Must everything in the world be done to benefit advertising?
It's like the dystopic version of a dystopia, not even some evil entity or philosophy shaping the world, it's just people promoting shit for pennies. The real evil is extraordinarily mundane.
How do you change it? Heavy taxes on ad revenue that favor other forms of funding?
There's 38 games in a season for that league and the home stadium for Ronaldo's team holds 41,000 and the cheapest tickets are 136 euros.
Right there is 215 million if you sold out the stadium with the cheapest price... well I don't know if the stadium sells out and there are season tickets and more expensive tickets... but there's also merch and hotdog sales (no idea what stadium food is for european soccer matches).
In short... cry me a river. If hundreds of millions per year isn't enough money for "everything" needed to support a group of guys to play a game per year, "everything" must include a lot of rent seeking from people getting paid a lot to exist and not much else actually enabling the goal.
They could also start by, you know, not paying the players wages measured in GDPs and maybe knock them down to say, only-1-super-car type figures? Pretty certain you'd still get people wanting to be (famous) footballers.
> retty certain you'd still get people wanting to be (famous) footballers.
Yep. Pretty sure every kid dreams of kicking the winning goal in the world cup final or something of that nature. Back when I had those aspirations I barely had a concept of money, let alone that sporting hero's had more of it than everyone else remotely connected to me in my world combined. For that matter, most of the sports I watched were only just professionalizing then, half of my hero's still had day jobs.
38 Games but half of those are away. With significant less space and revenue split. I am not sure where the cheapest Juventus Ticket of €136 came from. As it is more like the expensive ticket during a derby. With away ticket as low as €30 and €50 for Home Ticket. Seasonal Ticket starts as low as €650.
Basically the €215 Million is off by an order of magnitude.
The majority of revenue for Football teams actually comes from TV revenue, sponsorhsip and Mech. Most if not all EUR and UK Football teams generally keep the ticket price as low as possible to encourage people going in to watch the Game.
>If hundreds of millions per year.......
With Player transfer going at €100+ Million, I am not surprised. Although with Football, so far the game has proven money can buy you the best team ( whatever that means ) but not the trophies. Which still keep it somewhat exciting.
Are they not enough to fund “everything”, or are they merely not enough to fund greed?
I don’t deny that players get paid a lot but 1) how much is that compared to the total money coming in from advertising? and 2) could we still have exciting games with players being paid much less?
It doesn't matter. Revenue is always maximized, this is not a non-profit event, they absolutely dont care about how they could come out breakeven.
Also there is essentially no competition. If you want to watch that kind of sport you cant really choose. And if you wanna play that sport on that level you also can not choose.
Twist UEAFA's arm for more bonus money and push for even more lucrative deals from TV companies. Or create your own football league where you don't even need to bother winning to earn piles of cash.
They tried to do this with twelve top teams. It would have prevented them from being relegated and to keep the cash to themselves. Lasted a day or two before the fan base rioted and 9 of the 12 teams said they were sorry. They might get fined or being whipped by their fans might be sufficient.
I don't think that was a joke. The banality of evil is about how evil actions may have mundane motivations, particularly professional promotion and profit, rather than ideological motivations. IBM's contribution to the holocaust exemplifies this.
Presumably you object to observations about human behavior made in the context of the Holocaust being applied to any circumstance less severe than the Holocaust. I don't think that makes much sense. Attributing Coco Cola's promotion of poisonous beverages to the banality of evil is not equivocating the harm of Coca Cola to the harm of the Holocaust. If such an equivocation were made, that would of course be objectionable.
The "evil" referred to in Arendt's original usage is being one of the architects of The Holocaust.
The "evil" being described here is trying to sell a few extra units of sugar water. The analogy would be no more appropriate if the "evil" was trying to sell a few extra servers regardless of what IBM did in the 1930s and 1940s.
It is not that simply selling soda is "less severe than the Holocaust", it is that it isn't even in the same realm. The analogy is drawing comparisons between one of the banalities of living in a capitalistic society with one of the worst atrocities that humans have ever committed. At a certain point it isn't even about offending anyone. An analogy that strained is just straight up a bad analogy.
The banality of evil is not limited to extreme evil. Nevertheless, Coca Cola's product certainly has a body count. Refined sugar is poisonous in the first place, certainly in the quantities Coca Cola sells it in, and Coca Cola also adds caffeine to make their product even more addictive. And why does Coca Cola want to associate their product with athleticism so badly? Because their product has developed a well earned reputation for being unhealthy, and they want to whitewash that reputation. They want to use athletes particularly because athletes are often role models for people in the domains of fitness and nutrition.
There is evil to be found in Coca Cola's business model, and therefore, it is appropriate to invoke the banality of evil to explain it.
It was not a joke. Evil doesn't look like Sauron or HYDRA. Evil looks more like William Barr. Arendt's insight was that evil is bland, sometimes barely competent, bureaucracy and uncritical dedication to the system for selfish ambition.
The comment I was responding to said, "real evil is extraordinarily mundane", which is exactly what Arendt noted. Whether or not the actions of UEFA and Coca-Cola are morally equal to IBM's role in the Holocaust is a different question, but the attitude of subservience to order is certainly comparable.
Sorry for assuming it is a joke, but the IBM of today is so disconnected from the IBM of 80 years ago that I didn't think you could be seriously suggesting that the modern company advertising is some how an immoral act.
>Whether or not the actions of UEFA and Coca-Cola are morally equal to IBM's role in the Holocaust is a different question
But that wasn't why I objected. You are not just comparing EUFA, Coke, and IBM, you are comparing those to one of the architects of the Holocaust. Maybe that isn't your intent, but it is what you are doing by directly referencing Arendt. I probably wouldn't have even said anything if you didn't call specific attention to the fact that you knew the origin of the phrase and still went forward with an analogy that working for Coke is like working for the Nazis.
I mean you could not sell ads to companies that make sugar water. That’s the consumer’s responsibility to put that pressure on Uefa. Nothing will change unless the bottom line does.
Participation in sponsorship is voluntary. You change it by not buying Coca-Cola, and educating people about the terrible practices of these companies, eg by sharing this link.
"I'll only buy your products if you don't advertise" would be an incredibly difficult proposition. This isn't about one incident with one company, but a general problem with damn near everything.
Oh, I so much hope you are right and he does that. It'd be so fun. In the end of the day, even if they fine him, that will increase his personal brand value :D
Well he's got the clout that UEFA don't dare be tough with him, if he gets mad the backlash against UEFA and Coca-Cola will be even greater, and the PR consultants working for them know this...
That's bullshit though. People will still be playing football even if nobody is getting paid. Why? Because it's fun. To corporations like Coca Cola, 'fun' is an abstract concept that you associate with your product to make more money; such corporations can never truly understand the concept of fun.
Actually, fans and players can get along without sponsors. There is also a long list of prospective sponsors who don't peddle fizzy drinks that the talent (or fans) might object to.
> There is also a long list of prospective sponsors who don't peddle fizzy drinks that the talent (or fans) might object to.
Might be hard to find, there’s not that many global brands out there where you can advertise once and hit the world. Unhealthy food and beverage make up a lot of the sector.
Even Google or Apple don’t hit the China market well.
Even multinational car manufacturers sub-brand way too much.
According to[1] Ronaldo has a personal sponsorship deal with Herbalife going on since 2013 for a CR7-branded sports drink. Would be interesting to hear if that affected his Cola move.
TV changed everything. There were some clubs in England that protested TV broadcasts of games entirely because they were afraid it would devalue the game-day and club experience.
Perhaps they were right.
Long, long time ago, athletes played for a season and then earned a living at their actual careers. It is all about sponsors if athletes want to make the money they've grown accustomed to.
You're acting like the athletes got together and demanded enormous contracts so UEFA was begrudgingly forced to make deals with Coca-Cola to appease their entitlement.
Incorrect. I'm acting like the athletes know what the UEFA is about when they sign contracts to UEFA clubs, and thus pretending that this is some kind of free speech issue is ridiculous. The players sign plenty enough endorsement contracts on their own to know how this works.
If just moving the product has this much effect it shows just how powerful brand perception is and how nuanced it can be. If you're a student of media / propaganda this is a textbook basic example of product placement and its importance.
It may seem obvious but the implications are immense. This kind of insight underpins just about every advertising campaign in some way. This is not a trivial example at all.
This is how lucative having those bottles positioned just so is to these companies. It also says a lot about how persuasive this kind of placement really is.
Coca-Cola probably paid a lot of money to have their two drinks shown in the interviews. Changing that is probably some kind of breach of contract by the organizers of the event.
This is precisely my point. They would have definitely paid money for every aspect. Along with the insistence that it be their product in front of the players. Logo visible. On camera. In frame.
> "partnerships are integral to [...] ensuring the development of football across Europe [...] for youth"
This part is laughable horse shit. You don't need corporate sponsors to give some kids a $10 ball. Nor do you need corporate sponsors even for a field for them to run around in; school taxes or local funding for public parks have that covered. No corporate partnerships were ever involved when I played this game as a kid.
And somehow you did not become a world-class football player...
UEFA does sponsor a lot of initiatives that aim not only to encourage kids to play football but also train them properly, helping them reach their full potential. Just ensuring that they a. have proper equipment, b. are trained by professional coaches, c. participate in various local and international tournaments, those things make a world of difference.
That's not true, my mum watched. There were sometimes a hundred or so people watching. And for more popular sports in my area, namely American football, there were sometimes a thousand or more people watching kids play for free.
My guess is UEFA supports national football associations, which in turn support this development, e.g. by helping paying for maintenance of football pitches. I could be wrong.
In reality the UEFA suits are probably more concerned about the Coke money that's been developing their wives' and mistresses' Chanel purses collection.
It is startling to have UEFA admit this in the open. I would have expected this to be whispered into the appropriate ears, not announced aloud like this.
Admitting how controlled you are by your sponsors is not a good look for anybody, no?
I feel like this being in the open is par for course nowadays. Sponsors, and indirectly through the broadcasters, hold enormous power over modern sports. Coca-Cola is spending some millions of dollars on this campaign, and it’s a bad look when the players actively diminish their product. Ronaldo is one of the most popular players in the world, if not the most, and kids look up to him. They can’t have this, and I’m sure execs were immediately calling their buddies at UEFA.
I side with Ronaldo, drink more water and not the sugary stuff.
> Admitting how controlled you are by your sponsors is not a good look for anybody, no?
You should read about how the IOC is pushing for the Olympics to go on, because, well, the sponsors want to see return on investment.
They even said they'll source doctors from all over the world to make sure the games are safe. Doctors who are probably more useful helping in places where the spread of Covid hasn't been caused by some money hungry corporations.
>Teams at Euro 2020 could face fines if their players move drinks provided by sponsors at news conferences, as Cristiano Ronaldo and Paul Pogba have done in recent days.
Luckily in the next journalist session Ronaldo has a poster promoting UNICEF charity work that he places in front of the coke bottles, for promoting "development of youth and women."
Has anyone looked at the after hours trades to see when the stock dipped? I'd imagine that the $2b dividend they paid out the previous trading day had way more impact on their market cap than the bottle moving incident
It should have been, but in my mind the disconnect between "Coca-Cola" or "Coke" and "KO" was to big to bridge. I should have just looked it up. Thank you.
> The next day, France midfielder Pogba, a practising Muslim, discreetly removed a bottle of Heineken beer.
> Uefa's Euro 2020 tournament director Martin Kallen said players were contractually obliged "through their federation of the tournament regulations to follow".
> However, he said he understood the actions of players who, like Pogba, did such things for religious reasons.
Understood the motivation, but it doesn't say if they will support players when a sponsored placement implies an endorsement that runs counter to a players beliefs.
> Understood the motivation, but it doesn't say if they will support players when a sponsored placement implies an endorsement that runs counter to a players beliefs
Considering religion is a type of belief, it's hard to draw a realistic line there. Healthy living is too much, but a book you religiously believe in told you no X so that's acceptable? What if CR7 believed religiously in his health ( sure seems he does)?
And it's funny they're making a point to make an exception for Pogba and religion when the beer he moved was non-alcoholic, so his religion had nothing to do with it.
It'd be lovely to see that Naomi Osaka wasn't a one-off, and that athletes are taking back control. Hoping the drinks get moved again, and then Uefa can find out how well soccer works without the players if they want.
We're talking about people whose sporting prowess means they're wealthier than maybe even luckiest early startup employees. They can afford to leave a few bucks on the table to stop hawking cokes.
Yes. Not performing just according to expectations placed on you, but prioritizing your own health? That's what taking back control looks like. Acknowledging that your existence is more than a cog in a giant business, that you're a full human being, that your needs deserve to be honored? Taking back control.
That's not what this was. Before her spat with the French Open, she did quite a few attention-seeking interviews on her own including interviews with her musician boyfriend in her home.
This wasn't her having a health issue. This was her being obstinate and deciding that she was a bigger star than the tour and the tournament. She wanted to ignore her on-duty responsibilities and do her own thing.
People who do their own thing need to find their own jobs. She had "talks" with Wimbledon, and they were quick to shoot her down. So maybe she can bully some minor tournaments, but the majors? They'll laugh her out of the stadium, and her endorsements will follow.
It's almost as if giving interviews is part of her job.
No, scratch that.
Giving interviews at a time that the tournaments deem appropriate is a necessary and vital part of her job that is second ONLY to being on the court and playing the games.
If she can't do that, then she's going to have a hell of a time trying to play meaningful tennis for a living.
So stocks in coke dropped after Ronaldo moved his drink. I don't understand why anyone would even blink, but i imagine coke execs are incandescent. A bit off topic, but i do have a gripe against coke. It seems that since the UK introduced that silly sugar tax, they have started adding more sweeteners and reducing sugar, even in real coke. I don't remember it tasting so uninspiring a few years ago. I think they've spoiled the recipe, maybe Ronaldo also thinks so.
I wonder if you're also now getting High-Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) instead of cane sugar. Here in the states, it's well-known that "Mexican Coke" (made with actual sugar) tastes better than regular coke. (made with HFCS) Check the label and report back?
"Fans" boo players taking the knee before a match, crying that we should only care about the game... But we're supposed to be fine with gambling and alcohol companies plastering the kit, pitch and interviews with their messages?
Football should be funded by the people who watch it. Fin.
This feels different though. The images are clearly advertisement. However, the bottles are placed in a manner that implies those are his drinks. He is either repulsed by the coloured sugar-water he's upset that they're not paying him directly.
I think that's the most useful comment I've read here so far. We need to distinguish between blatant advertising and much more subtle product placements. It seems a lot of comments here are failing to do so.
Though I get that sometimes seeming bad publicity fattens your bottom line and all that, there are things that can, in fact, harm you tremendously if it gets out there.
It's like the dystopic version of a dystopia, not even some evil entity or philosophy shaping the world, it's just people promoting shit for pennies. The real evil is extraordinarily mundane.
How do you change it? Heavy taxes on ad revenue that favor other forms of funding?