Why it is good that Dortmund might be Deutscher Meister?
Challenges and solutions to the inequality in football
Although the race for the Bundesliga title is quite close this year, and will probably have a different Meister than in the last 10 years (we calculate 80%), from a more distant view the Bundesliga is becoming increasingly boring. Bayern could be the German champion for the 11th time in a row. This poses a danger, namely of losing the appeal of fair competition. In this essay, I will try to address the underlying dynamic behind the increasing inequality in football and philosophize about potential solutions.
How can we “save” football? And why is good that Dortmund might be Meister, even for a Bayern Fan?
Note: I know how complex that topic is and thus am aware of how flawed my thinking can be. Nevertheless, knowledge progresses through the expression of thoughts.
Hence this essay.
Fairness and Play
Did you know, that rats play? Even quite a lot. They wrestle with each other and try to pin each other down. They use that form of play as a proxy for establishing a functioning and stable social order. Play facilitates the learning of social rules and how to interact in a cooperative manner. Therefore play is a necessity for a shared morality. (You can debate if rats have morality. This depends partly on how we define morality.)
Neuroscientist and Pioneer in animal studies Jaak Panksepp however noticed in his animal experiments an important aspect of rats’ play:
A rat stops to play with another rat when it loses roughly 70% of the time in its pinning game.
Obviously, larger rats beat smaller rats most of the time, given their ‘pinning’ game is size and weight dependent. But when the smaller rats would win once in a while (Panksepp evaluated around 30% of the time), they stop playing with the larger ones altogether. They are fine with losing most of the time, as long as there is a chance they could win.
It is as if the rats have an in-built module for fairness, which manifests as an emotion of being at least capable to win. If a game is not fair, meaning if a game cannot be won, then we stop playing. But if play is essential for morality that poses a problem, the problem of a stable social order.
Humans aren’t rats. But we can have a deeper understanding of our own nature if we look at our biological cousins in the animal kingdom: apes.
Frans DeWaal the famous primatologist studied apes and concluded that in stable chimp societies, not mere strength and brutality dominate, but rather societies thrive, in which caring behavior is the rule. The alpha chimp is rather a good leader than a tyrant. (He especially cooperates also with the females in the troop.) If however, he acts as a bully he will be quickly overthrown by two or more chimps who collaborate with each other. Thus de Waal laid the scientific manifestation that good and stable tribes operate upon competence rather than dominance.
It seems, that a sense of fairness is already built into the mind of animals.
But humans are no animals (or?). Nevertheless, the neural structures are sufficiently similar to apply such findings to humans as well. In addition, The social demands on humans are the highest in the mammalian kingdom. Humans can only survive via cooperation. Not just that, they actually improve their living conditions through cooperation.
So what does this have to do with football?
Well in a sense, football is a shared game and thus is a social endeavor that also must respect the human need and desire for the feeling of fairness. Plus Football is as I argue currently the most global binding force, hence has a lot of social implications. However, football changed from a local to a global event.
And with that dramatic change, risks are incoming.
The Winner takes it all
Popularity and Money
The basis of advertising is that attention can be monetized. Attention is a marker of relevancy and hence the more attention anything gets, the more it can be monetized. That was always the case. But never on such a scale. Because of the rise of technological interconnectivity between parts of the world, previous local markets merge into collective markets with a much larger consumer potential.
The danger from global markets is that the network effects of the internet can turn actors into monopolies and hence diminish fair competition. This is known as the Winner takes it all dynamic and is true on the business side of things exemplified by Google, Amazon, and Instagram. However, the underlying mechanism operates also in football, in which attention becomes increasingly focused on an ever-smaller number of clubs and players.
(Un)fair Game
Global Markets and technology opened the door for many people in the world to watch football. One of the consequences is that Asia, the US, South America, and even Africa have in sum a much higher consumer power than the original European football markets. However, most clubs are unknown in these countries. In Asia, people know Bayern, Dortmund, and maybe Leipzig and Leverkusen. But they don’t know Hoffenheim, Augsburg or Mainz.
And that popularity gap creates unequal competition. Because the more a club is known, the higher its turnover will inevitably be. And although money does not guarantee success, it improves the probability of success. The Bundesliga is an example par excellence: The last 10 championships - were all won by Bayern Munich. Before that era of winning, the maximum winning in a row was three! (Note: Here a critique for Dortmund and Leipzig is implicit.)
Regarding our rat analogy: I don’t know how long we can sustain the inequality in the national leagues and still keep the attractive force of football going on if the gaps between clubs keep increasing.
However, I think there are three possible solutions to the challenge of unfair competition:
One organizational.
One capitalistic.
One technological.
Organizational: The Super-League
An often discussed solution is running under the Name of Super League, which mingles the best Clubs together into a new league. However, a huge problem with the current public model is that the plans of FIFA and UEFA, etc. seem to be, to add that additional league on top of the national leagues. In that sense, the Super League will be just a replacement for the Champions League. Thus, despite creating a competitive new league, the old system with its old unfair competition remains and is even enhanced.
In our podcast, Christoph Biermann proposed a different possibility: A Super-league not on top of the national competitions but rather as a separate one. It will be an either-or solution. This will basically create two kinds of competitions. One is global in which the best teams of the world will play against each other. But the national leagues will remain there as well. This of course would be the extension of the globalization logic and would at least that would solve the fair competition issue.
Honestly, I don’t think that is actually a good solution, because it will fragment football and make it a bit boring. Because fundamentally the most appealing and attractive factor is that if you do your job right, you can become the best team in the world. The competitive spirit always strives to become the best, not just the best in a small part. And in the solution proposed above, to become the best would end in a class society. Best in Germany and Best in the World would be two categories, something that actually opposes the random and attractive force in football.
Such a scenario might be a solution, but I don’t think it is the solution. Dortmund’s CEO Hans Joachim Watzke also already mentioned that BVB will never be a part of such a League. To discard the national leagues would be a step too far and would of course de-root football.
So it seems there have to be different ways.
Capitalistic: Investors
Another possibility, which the fan base at least in Germany is a very strong opponent, is to open the market for investors. Just this week, the DFL and the Clubs voted against selling a part of the media rights to an investor.
I actually happen to have a season ticket for Dortmund’s famous Südtribühne for 22 years. The Südtribühne is one of the symbolic temples that represents loyalty and a deep love for football. There were a lot of protests in the latest weeks against any type of investment in the Bundesliga.
However, with my general openness to investors, I would be considered a betrayer of those values, because I argue for the opening of investors (under certain conditions) in football. Otherwise, football will be ever spiraling towards a boringness epidemic.
The fear of course of fans is potentially valid: Loosening football from its root and making it a purely capitalistic endeavor is dangerous (and ironically also there are many poor examples of how many clubs do not improve). The problem however is not the money and not the desire for Returns on Invest. If one considers that the main issue, it is rather a fear and disguise for capitalism in general.
The real challenge is how one can integrate the investor’s desire with the club’s and fans’ desires. This requires open-minded dialogues and not a dogmatic approach to the idea of investment in general. We can romanticize the past of football in which the local club was rooted in the local community and the local commerce. But times change. And I suspect the greater danger is to not adapt to the modern circumstances and lose the competitive fair nature of the game.
Of course, the danger of forgetting the roots is reasonable. And obviously, investors are not a panacea. They have their deep flaws and can create havoc in clubs. Thus there has to be an investor’s ethic and laws, that bind them to the ethic of a football club. Otherwise, it will just create more and more despair for the fans. Hence limitations for investors, like partially non-voting preferred shares, could reduce the risk the fans currently see.
This is a gargantuan task for football deciders, but it is in my opinion inevitable.
The DFL voting against a media investor thus was in my opinion a step in the wrong direction.
Regardless, there is also a third way.
Technological: Moneyball
Most of you have heard about Moneyball. The movie tells the miraculous story of Billy Beane, the general manager of the Oakland Athletics baseball team and the statistician Bill James who revolutionized the sport by using data and statistics to assemble a winning team on a shoestring budget. Beane's approach challenged traditional baseball wisdom, which relied heavily on scouting and gut instincts. Instead, Beane focused on undervalued players who had qualities that were overlooked by traditional scouts. His success inspired a new era of data-driven decision-making in sports.
The story of Moneyball is a David and Goliath analogy: the traditional scouting and the large clubs with money represent Goliath, a giant who was feared and unbeatable. Billy Beane Bill James, like David, used an unconventional approach with a slingshot to topple Goliath and achieve victory. However, a slingshot is a simple tool and Baseball is a relatively simple game due to its relatively little dynamic nature. Basketball, American Football, and particularly football have much more dynamic and chaotic elements and hence are more random.
But the general idea logic is applicable to football as well: a team with limited resources can use data and analytics to find undervalued players who possess skills that are overlooked by traditional scouting methods. This can give them an edge over larger, more financially powerful clubs, allowing them to compete at the highest levels. This of course is exactly what many data companies including Goalimpact do.
We are the rule-breakers in football.
For example, our algorithm proposes that actually there are a lot of very good, but very cheap (think of ROI) players in a lot of low Leagues. I sometimes jokily, but sincerely argue, that you can probably assemble a competitive team for the international places with actually a relatively low budget (maybe 50-100 m€). Sounds heretic to football right now, but time will show who’s right.
However, here we are still in unknown territory. We have currently data inflation and a lot of people think more is better. The problem with data is that it can be even misleading, something we’ve pointed out here. But still, the possibility to outcompete big clubs with smart innovative approaches is still possible, probably best demonstrated by Union Berlin and SC Freiburg's success (although behind the success of Freiburg has a more organization and psychological than technological approach, I suspect. BTW Freiburg and Union were both supportive for the Media Investor.)
Compared to the animal comparison humans have an additional layer: While rats are purely biological entities, humans can adapt with innovative ideas. And when they think of good ideas, they can improve. Certainly, no solution will be a solution forever. Utopia is a never-reachable place. It is a never-ending process of improvement. Anyway to make a league “fair”, which implies excitement, seems to be a worthwhile objective. And therefore I hope, not just as a fan of Dortmund, but as a fan of football, that Dortmund will win on Saturday.
Or maybe I am just deluding myself and relativizing morality under my own subjective terms.
That is something the reader should judge.
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