Fair point. My main concern is the Americans. Their view on sport is fundamentally different from our own which is ok until it threatens the very fabric of football in this country. Imo they view the fans as unlimited cash machines. Closed league were the peacocks of united, Liverpool, Madrid, Barca can strut around holding the rest of us in contempt all because they have a history of success.
Football goes in cycles and those clubs can’t accept the inevitable decline. Instead they chase after money almost akin to a gambler who is convinced he will win with his next roll. Only to realise that he has lost it all.
Debt regret... time to tap these cunts out of English football.
Americans view sport logically from a financial point of view. By and large, the largest cities have top tier franchises because they have a fan base that can generate economics. Smaller cities don't; ergo, they should be excluded from the top tier. There are exceptions (the Green Bay Packers of the NFL, e.g.), but very few. So we have minor league baseball and hockey, where smaller city teams are owned by individuals but have contracted affiliations with major league teams and serve as a "farm system" for younger players (like City's youth teams work, or how we send young players out on loan to smaller clubs for playing time). There are no loan deals in the States. Moreover there are no transfer fees -- although teams can "buy" players for cash that is usually rare, limited to small dollar amounts, and teams typically wait for contracts to expire and then good players go to the highest bidder on wage. Players switch clubs while still on contract far more frequently via trades.
The economics of having to agree with a player via wage AND a transfer fee with the selling club is absolutely a reason we have a financial pyramid in football that the US doesn't have in any sport. Economically this has never made sense to me.
That's also why American teams move from cities whose population, fan base or sport popularity is stagnating to those that are growing. Leagues should be closed so that ownership have business stability, and if a league grows by adding expansion teams, it would be because the demand for a new franchise will bring in greater revenues for all, since by and large revenues are equally shared (it varies sport to sport, and this is less true in baseball).
As cultural and social institutions, however -- the American understanding of European football and football generally is woefully lacking. There is little tribal about American sports. While teams may have rivalries, nowhere in America do we cordon off a set of stands for away fans with police. Rival fans sit side by side wearing team colo(u)rs and, sure, every once in a while it kicks off (remember -- we serve alcohol in the stands in America), but very, very infrequently.
More important, the roots of so many English football sides were people's clubs, working class or otherwise, begun as amateur gatherings that eventually became professional, whereas nearly all American sports teams began with the intent of being professional sports entertainers from the outset.