42,949)

129 (95) New Jersey Devils NHL £1,352,382 (£26,007) $2,231,700 ($42,917)

130 (129) Carolina Hurricanes NHL £1,350,663 (£25,974) $2,228,864 ($42,863)

131 (74) New Orleans Saints NFL £1,346,242 (£25,889) $2,221,569 ($42,722)

132 (127) Dallas Stars NHL £1,336,333 (£25,699) $2,205,217 ($42,408)

133 (133) San Diego Chargers NFL £1,329,607 (£25,569) $2,194,118 ($42,195)

134 (80) Seattle Seahawks NFL £1,327,231 (£25,524) $2,190,196 ($42,119)

135 (168) Pittsburgh Pirates MLB £1,325,482 (£25,490) $2,187,310 ($42,064)

136 (116) Minnesota Wild NHL £1,312,836 (£25,247) $2,166,442 ($41,662)

137 (132) Blackburn EPL £1,311,509 (£25,221) $2,164,252 ($41,620)

138 (146) Florida Panthers NHL £1,295,717 (£24,918) $2,138,192 ($41,119)

139 (-) Nuremberg Bundesliga £1,291,892 (£24,844) $2,131,880 ($40,998)

140 (141) Buffalo Bills NFL £1,288,020 (£24,770) $2,125,490 ($40,875)

141 (155) Jacksonville Jaguars NFL £1,273,761 (£24,495) $2,101,961 ($40,422)

142 (137) Phoenix Coyotes NHL £1,247,955 (£23,999) $2,059,375 ($39,603)

143 (134) Fiorentina Serie A £1,244,543 (£23,934) $2,053,745 ($39,495)

144 (150) Edmonton Oilers NHL £1,233,521 (£23,722) $2,035,556 ($39,145)

145 (111) Cleveland Browns NFL £1,232,174 (£23,696) $2,033,333 ($39,103)

146 (180) Kansas City Royals MLB £1,230,482 (£23,663) $2,030,541 ($39,049)

147 (99) San Francisco 49ers NFL £1,222,668 (£23,513) $2,017,647 ($38,801)

148 (140) New England Patriots NFL £1,210,192 (£23,273) $1,997,059 ($38,405)

149 (79) Chicago Bears NFL £1,209,598 (£23,261) $1,996,078 ($38,386)

150 (157) Denver Broncos NFL £1,203,657 (£23,147) $1,986,275 ($38,198)

151 (145) Wolfsburg Bundesliga £1,198,642 (£23,051) $1,977,999 ($38,038)

152 (172) San Diego Padres MLB £1,195,628 (£22,993) $1,973,025 ($37,943)

153 (112) Atlanta Falcons NFL £1,190,587 (£22,896) $1,964,706 ($37,783)

154 (169) Winnipeg Jets NHL £1,189,916 (£22,883) $1,963,600 ($37,762)

155 (178) Stoke EPL £1,182,425 (£22,739) $1,951,237 ($37,524)

156 (89) Ottawa Senators NHL £1,175,918 (£22,614) $1,940,500 ($37,317)

157 (161) Tampa Bay Bucs NFL £1,175,140 (£22,599) $1,939,216 ($37,293)

158 (170) Lazio Serie A £1,166,737 (£22,437) $1,925,350 ($37,026)

159 (143) Nashville Predators NHL £1,166,059 (£22,424) $1,924,231 ($37,004)

160 (171) Athletic Bilbao La Liga £1,157,231 (£22,254) $1,909,662 ($36,724)

161 (156) St Louis Blues NHL £1,155,202 (£22,215) $1,906,314 ($36,660)

162 (149) Kansas City Chiefs NFL £1,138,305 (£21,890) $1,878,431 ($36,124)

163 (70) Washington Redskins NFL £1,120,482 (£21,548) $1,849,020 ($35,558)

164 (107) Oakland Athletics MLB £1,118,501 (£21,510) $1,845,750 ($35,495) <<<<< MLB lowest paid

165 (152) Wigan EPL £1,107,821 (£21,304) $1,828,126 ($35,156)

166 (179) Eintracht Frankfurt Bundesliga £1,102,140 (£21,195) $1,818,751 ($34,976)

167 (131) Tennessee Titans NFL £1,101,471 (£21,182) $1,817,647 ($34,955)

168 (147) Genoa Serie A £1,095,317 (£21,064) $1,807,493 ($34,759)

169 (-) Kaiserslautern Bundesliga £1,067,753 (£20,534) $1,762,005 ($33,885)

170 (173) Hoffenheim Bundesliga £1,067,138 (£20,522) $1,760,991 ($33,865)

171 (154) Cologne Bundesliga £1,066,511 (£20,510) $1,759,956 ($33,845)

172 (163) Celtic * SPL £1,065,304 (£20,487) $1,757,964 ($33,807)

173 (177) Hannover 96 Bundesliga £1,040,069 (£20,001) $1,716,322 ($33,006)

174 (-) Birmingham EPL £1,036,592 (£19,934) $1,710,585 ($32,896)

175 (159) Borussia Monchengladbach Bundesliga £1,020,423 (£19,624) $1,683,902 ($32,383)

176 (160) Napoli Serie A £1,011,577 (£19,453) $1,669,305 ($32,102)

177 (-) Mainz Bundesliga £1,009,291 (£19,409) $1,665,531 ($32,029)

178 (-) Zaragoza La Liga £1,004,964 (£19,326) $1,658,391 ($31,892)

179 (-) St Pauli Bundesliga £1,003,707 (£19,302) $1,656,318 ($31,852)

180 (185) West Bromwich Albion EPL £1,000,064 (£19,232) $1,650,305 ($31,737)

181 (167) Colorado Avalanche NHL £999,771 (£19,226) $1,649,821 ($31,727)

182 (162) Villarreal La Liga £994,812 (£19,131) $1,641,640 ($31,570)

183 (188) Sampdoria Serie A £987,458 (£18,990) $1,629,504 ($31,337)

184 (144) Cincinnati Bengals NFL £957,697 (£18,417) $1,580,392 ($30,392) <<<<< NFL lowest paid

185 (189) New York Islanders NHL £921,185 (£17,715) $1,520,140 ($29,233) <<<<< NHL lowest paid

186 (-) Wolverhampton Wanderers EPL £887,146 (£17,061) $1,463,969 ($28,153)

187 (-) Freiburg Bundesliga £836,167 (£16,080) $1,379,842 ($26,535) <<<<< BUNDESLIGA lowest paid

188 (181) Rangers SPL £821,484 (£15,798) $1,355,612 ($26,069)

189 (166) Palermo Serie A £748,211 (£14,389) $1,234,698 ($23,744)

190 (187) Espanyol La Liga £730,883 (£14,055) $1,206,102 ($23,194)

191 (196) Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks * NPB £724,013 (£13,923) $1,194,766 ($22,976)

192 (183) Hanshin Tigers NPB £707,976 (£13,615) $1,168,302 ($22,467)

193 (192) Mallorca La Liga £675,051 (£12,982) $1,113,970 ($21,422)

194 (186) Yomiuri Giants NPB £670,758 (£12,899) $1,106,885 ($21,286)

195 (191) Bologna Serie A £643,128 (£12,368) $1,061,291 ($20,409)

196 (205) Udinese Serie A £642,018 (£12,346) $1,059,458 ($20,374)

197 (190) Catania Serie A £635,979 (£12,230) $1,049,493 ($20,183)

198 (-) Real Sociedad La Liga £634,447 (£12,201) $1,046,964 ($20,134)

199 (202) Getafe La Liga £626,833 (£12,054) $1,034,400 ($19,892)

200 (-) Parma Serie A £589,060 (£11,328) $972,067 ($18,694)

201 (198) Chunichi Dragons NPB £588,812 (£11,323) $971,658 ($18,686)

202 (-) Bari Serie A £557,757 (£10,726) $920,411 ($17,700)

203 (184) Cagliari Serie A £534,159 (£10,272) $881,469 ($16,951)

204 (210) Saitama Seibu Lions NPB £523,308 (£10,064) $863,563 ($16,607)

205 (197) Osasuna La Liga £517,709 (£9,956) $854,323 ($16,429)

206 (199) Racing Santander La Liga £502,482 (£9,663) $829,195 ($15,946)

207 (203) Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters NPB £494,972 (£9,519) $816,803 ($15,708)

208 (200) Deportiva La Coruna La Liga £484,717 (£9,321) $799,880 ($15,382)

209 (208) Tokyo Yakult Swallows NPB £479,280 (£9,217) $790,908 ($15,210)

210 (195) Lecce Serie A £478,911 (£9,210) $790,298 ($15,198)

211 (207) Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles NPB £472,737 (£9,091) $780,111 ($15,002)

212 (209) Chiba Lotte Marine NPB £435,949 (£8,384) $719,403 ($13,835)

213 (-) Blackpool EPL £435,640 (£8,378) $718,893 ($13,825) <<<<< EPL lowest paid

214 (206) Chievo Serie A £421,441 (£8,105) $695,463 ($13,374)

215 (214) Malaga La Liga £421,273 (£8,101) $695,184 ($13,369)

216 (-) Brescia Serie A £384,170 (£7,388) $633,957 ($12,191)

217 (211) Yokohama Bay Stars NPB £375,907 (£7,229) $620,322 ($11,929)

218 (-) Levante La Liga £350,215 (£6,735) $577,924 ($11,114)

219 (222) LA Galaxy * MLS £336,807 (£6,477) $555,799 ($10,688)

220 (221) Heart of Midlothian SPL £328,104 (£6,310) $541,437 ($10,412)

221 (219) Orix Buffaloes NPB £322,802 (£6,208) $532,688 ($10,244)

222 (218) New York Red Bulls MLS £320,644 (£6,166) $529,126 ($10,176)

223 (220) Hiroshima Toyo Carp NPB £320,617 (£6,166) $529,082 ($10,175) <<<<< NPB lowest paid

224 (-) Hercules La Liga £304,534 (£5,856) $502,543 ($9,664)

225 (223) Almeria La Liga £296,921 (£5,710) $489,979 ($9,423)

226 (-) Cesena Serie A £253,476 (£4,875) $418,285 ($8,044) <<<<< SERIE A lowest paid

227 (229) Sporting Gijon La Liga £230,664 (£4,436) $380,642 ($7,320) <<<<< LA LIGA lowest paid

228 (227) Toronto FC MLS £195,103 (£3,752) $321,959 ($6,192)

229 (228) Hibernian SPL £172,728 (£3,322) $285,036 ($5,481)

230 (225) Aberdeen SPL £156,094 (£3,002) $257,586 ($4,954)

231 (-) Gold Coast * AFL £136,690 (£2,629) $225,565 ($4,338)

232 (247) Dundee United SPL £130,668 (£2,513) $215,628 ($4,147)

233 (230) Collingwood AFL £127,508 (£2,452) $210,413 ($4,046)

234 (237) Kilmarnock SPL £125,029 (£2,404) $206,323 ($3,968)

235 (232) Hawthorn AFL £123,617 (£2,377) $203,993 ($3,923)

236 (231) Geelong AFL £123,192 (£2,369) $203,291 ($3,909)

237 (239) West Coast Eagles AFL £123,169 (£2,369) $203,253 ($3,909)

238 (241) Essendon AFL £122,860 (£2,363) $202,744 ($3,899)

239 (238) Carlton AFL £122,137 (£2,349) $201,551 ($3,876)

240 (244) Sydney Swans AFL £121,462 (£2,336) $200,436 ($3,855)

241 (236) Fremantle AFL £121,390 (£2,334) $200,318 ($3,852)

242 (240) St Kilda AFL £121,227 (£2,331) $200,049 ($3,847)

243 (235) Richmond AFL £121,214 (£2,331) $200,027 ($3,847)

244 (233) Adelaide Crows AFL £120,630 (£2,320) $199,063 ($3,828)

245 (248) Motherwell SPL £120,600 (£2,319) $199,014 ($3,827)

246 (242) Melbourne AFL £120,520 (£2,318) $198,882 ($3,825)

247 (234) Brisbane Lions AFL £120,256 (£2,313) $198,447 ($3,816)

248 (243) Port Adelaide AFL £119,853 (£2,305) $197,782 ($3,804)

249 (246) North Melbourne AFL £119,426 (£2,297) $197,077 ($3,790)

250 (245) Western Bulldogs AFL £118,803 (£2,285) $196,049 ($3,770) <<<<< AFL lowest paid

251 (270) Chivas USA MLS £108,256 (£2,082) $178,644 ($3,435)

252 (251) St Mirren SPL £106,380 (£2,046) $175,548 ($3,376)

253 (255) Seattle Sounders MLS £104,850 (£2,016) $173,024 ($3,327)

254 (-) St Johnstone SPL £101,916 (£1,960) $168,182 ($3,234)

255 (250) Philadelphia Union MLS £98,310 (£1,891) $162,232 ($3,120)

256 (262) FC Dallas MLS £95,375 (£1,834) $157,387 ($3,027)

257 (-) Vancouver Whitecaps MLS £90,954 (£1,749) $150,092 ($2,886)

258 (259) Real Salt Lake MLS £90,853 (£1,747) $149,926 ($2,883)

259 (-) Portland Timbers MLS £90,604 (£1,742) $149,515 ($2,875)

260 (256) Houston Dynamo MLS £89,614 (£1,723) $147,882 ($2,844)

261 (226) Chicago Fire MLS £88,184 (£1,696) $145,521 ($2,798)

262 (257) DC United MLS £85,631 (£1,647) $141,307 ($2,717)

263 (258) Colorado Rapids MLS £77,237 (£1,485) $127,457 ($2,451)

264 (253) New England Revolution MLS £76,235 (£1,466) $125,802 ($2,419)

265 (260) San Jose Earthquakes MLS £73,205 (£1,408) $120,802 ($2,323)

266 (-) Montreal Impact MLS £71,788 (£1,381) $118,464 ($2,278)

267 (254) Sporting Kansas City MLS £70,771 (£1,361) $116,786 ($2,246)

268 (268) BC Lions * CFL £69,946 (£1,345) $115,425 ($2,220)

269 (261) Edmonton Eskimos CFL £64,163 (£1,234) $105,881 ($2,036)

270 (263) Winnipeg Blue Bombers CFL £63,904 (£1,229) $105,455 ($2,028)

271 (271) Inverness Caledonian Thistle SPL £63,540 (£1,222) $104,854 ($2,016)

272 (269) Hamilton Tiger-Cats CFL £62,969 (£1,211) $103,911 ($1,998)

273 (266) Saskatchewan Roughriders CFL £59,852 (£1,151) $98,768 ($1,899)

274 (267) Calgary Stampeders CFL £59,663 (£1,147) $98,456 ($1,893)

275 (265) Toronto Argonauts CFL £59,653 (£1,147) $98,440 ($1,893)

276 (264) Montreal Alouettes CFL £58,270 (£1,121) $96,157 ($1,849) <<<<< CFL lowest paid

277 (272) Hamilton SPL £55,548 (£1,068) $91,665 ($1,763) <<<<< SPL lowest paid

278 (252) Columbus Crew MLS £54,156 (£1,041) $89,369 ($1,719) <<<<< MLS lowest paid

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ANALYSIS: Yorkshire supreme in English cricket, but that’s all history as season starts

Thursday, April 5th, 2012

As the 2012 County Championship gets underway, Scott Oliver weighs up the most successful counties in English cricket history. And looking beyond the headline finding that Yorkshire top the all-time achievement rankings, he explains how much of their success can only be recalled through the haze of the ages, and explores how the game – and the winners – are changing in the one-day and Twenty20 era. You can also follow Scott on Twitter.

By Scott Oliver

5 April 2012

WITH the 113th County Championship due to get underway today, heralding the start of the sporting summer, weather permitting, Sportingintelligence has analysed which of the 18 first-class counties have been the most successful across all formats of the game since the first formal County Championship was contested back in 1890.

There’s no debate that Yorkshire have won the major competition most – something many a real ale drinker from ‘God’s Own County’ will never tire of telling you – but the fact is that many of Yorkshire’s 30 County Championship outright triumphs (plus another shared) can now only be recalled in sepia.

Set the parameters to a more modern era and suddenly things don’t look quite so rosy (white or red).

According to our criteria – which gives different ‘weight’ to different trophies in the game – Yorkshire slip to being the third most successful county in the post-War era, behind Surrey and Middlesex, and as lowly as eighth for the period since the introduction of the limited-overs game back in 1963.

At the other end of the scale, none of Northamptonshire, Gloucestershire or Somerset have ever won the domestic game’s top prize, which is why the latter’s last session eclipse by Nottinghamshire in 2010 was so excruciating, especially as it has accompanied no less than five final defeats on limited-overs competitions. But at least the latter two have had their glory days in one-day cricket as partial compensation.

Our table of success, to be found in full below, tells you all you need to know about who’s won what. Detailed notes of what’s included can be found below the main graphic.

The ‘total trophies’ column is only one key indicator; you’ll see some counties with fewer trophies above those with more in cases where those with fewer have won more important ones, like the main one: the County Championship.

The three most important columns in the graphic are “% of poss. success” (which tells you the all-time percent of ‘perfection’ each county has achieved); “post-war ranking”, which measures the relative success of each county only in the years since WWII; and “1-day era ranking”, which looks at how things have unfolded since the short-form game arrived in 1963.

The methodology used is in line with that used in a previous Sportingintelligence study – to consider the most successful English football teams of all time.

As with that, a simple tally of cricket trophies would not be truly reflective of a particular county’s ‘success rating’ – not least because certain counties haven’t been in all competitions from the outset: Durham only acquired first-class status in 1992, for example, and before that, Glamorgan jumped on board in 1921; in fact, there were only eight counties in that inaugural 1890 Championship.

There’s also the fact that, as with the Carling Cup and Champions League, different trophies have different weighting, different amounts of prestige, different value.

It was therefore important to work out several figures: first, we had to assign each competition’s relative value – 10 points for the most important trophy, and so on.

Second, we calculated the total points each county had won; and then worked out what they had each competed for historically, i.e, how much hypothetical success they could have achieved.

From there, we could properly evaluate each county’s historic performance, as a percentage achieved among what might have been.

The values assigned to each competition are to an extent arbitrary; they can’t be anything else. But the logic of the points allocation is explained in detail, and in any case the overall rankings would remain the same of similar with various adjustments.

As expected, Yorkshire and Surrey dominate this list, with 36 and 27 trophies respectively and 19.1 and 12.9 per cent of the maximum possible success each – the only two counties in double figures over all time.

Assigning a rank on the basis of the percentage of possible success did not hugely alter the list from a simple ranking of total trophy wins, although Durham in eighth (up from joint 17th) are the main beneficiaries of having a relatively short life span considered..

YORKSHIRE’S historic dominance begins to wane when we evaluate more recent success, as certain counties’ figures were ‘distorted’ by success in the early years, before professionalism started to slowly even out some counties’ historical (dis)advantages.

Consider first the post-war years. Using this timeframe changed the picture considerably. The county most affected in terms of its overall historical ranking was Lancashire who famously hadn’t won an outright County Championship for 77 years until last summer’s albatross-slaying. They drop down three places from No3 in the all-time list to No6 in the post-war period, while Kent also slip, from No5 all-time to No8 post-war.

The biggest gainers when only the post-war years are considered are Essex (moving from No7 to No4, and increasing their success ratio from 6.5 per cent to 8.6 per cent), then Warwickshire, Worcestershire, Hampshire and Leicestershire.

Finally, we looked at the success of counties from 1963, the dawn of the limited-overs era and certainly a time when each county had to assemble its resources to fight on many fronts simultaneously.

During this period several counties became ‘one-day specialists’ – one thinks of Somerset in the 80s, Lancashire in the 90s, Gloucestershire either side of the millennium – not least because cup runs brought big crowds and solvency-facilitating gate receipts. The finals were big days out, too, but the greatest prestige still resided with the Championship.

As you can see from the final two columns of our graphic, the county most affected by the final shift of parameters, from post-war to post-1963, was Surrey, who won seven straight county championships between 1952 and 1958, the era of Lock and Laker, May, Loader, and the Bedser twins.

Yorkshire were also affected, albeit to a lesser extent (having four outright and one shared title cropped from the aggregate, while four from a golden run of seven titles in 10 years survived), slipping back to eighth most successful overall.

If anything, the post-1963 limited-overs era sees a greater compression of teams’ success ratings, thus a more even competition. If there were a perfect split of success between all 18 counties, a fair share would be 5.55 per cent.

In this post-63 limited-overs era, 50 not out this summer, the most successful club is less so (i.e. the top success rating is lower) in real terms than within the other two timeframes, while the bottom club is slightly higher. Meanwhile, 10 teams are above the average success marker, compared to just seven historically.

A final thing to note is that, given the dwindling Championship crowds, the corollary of which is the increased significance of bumper one-day crowds, one would expect there to be a major competitive advantage for the counties with larger, Test match-hosting grounds (which earn more).

Yet Notts come in a disappointing 12th in this period, while there are some good performances from counties without a traditional Test venue, including Leicestershire and fifth-placed Worcestershire, but headed up by Essex, who, despite not winning the most trophies in this era (that accolade is Lancashire’s), are, by our criteria, the most successful club of county cricket’s limited-overs era.

Anyway, that graphic (click to enlarge, and detailed notes on the rationale are below):

The values for the trophies were worked out as follows:

County Championship 10 points By general consensus – and despite the lustre of the big one-day finals at Lord’s – this is by far the most prestigious competition, a fact underscored by the introduction of a £500,000 prize in 2010, and the points duly reflect this.

Twenty20 Cup 6 points The more prestigious of the two current limited-overs competitions, its importance has increased since the inception of the Champions League Twenty20 in 2009 (slated for the previous year, but cancelled due to the Mumbai bomb attacks).

FP Trophy 5 points Began life in 1963 as the Gillette Cup; became the NatWest Trophy in 1981, the C&G Trophy in 2001, and the FP Trophy in 2007, before being discontinued by the ECB at the end of the 2009 season. As the oldest one-day tournament – and despite (or maybe because of, FA Cup-style) the inclusion of a fistful of Minor Counties qualifiers – this was, historically, always slightly the more prestigious of the domestic limited-overs knockout competitions.

Sunday League / Pro40 4.5 points A staple of BBC’s Sunday afternoon scheduling, this competition started in 1969 and underwent no fewer than 14 name changes (including three variations each on sponsors Axa and John Player) before being wound up in 2009, having long been confusingly scattered throughout the calendar, a sort of endorsement of Morrissey’s observation that ‘Every Day is Like Sunday’. This scores more than the Benson and Hedges not for prestige per se but because, being a league, it is notionally harder to win.

CB40 4.5 points Established in 2010 effectively as the replacement for both the FP Trophy and the Pro40. Like the latter, its early rounds are a round-robin rather than KO format (increasing the guaranteed home revenues); like the former, it has a Lord’s final.

Benson & Hedges Cup 4 points Traditionally played in 4 pools of 5 with the top two from each going through to quarter-finals, the shorter (50 overs), younger (played from 1972 to 2002) and earlier (finals played in late June or early July) B&H was the least prestigious of the ‘classic’ limited-overs competitions.

Refuge Assurance Cup 3 points The aforementioned analysis of football’s most successful English teams explicitly excluded one-off games, and we were tempted to do the same with this somewhat anomalous tournament, an event contested for four years only, between 1988 and 1991, in which the top four sides in the Refuge Assurance League (successor to the JPS League) played semi-finals and a final.

On the one hand, you could argue that it was a closed tournament, given that it was restricted to four teams; on the other, you could argue that it was open, given that all 18 counties started each season with an equal chance of participating in it. In the end, we decided to retain this competition in the calculations, albeit with a low points value, while ensuring that its semi-exclusivity was taken into consideration when working out the maximum possible points for which they competed (thus, Lancashire, who participated in all four Refuge Assurance Cups and were one of the founder members of the County Championships, have effectively competed for the most ‘points’, historically).

Champions League We excluded this from the calculations for the simple reason that, unlike its namesake in football, it lacks a crucial element of competitive integrity, inasmuch as some players can be registered with, and have played for, several of the participating teams.

Thus the overseas players used by the counties in our domestic season may well be commandeered by their IPL franchises, or perhaps play for their home teams – as happened with Keiron Pollard last year, for instance, who could have played for Somerset or Trinidad and Tobago but ended up with the Mumbai Indians. (Incidentally, including the Champions League, at a points value of 10, would not change any of the rankings, but it would mean that Somerset would displace Lancashire as the team that had competed for the most ‘success points’.)

Scott Oliver blogs on cricket at The Reverse Sweeper; he blogs on football at False9; and, in the latest issue of The Blizzard, tells the story of the curious short-term rivalry that took hold between Athletic Bilbao and Barcelona at the start of the 1980s. You can also follow him on Twitter.

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YouTube sports chief rules out any bid for Premier League rights

Tuesday, March 20th, 2012

By Nick Harris

SJA Internet Sports Writer of the Year

20 March 2012

The global head of sports content at YouTube has ruled out any bid for live rights to show Premier League football matches now or in the foreseeable future despite describing English top-flight football as “a wonderfully powerful attractor of viewers”.

In an exclusive interview with Sportingintelligence, Claude Ruibal (left) – in charge of YouTube’s global sports content policy since January 2011 – says the Google-owned platform wants to increase the amount of long-form live sports events it screens – but that paying for rights isn’t in the business model.

So while YouTube wants to expand coverage of events where it pays little or nothing up front for the rights – like IPL cricket and Copa America football, and ‘niche’ sports like fencing – YouTube’s efforts around the most popular sports will aim to ‘augment’ the existing live coverage by the traditional broadcast media.

The debate about the role of web-based firms and sports rights intensified this month with reports that Yahoo is considering a bid for the Canadian rights to the 2014 Winter Olympics and 2016 Summer Games – a move that could signal a sea-change in broadcasting if it happened.

But Ruibal has told Sportingintelligence: “We’re not a content creator, we’re not a broadcaster, we’re not going to be a high-stakes rights bidder. But we can be a platform for more long-form sports rights, and want to be.

“We’re just not going to have a business model to spend £2bn on long-form live rights for Premier League football. It would be a wonderfully powerful attractor of viewers to our platform but we need to live within the reality of the world.

“How do we [instead] augment what’s there already? By potentially having a nice offering around catch-up. And another big piece of what we’re doing is everything surrounding sport, the lead-up to the event, and after the event.”

To that end, YouTube already hosts numerous official football club YouTube channels, including those for Barcelona, Manchester City and Liverpool, as well as channels for brands such as Nike Football.

“Look at what we’re doing in Spain,” Ruibal says. “FC Barcelona have one our best channels on YouTube. What they have on there is player features, press interviews, behind the scenes, training. And if I’m a fan of a club I know that’s all there. We have close to 30 official club channels now.”

YouTube has grown rapidly to be the world’s third most popular destination on the internet globally – behind only Google.com and Facebook.

YouTube attracts 4 billion views per day, of which 600m are now via mobile devices. The site has an astonishing 800m unique viewers per month, with an average visit of between seven and 15 minutes.

Sixty hours of new content is uploaded to YouTube every minute – and Ruibal would like more of it to be live sport which can also be archived on the site.

Copa America games were shown live last year on YouTube in dozens of nations where there was no existing broadcast deal, and geo-blocked in those where there was. This allowed potential viewers with no access to mainstream coverage to see games while not conflicting with pre-existing contracts.

In 2010 and 2011, YouTube broadcast live IPL games in many territories where there was no live TV coverage, and ‘delayed live’ feeds elsewhere.

IPL sources say the IPL received some (modest) rights fees but Ruibal suggests it wasn’t YouTube who paid those, but a third party.

“When we did the IPL, we partnered on that, in that case with the India Times,” he said. “They’re the ones who were the bidders. We said ‘We think we’re good at the back end and at having a good user interface. We’ve got the scale. We can provide the platform’.

“That’s how that deal happened.

“Today that’s our value proposition. You want a great platform, great scale, great reach – come to us. But you need to manage it. We don’t do that.

“You need to edit it, create the content. We’ll tell you if you’re not doing a good job because we know who is, and who isn’t, and we can help you get better at this.”

Ruibal sees YouTube as an agent for promotion of ‘niche’ sports in particular, with fencing a case in point. The world governing body of that sport now has its own channel and events are shown in full, live, to global audiences. A range of other sports have followed suit.

YouTube don’t pay for rights, but do share ad revenues that can become substantial when millions of people watch.

One area where Ruibal doesn’t rule out involvement in the Premier League is clip screening; but again it seems unlikely YouTube will pay.

At the moment, Yahoo in the UK and a tiny number of separate overseas platform deals allow specific web platforms to show Premier League goals and other clips after matches have been screened live.

Any Premier League content currently that gets onto YouTube is rapidly taken down by ‘digital fingerprinting’ software.

“It’s entirely appropriate that the Premier League should be able to have content removed from YouTube because they own the rights,” Ruibal says.

Could YouTube bid for Premier League clips? “If we could partner on something on that, on catch-up content soon after the event then that’s something we could be good at.”

Providing a platform for a third-party funder rather than spending any YouTube cash for fees is most likely, however.

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Barcelona, Real Madrid and Manchester United untouchable in cyberspace

Monday, February 6th, 2012

By Sportingintelligence

6 February 2012

In August 2010, as Facebook registered its 500 millionth active user, Sportingintelligence assessed the world’s ‘most popular’ sports teams by ‘Facebook fans’ – and Turkey’s Galatasaray came out on top.

The ‘monetisation’ of sports fans via social media remains in its infancy. But in a rapidly changing multi-media world, we examined how and why the Turkish giants were No1, which was as much due to Galatasaray’s early adoption of Facebook as a marketing tool as anything else. (Read that piece in Turkish here).

With Faceboook’s mammoth stock floatation in the headlines, we have repeated the exercise 18 months on and the results are below. After a year and a half, many of the same names still feature – but with hugely inflated ‘fan numbers’ as social networking has become ever more mainstream.

Barcelona, Real Madrid and Manchester United trounce the rest with more than 20m Facebook followers; the LA Lakers are the only other team in world sport with more than 10m.

Ten of the top 20 come from football (including six of the top seven, four of those from the Premier League), with four top-20 teams from basketball’s NBA, three from the NFL, two from baseball’s MLB and one team from cricket: the Indian national team.

The list is self-explanatory, and this time we have added the pay rank of each team, by position in our most recent Global Sports Salaries Survey. For more on PAY RANK, click here.

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NFL remains world No1 in attendance as Patriots and Giants meet in Super Bowl

Sunday, February 5th, 2012

By Nick Harris

SJA Internet Sports Writer of the Year

5 February 2012

The NFL has increased its already remarkable attendance levels in the current season to an average of 67,394 fans per match, Sportingintelligence can reveal.

The NFL’s 2011-12 figures show an increase on the 66,960 fans per game that attended in the 2010-11 season.

The current season concludes with Sunday’s Super Bowl XLVI, featuring the Patriots against the Giants in Indianapolis.

There are better attended sports leagues in US College football, as a previous feature on this site explored.

But the NFL holds sway in the world of professional sports.

The German Bundesliga’s top division takes the No2 spot, with Australia’s AFL Aussie Rules football in the No3 spot above the English Premier League at No4.

The top 10 leagues are shown below, as are the two biggest indoor leagues, the NBA and NHL.

Big crowds don’t always mean big paydays for the stars involved. The NBA is the best-paid league in the world by average earnings per player.

Sportingintelligence’s Global Sports Salary Survey in 2011 showed that Premier League players and MLB baseball players also had average annual salaries higher than NFL players.

MLB baseball attracts more fans in total per season (more than 73 million in 2011) than any pro league in the world, but fewer on average per game than the NFL.

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‘Spot-fix’ teenager Mohammad Amir released early from prison

Wednesday, February 1st, 2012

By Nick Harris

SJA Internet Sports Writer of the Year

1 February 2012

Mohammad Amir, 19, the youngest of the three Pakistan cricketers jailed last year for spot-fixing in the Lord’s Test in summer 2010, has been released from prison ‘in the last two hours’ according to sources close to the player. (Time of writing is 5.30pm on Wednesday).

The teenager had been sentenced to six months for his role in the affair and was due for release at the halfway stage on Friday.

Sources say he was released early, from Portland Prison near Weymouth, Dorset, for reasons pertaining to ‘security issues’ and media interest. The Ministry of Justice has declined to confirm the release or confirm the reasons.

Even Amir’s closest family are not fully aware of what he plans to do next amid concerns for his safety. He will be pursued by Pakistani and other media as soon as his whereabouts becomes known and will inevitably be asked what he knew about fixing, and who was / is behind fixing in cricket.

If Amir had not become involved in the spot-fixing scandal, he would almost certainly be playing in the current Test series between England and Pakistan. The third Test starts on Friday.

Amir is free to stay in England until his visa expires (in March, sources say) but it is not known if he will do so.

His solicitor, human rights lawyer Gareth Peirce, has also declined to comment. Amir is expected to put together an appeal to the Court for Arbitration in Sport (CAS) against the five-year ban handed to him by the ICC.

The other two cricketers convicted in the case, Salman Butt and Mohammad Asif, are believed to be in Canterbury Prison, serving terms of 30 months and a year respectively.

Asif has already launched an appeal to CAS over his seven-year cricketing ban.

Graeme Swann: ‘England ousting India from top of rankings planned by stats geek’

Tuesday, August 9th, 2011

By Nick Harris

SJA Internet Sports Writer of the Year

9 August 2011

England bowler Graeme Swann has revealed how England’s ascent towards being the No1 ranked Test nation in the world was meticulously planned by a Cambridge university maths graduate and ‘stats geek’, Nathan Leamon, also the ECB’s Cricket Peformance Analyst.

Victory over India in the Second Test at Trent Bridge eight days ago gave England a 2-0 lead in this summer’s series, meaning the official No1 slot in the ICC rankings is within grasp. A win in this week’s Edgbaston Test, due to start on Wednesday, will secure it.

But Swann has now revealed that Leamon, hired by the ECB in late 2009, has long been plotting England’s ascent, and at a squad meeting early last year in Loughborough, addressed by England coach Andy Flower, the No1 ranking was targeted in a ‘mission statement’.

‘Andy sat us down and said this is what we want to do, become the best in the world,’ says Notts bowler Swann, 32. ‘And then Nathan, who’s the computer geek who understands the technology and the numbers, talked us through how we could achieve it, by doing x and y in this series and that series.

‘It seemed far-fetched, to be honest, second-guessing what we could do and what results might happen elsewhere but what was obvious was we’d need to win every series – and we have.’

England subsequently beat Bangladesh, Pakistan, retained the Ashes on a stirring tour Down Under, and have also beaten Sri Lanka before taking the current series lead over India.

‘It’s just a number on a computer,’ adds Swann of the ranking. ‘It doesn’t mean you’ve suddenly got a house in the Bahamas and a private jet. But it does indicate that we’re achieving some of things we want to do – and that starts by winning Test matches consistently.

‘We knew we had the potential to give India a run for their money, and what’s been pleasing is winning the first two Tests from positions where we haven’t been comfortable. In the past maybe England wouldn’t have done that but we’ve seized the chance with both hands.’

The Trent Bridge Test’s major talking point was the appeal over Ian Bell’s wicket and the subsequent withdrawal of that appeal by India. Swann says it was ‘absolutely the right thing for cricket’ and said if India hadn’t made that call, ‘the series could have got ugly very quickly, because let’s face it, it would be easy to take lots of cynical wickets, like when players are backing up, but that doesn’t happen because that’s not sport.’

Swann’s says England are playing ‘some very good cricket, but not perfect by any means.’ The Holy Grail, he says, ‘is putting together the perfect match. Batting first and getting 700 or 800 and then knocking them over quickly, twice.’

Andrew Strauss’s captaincy has been brilliant, he adds. ‘He’s obviously the best captain in England, probably the world,’ Swann says.

He adds that the ‘three captains’ experiment is shaping up well. Strauss is in charge for Tests, Alastair Cook for one-day matches and Stuart Broad for Twenty20 games. ‘They’re growing into their roles,’ he says of the latter pair.

Swann relished winning at his county club home, Trent Bridge, for the atmosphere if not the track. ‘Trent Bridge couldn’t have been a less receptive venue for me as a spinner,’ he said. ‘But the crowd is brilliant, and the players love it, we always seem to do well there.

‘I can’t see why we can’t automatically have a Trent Bridge Test each year. I know the ECB has this rotation policy but I hope that common sense will prevail and TB gets a Test each summer.’

Graeme Swann supports the NatWest Cricket Club. Join today to be in with a chance of winning tickets and great experiences at the NatWest England v India ODIs, and to find out how to do more to help your local club this August through the NatWest CricketForce Fundraiser. Go to www.natwest.com/cricket

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Government and ICC laud Dhoni call at Trent Bridge but India’s twitterati split

Sunday, July 31st, 2011

By Sportingintelligence

31 July 2011

MS Dhoni’s withdrawal of his successful appeal for the wicket of Ian Bell on Sunday in the second Test between England and India at Trent Bridge has been praised by the Indian Government and cricket’s world governing body, the ICC, among others.

But in some areas – notably among Indian cricket fans – the extraordinary decision to allow Bell back to the crease after tea has not gone down so well.

‘Don’t feel like a hero,’ one fan told Dhoni via Twitter after stumps. ‘Your decision can cost India the series and the world No1 Spot.’

Another Indian, in Britain on business but following the Test closely, said: ‘For me, Dhoni is an idiot.’

The drama unfolded at the end of the afternoon session as Bell was given run out after leaving the crease in the belief that tea had been called. Eoin Morgan had just hit a shot that looked like it had reached the fence. It hadn’t. The throw came back in, the bails went off, and Dhoni appealed for the wicket – and got it.

The ICC has confirmed that television umpire Billy Bowden’s decision that Bell was out ‘was the technically correct decision under the letter of the law of the game.’

Cue mayhem, over cucumber sandwiches and a cuppa. England’s captain, Andrew Strauss, and coach, Andy Flower, went to the Indian dressing room and requested that the Indians withdrew their appeal. Dhoni agreed.

Bell came back out, and added 22 runs for 159 as England moved to 441 for 6 at stumps. They have a lead of 374 runs going into Monday’s fourth day of the Test.

India’s sports minister, Ajay Maken, responded to events by tweeting: ‘Proud of you Dhoni! Spirit of game is more important than the result. Win the hearts and you will win the game too! India is proud of you!’

Haroon Lorgat, the chief executive of the ICC, issued a statement saying: ‘Absolute credit must go to Team India, the England team and the match officials – Ranjan Madugalle, Asad Rauf and Marais Erasmus as well as the off-field umpires Billy Bowden and Tim Robinson – for the superb way that they all handled a tricky situation.

‘While the initial appeal and umpire decision may have been acceptable to the letter of the law, the decision by India captain M S Dhoni and his team – as well as the Team India coaching staff – to withdraw the appeal shows great maturity. To see players and officials uphold the great Spirit of cricket, which has underpinned the game for more than a century, is very special.’

While an apparent majority of opinion was that Dhoni was right to do what he did, Shane Warne said: ‘Much as we don’t like to see dismissals like that, Bell made a careless mistake – no doubt.’

Indian fans are certainly not unanimous in thinking it was the right thing to do, with many asking on social networks whether England, in the same situation, would have reciprocated.

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