United States Imperialism

It seems another American and David Seaman lookalike, Stan Kroenke, fancies himself a Premiership 'Fat Cat' as he eyes an Arsenal takeover. I believe that American financiers found an 'untapped' media/merchandise market within the Premiership. Now they will 'exploit' it.

The addition of Americans into the Premiership is not necissarily bad. They will buy quality players and have no problem splashing their money about. Americans tend to do that whithin any venture they deem interesting. We want to have our fun and make money all the while. I digress though. In turn that will grow the league as a whole. I do not think they will inflate players valuations more than they already are, but then again, I do not see American owners, who overlook and have experience in various other sporting teams, whipping out the check book as quickly and/or easily as a certain thirty-something Russian billionaire oil barron divorcé (who wants to sack one of my favorite managers...but that is a side note, one of which I will not go into.)

As long as the various American owners don't go around whoring themselves to the likes of McDonald's, Coke, or Staples, all should be good in the eyes of your everyday English football traditionalist. I think. It has already kind of started with the Stadiums in England. That had nothing to do with American owners though. That would be your run of the mill 'China Town' copycat who did that. I digress yet again though. I would strongly suggest to the new American owners to not sell stadium 'naming rights' to massive corporations. Advertising within them is perfectly acceptable. I think putting a name outside, ala 'Emirates Stadium' just dilutes respectability, in my opinion.

For more on reasons of an American take over, I'll direct you to this Forbes commentary from February. Here is a key bit,

"The game is growing in the U.S., though it faces entrenched professional sports in baseball, basketball, football and hockey, who know how to market a sport, leagues, teams and players.

That expertise has increasingly been imported into English soccer through American owners--the Glazers, Gillett and Hicks and Cleveland Browns' owner Randy Lerner, who bought Aston Villa last year."