USA '94 World Cup Commercial Model Reshapes Global Football

1994年美国世界杯商业模式重塑全球足球 1994年美国世界杯引入的企业赞助与商业创新，永久性地将国际足球转变为价值数十亿美元的全球娱乐产业。 主持人 Joe Weisenthal 和 Tracy Alloway 与体育记者 Joey D'Urso 探讨了1994年美国世界杯如何成为将全球足球转变为数十亿美元商业引擎的转折点。讨论涉及大型蓝筹企业赞助商的引入、美国封闭式特许经营联赛与欧洲升降级制度之间的结构性差异，以及 FIFA 投票机制的地缘政治权力。他们还探讨了全球复古球衣市场、球队球衣所承载的地缘政治声明，以及以球员为中心的粉丝群体相较于传统俱乐部忠诚度的兴起。 1994年美国世界杯彻底改写了全球足球商业版图，麦当劳、万事达卡和通用汽车等蓝筹企业纷纷入局赞助，将此前转播常年亏损的赛事转变为极其吸金的全球商业广告平台。 (8:52) 相较于美国职业体育通过选秀和工资帽等机制维系财务平衡，欧洲足球实行纯粹的市场化自由竞争，其升降级制度为俱乐部带来了可能错失巨额转播和欧冠收入的严峻下行风险。 (25:00) 国际足联（FIFA）在治理上采取“一国一票”制度，通过将数十亿美元的赞助、转播与门票收入重新分配给200多个成员协会，使大小足球协会在主席选举中拥有对等的投票权。 (23:45) 欧洲足球俱乐部与地缘政治深度交织，沙特公共投资基金（PIF）收购纽卡斯尔联以及沙尔克04在俄乌冲突后与俄气公司（Gazprom）解约并蒙受约1000万欧元损失，均凸显了国家资本与地缘局势对足球商业的深远影响。 (30:00)

According to journalist Joey D'Urso and hosts Joe Weisenthal and Tracy Alloway, the 1994 World Cup in the United States permanently restructured the business of football by converting the tournament into a multi-billion-dollar corporate marketing machine. This watershed moment replaced amateurish commercial arrangements with multinational sponsorship packages, shaped FIFA's revenue-redistribution governance, and accelerated today's player-driven, hyper-financialized global sport. The 1994 Watershed and Corporate Sponsorship (8:52) Prior to 1994, international football tournaments featured informal, uncoordinated commercial operations. Broadcaster losses were frequent, and episodes such as a London tailor buying half the perimeter advertising boards at the 1974 World Cup in Mexico City underscored the lack of structured bidding. The USA '94 organizing committee, led by Alan Rothenberg, completely overhauled this approach by applying corporate entertainment standards and leveraging existing American stadium infrastructure rather than accumulating debt on new venues. As a condition of hosting, FIFA also mandated the establishment of Major League Soccer (MLS) to secure a permanent domestic league. FIFA's Governance and Revenue Redistribution Model (23:45) Despite its legal status as a non-profit, FIFA functions primarily as a massive capital distribution funnel. With projected tournament revenues reaching up to $12 billion—and ticketing alone generating $2 billion to $3 billion—the organization pools funds from global corporate sponsors, ticket sales, and broadcast rights, then channels them directly to national member associations as grants and development funding. This economic power is preserved through FIFA's "one member, one vote" governance model. Smaller football nations like Cape Verde and Suriname hold the same single presidential vote as traditional powers like Brazil and Germany. Consistent distributions of funding and modern facilities align member associations behind incumbent leaders, sustaining long-term political continuity for figures like FIFA President Gianni Infantino. European Free Markets Versus American Franchise Systems (25:00) D'Urso notes an ideological contradiction between American and European sports design: the capitalist United States enforces competitive parity through socialist mechanisms like drafts, salary caps, and closed franchise models, whereas European football operates under unbridled free-market capitalism. In leagues like the English Premier League, promotion and relegation introduce severe left-tail financial risk, where poor athletic performance can drop a club into lower divisions and strip away tens of millions in broadcast and UEFA Champions League revenues. While this open pyramid creates compelling right-tail upside for lower-tier investors, it has fueled extreme financial concentration. Propelled by dominant global broadcast deals, smaller Premier League clubs now routinely out-earn storied continental European giants like AC Milan, tilting competitive balances across the continent. Kit Politics, Geopolitics, and Player-Centric Fandom (30:00) Football shirts have evolved into prominent instruments of geopolitics, commerce, and identity. In Germany, FC Schalke 04 absorbed an immediate €10 million loss after ending its long-standing sponsorship with Russian state-owned Gazprom in 2022, accelerating the club's relegation. National kit aesthetics also face political policing; FIFA barred Haiti from sporting jerseys depicting heroes of the Haitian Revolution, even while European kits rooted in contentious national history remain standard. Commercialization has also intersected with illicit finance, exemplified by Colombia's Envigado FC losing corporate backers after being placed on the U.S. Clinton List due to cartel links. Simultaneously, commercial fan loyalty has shifted from geographical clubs toward individual global superstars. David Beckham's 2007 MLS agreement, which secured a franchise expansion option for $25 million, eventually spawned Inter Miami CF and its distinctive pink branding, further supercharged by the arrival of Lionel Messi. Modern supporters increasingly follow athletes across teams, reinforcing a self-perpetuating cycle where elite clubs and stars capture disproportionate commercial value. While the commercial architecture introduced in 1994 converted the World Cup into the preeminent global media event, D'Urso warns that relentless commercial tinkering—such as mandated hydration breaks repurposed as commercial inventory and schedule delays for broadcast theatrics—risks alienating traditional match-goers and younger viewers faced with abundant media alternatives.

《Odd Lots》节目讨论了1994年美国世界杯如何通过引入蓝筹企业赞助与既有商业基础设施，将国际足球从松散的赛事业态转变为高度金融化与商业化的全球机器。受访嘉宾Joey D'Urso指出，这一转折重塑了足球经济格局，但伴随而来的过度商业化、地缘政治洗白及规则调整，也在持续冲击足球运动的传统文化边界。 1994年世界杯开启的商业转折 (8:52) 在1994年美国世界杯之前，国际足球赛事的商业变现往往处于业余阶段，例如1974年墨西哥世界杯期间，伦敦裁缝仅需低廉费用即可买下墨西哥城球场半数的场边广告牌，甚至1990年意大利世界杯仍让转播机构遭受财务亏损。USA '94彻底扭转了这一局面。组委会负责人Alan Rothenberg将NBA等美国职业联盟的运作经验引入赛事运营，吸引了麦当劳、通用汽车、MasterCard等跨国巨头以单笔高达2000万美元的费用入局，将世界杯打造成触达数十亿全球受众的广告超级平台。此外，该届赛事依托美国现成体育设施避免了巨额基建债务，并通过国际足联（FIFA）的附带要求促成了美国职业足球大联盟（MLS）的诞生。 体制差异、左尾风险与FIFA权力结构 (23:45) 欧洲足球与北美主流体育联盟在制度设计上形成了鲜明对比。D'Urso指出，美国主流联盟虽然身处高度资本主义社会，却普遍采用选秀和工资帽等机制来维持竞争平衡；而欧洲联赛则实行纯粹的自由市场机制。欧洲足球实行的升降级制度为俱乐部投资带来了严重的“左尾风险”——强队一旦战绩下滑或失去欧冠资格，将面临转播权分成暴跌与估值跳水的重创，而北美特许经营模式则锁定了顶级席位。与此同时，国际足联在顶层扮演着资本中枢角色，其最新世界杯收入预期高达120亿美元，票务收入达20至30亿美元。通过“一国一票”的民主投票机制，FIFA将庞大收入分配给200多个会员协会，使佛得角等小国与巴西拥有相同的选举权，这种资金回流机制也稳固了以因凡蒂诺为代表的现任领导层的执政根基。 球衣经济学与地缘政治博弈 (30:00) 球衣已从单纯的比赛装备演变为承载数十亿美元价值的商品以及地缘政治与资本博弈的缩影。俄罗斯对乌克兰发起军事行动后，德国沙尔克04俱乐部与俄罗斯天然气工业股份公司（Gazprom）解约，导致其承受了约1000万欧元的即时财务损失，并加速滑落至德乙；与此同时，与俄罗斯保持友好关系的塞尔维亚贝尔格莱德红星队则继续保留该赞助。在二级市场上，复古与小众球衣（如库拉索的浅黄色客场球衣或日本队球衣）被炒至300美元以上。此外，历史上的哥伦比亚恩维加多俱乐部因毒枭关联被列入美国制裁名单，而海地国家队球衣因致敬革命领袖图案被国际足联判定违规并强制修改，均体现了球衣所承载的复杂政治内涵。 赛事美国化与球星驱动的追随热潮 (40:00) 足球在北美的扩张伴随着赛事规则与文化的重构。强制补水暂停（甚至在多伦多雨战或室内空调球场进行）被外界批评为将连续45分钟的半场切割成类似美式橄榄球的四节模式，实质上为电视广告创造了额外广告位；开球时间也常因赛前仪式而推迟。然而，商业运作也创造了巨大的商业成功，如贝克汉姆在2007年合同中以2500万美元固定价格锁定的MLS扩军特许权，最终孵化出标志性粉色球衣的迈阿密国际。当前年轻球迷的关注点日益从对本土俱乐部的终身忠诚转向对梅西、C罗等超级巨星个人的追逐。主持人和嘉宾认为，英超在全球版权收入上的虹吸效应已使AC米兰等传统豪门被英格兰小型俱乐部赶超，而顶级赛事的过度商业化修补若持续伤害观赛体验，长远看可能会逐渐削弱年轻一代的参与度。 1994年世界杯确立的商业化范式将足球推向了全球文化与资本的顶峰，但资本过度渗透、赛制频繁修改、地缘政治洗白以及球星个人崇拜对传统俱乐部文化的挤压，正构成足球未来发展中难以消解的核心张力。

## Background 本期节目由彭博社（Bloomberg）于 2026 年 6 月 25 日在 RSS 及网络播客平台发布。页面简介指出，节目以 1994 年美国世界杯为切入点，探讨了麦当劳、通用汽车等跨国巨头如何打破以往转播亏损的局面，彻底重塑足球的商业版图，并邀请《不只是一件球衣》一书作者 Joey D'Urso 共同深入剖析 2026 美加墨世界杯及足球背后的地缘政治、资本与权力运作。 ## TL;DR 节目围绕足球商业化演进展开深入探讨，指出 1994 年美国世界杯是国际足联将这项运动推向流水线式吸金超级 IP 的历史分水岭。嘉宾 Joey D'Urso 与主持人梳理了美式封闭特许经营与欧洲升降级制度带来的估值与风险差异，剖析了球衣广告从草莽时代走向如今与寡头能源、地缘洗白深度交织的复杂关系。对话还探讨了当今足坛英超独大、球星个人崇拜凌驾于俱乐部之上等新趋势，并审视了补水暂停等规则改造是否会过度透支足球的核心魅力。 ## Atmosphere & style 整场对话保持着 Odd Lots 一贯的敏锐、幽默与宏观视野，在深入浅出的财经与制度剖析中穿插了大量鲜活的球迷轶事。主持人和嘉宾在严谨拆解 FIFA 治理权力与商业逻辑的同时，常以球迷自嘲、老式球衣收藏及美欧文化冲撞等趣闻调侃，充满轻松惬意的沙龙交流感。听众既能感受到铁杆球迷对传统纯粹足球记忆的温情怀旧，也能体会到面对商业资本无孔不入时的清醒洞察与淡淡忧虑。 ## Bulletin - `10:00` 1994年美国世界杯标志着现代足球商业化的历史转折点，麦当劳、通用汽车等跨国巨头首次以2000万美元级别的赞助入局，推动国际足联从早期办赛亏损彻底转型为吸金巨兽。 - `20:00` 2026年美加墨联合世界杯的预计总营收将跃升至120亿美元左右，相当于前几届赛事规模的翻倍，其中仅门票收入就预计达20亿至30亿美元。 - `23:00` 国际足联的商业飞轮本质上是政治闭环：通过商业开发将天量赞助与转播收入分给各微型足协兴建设施，以在“一人一票”的治理架构中稳固主席连任选票。 - `50:00` 欧洲足坛面临剧烈的资本失衡，英超全球转播收益的“赢家通吃”格局严重虹吸西甲与意甲资金，导致传统欧冠豪门财力被英超保级队反超。 ## Key takeaways - `05:00` 美欧职业体育存在商业逻辑反转：高度资本主义的美国在联盟中推行带有社会主义色彩的选秀与工资帽平衡机制，而福利体制的欧洲在足球领域却奉行纯粹自由放任的资本主义垄断。 - `10:00` 1994年世界杯是现代足球商业版图的核心转折点，艾伦·罗森伯格等商业操盘手将成熟的企业赞助体系注入赛事，并强制促成了美国职业足球大联盟（MLS）的创办。 - `12:38` 在此之前足球商业长期处于草莽时代，1974年曾有伦敦裁缝以极低价格买下半座球场的场边广告，缺乏成熟的招商与市场采购流程。 - `15:58` 大众对世界杯的历史浪漫化往往遵循心理学公式：主队表现优异加上观众彼时正值青年时代，赛事成功高度依赖富有张力的人物故事而非单纯的战术死忠。 - `23:00` 国际足联名义上是非营利机构，但通过将全球赞助与天价门票收益均等分配给各微型成员协会，换取选举中决定性的连任选票支持。 - `25:00` 美式封闭特许经营制消除了降级风险并支撑起稳固的估值护城河，而欧洲开放升降级体系则让传统豪门背负断崖式跌落的左尾风险。 - `28:00` 地缘政治与资本“体育洗白”伴随着巨大的反噬风险，沙特资本收购纽卡斯尔联与阿布拉莫维奇被迫低价出售切尔西展示了外资与俱乐部社区认同的拉扯。 - `30:00` 德甲沙尔克04因俄乌冲突爆发解除与俄气（Gazprom）的长期赞助，直接损失上千万欧元收入并连锁引发竞技下滑跌入德乙。 - `34:00` 国际足联对于球衣“政治属性”的裁决充满主观双重标准，小国如海地被强制要求去除革命英雄图案，而主流国家和联赛的政治表达往往被默许。 - `38:00` 欧美球票定价机制存在文化鸿沟：欧洲联赛坚持压低官方原价并严格限制黄牛以保护传统工薪阶层，而美国体育市场推崇动态定价和供需出清。 - `40:00` 迈阿密国际的粉色球衣与贝克汉姆的特许经营权投资展示了超级球星效应，新兴市场的年轻一代球迷开始逐渐转向“忠于巨星个人”而非“效忠俱乐部徽章”。 - `42:15` 为迎合转播与美国市场而设立的补水暂停等规则变动，在客观上将比赛切割为多节，虽创造了广告插播窗口，但也存在破坏足球纯粹韵律与消耗下一代注意力的长远风险。 - `42:15` 美职联早期曾推出极富观赏性的35码盘带单刀点球制，胜率较传统12码点球的80%更为平衡（约50%），体现了美式微创新的独特尝试。 - `50:00` 英超转播版权的极度膨胀正在欧洲足坛引发虹吸效应，导致意甲、西甲传统豪门在购买力上甚至难敌英超下游俱乐部。 ## Detailed walkthrough ### `00:00` 足球狂欢与扩军争议：从纽约街头到世界杯商业版图 在纽约刚刚结束亚洲之行的 Odd Lots 主持人 Joe Weisenthal 与 Tracy Allaway 开启了本期播客。两人首先幽默地统一了词汇：决定在节目中统称为“Football（足球）”而非美式叫法“Soccer”。Joe 提到自己刚落地纽约曼哈顿下城时，恰逢纽约尼克斯队（New York Knicks）在比赛最后几分钟锁定胜局，整座城市陷入疯狂，人群从酒吧涌向街头庆祝；但他昨晚漫步在东村（East Village）时，又看到街边露天酒吧里挤满了观看世界杯赛事的球迷。 Tracy 指出，这一届联合举办的世界杯是历史上规模最大的一届。与以往大约 32 支球队参赛不同，本届赛事的参赛队伍扩充到了近 50 支（48支），比赛场次大幅增加。国际足联（FIFA）官方宣称这一改革是为了推广足球运动的全球化、多样性与包容性；但若以商业和政治的眼光来看，这背后无疑充斥着更多门票收入、广告招商的经济驱动，以及 FIFA 通过拉拢较小足球协会以巩固内部选票的政治考量。尽管外界曾担忧诸如库拉索（Curaçao）对阵德国等比赛会沦为缺乏观赏性的“走过场”，但弱旅佛得角（Cape Verde）在对阵夺冠热门西班牙时爆出的冷门，让这项充满商业争议的赛制多了一些戏剧性。 ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: FIFA世界杯扩军驱动因素 accDescr: 展示FIFA扩军的官方宣称理由与潜在商业政治驱动力之间的对比 subgraph Claims["官方宣称宗旨"] A["全球推广与包容性"] B["增加小国参与机会"] end subgraph Drivers["商业与政治动机"] C["转播权与广告招商扩张"] D["门票收入最大化"] E["拉拢小国足协内部政治票仓"] end Claims -.-> Expansion["世界杯扩充至近50支球队"] Drivers --> Expansion ``` ### `05:00` 球衣广告与资本主义文化的反差：嘉宾 Joey D'Urso 登场 Joe 谈到自己对足球文化的直观感受：虽然他不是铁杆球迷，但一直认为足球球衣（Jersey / Kit）具有极高的美学价值，尤其是过去带有实体翻领的复古经典设计。更令人玩味的是，当美式棒球或 NBA 球衣上出现赞助商商标时，美国球迷往往会觉得这项运动“被贬低了（debasing the sport）”；然而在足球球衣的正中央印上巨大的企业广告，大家却习以为常。 本期节目邀请了独立体育记者 Joey D'Urso，他撰写了新书《不只是一件球衣：足球球衣如何揭示全球政治、金钱与权力》（*More Than a Shirt: How Football Shirts Explain Global Politics, Money and Power*）。在探讨为何球迷能坦然接受足球球衣上的商业标志时，Joey 指出，美欧两地的体育商业逻辑存在着奇妙的“反转”： - 美国的整体社会高度奉行资本主义，但其职业体育联盟却采用带有“共产主义色彩”的选秀制度（Draft System）与工资帽，试图维持各队竞争平衡； - 欧洲社会虽然普遍崇尚社会民主与福利体制，但在足球领域却是完全赤裸裸的放任资本主义——富豪球队可以直接砸钱买下最好的球员，形成“富者愈富”的垄断格局。 ### `07:18` 历史轮回：1994 年美国世界杯与足球荒漠的资本拓荒 颇具讽刺意味的是，Joey 录制节目时身穿一件纽约小联盟棒球队“康尼岛旋风队”（Coney Island Cyclones）的球衣。这引出了足球这项运动进入美国市场的漫长艰难历程。Joey 梳理了这段鲜为人知的历史：早在 20 世纪初期，足球在费城、新泽西等美国传统工业城市非常繁荣，但随后遭遇 1929 年华尔街股灾的大萧条打击，依托于工业企业赞助与工人阶级的足球俱乐部几乎被彻底摧毁，美国足球由此陷入了长达半个世纪的荒漠期，本土的棒球、美式橄榄球等运动借机崛起。 尽管 1970 年代纽约宇宙队（New York Cosmos）曾斥巨资引进了贝利（Pelé）和贝肯鲍尔（Franz Beckenbauer）等传奇巨星，掀起短暂的热潮，但真正的转折点依然是 1994 年美国世界杯（USA 94）。 - **欧洲传统主义者的傲慢与偏见**：在 1990 年意大利世界杯（Italia 90）被英格兰及欧洲足坛赋予了帕瓦罗蒂高歌、罗马古迹等浓厚的浪漫主义滤镜后，许多欧洲足球精英对将世界杯带到“粗俗的美国人”地盘充满鄙夷。 - **FIFA 的纯商业考量**：FIFA 执意将赛事带到美国的核心动力就是金钱与市场——这里拥有全球规模最大的商业巨头、最富有的群体以及最庞大的高净值消费群体。 - **出人意料的成功**：尽管举办前普遍不被看好，1994 年世界杯在各项指标上均取得了巨大成功，上座率极高。这一方面得益于美国庞大的拉美裔（Hispanic）群体支持，另一方面也因为美国本土好奇的普通民众以及早于欧洲蓬勃发展的女足文化，为赛事的商业爆发奠定了坚实观众基础。 ### `10:00` 1994年世界杯：美国企业巨头的商业化破局与美国体育市场的特殊性 1994年美国世界杯不仅是一场体育盛宴，更标志着现代足球商业版图的根本性转折。在1994年之前，除了奥运会等极少数综合赛事外，世界杯的商业价值远远未被充分挖掘。但在这一届赛事中，大批重量级美国跨国巨头首次登上足球最高舞台：麦当劳达成了其历史上首个全球性赞助协议，通用汽车（General Motors）首次入局，而万事达卡（MasterCard）也将此前在1988年浅尝辄止的试点赞助升级为长期的战略承诺。这些企业当时为参与赛事支付了高达2000万美元的赞助费，这在今天的足球财务规模来看或许不算天文数字，但在当时却是一笔惊人的巨款。哈佛商学院甚至为此专门撰写了商业案例研究。讽刺的是，彼时绝大多数美国本土民众对足球并不感冒，揭幕战直播甚至一度被臭名昭著的辛普森（O.J. Simpson）驾车逃亡追逐事件所打断，但从商业角度而言，这届世界杯无疑取得了载入史册的巨大成功。 嘉宾 Joey D'Urso 与主持人在回顾这段历史时探讨了美国独特的体育土壤。在此之前，美国在1929年大崩盘前曾有过一段深厚的足球传统，而在20世纪70至80年代，北美足球联赛（NASL）时期的纽约宇宙队（New York Cosmos）曾短暂掀起足球热。然而，正如主持人回忆的那样，当时人们大多只知道贝利（Pelé）这个名字——唐纳德·特朗普当时也是贝利的忠实粉丝——整个联赛几乎沦为“贝利个人秀”。贝利一旦离开，联盟便迅速失血崩解。其核心根源在于美国拥有极深厚的“四大体育联盟”市场壁垒（美式橄榄球 NFL、棒球 MLB、篮球 NBA、冰球 NHL），其他项目极难打破这一竞争格局。相比之下，在欧洲或全球绝大部分地区，即便英国人钟爱的板球（Cricket）或是橄榄球（Rugby），在世界第一大运动足球面前也只能甘拜下风；美国是全球体育格局中罕见的特例。 为申办并举办1994年世界杯，美国经历了自20世纪80年代中期开始的长达近十年的筹备与角逐。与2010年南非为办赛建造大量如今沦为“白象工程”（昂贵且无用）的球场不同，美国拥有现成且极其先进的专业体育场馆，因而在基建上毫无资金黑洞的隐忧。但当时美国面临的致命短板是本土缺乏顶级职业联赛。为了满足国际足联的办赛硬性承诺，美国被迫建立起全新的职业足球体系，这直接催生了后来的美国职业足球大联盟（MLS）。1994年世界杯前夕，美国在职业足球层面上几乎是一片荒漠。 - **商业赞助规模**：美企单笔赞助费高达2000万美元，引来哈佛商学院深度立项研究。 - **首次入局巨头**：麦当劳（首个全球赞助）、通用汽车、万事达卡（转为长期合作伙伴）。 - **本土关注度反差**：首战转播被辛普森乘白色福特野马（Bronco）逃亡的电视直播插播打断。 - **办赛软硬件对比**：拥有完善的大型体育场硬件，但须从零创立 MLS 联赛以填补职业化空白。 ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: 1994年世界杯商业重塑与遗产 accDescr: 展现1994年美国世界杯在商业模式、基建承载及职业联赛创建层面的多重转变 subgraph 商业化跃升["商业化跃升 (Commercial Leap)"] A["传统粗放赞助<br/>(地方小额、偶发零星)"] --> B["跨国巨头入局<br/>(麦当劳、通用、万事达)"] B --> C["高额全球赞助费<br/>(单笔达2000万美元)"] end subgraph 申办与配套资产["申办与配套资产 (Assets & Legacy)"] D["完善的巨型球场资产<br/>(避免南非式白象工程)"] --> E["承办1994年世界杯"] F["国际足联强制要求<br/>(本土职业联赛空白)"] --> G["创办美国职业足球大联盟 (MLS)"] E --> G end ``` --- ### `12:38` 赞助商的全球野心、早期草莽赞助趣闻与商业推手 谈及跨国企业为何在一个本土足球基础薄弱的国家砸下重金时，D'Urso 指出，这些广告主的眼光从一开始就瞄准了全球版图而非仅仅是美国本土。世界杯是地球上无与伦比的“终极广告牌”——即使是在非洲或亚洲偏远地区连家庭电力都不通的村落，人们也会聚集在一起收看转播。对于可口可乐这类消费品牌而言，世界杯是向全球数十亿潜在消费者展示品牌的最佳载体。而在1994年之前，国际足联在商业变现方面显得极其迟钝和业余，多届赛事转播甚至让主办方亏损，白白将数十亿英镑的潜在商业价值留在了桌面上。 D'Urso 分享了一个生动的历史轶事来说明过去足球商业的业余程度：在1974年西德世界杯（亦提及墨西哥赛事时期的早期赞助模式）期间，一名来自伦敦某裁缝店的老板仅凭一时兴起，以象征性的微薄价格就直接买下了墨西哥城体育场近半数的场边广告牌，原因仅仅是“当时根本没有其他公司想到去买”。早期的球衣赞助同样极其随性——某支球队可能穿着印有当地啤酒厂名字的球衣拿下了重磅奖杯，但三年之后球衣上又空空如也，因为背后根本没有成熟的市场部门、标准采购招标流程或商业规划，全靠某些个人的心血来潮。直到1994年世界杯组委会负责人艾伦·罗森伯格（Alan Rothenberg）接手，情况才发生了彻底改变。罗森伯格拥有商界高管和商学院教育背景，极具商业远见，他以职业化、制度化的方式操盘招商，正式引入可口可乐、Visa 等全球顶级巨头，彻底将世界杯打造为现代流水线式的巨型商业超级IP。当然，这种将赛事压榨到极致的商业化也引发了潜在风险：过度商业化是否会反噬足球运动本身的魅力与纯粹性。 - **赞助商核心诉求**：借由全球单一收视率最高的电视盛事，攻占亚非拉等新兴国家市场。 - **草莽年代轶事**：伦敦普通裁缝曾以象征性低价包下世界杯球场一半的场边广告板。 - **关键操盘手**：艾伦·罗森伯格（Alan Rothenberg）将商业化逻辑注入申办与运营，奠定现代足球赞助模式。 --- ### `15:58` 什么是成功的世界杯？集体记忆、加扎之泪与足球罗曼蒂克 在节目中段播完商业赞助（4imprint、Public.com、IBM AI）的广告后，话题转回了对1990年意大利世界杯的讨论。1990年世界杯在欧洲常被视为主流流行文化与球迷记忆的巅峰，但究竟是什么在定义一届世界杯的“成功”？D'Urso 幽默而精辟地总结了两个最关键的因素：“第一，你的主队赢球或踢得极好；第二，你当时正好处于二十来岁的黄金年华。”绝大多数对赛事的浪漫化回忆，往往与掌权者或评论者年轻时的青春滤镜深度绑定。例如，对于英格兰球迷而言，2018年俄罗斯世界杯同样令人难忘，原因无非是英格兰队在经历了二十年的低迷后出人意料地杀入四强，外加英国整整三个月艳阳高照，全英格兰演变成了一场持久的夏日狂欢。 对绝大多数全球受众而言，他们不是像 D'Urso 这样四岁起就每周去主场看阿斯顿维拉（Aston Villa）的狂热死忠球迷，而是四年才看一次比赛的普通大众。支撑他们记忆的，是那些鲜活的传奇人物与充满张力的戏剧瞬间。主持人提到1986年迭戈·马拉多纳（Diego Maradona）的“上帝之手”，以及自己在1990年作为小球迷初次关注世界杯时，因马拉多纳和阿根廷队发挥平平未能延续神话而感到的失落。而 D'Urso 则提到了1990年英格兰最著名的足球图腾——“加扎的眼泪”（Gazza's Tears）。当时英格兰极具天分却性格乖张的球星保罗·加斯科因（Paul Gascoigne）在对阵西德的半决赛中领到黄牌，这意味着即便球队晋级他也将无缘决赛；加斯科因当场情绪崩溃落泪。这一幕深刻烙印在英国的国民记忆中，成为英格兰足球悲剧英雄叙事与浪漫主义色彩的极致体现。 - **定义赛事成功的心理学公式**：主队成绩优异 + 观众彼时正值青年期（青春情怀折射）。 - **流行文化锚点**： - 1986年与1990年马拉多纳从神话巅峰到状态回落的戏剧弧线。 - 1990年英格兰半决赛对阵西德，加斯科因因累积黄牌无缘决赛而流下的“加扎之泪”。 - **受众属性分层**：绝大多数世界杯受众并非每周进球场的铁杆死忠，赛事的成功依赖强烈的角色魅力（Characters）与富有共情力的历史瞬间。 ### `20:00` 国家神话、点球心结与 1994 年美国世界杯开启的商业指数级增长 世界杯的魅力在很大程度上取决于其背后交织的国家神话与历史人物。英格兰队在 1990 年世界杯半决赛点球大战中负于德国，六年后又重蹈覆辙，这种“总是输给德国”的情绪深深烙印在英格兰的国民心理中。阿根廷同样如此，有 1986 年马拉多纳（Maradona）的封神，也有 2022 年梅西（Messi）的登顶；而 1978 年阿根廷在军政府独裁统治下夺冠——当时距离球场仅一英里处就有人遭受酷刑——这段历史却往往被后世选择性地淡化。主持人打趣提到，据说英国有惊人数量的人把自动取款机（ATM）密码设为“1966”，因为那是英格兰唯一一次赢得世界杯的年份。每逢世界杯，英国卖方银行的分析师们为了取悦客户，总会在研报模型中预测英格兰将夺冠，口号“足球回家了”（Football's Coming Home）响彻大街小巷。然而，这句常被外界误解为帝国傲慢的口号，其内核反而是极度自嘲与忧伤的，体现出英格兰人觉得自己总是赢不了比赛的国民性格。 从商业角度来看，1990 年意大利世界杯与 1994 年美国世界杯构成了鲜明分水岭。1990 年世界杯极具欧洲传统底色，商业化程度相对有限，转播商甚至出现亏损；而 1994 年美国世界杯则是足球商业爆发“指数级曲线”的起点。如今 2026 年世界杯的营收预期已经达到 120 亿美元左右，是三届之前的两倍，更是远超卡塔尔世界杯。1994 年赛事不仅向世界展示了世界杯本身蕴藏着何等惊人的商机，也直接推动了国际足联（FIFA）在日后演变成一个冷酷而高效的商业巨兽。若将 1990 年意大利与 1998 年法国两届欧洲传统国家主办的世界杯进行对比，就能清晰看出 1994 年承前启后的巨大推力：1998 年球场内的顶级赞助商已随处可见，商业化水平已大幅跃升。 有趣的是，法国在 1998 年夺冠前其实算不上传统意义上的“足球铁柱国”。这与两国的经济与工业化历史密切相关： - **城市与工人的运动**：足球在历史上是城市的产物，依托电车与铁路在市内蔓延，更是工业时代“周末文化”的产物，最早获得周六下午 3 点休息时间的英国工人最先组织并普及了足球比赛。 - **法国的历史特殊性**：法国的工业化进程比英国慢且晚，长期以来大部分人口分散在农村和村庄，缺乏深厚的城市足球温床；除了圣埃蒂安（Saint-Étienne）等少数南部工业重镇外，足球在法国直到 1998 年之前都缺乏广泛的国民根基，即便夺冠使其一夜之间跻身足球强国，但在今天的很多法国小城，足球依然难以拥有像英格兰、西班牙或意大利那样统治级的讨论度。 --- ### `23:00` 非营利外衣下的商业飞轮：国际足联的权力机制与票务暴利 面对世界杯商业规模的疯狂膨胀，主持人提出了一个关键疑问：国际足联（FIFA）在法律上明明是一个“非营利组织”（not-for-profit），其章程规定必须将利润回馈给足球运动，为何还会有如此强烈的广告和创收驱动力？ 其实质在于：FIFA 本质上是一个将赞助商广告和电视转播收入输送给各成员协会的中介载体。全球 200 多个国家和地区的足球协会组成了 FIFA，并通过投票选出主席（如现任主席詹尼·因凡蒂诺，Gianni Infantino）。 ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: FIFA资金与政治权力循环 accDescr: 展示FIFA如何通过商业化创收，并将资金再分配给成员国换取选票的治理闭环。 subgraph Revenue["商业变现端"] A["巨额广告赞助商"] --> C["FIFA 资金池"] B["电视转播权收益"] --> C T["高价门票收入 (20-30亿美元)"] --> C end subgraph Politics["权力再分配"] C --> D["200多个成员协会"] D --> E["投建奢华训练设施 / 地方协会资金"] E --> F["一人一票选举机制"] F --> G["连任 FIFA 主席 (如因凡蒂诺)"] G -.强化商业驱动.-> Revenue end ``` 这种架构决定了 FIFA 的商业野心： - **票务模式彻底剧变**：如今世界杯仅门票收入就能达到 20 到 30 亿美元，这在以往是不可想象的。大量欧洲球迷对此类高票价群情激愤，而美国市场则将其视作纯粹的“资本主义市场规则”。 - **一人一票的治理政治**：在国际足联的投票体系中，像巴西、德国这样的足球巨擘与佛得角（Cape Verde）、苏里南（Suriname）等微型协会各拥有一票，权重完全均等。通过将庞大的赛事收入分配给小国协会兴建奢华的足球设施，在任主席便能稳固获得这些协会的连任选票支持。 --- ### `25:00` 升降级制度与特许经营模式：俱乐部估值的左右尾风险 英超（Premier League）与美职联（MLS）在底层组织架构上有着截然不同的商业逻辑。英超同样是由参赛俱乐部组成的会员制联合会，其底层是私有化追求利润的俱乐部；而美职联（MLS）以及北美四大职业联盟则采用封闭式的特许经营制（Franchise System）。这种制度差异造成了巨大的估值逻辑鸿沟： ```mermaid flowchart LR accTitle: 美式特许经营与欧洲升降级体系对比 accDescr: 对比美式封闭加盟制与欧洲开放升降级制在降级风险与俱乐部估值上的差异。 subgraph US_Model["美式特许经营制 (MLS / MLB)"] direction TB U1["永久锁定顶级席位"] --> U2["无降级破产风险"] U2 --> U3["估值护城河深厚稳定"] end subgraph EU_Model["欧洲升降级体系 (英超 / 欧冠)"] direction TB E1["末位直接降级 (跌入英冠)"] --> E2["左尾风险: 营收悬崖式下挫"] E3["右尾机会: 低级别黑马晋级"] --> E4["欧冠资格丰厚分红"] E2 & E4 --> E5["俱乐部估值受战绩剧烈波动压制"] end ``` - **左尾风险（Left-tail Risk）与估值天花板**：欧洲体系中的升降级机制构成了巨大的下行尾部风险。以英超豪门托特纳姆热刺（Tottenham Hotspur）为例，他们一度面临险些保级失败跌入英冠的危机，这种“大到不能倒”神话的破灭，甚至直接拉低了曼联（Manchester United）和切尔西（Chelsea）等顶级球队的整体估值，因为一旦降级，转播与商业分红将遭遇断崖式下跌。 - **欧冠资格的收入悬殊**：即便不考虑降级，能否跻身英超前四或前五从而获得欧冠联赛（UEFA Champions League）席位，也是一道生离死别的财务分水岭。阿斯顿维拉（Aston Villa）凭借优异战绩成功杀入欧冠，而切尔西以及前几年的曼联未能入围，意味着将失去来年数千万甚至上亿欧元的丰厚奖金池。 - **右尾收益（Right-tail Outcome）与现实阻力**：相比之下，低级别联赛球队理论上拥有不断升级并飞黄腾达的右尾机会，甚至引来比特币投资者收购第五级别贝德福德（Bedford）球队等创业案例。尽管有美国低级别联赛投资人希望能在美国引入升降级机制以提升俱乐部价值，但由于现存顶级联盟需要现有投资人投票通过，这无异于“火鸡投票赞成过圣诞节”，阻力极大。 --- ### `28:00` 体育洗白还是地缘反噬？沙特资本、阿布拉莫维奇与球迷的现实主义 随着地缘政治不断渗入现代足球，“体育洗白”（Sports washing）——即政府、寡头或跨国集团通过注资球队以美化公众形象、掩盖政治丑闻的做法——已经司空见惯。然而，这种深度绑定也带来了严重的地缘政治脆弱性，即洗白效应的反噬： - **切尔西与阿布拉莫维奇**：切尔西曾深度依赖俄罗斯寡头罗曼·阿布拉莫维奇（Roman Abramovich）的资金支持，但在俄乌冲突爆发并遭受西方政府制裁后，阿布被迫低价脱手球队。 - **纽卡斯尔联与沙特公共投资基金（PIF）**：纽卡斯尔联足球俱乐部（Newcastle United）被沙特主权财富基金收购，被视为威权国家最刺眼的公关外宣工具之一。然而，纽卡斯尔是一座在近几十年经历了去工业化阵痛、充满骄傲传统的工人阶级城市，沙特主权基金精准相中了其强大的社区认同感与号召力。 - **球迷的现实态度**：尽管学者和媒体抨击其为地缘政治工具，但绝大多数普通球迷并不在乎。在阿布入主前的漫长岁月里，切尔西只获得过一次顶级联赛冠军，而在阿布治下的 18 至 19 年里，他们拿下了 5 座英超冠军；如果重来一次，多数球迷依然会欣然接受这样的交易。球迷支持一支球队是为了竞技荣耀与归属感，而非去替俱乐部梳理复杂的地缘政治博弈。这种商业赞助的极致交锋，在德甲沙尔克04（Schalke 04）胸前印上俄罗斯天然气工业股份公司（Gazprom）标志的历史中体现得更为淋漓尽致。 ### `30:00` 沙尔克04与俄气合作的破裂：足球球衣背后的地缘政治 德国盖尔森基兴（Gelsenkirchen）是探究足球与地缘政治交织的绝佳窗口。多年来，德甲老牌劲旅沙尔克04（FC Schalke 04）的球衣胸前一直印着俄罗斯天然气工业股份公司（Gazprom）的标志。几十年来，俄罗斯天然气与德国政治深度绑定，政界人士与企业高管经常在沙尔克的贵宾包厢里推杯换盏。德国缺乏自然资源，需要廉价能源；俄罗斯则急需外汇现金，双方各取所需，球衣广告成为这种双边经济纽带的最直观载体。 2022年俄乌冲突爆发后，这种脆弱的利益平衡瞬间瓦解。记者在冲突爆发两年后重访盖尔森基兴时发现，许多球迷因为胸前印有俄气标志而深感羞耻，纷纷在球衣上贴上蓝色贴纸遮住该Logo。目前全欧洲只有塞尔维亚的贝尔格莱德红星（Red Star Belgrade）仍保留着Gazprom赞助，因为塞尔维亚与俄罗斯的关系远比欧洲其他国家亲密。 失去Gazprom对沙尔克04造成了致命打击： - **巨额收入蒸发**：俱乐部一夜之间损失了约1000万欧元的赞助费。 - **降级深渊**：此前该俱乐部本就处于下滑轨道，赞助的断裂成了“压垮骆驼的最后一根稻草”，导致这支拥有庞大拥趸底蕴的传统豪门跌入德乙联赛。 ```mermaid flowchart LR accTitle: 沙尔克04俄气赞助链条的断裂 accDescr: 展示地缘政治事件如何导致德国沙尔克04俱乐部失去赞助并最终降级 subgraph Symbiosis["历史共生纽带"] A["德国工业对廉价天然气的需求"] --- B["沙尔克04球衣印有Gazprom赞助"] C["俄罗斯能源出口获取急需现金"] --- B end subgraph Crisis["2022地缘危机爆发"] D["俄乌冲突爆发"] --> E["球迷贴贴纸遮挡Logo遮羞"] D --> F["俱乐部被迫与Gazprom解约"] end subgraph Impact["连锁财务与竞技打击"] F --> G["瞬间损失约1000万欧元"] G --> H["财政恶化沦落德乙联赛"] end Symbiosis --> Crisis ``` --- ### `34:00` 海地球衣与荷兰橙衣：国际足联关于“政治禁令”的任意性 关于球衣政治含义的争议在世界杯赛场屡见不鲜。海地国家队在备战赛事时被国际足联（FIFA）要求重新设计球衣，理由是球衣被判定包含“政治口号或含义”。该球衣原本印有海地革命（Haitian Revolution）时期战斗英雄的微缩剪影。这引发了广泛质疑：何谓“政治”的评判标准极其主观，且国际足联往往倾向于向缺乏话语权的小国施压。 主客场球衣颜色与历史渊源的背后有着截然不同的解读视角： - **海地红蓝战袍**：源自法国三色旗，当年奴隶革命推翻法国殖民统治时，革命者撕掉了象征白人殖民者的白色部分，只留下红蓝两色。 - **荷兰“橙衣军团”与宗派主义**：荷兰队穿橙色是为了纪念国父“沉默者威廉”（William of Orange）。但在北爱尔兰和苏格兰，橙色代表新教与联合主义（Unionism），极具宗派冲突色彩——格拉斯哥流浪者（Rangers）身穿橙色球衣，与代表爱尔兰天主教共和阵营的凯尔特人（Celtic）水火不容。同样的色彩在不同语境下具有截然不同的攻击性，但从未有人指责荷兰国家队挑起宗派政治。 - **双重标准现象**：球员偶尔脱衣展示支持巴勒斯坦或以色列的信息会被严厉审查或处罚；而在英超赛场，俄乌冲突后整个足球界官方统一打出“支持乌克兰”并展示国旗却被完全接受。这种裁定没有客观公式，完全取决于管理者的主观判断。 --- ### `35:50` 恩维加多足球俱乐部与毒枭肖像球衣 哥伦比亚的足球史与20世纪毒品集团有着浓重的血腥交织。在20世纪80年代，麦德林（Medellín）曾创下有统计记录以来全球最高的谋杀率，大毒枭巴勃罗·埃斯科瓦尔（Pablo Escobar）及其可卡因卡特尔横行无忌，足球俱乐部成了卡特尔争夺势力和洗钱的工具。埃斯科瓦尔拥有麦德林国民竞技（Atlético Nacional），其他毒枭则各自掌控着卡利等城市的球队。 麦德林近郊的恩维加多足球俱乐部（Envigado FC）则留下一段更为离奇的球衣历史： - **毒枭头像印上后背**：在埃斯科瓦尔于90年代初被击毙后，从麦德林卡特尔分裂出的一个地方分支掌控了恩维加多。该毒枭头目被杀后，其掌管球队的儿子为了“深情纪念父亲”，直接把被杀毒枭父亲的面部剪影印在了俱乐部球衣的后背上。 - **美国制裁与“克林顿名单”**：俱乐部因此被美国政府列入严厉的“克林顿名单”（Specially Designated Narcotics Traffickers List，禁止外国实体与任何美国企业、银行打交道）。由于遭遇全球金融封锁，俱乐部长期找不到正规赞助商，球员们只能穿着印有毒枭肖像但胸前空白的战袍登场。 - **现状转变**：历经多年变迁后，该球队已经易主，如今已恢复为一家正规运营的普通俱乐部，但那件印有毒枭剪影的绝版老球衣在球场和狂热收藏家圈子中成为极其罕见的历史注脚。 --- ### `38:00` 复古球衣狂热、天价二手市场与门票定价的文化鸿沟 老球衣与小众稀缺球衣如今已演化成一个庞大的二级交易产业，承载着球迷对90年代童年记忆的怀旧情绪。一些设计出彩的国家队球衣一经发售便迅速脱销： - **小众爆款溢价**：库拉索（Curaçao）国家队的一款柔和浅黄色（Pastel Yellow）客场球衣极具时尚感，二级市场上已被炒到了300美元以上；日本队带有特色条纹的限定球衣也备受追捧。 - **平民球迷的买单困境**：一件原价正常的球衣被炒至300美元，使得本土真实球迷根本无力负担。在英国，政界人士甚至多次在议会公开声讨将球衣售价定得过高的行为。 | 议题维度 | 欧洲足球商业模式（以阿森纳/英超为例） | 美国体育商业模式（自由市场导向） | |:--- |:--- |:--- | | **门票官方定价** | 严格控制原价（如阿森纳主场球票约60英镑/80美元） | 动态定价，随行就市，轻易突破数百乃至数千美元 | | **购票准入门槛** | 严苛的会员制积分体系，普通海外游客极难通过正规渠道购得 | 开放给票务平台公开竞价，主要比拼支付能力 | | **市场出清逻辑** | 绝不通过官方涨到1000美元来出清市场，视二级高价倒卖为违规行为 | 充分利用供需关系，推行市场出清价（Market Clearing Price） | | **文化心理机制** | 认为平民体育不应将传统工薪阶层受众通过天价门槛完全挤出 | 崇尚供需平衡与资本回报，对高溢价习以为常 | 这两种文化的差异在跨国观赛体验中经常引发有趣的文化冲突。一位主播分享了自己在马德里的亲身经历：他在二级平台 StubHub 上购买了一张马德里竞技（Atlético Madrid）的门票，付款成功后屏幕立刻弹出一行警告：“严禁客队球迷入场”。由于自己完全不会西班牙语，主播顿时陷入了恐慌：“要是入场时他们以为我是客队球迷怎么办？难道他们要对我进行测谎吗？”为了避免被球场保安拦截，他只得赶紧在场外买了一条马竞的红白围巾紧紧围在脖子上，以此自证“主队球迷”身份。 ### `40:00` 迈阿密国际的粉色球衣营销与现代足球的“个人崇拜” 主持人分享了一件带孩子上学时的趣事：他的小儿子是梅西（Lionel Messi）的忠实粉丝，甚至拥有一件亮粉色的梅西球衣；然而在去学校的路上，孩子却天真地发问：“梅西到底是不是守门员？” 这引发了关于现代足球商业包装与球星效应的讨论。小孩子虽然对足球规则一无所知，却深深被粉色球衣和“梅西”这个名字所吸引。 嘉宾 Joey D'Urso 指出，这正是极高明的商业营销。迈阿密国际（Inter Miami CF）的共同所有者大卫·贝克汉姆（David Beckham）在 2007 年加盟洛杉矶银河（LA Galaxy）时，其合约中被植入了一项极具远见的关键条款——未来有权以 2500 万美元的固定价格购买一支 MLS 新军的特许经营权。如今这支球队的估值早已数倍于当初的成本，堪称体育史上最划算的投资之一。至于选择粉色作为主色调，除了迈阿密当地建筑常见的粉色风格外，更关键的是全球足坛极少有球队采用粉色（意甲的巴勒莫虽穿粉色，但相对小众），在一众红蓝传统色调中辨识度极高，只需露出一点衣领就能被瞬间认出。 这种狂热也折射出欧美球迷文化的代际与地域差异： - 在欧洲传统足球文化中，**俱乐部（Club）永远是第一归属感**。球员一旦转会，往往会在重返旧主主场时遭到漫天嘘声，球迷效忠的是徽章而非个人。 - 在新兴的全球化足球市场中，**超级球星个体的影响力已经超越了俱乐部本身**。即便是梅西和克里斯蒂亚诺·罗纳尔多（Cristiano Ronaldo）这种竞技状态已过巅峰的球员，对全球低龄和泛体育受众而言，依然是超越球队甚至超越这项运动本身的图腾。 --- ### `42:15` 足球规则的“美式改造”：补水暂停与美职联早期的狂野创新 对话转向 FIFA 为迎合美国市场所做的规则妥协与足球运动的“美式化（Americanization）”。一个显著现象是强制引入的“补水暂停（Hydration Breaks）”，这让原本上下半场各 45 分钟行云流水的比赛被硬生生切割成了类似美式橄榄球的“四节制”。嘉宾对此表达了强烈的反对，直言自己虽不愿当个“对云咆哮的欧洲遗老”，但补水暂停极度破坏了比赛节奏。尤其是在带有空调的室内球场，甚至在多伦多阴雨绵绵的天气下依然例行暂停，完全磨灭了弱势球队反击压迫时的悬念与势头。传统足球规则历经 120 年几乎未变，任何轻率的拆解都有破坏这项运动核心魅力的风险。 此外，美国赛事的开球时间也充满美式体育特色——赛前总有冗长的歌手唱国歌、暖场介绍等环节，导致实际开球时间往往比标称时间晚 5 分钟左右，这在严格守时的欧洲足坛（即便在文化上散漫的南欧和拉美）是不可想象的。不过，主持人也赞赏了足球比赛时间高度确定的优势：常规时间 90 分钟加上伤停补时，两个小时左右即可结束，非常便于观众规划夜间日程。 与会者随后怀旧起美职联（MLS）创立初期的各种大胆改造，特别是备受推崇的 **35 码单刀点球决胜制（MLS Shootout）**： ```mermaid flowchart LR accTitle: MLS 35-yard shootout flow accDescr: Diagram showing how MLS 35-yard shootout worked compared to traditional penalty kicks. subgraph MLS["MLS 35码突破单刀制"] A["球置于半场/35码线"] --> B["进攻球员带球奔袭 (限时5秒)"] B --> C["门将出击拦截 vs 射门"] end subgraph Traditional["传统点球大战"] D["12码固定点射门"] --> E["概率极高 (约 80% 进球率)"] end ``` - **高观赏性与平衡度**：传统点球进球率高达约 80%，罚丢的人承受毁灭性打击；而 MLS 借鉴冰球点球（进球率约 50%）的 35 码盘带突进单刀制，双方胜率基本五五开，更具戏剧张力。 - **时代印记**：早期身披肥大球衣的美国大学球员奔袭球门的复古画面在 YouTube 上至今广为流传，被称赞为“少有的成功美式体育微创新”。 --- ### `45:00` 脑洞大开的计分改革争论与 VAR 现场体验 为了让嫌足球“进球太少”的美国观众产生兴趣，主持人提出了一系列奇思妙想： - **角球计分制**：提出每次主罚成功角球得 1 分、进球得 3 分，试图打破 0-0 沉闷局面的设想，但立刻遭到嘉宾反驳——很多 0-0 的比赛（例如西班牙队的某些平局）全场紧绷、充满技战术张力，绝非乏味。 - **基于 xG（预期进球值）的破局点**：主持人介绍转播中展示比赛势头更迭的“动量图（Momentum Charts）”，并提议如果常规时间战平，不再踢点球，而是将胜利直接判给全场累计 xG 或动量更高的一方，以此惩罚消极防守，奖励积极进攻。 - **反对意见**：嘉宾指出，足球的巨大魅力恰恰在于“xG 占绝对优势的一方可能会因为一次门框或反击而爆冷输球”，若引入算法判定胜负，不仅消解了爆冷的戏剧性，还会催生出钻数据空子的功利踢法。 随后讨论延伸到视频助理裁判（VAR）。主持人分享在马德里观赛的经历，认为大屏幕介入回放时全场屏息以待的悬念非常有现场张力。但大家也承认： - VAR 虽经技术迭代有所提速，并改善了对场内观众的通报，但依然无法消除主观判罚的争议（越位是客观线，但手球判定、身体对抗犯规在本质上永远是主观的）。 - 现场球迷一边看球一边低头用手机看转播以获取解说和重放画面的行为，某种程度上削弱了纯粹的沉浸感。 --- ### `48:30` 球场助威文化：英格兰传统的演变与美日球迷风格对比 对话以球场助威歌曲文化（Chant Culture）作结。针对“如何在北美建立起原汁原味的球迷助威文化”，嘉宾分析了英美两地球迷构成与助威氛围的变化： - **英格兰传统助威歌曲的退潮**：一些传承了近一个世纪的经典口号与助威歌正在英超赛场淡化，主因是现场受众结构发生转移——由过去成群结队、极具声势的年轻男性群体，转变为更多家庭受众。尽管这在观赛文明化方面是积极转变，但也削弱了老式球场的威慑力与声浪。 - **MLS 与美国本土氛围**：与会者表示美职联现场其实并不差，例如纽约红牛（New York Red Bulls）的比赛远超预期，并没有被单纯当成能量饮料的营销秀；老牌纽约宇宙队（New York Cosmos）的比赛也因为球迷携带整套打击乐器而极其热闹。 - **助威文化的终极标杆**：三人一致认为，如果论及全球助威文化的组织性与狂热度，**日本职业棒球队（NPB）的应援团**才是无可匹敌的巅峰存在，其整齐划一、持续全场的应援文化已成为体育旅游打卡的现象级景观。 ### `50:00` 美国球迷群体的分化与欧洲足坛的“赢家通吃”格局 节目进入尾声，主持人提出最后一个问题：相比 1994 年，足球在 2026 年的美国显然普及得多，但在当下的美国足球迷群体中，似乎存在一条鲜明的分界线——一部分人狂热追踪英超或欧洲顶级豪门，另一部分人则深耕本土的 MLS（美国职业足球大联盟），两者之间几乎没有太多重叠。乔伊·德索（Joey D'Urso）证实了这一观察，指出 MLS 在美国确实存在鲜明的地域核心区，比如西北部的波特兰和西雅图历来球迷基础深厚。这种支持本地小俱乐部与追逐电视上跨国巨擘之间的对立，甚至带有几分文化战争的味道，与英格兰本土足坛的生态颇为相似。 与此同时，欧洲足坛内部的权力结构也在急剧失衡。英超联赛如今正在“吃掉其他所有联赛的午餐”，演变成一种极端的赢家通吃模式。全球天量转播版权收入疯狂涌入英格兰，直接重创了西甲和意甲等传统足球沃土，导致像 AC 米兰这样的历史级豪门，在财力上甚至比不上英格兰一支保级区的小球会。德甲也陷入相似的困境——拜仁慕尼黑年复一年垄断联赛冠军，使得整个联赛在国际舆论场中愈发缺乏悬念与话题度。 ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: European Football Revenue Concentration accDescr: Diagram illustrating how broadcast money concentrates in the Premier League while other European leagues struggle. subgraph Revenue["电视转播巨额收益"] TV["全球天量版权收入"] end subgraph Leagues["欧洲联赛分化格局"] EPL["英超联赛 (EPL)<br/>赢家通吃 / 财力雄厚"] SerieA["意甲 & 西甲<br/>AC 米兰等传统豪门资本萎缩"] Bundesliga["德甲<br/>拜仁连年夺冠 / 悬念缺失"] end TV --> EPL EPL -.->|"虹吸效应"| SerieA EPL -.->|"压制关注度"| Bundesliga ``` - **MLS 核心票仓**：波特兰伐木者与西雅图海湾人所在的美国西北地区，构成了本土大联盟最稳固的球迷社群。 - **资本倒挂现象**：欧洲转播收入严重偏向英格兰，导致历史悠久的传统欧冠豪门在预算规模上惨遭英超下游球队反超。 --- ### `51:30` 商业化边界与“杀死会下金蛋的鹅” 主持人将话题转向最核心的隐忧：国际足联（FIFA）是否正在“杀死会下金蛋的鹅”？随着商业化推手不断渗透比赛结构——例如打着“保障球员健康福利”旗号设立的补水暂停（hydration breaks），实质上更像是为电视广告硬生生开辟出专属插播时段——人们不禁怀疑，这项运动原初的纯粹魔力是否正在被消磨殆尽。 乔伊·德索坦言，世界杯被他视为“人类文明的巅峰与地球上最伟大的文化盛事”，在规模和号召力上甩开其他任何活动数个身位。正因其基础极其扎实——只要两支球队、一块草皮和满场观众就能点燃狂欢——短期内无论国际足联如何压榨商业价值，这项赛事都不会立刻崩盘。但过度干预和无休止的边缘试探会带来潜移默化的侵蚀：当下一代年轻人面对琳琅满目的数字娱乐分流，本就很难专心坐满两小时，若赛事充斥着过度商业化的铜臭与停顿，足球的魔力便会在代际传递中被慢慢剥蚀。 - **赛制本质**：世界杯的成功在于其最基础的纯粹内核，短时间内粗暴变现尚不至于彻底摧毁赛事，但长期过度索取将损害下一代观众的认同。 - **注意力危机**：现代娱乐竞品繁多，让新一代观众全程专注观看两小时比赛已极具挑战，繁琐的商业插播可能加速球迷流失。 --- ### `53:30` 赛后复盘：球星崇拜、粉色球衣杂谈与 1920 年代股市崩盘 嘉宾离场后，主持人乔·维森塔尔（Joe Weisenthal）与特雷西·阿洛威（Tracy Alloway）就访谈展开复盘讨论。乔特别指出，如今球迷文化已经从“忠于球队”深度转向“忠于球星个人”——诸如梅西、克里斯蒂亚诺·罗纳尔多（C罗）或早期的贝克汉姆，球星个体卷走天量关注与资金，跟随转会从一座城市迁徙到另一座城市。虽然传统死忠会讥讽这类拥趸“不是真球迷”，但这种超级个体的资本效应无可否认地加剧了金钱向极少数豪门的循环集中。 特雷西随后分享了一则关于球衣的物质文化冷知识：在 20 世纪初至中叶之前，粉红色实际上常被视为中性甚至偏向男性化的颜色，而非现代刻板印象中的女性专属色。两人还谈到访谈中提及的另一个引人入胜的话题——足球发展与 1920 年代美国股市大崩盘之间的历史渊源，并相约未来重返播客深入挖掘这桩轶事。 - **超巨吸金循环**：顶级球星个人 IP 具备极强的资本吸附力，球队砸下重金签下巨星即可获得更多溢价，促成“资本最雄厚者通吃顶级球星”的自我强化循环。 - **球衣色彩史**：粉色在历史演变中曾经历明显的性别意涵转向，早期常带有阳刚属性，直至 20 世纪中叶才演变为普遍的女性化标签。 --- ### `55:00` 闲聊世界杯狂热回忆与播客收尾 随着节目录制进入尾声，主持人坦言当下工作出差节奏极快，即便身处 6 月 16 日的世界杯前夕，也尚未完全腾出心力进入观赛状态。两人回忆起 2010 年南非世界杯，乔至今仍对当年标志性的呜呜祖拉（Vuvuzelas）喇叭声以及布鲁克林街头球迷的热烈氛围记忆犹新；特雷西则调侃道，整场比赛坐在一个吹着呜呜祖拉的人身边简直是她的“球场噩梦”。特雷西还在手机上查阅了佛得角队（Cape Verde）的球衣，打趣其蓝色设计平平无奇，但依然为他们加油。 在片尾致谢中，主持人介绍了嘉宾乔伊·德索的新书《不仅仅是一件球衣：足球球衣如何解释全球政治、金钱与权力》（*More Than a Shirt: How Football Shirts Explain Global Politics, Money and Power*），并向听众推荐了彭博社的 Odd Lots 每日新闻通讯、Discord 社群与全集无广告收听渠道。 - **南非世界杯符号**：2010 年南非世界杯的呜呜祖拉喇叭声成为当代足球文化中最具辨识度但也极具争议的声音记忆。 - **嘉宾著作**：乔伊·德索所著书籍从足球球衣这一物质媒介切入，深入拆解全球地缘政治、跨国资本与权力博弈的互动关系。 ## Notable quotes > `05:00` 美国的整体社会高度奉行资本主义，但其职业体育联盟却采用带有“共产主义色彩”的选秀制度与工资帽，试图维持各队竞争平衡；欧洲社会虽然普遍崇尚社会民主与福利体制，但在足球领域却是完全赤裸裸的放任资本主义——富豪球队可以直接砸钱买下最好的球员，形成“富者愈富”的垄断格局。 — Joey D'Urso > `15:58` 第一，你的主队赢球或踢得极好；第二，你当时正好处于二十来岁的黄金年华。 — Joey D'Urso > `20:00` 足球回家了 — Joey D'Urso > `38:00` 要是入场时他们以为我是客队球迷怎么办？难道他们要对我进行测谎吗？ — Joe Weisenthal > `40:00` 梅西到底是不是守门员？ — Joe Weisenthal 的儿子 > `50:00` 英超联赛如今正在“吃掉其他所有联赛的午餐”，演变成一种极端的赢家通吃模式。 — Joey D'Urso > `51:30` 人类文明的巅峰与地球上最伟大的文化盛事 — Joey D'Urso > `51:30` 杀死会下金蛋的鹅 — Joe Weisenthal ## Mentioned 1990 年意大利世界杯, 1994 年美国世界杯, 1998 年法国世界杯, 2010 年南非世界杯, 2026 年美加墨世界杯, AC 米兰 (AC Milan), Alan Rothenberg (艾伦·罗森伯格), Aston Villa (阿斯顿维拉), Atlético Madrid (马德里竞技), Atlético Nacional (麦德林国民竞技), Bayern Munich (拜仁慕尼黑), Chelsea (切尔西), Coney Island Cyclones (康尼岛旋风队), Cristiano Ronaldo (C罗), David Beckham (大卫·贝克汉姆), Diego Maradona (迭戈·马拉多纳), Envigado FC (恩维加多足球俱乐部), FIFA (国际足联), Franz Beckenbauer (弗朗茨·贝肯鲍尔), Gazprom (俄罗斯天然气工业股份公司), General Motors (通用汽车), Gianni Infantino (詹尼·因凡蒂诺), Inter Miami CF (迈阿密国际), Joe Weisenthal (乔·维森塔尔), Joey D'Urso (乔伊·德索), Lionel Messi (利昂内尔·梅西), Manchester United (曼联), Mastercard (万事达卡), McDonald's (麦当劳), MLS (美国职业足球大联盟), More Than a Shirt: How Football Shirts Explain Global Politics, Money and Power, Newcastle United (纽卡斯尔联), New York Cosmos (纽约宇宙队), New York Knicks (纽约尼克斯队), New York Red Bulls (纽约红牛), Odd Lots, Pablo Escobar (巴勃罗·埃斯科瓦尔), Paul Gascoigne (保罗·加斯科因), Pelé (贝利), Premier League (英超联赛), Public Investment Fund (PIF / 沙特公共投资基金), Red Star Belgrade (贝尔格莱德红星), Roman Abramovich (罗曼·阿布拉莫维奇), Schalke 04 (沙尔克04), Tottenham Hotspur (托特纳姆热刺), Tracy Alloway (特雷西·阿洛威), UEFA Champions League (欧洲冠军联赛), VAR (视频助理裁判) ## Video description <p data-renderer-start-pos="109">The last time the World Cup came to the US was 1994. Before then, the World Cup was an enormously popular event with surprisingly limited commercial significance; the 1990 tournament in Italy, for instance, lost money for broadcasters. But that all changed in 1994, when American companies sought to make their mark in the form of advertisements and sponsorships: firms like McDonalds, Mastercard, and General Motors saw the potential to reach a global audience through one of the world's most watched sports events. Today, we speak with Joey D'Urso &mdash; a freelance sports journalist and author of the recent book <em data-renderer-mark="true">More Than A Shirt: How Football Shirts Explain Global Politics, Money and Power</em> &mdash; about the 1994 World Cup and this year's competition, which is being held jointly, by the US, Canada, and Mexico. We also talk about other surprising stories of corporate and geopolitical influence in the world of football.</p> <p data-renderer-start-pos="1028">Read more:<br><a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-06-23/world-cup-ads-prove-bonanza-for-networks-tricky-for-marketers?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=podcast&utm_campaign=odd_lots&utm_content=article" data-renderer-mark="true" data-is-router-link="false" data-testid="link-with-safety">Unilever, Pepsi Tap Celebrities, Players During World Cup</a><br><a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-06-22/sheinbaum-taps-viral-duck-s-star-power-amid-world-cup-frenzy?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=podcast&utm_campaign=odd_lots&utm_content=article" data-renderer-mark="true" data-is-router-link="false" data-testid="link-with-safety">Mexico&rsquo;s Sheinbaum Invites Merl&iacute;n the Duck to National Palace Amid Soccer Craze</a></p> <p data-renderer-start-pos="1178">Only <a href="http://bloomberg.com/" data-testid="inline-card-resolved-view">Bloomberg - Business News, Stock Markets, Finance, Breaking & World News</a> subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox each week, plus unlimited access to the site and app. Subscribe at&nbsp; <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots?in_source=oddlotspodcast" data-renderer-mark="true" data-is-router-link="false" data-testid="link-with-safety">bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots</a></p> <p data-renderer-start-pos="1350"><a href="http://bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots" data-renderer-mark="true" data-is-router-link="false" data-testid="link-with-safety">Subscribe to the Odd Lots Newsletter</a><br><strong data-renderer-mark="true">Join the conversation:</strong> <a href="https://discord.gg/oddlots" data-renderer-mark="true" data-is-router-link="false" data-testid="link-with-safety">discord.gg/oddlots</a></p><p>See <a href="https://omnystudio.com/listener">omnystudio.com/listener</a> for privacy information.</p> [Source](https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/tracking.swap.fm/track/UVBrz8bN8aM2Xe47PEPu/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/8a94442e-5a74-4fa2-8b8d-ae27003a8d6b/c2695185-bd74-4f28-9efa-b47300f4a97a/audio.mp3?in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

[5:00] Joey D'Urso: 美国的整体社会高度奉行资本主义，但其职业体育联盟却采用带有“共产主义色彩”的选秀制度与工资帽，试图维持各队竞争平衡；欧洲社会虽然普遍崇尚社会民主与福利体制，但在足球领域却是完全赤裸裸的放任资本主义——富豪球队可以直接砸钱买下最好的球员，形成“富者愈富”的垄断格局。 [15:58] Joey D'Urso: 第一，你的主队赢球或踢得极好；第二，你当时正好处于二十来岁的黄金年华。 [20:00] Joey D'Urso: 足球回家了 [38:00] Joe Weisenthal: 要是入场时他们以为我是客队球迷怎么办？难道他们要对我进行测谎吗？ [40:00] Joe Weisenthal 的儿子: 梅西到底是不是守门员？ [50:00] Joey D'Urso: 英超联赛如今正在“吃掉其他所有联赛的午餐”，演变成一种极端的赢家通吃模式。 [51:30] Joey D'Urso: 人类文明的巅峰与地球上最伟大的文化盛事 [51:30] Joe Weisenthal: 杀死会下金蛋的鹅

[5:00] Joe Weisenthal: It's like, oh, it looks fine to see these corporate logos. Now, when I look at an NBA jersey with a logo, I was like, they're sort of debasing this sport. [5:00] Tracy Alloway: You just come to expect money to debase football. [20:00] Joey D'Urso: It's this sort of extremely self-deprecating to the point of like melancholic thing about how we never win anything and it's all really miserable, which is sort of national character, I suppose. [25:00] Joey D'Urso: There's a left tail outcome for any club ownership that is just not possible in an entity like Major League Baseball or obviously Major League Soccer, where you just permanently have that spot at the top.

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As industries evolve faster than ever, companies need an environment that accelerates strategic growth, and Michigan delivers on that promise. From emerging startups to global enterprises, Michigan offers what executives value most a resilient innovative ecosystem diverse communities that attract top talent and a quality of life that supports work balance With our unified Team Michigan approach businesses scale faster and compete at the highest level Michigan, pure opportunity. Seize your opportunity at michiganbusiness.org. Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio, news. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Odd Loss Podcast. I'm Joe Weisenthal. And I'm Tracy Allaway. First of all, are we calling it football or sorry? You know, I'm fine with either. I've accepted whatever. I don't feel strongly, but just for like consistency sake, I guess we'll just call it football on this episode. If you want, that's fine with me. I like that you're defining the terms beforehand. This is important. As long as we all are operating on the sand, I'm happy to call it football. Busy time, obviously, coming back to the U.S. In the sports. In the sports. In the sports world. In the sports world. I think when you landed back from our recent trip to Asia, it was literally the final minutes of the Knicks winning. Yeah it was nuts I was driving through lower Manhattan and everyone was spilling out into the streets watching the game through the windows of bars and stuff And then of course when they won you could hear the entire city just go nuts Yeah. So part of me is like, why aren't we doing a basketball episode? Because it feels very much like New York is actually focused on basketball at the moment, even though we obviously have a very big football slash soccer event. Yeah. And I was I was walking through my neighborhood. I live in the East Village last night. Like everyone is very festive time in the city. Everyone was like sitting out in outdoor bars and stuff, like watching whatever World Cup match was on last time, obviously. Whatever World Cup match. I forget what was airing. Well, to be fair, you could lose track in this particular World Cup because it's the biggest ever World Cup. What does that mean? So it means they have like the most teams playing the most games ever. I can't remember the exact number, but I think it's almost 50 teams versus previously it was about 30 teams. Oh, I always sort of assumed it was fixed. FIFA argued that this is about making the game even bigger, you know, diversity and inclusion and all of that. But if you were going to be cynical and some people would argue you should be cynical when it comes to FIFA, you could argue that it about selling more ads selling more tickets to more games and also internal politics so currying favor with some smaller nations for political reasons all of that that makes sense actually because i was sort of wondering no offense to any of like i was like we're gonna offend so many people in this episode i can already tell like it's pretty impressive that like curacao made the world cup and so forth did you see the cape verde game the cape verde game right so that was insane so okay so part of the concern with fifa expanding this to like 50 teams is that well you don't get the same i guess intensity that you would in a world cup with a smaller group and you get all these meaningless games like curacao versus germany yeah but then cape verd played spain and it wasn't a dead rubber game it ended up like being kind of an upset because spain are supposed to be favorites for the entire yeah i know it was yeah and so now i'm proud to say i'm a diehard cape verd fan and i really want this whole like dead rubber thing to just blow up in fifa's face you know one thing i'm aware of with football in general is that we could have an entire podcast on the money side of it and like you know people say oh you should really do an episode on how like you know whatever team and whatever league in europe is now [5:00] permanently going to be relegated because they've signed these financial and it's like you know what i that sounds like really fine that fascinating to me but unless we were like really deep in it that almost sounds like too niche you know and so you know we had a really good newsletter all about this last year yeah yeah exactly whatever what's financial engineering in specifically european football but yeah there's a lot of let's say money influence slash money games being played in football at the moment? There's so many angles that we could attack it from. I just earlier in the year, I went to my first Champions League match. I saw Atletico Madrid versus Arsenal in the Metropolitano Stadium in Madrid. Amazing experience. Had the vibe to me of like an American, like Big 12 college football match, which I think is an amazing energy, et cetera. Again, we are going to offend so many people with this episode. I say there's a compliment. Anyway, let's get into the money. I'll say one more thing about football, which is that I've never like really gotten hooked on it, but I've always thought the jerseys are the coolest of any sport. Particular, I liked when more of the jerseys had physical colors on them. I think that's gone out of style a little bit. But I used to love like those old jerseys that had like the flapped colors on them And I just think they look cool as hell Yeah I agree And somehow on a football jersey it doesn offend me when I see ads the way it does Like if I see an ad on like an American baseball jersey I was like it's sort of like debasing. It looks to me, it looks fine. Why do you just expect it? I don't know. Maybe that's like a subtle chauvinism or something like that. Or it's like, oh, it looks fine to see these corporate logos. Now, when I look at an NBA jersey with a logo, I was like, they're sort of debasing this sport. I don't know. But you just come to expect money to debase football. That makes sense. We're going to be talking about whether money has injected vitality or expanded the game or debased it or whatever, or at least how the massive amounts of money have changed the game. We're very excited to bring on the perfect guest. We're going to be speaking with freelance football journalist Joey Durso, and he has a new book out called More Than a Shirt, how football shirts explain global politics, money and power. So, Joey, thank you so much for coming on Nodlots. Thanks for having me. Big fan of the pod. I don't even know where to begin. I guess I'll say, like, do you have any hunch as to why it is that someone like myself is OK with seeing ads on a football kit versus other sports? Like do you have any sort of intuition about why maybe we come to expect that or that sort of cool Well is it is one sort of deep in your soul and your personal identity and you just feel it in a way that yeah maybe that just it maybe like i don have like the sort of you know i grew up with like a detroit tiger fan for example and if i saw like a big ad for like open ai or something on there i wouldn't be that into it or crypto.com or whatever which seems to advertise everywhere maybe it's just that maybe it's just like what's in my soul or not yeah well that's an interesting question which sporting culture is more commercial, corporate capitalist, and which isn't because obviously the US in most respects is far more capitalistic than in Europe. But there's actually funny some ways to invert that one is sponsorship. And one is like this draft system, which to us feels like communism. For us, you know, it's just the rich teams buy all the best players. And that's how it happens in the rich get richer. Okay, so Joey, I can't help but notice that we're doing a football podcast, but you are in fact wearing a baseball shirt, which maybe says something about the difficulties. It's a Coney Island Cyclones shirt, which I love. Anyone who comes and visits New York has to go to a Cyclones game. But soccer has historically had some difficulty with breaking through into the US, right? So it's getting bigger now. We have the MLS. We have all of that. We now have a World Cup that taking place in the US But we had one previously and that was kind of an uphill battle to break into that particular market Yeah well so soccer in the US has quite a long history but it was basically wiped out by the Wall Street crash. So it was big in big industrial cities before that big in kind of Philadelphia, New Jersey, and then it was wiped out because it was deeply linked to these industries that were hit so badly in 1929. And then it was kind of in the wilderness for half a century, America's own sports became really big. But yeah, it was sort of getting bigger and bigger you know pelle came to play for the new york cosmos in the 70s beckenbauer as well it was like the place to be my husband used to work for the cosmos really yeah he was a youth company yeah but yeah usa 94 fifa had long wanted to bring the world cup to the u.s even though no one really cared in the u.s about the sport but because of money because of business because the world's biggest companies the world's richest people the world's biggest pool of wealthy consumers are in the u.s and you know the sort of footballing snobs of europe of which i'm probably sometimes one of them probably turn their nose up at going to the us italian 90 is very romanticized in england as you know pavarotti and the beautiful sights of rome and these gauche americans what do they what are they doing with our beautiful world cup but it was kind of a success in many metrics the grounds were full um lots of i think the hispanic population would have helped a lot there but a lot of just curious americans like women's football was huge in the us before it was big in europe so a lot of there was a lot of interesting [10:00] I think it was the Olympics before that that was big. So in 1994, loads of massive American corporations made their debut at the World Cup. They paid up to $20 million to get involved, which might not seem a lot in the scale of football now, but certainly was back then. You had McDonald's. It was their first ever global sponsorship. You had General Motors for the first time. MasterCard, who had a sort of pilot in 1998, converted that to a long term commitment. It was a big commercial success. Like Harvard Business School wrote case studies about it. Despite the fact most Americans weren't interested, the opening game was interrupted by the O.J. Simpson car chase. But yeah, massive deal in World Cup history for commercial rather than necessarily football reasons. First of all, I had not realized that actually there was a long football tradition in the United States prior to the crash. We could have probably done an entire episode just on that. But I do also remember like as a kid in the 80s, like hearing about this guy named Pelé. Trump is a big Pelé fan. um well that's pretty good yeah i thank you thank you but what were the cosmos and i was like what league was that even so that was i believe it was the nasl the north american soccer league but it was kind of an exhibit it was kind of the pele show and you know the cosmos would go around to these different teams and it when pele left it all sort of fell apart pretty quickly it was losing lots of money and the U is just such a deep rich sporting market you know there are like four the big four which would be American football baseball basketball and ice hockey it hard to penetrate that and it's very unusual you know Australia I was there recently it's maybe the closest parallel but in Europe in every European country you know I like cricket you guys probably think that's incredibly obscure and um sort of fusty British but like if cricket is tiny compared to football as is rugby and all these other sports we have. Football is completely dominant in the vast majority of the world. The US is a wild exception. So let's talk about that 94 World Cup. So like, what was the lead up to that 94 World Cup in terms of making the case that it should be in the US? Like how long was that? I remember that World Cup, but like how long was that in the works and the fights and what had to happen for the World Cup to finally go in 1994 to the US? Yeah, so it was a long time. it was like the mid 80s had lots of build up time i mean the u.s as we are seeing now it doesn't need to build loads of stadiums right that's one huge advantage it has unlike you know south africa in 2010 built all these white elephant stadiums and in many cases that was a wonderful world cup end of apartheid mandela but financially a bit of a basket case so the u.s was ready even if it wasn't a big footballing country but what it had to do was set up its own league because it did not have a professional soccer league at that point so it set up the mls because of that So real kind of footballing desert at the time that it was preparing to host the World Cup in 94 So just to clarify when it comes to I guess US commercial advertisers, what exactly were they trying to achieve here? Because if soccer isn't that big in the US at that time in 1994, I assume they're not necessarily trying to target the American market. Like maybe it's great that you're trying to popularize the game more in the country. But if you're an advertiser, I imagine sponsoring the World Cup in 94 is more about tapping into that global audience that you're describing. Yes. If you Coca-Cola and you want to sell it in Africa or Asia, it's the best billboard you could possibly imagine. It's been billed and, you know, whole villages in parts of the world where people don't necessarily have electricity at home will be will be watching it. It's the biggest advertising event in the world by far. But before 94, it just wasn't really commercialized that ruthlessly. You know, tournaments lost money. There's a great story from I think it's in the 74 World Cup in Mexico. this tailor like a guy who sews clothes somewhere in london just bought half the advertising boards on the stadium in mexico city just because like no one else had thought of it and he offered them like a nominal amount of money and they were like yeah sure and like when i do my research into the sort of history of football shirts and sponsorship the early days are often just kind of like that a team will win some massive trophy with the local beer company on it and then three years later there be no logo because it literally just like some guy There no process There no marketing department There no anything So I suppose football FIFA was leaving millions, billions of pounds on the table. Of course, there is a flip side that if you ruthlessly commercialize it to within an inch of its life, you're potentially risking harming the product itself. But that's maybe a separate podcast. Yeah, I suppose that's a separate podcast. I want to get into that later. Yeah, we could. Yeah, we should get into that in the current state a little bit more. But talk more about some of these deals and how big they were and how unusual they were. So you go from like, OK, a tailor and one World Cup to then a few World Cups later. It's Coca-Cola and it's the biggest. Yeah. And there were like 20 million dollar deals and this kind of thing. Yeah. So talk about like who are some of the big sponsors and like, you know, what were some of these deals? Yeah. Yeah. And what were some of these deals that they signed in 1994? Yeah, so this guy, Aln Rothenberg, who was the guy running the bid, and he came from an MBA background and he was very commercially minded and he turned it into this big commercial event, I think, very effectively. But yeah, the sponsors are like the ones we see now, like Coca-Cola, like Visa, these huge multinational corporations that the World Cup just hadn't really seen in the same extent before. And American companies, which is what we see now. [15:00] Whether you're planning a big tech event, launching a new campaign, or just stocking up on team gear, finding the right promotional products makes all the difference. 4imprint offers thousands of options, from on-trend apparel and premium drinkware to tech, totes, and giveaways, so you can find the right fit for any audience, purpose, or budget. You can customize it all, your logo, your message, your look, and many items come with no setup charge to help you save. And if you're really watching the bottom line, you'll find standout choices at every price point so you can make a real impact while staying on budget. Plus, you'll get expert help, fast turnaround times, and their 360-degree guarantee, so you can be 4imprint certain your order will arrive on time and look exactly right. Whatever your goal, 4imprint makes it easy to find your perfect promo match. explore the possibilities today at 4imprint.com 4imprint 4certain support for the show comes from public.com if you're actively involved in your portfolio you probably catch yourself repeating the same actions buying the dip manually sweeping idle cash putting on a hedge On public you can now create AI agents that handle all these tasks on your behalf Just describe what you want to do in plain English, like if the VIX hits 25, buy a put option on the S&P 500. Or if my cash balance goes above $20,000, move the excess into my direct index. You approve the workflow and your agent handles the rest. Monitoring the market, watching for your conditions, and executing your strategies exactly as defined. An investing platform driven by your intent, not just your clicks. You can also get full read and write access to your account via the public API. Go to public.com slash market and fund your account in five minutes or less. That's public.com slash market. Paid for by Public Investing. Brokered services by Open to the Public Investing, Inc., Member FINRA and SIPC. The thing about AI for business, it may not automatically fit the way your business works. At IBM we seen this firsthand but by embedding AI across HR IT and procurement processes we reduced costs by millions slash repetitive tasks and freed thousands of hours for strategic work Now we helping companies get smarter by putting AI where it actually pays off, deep in the work that moves the business. Let's create smarter business, IBM. So I want to go back to something you said about the 1990 World Cup, and you mentioned that it was lionized, or I guess looms large in a lot of people's football memories, especially in Europe. What actually makes a World Cup successful? Like, what is that essence that you can point to that means you can say something like, oh, people love the 1990 World Cup versus, I don't know, I don't want to name any specific World Cups as absolute failures, but you could pluck a few examples, I suppose. Well, I think the two big things are, A, your team winning or doing really well, and being in your 20s. Like most things in life, you look back on it and I suppose lots of people who look back on 1990 who are in positions of power at the moment and that's wonderful. For me, 2018 in England, we're in Russia and England did surprisingly well after being dreadful for 20 years and the sun shone every day for three months and it was just a party in England which was fun So I think a lot of it is that like social cultural stuff But you know on the broader sense exciting games close games but like moments and people you know you look back to like Diego Maradona Do you know about the hand of God in 1986? That was 86. That was in 1990. That was the first World Cup I paid attention to. And I like I knew about and then he had a pretty disappointing 1990 World Cup. Like it was Argentina was pretty mediocre that year. Right. but i was like pretty obsessed and with like maradona that year and i was sort of as a young kid disappointed that they he didn't wasn't couldn't bring back the magic yeah and i think particularly as the game extends so i'm from you know an english background where i went i've been going to see my club aston villa since i was like four years old and it's so like deeply in my blood that you know like but that's a tiny might i think that's a minority of the people who watch the world cup most people are from you know parts of the world where they might tune in once every four years and it's all about you know those characters and memories and people and you know i'm thinking about 1990 the famous one in england would be gaz's tears i don't know if that means anything to you but paul gascoigne the sort of maverick englishman who was like pretty sort of chaotic personal life and he was brilliant but sort of very flawed and he got a yellow card in the semi-final against germany that meant he couldn't play in the final and he cried and it's like gaz's tears is this sort of it's like a part of britain's national story like the sort of romantic view of football in that way and you know england didn't get to the front semi [20:00] England lost that semifinal to Germany on penalties, which then happened again six years later. And this idea of like losing to Germany every time is like a very deep in the kind of national myth. And every country has its own. Like I've just been in Argentina and like 86 with Maradona and, you know, 2022 with Messi. The interesting one is 1978 when Argentina won the World Cup under military dictatorship as people were being tortured like a mile down the road. And that's kind of slightly airbrushed out of the story. But like, yeah, these people, these characters, I think is what really makes World Cups above anything else. Someone told me, this is probably fake, but it's like one of those things that people say. Apparently, some extraordinary number of people in England have 1966 as their pin card for their ATM machine. And then you can just guess someone's pin because the last time England won the World Cup. Oh, totally. Yeah. This was something that always used to happen. For the 10 years that I was in the UK, every time there was a World Cup, people would get really excited about bringing back the trophy. And you would get all the analysts at the banks with the sell side research. And if they really wanted to get a bunch of clients happy, they would say that England was going to win the World Cup according to their models. Football coming home That right That right I know a few facts yeah Which is a kind of slightly misunderstood slogan I think because it seen as this arrogance or this like we invented it and we this imperial people who are going to colonize you and win everything, which is actually this sort of extremely sort of self-deprecating to the point of like melancholic thing about how we never win anything and it's all really miserable, which is sort of national character, I suppose. So I know to some extent we're talking about vibes and it's hard to pinpoint those exactly, but I'm really interested in the contrast between the 1990 World Cup and 1994. So you go from a very European, not that commercialized event to something that is much more American. And there's a lot more focus on actually generating money. So how did those two events stack up against each other? This is what I'm trying to get at. Yeah. And then you hit this sort of, well, I mean, it's sort of the beginning. USA is the beginning of a process. It's the beginning of this exponential curve where like people are throwing around the figure 12 billion for this World Cup, when three World Cups ago, it was half that. It's many billions more than Qatar. So the USA is not massive, but it's the beginning of the exponential curve in which the figure that, you know, the 1990 World Cup in Italy, like, lost money. The USA 94 is this beginning of, I think maybe people didn't realise at the time what a commercial success it could be and how much money was potentially on the table from World Cups themselves And that when you lead it to FIFA itself becoming this much more ruthlessly commercial body Maybe the right way to think about the compare and contrast is not 1990 versus 1994 but 1990 in Italy versus 1998 in France, both hosted by European stalwart soccer nations. How did those two differ with 1994 having split them in the middle and how much more commercialized commercialized and different was 1998 versus 1990. Much more commercial. And you have these big sponsors much more prominent in the stadium. So already much more commercial. I mean, the interesting thing about 1998 is that France now feels like a stalwart football nation. It kind of wasn't before 1998. And then in France, because it's a story of economic history and industrialization that France industrialized later than England. And it was a country where most of its people lived in villages rather than towns and cities. And football is everywhere and always a game of the city. It was spread by trams and trains inside cities. It was initially a child of the weekend. The first workers to get weekends in industrial England were the people who played organized football first, the Saturday 3pm slot. France industrialized later, so it did not have that same culture. And there are pockets of it, you know, Saint Etienne, an industrial town in the south of France But really France was not a big football country deep into the even 1998 And then that changed overnight But still even now you know you go to a small French city and it just not a thing that people talk about in a way that it is in England and in Spain and Italy Can I ask a very basic question? So you've said the word exponential a number of times in terms of the commercialization of the World Cup. FIFA is a not for profit, right? Like, technically, it's a not for profit. We're debating this over the weekend. Like, what is FIFA? It's supposed to reinvest its money like back into the sport. So what actually, you know, basic question here, but what's driving the urge to generate money from advertising revenue? So FIFA is a vehicle for funneling money from advertisers and TV to member associations. There are 200 and something member associations that make up FIFA. They vote for the president, Gianni Infantino. The World Cup is this huge bonanza of cash, both in terms of tick. So ticketing as this multi-billion dollar thing is completely new. I mean, I'm sure you've heard a lot about ticket prices and lots of Europeans are up in outrage about that. Americans say that's just, you know, capitalism, baby or whatever. but like it's like two three billion dollars now which is completely new and the advertising as well fifa is the kind of middleman and then that money goes to member associations got it and it's one member one vote so if you're interested in the [25:00] Brazil, Germany, you have the same vote as Cape Verde, Suriname. And it means that these countries have incredibly glitzy facilities, and it means that they tend to reelect the president. Okay, so that makes sense. So in terms of corporate structure, is the Premier League, is that a for-profit organization? Or is that yet another sort of non-profit layer that sits above a bunch of privately owned clubs, which are for profit? That's correct. Yeah, it's a member association, and it votes to various members. What about the MLS? Is that the similar structure where the MLS is a sort of nominally non- It's a franchise system. Oh, it's a franchise system. So the US sports model, which is where a franchise system where there's no promotion and relegation, which of course is deeply part of European sport, it means that the valuations of clubs are much lower because you can get relegated. And Tottenham Hotspur, who are a very big club in England, extremely close, came close to getting relegated, which means you fall out of the Premier League and into the League below. My husband is a Spurs fan, so this has been a painful year. Don't want to bring up any trauma. I read stuff around the time saying that even that Spurs came close to relegation is going to harm the valuation of Manchester United and Chelsea and these other teams because it feels possible in a way it didn a year ago It just felt they were too too big to fail I hadn thought about that that basically like that puts an implicit lid that there a left tail outcome for any club ownership that is just not possible in an entity like Major League Baseball or obviously Major League Soccer, where you just permanently have that spot at the top. That's super interesting. Yeah, there's real stakes. And relegation is obviously very unlikely, but Champions League football, so the top four or five teams in England go on to play in the Champions League, the European-wide competition, which is hugely lucrative. And my team, Aston Villa, who are punching way above their weight at the moment and have qualified this year. But that means there's not a spot for, you know, Chelsea haven't qualified this year. Manchester United have gone several years without qualifying. They have this year. But that's a left-tail risk, which is really quite likely and means that you're not going to get that huge pot of money next year and the odds are pretty high. The flip side is that teams in lower-rated leagues could have that right-tail outcome. They can be promoted. Do you remember we did that episode years and years ago with that Bitcoiner who bought a team in Bedford, England or something like that, the fifth team down with his Bitcoin profits and he had dreams of bringing them up. You could have entrepreneurial football entrepreneurs who would bring their teams up. Or wreck them right Yeah So it does seem like I think it would be more exciting I actually have a old friend or kind of a friend who owns a U soccer club in a smaller league And he wants the U to introduce like relegation and promotion on this idea that maybe that club could one day be a bigger more valuable thing But I have no idea if that could ever happen. Well, I guess the members would have to vote for it. Same, you know, in any other league. And it's a bit kind of Turkey's vote for Christmas. OK, since we're on the topic of the Premier League and also right and left tail outcomes. So you write across your coverage a lot about the influence of geopolitics on football. Right. And I think at this point, everyone is familiar with the term sports washing. So the idea that certain governments, certain people, certain companies will sponsor a football team to make themselves look good and maybe distract from other scandals. One thing that's interesting to me now is it kind of feels like sports washing can also go in the other direction where you can end up having geopolitical vulnerabilities. So if I think about Chelsea, you know, Chelsea basically lost their sugar daddy, for lack of a better word, in the form of Abramovich. And I think at some point there was talk about maybe sanctions in the UK against the Emirates and obviously Manchester United owned by Americans And I imagine for some British people Americans aren that popular right now Does the influence of sports washing go in the other way Well, I mean, Chelsea, yes, it was very embarrassing for them. Abramovich was sanctioned by the American government. But fundamentally, Chelsea had won one league title before he came in, in the early 2000s. They won five in the 18 or 19 years after that. So I don't think they'll be, you know, would they have taken that as a Chelsea fan at the start? I basically think, and this is maybe putting myself out of a job, no one cares that much. People don't become a sports team to grapple with geopolitics. And it's kind of pretty terrible sometimes, I think, because Newcastle United is probably the most egregious example, because they're literally owned by the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia. And yeah, that's been, I think, used as a propaganda vehicle for an autocratic state. And yeah, it's pretty bad. But I don't think fans care. And Newcastle United is like a very working class club with a really proud history in this sort of quite you know town that's had a rough few decades and a very proud a very amazing institution and it's a very clever move for the saudi investment fund to buy it because it has so much sort of authenticity and credibility was there some team that has gazprom on their logo like on their kid well which team was that teed me up that's the first whole first chapter of my book which team was that that's shulker in [30:00] Gelsenkirchen in Germany, where I travel and speak to lots of people. So, yeah, the great thing there was they had Gazprom on their shirts. And when I went there two years after the invasion of Ukraine, lots of people were wearing blue stickers over the Gazprom logo because they were shamed by it. But, yeah, Russian gas and German politics were deeply entwined for decades. Best exhibited in the shirt of Schalke and politicians and executives would wine and dine there. germany was buying cheap gas from russia so both sides were getting something out of it because germany doesn't have much natural resources russia needed the cash it all came crashing down in 2022 the one team that does still have gazprom on their shirts is red star belgrade in serbia who also play in european competitions but of course serbia is much more pally with russia than the rest of europe so they don't see a problem there so who did did that team after did they get a new sponsor Schalke well they lost loads of money overnight it was like 10 million euros and they've they've been kind of declining for a while but it was almost the straw that broke the camel's back and they went down to the second division in Germany which was terrible for them because they're a huge club so they took a huge financial hit from losing that sponsorship Whether you're planning a big tech event, launching a new campaign, or just stocking up on team gear, finding the right promotional products makes all the difference. 4imprint offers thousands of options, from on-trend apparel and premium drinkware to tech, totes, and giveaways, so you can find the right fit for any audience, purpose, or budget. You can customize it all, your logo, your message, your look, and many items come with no setup charge to help you save. And if you're really watching the bottom line, you'll find standout choices at every price point so you can make a real impact while staying on budget. Plus, you'll get expert help, fast turnaround times, and their 360-degree guarantee. So you can be 4imprint certain your order will arrive on time and look exactly right. Whatever your goal, 4imprint makes it easy to find your perfect promo match. Explore the possibilities today at 4imprint.com 4imprint, 4certain Support for the show comes from public.com If you're actively involved in your portfolio You probably catch yourself repeating the same actions Buying the dip, manually sweeping idle cash Putting on a hedge On public you can now create AI agents That handle all these tasks on your behalf Just describe what you want to do in plain English Like if the VIX hits 25 buy a put option on the S 500 Or, if my cash balance goes above $20,000, move the excess into my direct index. You approve of the workflow, and your agent handles the rest. Monitoring the market, watching for your conditions, and executing your strategies exactly as defined. An investing platform driven by your intent, not just your clicks. You can also get full read and write access to your account via the public API. Go to public.com slash market and fund your account in five minutes or less. That's public.com slash market. Paid for by Public Investing. Brokered services by Open to the Public Investing, Inc., member FINRA and SIPC. Advisory services by Public Advisors, LLC, SEC Registered Advisor. Complete disclosures available at public.com slash disclosures. So there's a lot of noise about AI, but time's too tight for more promises. So let's talk about results. At IBM, we work with our employees to integrate technology right into the systems they need. Now a global workforce of 300 can use AI to fill their HR questions resolving 94 of common questions Not noise Proof of how we can help companies get smarter by putting AI where it actually pays off deep in the work that moves the business Let create smarter business, IBM. So speaking of Jersey history, I guess one of the things that's come up in the current World Cup is Haiti's Jersey. So I think they had to redesign it because FIFA said it was too political. You're not allowed to have political slogans or like political meanings in Haiti, apparently have a little graphic of men during the Haitian Revolution. And one of them was like a very famous war hero, but not even explicitly, like maybe a very famous war hero. And I find this really interesting, because obviously, there's a lot of judgment involved when you say whether a jersey is political or not. And no one is going after like the Netherlands for wearing orange and promoting Protestantism or something like that. So like, how do they make those calls? And does it I feel like they're picking on maybe smaller countries with fewer resources to fight against some of these decisions. Well, yeah, all these things are just kind of arbitrary judgment calls, you know, where and there's maybe there's a thing that football associations are constantly grappling with. There's people that have ripped their shirts off to have something to do with Israel, Palestine. And I can see why. But then when the Russia Ukraine stuff happened in England. [35:00] the kind of whole football community united around we support ukraine and flags and whatever else so these things are often can seem hypocritical can seem contradictory those decisions it's just some person somewhere you know how do you objectively make a call like that but um yeah you're right to flag the netherlands and it's a really interesting one i've actually on instagram been doing a series that's like why each country plays in each color um and heiti is they play in red and blue because it was the french tricolore and when they overthrew the french you know the slaveholder incredible slave revolution in Haiti and they ripped the whites out of the flag just to be left with blue and red the Netherlands and the orange the story is William of Orange who's kind of the founding father of the Netherlands but in I don't know if you know the association of orange in Northern Ireland and Scotland yeah of uh the Protestantism and sectarianism and the club Rangers which represents the Protestant unionist half of Glasgow while Celtic is the Irish Republican half they play in orange and it's quite inflammatory because it's associated with these sort of sectarian thing. So yeah, the same shirt, the same color, but no one would say that about a Netherlands national shirt, even though the origin of the story is similar. It's just these things have different meanings in different contexts, I suppose. Tell us about the Jersey and Columbia that had a murdered drug dealer on it Yeah so that was Envigado FC on the outskirts of Medellin which the city which of course gave the world Pablo Escobar but these days it a lovely place to visit I recommend it to anyone as a tour I heard everyone says it amazing it great and just chills and like great food great vibes but in the it was the it was the highest murder rate in the history of organized statistics was Medellin in the 80s like it was just people were being gunned down left right and center because Pablo Escobar and his cocaine cartel was running the show but football was kind of a tool of all this and escobar owned the one club in medellin but other cartels owned clubs in cali and other colombian cities but the story i was interested in was a bit later than that was so escobar was killed in the early 90s and one of the offshoots from this cartel was in envigado and this guy was killed you know drug bosses are liable to get killed and his son as a loving tribute to his father because they own this football club put his face on the back so on the back of the shirt was this like silhouette of this man's face it was like a murder drug cartel leader and i went to a game there in the sort of humid stadium in the middle of the day and i saw one i was i was like i've made it this far i really hope i get to see this shirt and right at the end i saw it on the back because it's quite old it's like 10 years old but they were sanctioned by the american government they were on this thing the clinton list which is when foreign entities can't deal with u companies so that means like banks and everything else it really tricky to be on that list if you sanctioned so they had no sponsor for a while after that so they had like the silhouette of the drug cartel leader no sponsor they were sanctioned by the americans and now they owned by someone else and they just we should say a normal football team how much do those jerseys actually sell for now can you get them off ebay or something i imagine they're worth a lot of money well i mean that one's just an incredibly obscure one that i found because i like the story but some of them oh hundreds and hundreds it's a huge industry now and the nostalgia of it people want the kind of 90s ones from when they were kids and yeah it's huge industry yeah obviously people like football jerseys and my personal favorite for this world cup is the away kit for kurosawa which is this really nice pastel yellow that i think i could get away with but if i go to try to buy it that's selling for like 300 now and it is nice yeah and i think some of the other some of the other popular jerseys like one of the japan ones that has like stripes on it that one's also very cute like they're really the choice yeah they're really they're really hard to find now and they're selling for a lot of money what does that actually mean for fans you know if i'm a curacao fan and i can't get my hands on an away jersey unless i pay up like 300 that seems not ideal yeah well it an interesting debate that you hear a lot because i mean your supply and demand right you know they selling the price that they can get away with it But in England you get like politicians standing up and talking about how much a disgrace it is that the shirt is priced at that level I mean, it's something that means so much to people. And it's interesting to sort of the conflict between supply and demand and football, I think, is something that we're seeing a lot at the moment with this World Cup. Because, you know, Arsenal, who just won the league, who are in London, who are really popular, a ticket there is like £60, maybe like $80. And they're just impossible. They're impossible to get. you need points like if you're just a random person from the u.s who wanted to go to an arsenal game next season you just can't you might be able to buy in the secondary market which is completely unregulated you might get scammed what they absolutely do not do is raise it to the market clearing price and charge a thousand dollars for it like that just doesn't happen because it's so deeply ingrained in sort of european sporting culture that that's like wrong whereas the u.s takes a different approach and this is what we've seen in this world cup when i was in when we were in Madrid, I got into that. Did you get a jersey? I didn't get a jersey, but I went on StubHub to buy my ticket, and I got really stressed because as soon as I bought the ticket, I got that pop-up that said, away fans will not be allowed into the stadium. And I was like, what if they think I'm an away fan? I don't speak Spanish. I got, are they going to give me a lie detector test? So I went and I bought a scarf of Atleti, and I wore that to the stadium so that it's [40:00] Like, and then I felt, okay, and I got in, no problem. And everyone was like, oh, be careful with your StubHub ticket. That might be fake. But I was able to get in. So my son is a big Messi fan, and he has a pink Messi jersey. But then today on the walk to school, he asked me if Messi was a goalie or not. Oh, my God. So I was like, so he has this conception that there is this person in the world named Messi. And he has a jersey. Who he really likes. Who he really likes. But evidently, quite clear. I mean, he's young. He, like, does not actually know anything about him. he just knows that there is this existence and likes the jersey but like why is my son drawn to this pink jersey well a very clever bit of marketing from also david beckham is a part owner of and that's an interesting sort of financial story because when he joined la galaxy in 2007 oh yeah someone put into his contract whether it was him or he was maybe very well advised that he would have the ownership rights when a new franchise was introduced into the mls and that became into miami and i believe he paid like 25 million dollars i think which is basically just a huge bargain that's what now worth so many times more than that and beckham or again maybe someone advising beckham settled on pink partly because apparently miami is really pink all the buildings are pink pink but also because basically no other team plays in pink there so many teams playing red Palermo and Italy play in pink but that quite niche So pink is just so iconic You just need to see the collar under a shirt and you know instantly. It's a very clever bit of marketing. But it's interesting you say about your son and Messi because football coming from Europe, the club is the first point of reference and that was certainly my own upbringing. And if your favorite player leaves, well, you kind of hate them when they come back for another team. It's all about the club and that's what you identify with first. whereas as football is becoming this bigger global thing it's the individuals and Messi and Ronaldo who are both you know way past their best and it's possible that this tournament they could be not very good who knows but the individual is now more important globally than the club which is new interesting just going back to commercialization of the World Cup so you know we've been talking a lot about advertisers and extending you know the number of games played in order to expand I guess the number of eyeballs on the game and all of that. There are other ways that FIFA is catering to the American market. So, for instance, we now have mandated water breaks, which basically turns the game into like quarters, right? Something that looks a lot more like an American football game than it used to How far could we go in terms of the americanization of uh i guess you know traditionally european slash world football so the other strange thing to me is games start late they start like not really like five minutes late which never happens in europe and even in the you know these cultures like italy spain argentina where everyone's like late all the time that's part of the culture football never kicks off late you gotta build up the suspense in america keep them yeah maybe but it's like i'm sitting on my sofa being like where are they like you know i've got stuff to do because they're like announcing and someone's singing the national anthem yeah someone yeah that does seem like an american thing where there's not real much connection to the nominal time of the sporting event of the actual kickoff or tip off but the hydration thing i mean i i try i'm trying desperately not to be sort of european traditionalist shouting at cloud but um hydration breaks are bad i think they're really bad because they completely break up the flow of the game. I've been watching a few where it was kind of really exciting. You maybe had like an underdog hit against the ropes, like playing really well. And then it completely takes the pace out of everything. And I get it. If it's 40 degrees, like in Texas, fine. But they're doing in these air conditioned stadiums. They're doing in Toronto when it was like raining. It's unnecessary And I think it really damaging And I think like the rules of the game have barely changed in 120 years It would be instantly recognizable if you went back to 1900 And it a precious thing And I think if you meddle with it a bit you risk kind of ruining the whole experience I have to say, going to the game in Madrid, I really liked basically knowing what time the game was going to end. You know, you get there at a certain time, 45 minutes plus a couple of minutes, break, 45 minutes plus a couple of minutes, game's over. And I thought like for planning my night, it was just very nice to not have to concern it was just going to go. you know i guess there could have been like penalty kicks or something like that or overtime but but even then like it could be two and a half hours that's the absolute maximum yeah wait this actually just reminded me when mls was just getting off the ground didn't they have like something where if you were doing penalty shootouts you had to like dribble for ages and it was supposed to make it more exciting it's great yeah you like that i love it yeah american innovation done right i mean it's so cool if you watch on youtube you see these guys with these like really baggy shirts and they all just look like some of those players were like college players you know who ended up playing for the national team and the way you do it is you get the ball like maybe around the halfway line and you just sort of run at the goal yeah it makes it much more even it's harder to score so it's like a 50 like a hockey i think a hockey penalty is like 50 50 but a football penalty is like 80 and it means most of the time it goes in when it doesn't it's like [45:00] devastating for the person who misses but it's a much more yeah it's fun it's exciting i'm well up for that like okay let the americans do their thing wait wait now i have to run something by both of you so i had an idea for making football more exciting for americans so the complaint that you always hear or at least that my dad says right they don't score enough goals never mind that in the last super bowl there were like two meaningful touchdowns or something but whatever there aren't enough goals in soccer so what if you started awarding points for a corner so if you get one point per corner successful corner and then you get three points for a goal oh i'm unconvinced about that but the spain came heard was thrilling and that was nil nil yeah that's true when you've got some by the way you know what i you know the tension makes it you know i was introduced to our producer kell showed me this before the atlantic game which i'd never seen that there was this very like predictive essentially i don't know machine learning ai type thing where at any given moment there's like this swing and you can see like who has the momentum what are these charts called uh like the momentum chart yeah that's yeah the momentum charts and you could say like so that you could see like a team in this position would have scored a goal like 70 xg Yeah And I was thinking maybe a nice way to add some more attention is that in the event of a draw, that you award the victory to the team that had the greater momentum throughout the game. No, why wouldn't you just have a penalty shootout? No, because then you just encourage attacking play throughout so that you're rewarded in the event of a draw. What do you think about that proposal? That in the event of a draw, yeah yeah that's the tiebreaker exactly so the tiebreaker is expected goals and therefore you're rewarded for having played consistent attacking play throughout the game even if you know it didn't materialize and the ball went off the post or something like that what do you think about that but when the team wins on it so expected goals which measures how good but when team lose with a better xg that's the thrill of it right that's why you get more yeah yeah no that's exciting i And I totally get that. And you're like, we should, like, if one team had better XG, but the other team got more goals, fine. That's exciting. But in the event of a tie, you go to the XG, and then you, like, rather than, like, this sort of very defensive ball. People would find some way to game that, too. And also people are already up in arms about the VAR stuff Yeah And by the way I still can say VAR without thinking of value at risk But I thought that was exciting During the game there were two times where the referees went back and looked at a call that was made on the field And I found it. That was the interesting energy in the stadium was incredibly high waiting for those referee reviews. And I sort of thought it added to the fun of like being in the stadium while we were waiting for the calls. I think it's got better. Yeah. I think it's sped up. I think at the beginning, there are a lot of teething pains and it was often really slow. And often people in the stadiums, what they're doing better at now is communicating to the people in the stadium. Yeah. Because I've been in a stadium where it just goes on for like five minutes. People are like texting their friends saying, what's going on? Are you watching on TV? So it has got better. I think there are still like huge problems with a lot of these calls are fundamentally subjective, right? Yeah. Like an offside is objective. But so, you know, is a foul a foul? Is a handball, you know, if it bangs you on your shoulder there, it's not a foul. But if it's your hand, things cannot be perfected through data or whatever else. So there will always be that tension there. It's funny. He mentions texting people who are watching on TV. So many of the fans that I saw were watching broadcasts on their phone during the game so that they would have like a little like stream on their phone. And so during the call That sad Yeah whatever But they were like getting more commentary and stuff no that no that wrong and also okay but on this note i kind of liked it you mentioned energy just then how do we get a proper chant culture going in american football or football which takes place in america and i think even in the uk some of the chanting is starting to go away a little bit which is very disappointing yeah well i think i think it's partly to do with the sort of who was in the crowd you know it's much more of a sort of big family event in the in the in the u.s potentially the uk is becoming more so whereas previously it would have just been mainly kind of big groups of young men who probably just chant more than families to be honest um and that's changed and that's probably a good thing for the most part but certainly the culture has changed quite a bit but yeah i mean some of these songs some of these songs in english football have like a century of history but yeah i've been to some kind of mls games i thought the atmosphere was pretty good i went to the new york red bulls and i was i don't know expecting a sort of yeah the us this energy drink company and it was pretty good like i was impressed the cosmos games were always really good because people would bring like drum sets and stuff but in terms of chanting i have to say in my experience the ultimate champions are actually japanese baseball teams oh yeah i've heard they do it like my dream is i really really want to go to a japanese that's great vibes if you like the cyclones yeah i know that's definitely higher [50:00] Actually, one last question. My understanding. So obviously, football has become more popular in the United States today in 2026 than it was in 1994. My understanding, and tell me if I'm wrong, is that if you go to like a typical American football fan, there will be some people who are like really into they'll have their favorite Premier League team or their favorite European team that they're really into. or there'll be some who are like really into the MLS, but that there isn't a lot of crossover that's still like you're sort of either into European football or American MLS, but not really. You're like kind of one or the other. Is that the case? I think that's true. And the MLS has real pockets. I think like in the Northwest, in Portland and Seattle, it's long been big. There are other places where it's particularly strong. And yeah, and I think there is sometimes a bit of a sort of culture war between, I mean, you get this in Europe or in England of teams who support their small local team versus the big team on tv yeah but i think one interesting thing with european leagues is that the english league is currently like eating everyone else's lunch it's just like becoming this sort of winner takes all all the tv revenue is flowing there and it's really harming sort of spain and italy and these huge football institutions like ac milan have less money than these like tiny english teams yeah i feel like you don't hear about the bundesliga at all anymore right like you never win it every year so it kind of boring okay well anyway i just want to go back to the big will fifa kill the golden goose oh yeah question it sad in my head i doing a goal golden pun but you can't even tell on the podcast so i apologize for mentioning that at all but how far can you actually push commercialization and as we see fifa especially try to make more space for advertisers through they haven't said this explicitly when they talk about the hydration breaks they say it's the welfare of the players and all of that but like it certainly looks like they're making defined space for ads at what point does it mean that you start to lose some of the magic of the sport i'm sure you've been asked this question a ton and you probably thought about it a ton yeah well i think it can happen i think it probably i basically think the world cup is like well for me it's like the pinnacle of human civilization and the greatest cultural event on earth and it is the biggest cultural event on earth by an absolute mile so i think it's pretty hard to mess it up like you just need two teams a pitch get some fans in you know it's not some great like you don't need to think too hard about how to do it in four years time but the more you meddle with it the more you tinker at the edges i don't think the whole thing would come like crashing down overnight but i do think if you keep meddling with it then children will become less into it than their parents did and very slowly you could sort of chip away at the edges of it There are obviously so much more attention distractions these days that someone sitting still for two hours is like harder to convince them to do But yeah, I think in the short term, like they can probably rinse even more cash out of it, to be honest, because it's just such a perfect event. All right, Joey Durso, thank you so much for coming on the Odd Lots. I'm glad we got a World Cup episode in. There's so much going on in the world right now, but it could have easily done a bunch of a million AI episodes. And I'm glad we covered the World Cup and you were the perfect guest. So thank you so much for coming on NABLA. Thanks for having me. I enjoyed it. Tracy, that was a lot of fun. Many interesting points. One thing I thought was interesting is the idea of the fandom of the player rather than the team emerging over time. You get these global superstars like a Messi or a Ronaldo or maybe like a Beckham or something like that. Yeah, but then the Rotorius, you're not a real fan. No, you're not. But from the perspective, then they take their money with them from one city to another. I could see that really changing the game It sort of like changing the nature of people relationship with the sport yeah but again like if i was going to be cynical about this it makes it even more about the money right i'm not defending it no no no i'm not saying there's a good thing i'm saying that's an interesting shift in how people right and i'm saying an effect of that will be that whoever has the most money i can afford like the best player just gets them and gets even bigger even more money and it's this like self-reinforcing cycle which is what we're seeing in a lot of european football at the moment by the way material culture trivia for you on the pink jersey point go on did you know that pink used to be much more of a gender neutral color even more of a masculine color than a feminine color really yeah what do you have any idea when that changed i think in the like early to mid 1900s kind of interesting i'd like to learn more about that we should also have joy on back again, maybe in quieter days, talk about the connection between football and the stock market crash of the 1920s. Yeah, that was interesting. I had no idea. Maybe I'll go find, I'll Google that and read more on that. But I'm very curious about that. But no, it was a really fun conversation. Who are you supporting in the World Cup? I don't know. You know what? I've really been like so busy. I just like, you know, we've been traveling and [55:00] And so I'm like, I need this weekend. We're recording this. To really think about it. No, no, for real. Like, I haven't watched a World Cup match yet. So it's June. We're recording this on June 16th. I need this weekend to, like, sort of reset. Or this week to reset. And sort of get my bearings. Like, okay, what World Cup matches am I going to? I just have not had the mental space to allocate. Like, you know, I remember, like, in 2010. I was going to bring it up. I loved that one with the Vuvuzelas. That was the one in South Africa. Vuvuzelas. Vuvuzelas. Yeah. I loved that one. And then, like, everyone in Brooklyn with their – I thought that was great. That's my nightmare, being in a football stadium with someone with a Vavuzula, like, behind me. Yeah. What do the Cape Verde jerseys actually look like? Wait, I want to see. Oh, they're blue. Eh, could be better still. Cape Verde for the win. Shall we leave it there? Let's leave it there. This has been another episode of the All Thoughts Podcast. I'm Tracy Alloway. You can follow me at Tracy Alloway. And I'm Joe Weisenthal. You can follow me at TheStalwart. You can follow our guest, Joey Durso. He's at Joseph M. Durso. And check out his book, More Than a Shirt, How Football Shirts Explain Global Politics, Money, and Power. Follow our producers, Carmen Rodriguez at Carmen Armandashel Bennett at Dashbot, Kale Brooks at Kale Brooks, and Kevin Lozano at Kevin Lloyd Lozano. And for more OddLots content, go to Bloomberg.com slash OddLots. We have a daily newsletter on all of our episodes. and you can chat about all these topics 24 7 in our discord discord.gg slash odd lots and if you enjoy odd lots if you like it when we do sports talk i guess then please leave us a positive review on your favorite podcast platform and remember if you are a bloomberg subscriber you can listen to all of our episodes absolutely ad free all you need to do is find the bloomberg channel on apple podcasts and follow the instructions there thanks for listening Thank you promo products to match. With thousands of options, from apparel and drinkware to tech and totes, it's easy to find the right fit for your brand and budget with standout choices at every price point. And with their 360-degree guarantee, you can be 4imprint certain your order will show up just right, right on time. Explore more at 4imprint.com. 4imprint. 4certain. When you're running a business, the best days are the ones where priorities stay on track. 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