From Manchester and Arsenal, to Liverpool and Chelsea across the English Premier League the term “bandwagons” rings in every direction. From Juventus and Roma to Milan rivals the claim that “there are no glory hunters supporting our club” is a claim written on every supporter chest and echoing in each corner at Serie A. And let’s not start talking about La Liga, and mainly the two poles of FC Barcelona and Real Madrid. Bandwagon fans and Glory haunters, Who are those people?
"A bandwagon fan is a phrase used among sports fans and sports writers to describe a fan that only roots for popular and successful sports franchises, then when they fall and are unpopular they switch to the new team. Sometimes people may change teams due to many factors, such as bad management, scandals involving the team, poor draft decisions, or unfavorable conditions in the current residence (which often could cause them to adopt their hometown's rival team as their own)... Bandwagon fans are usually despised by fans who consider themselves die-hard". (Source)
Before getting into the threat this slice of football fans can present for big –popular- clubs, it is relevant to go back in time to figure how the big-popular- clubs became big and became popular. It usually starts with one or handful football entrepreneurs collecting players and organizing a team like many in the city or the region. The team develops and shows enough promise to be recognized by the neighborhood that starts following the team regularly. At that early stage, if the team fails to secure continuous improvement, the followers start to vanish, attracted by other clubs with more potential in the same surrounding. The club ends up being one of numerous small clubs worldwide with few hundreds of followers competing on local minor rivalries and unrecognized competitions.
If that small team succeeds to satisfy the followers hunger to victorious joys (A.K.A. results) dipped in the bragging opportunities to tease those living across the street, it sets the cornerstone to win over the followers hearts. With time good memories, cultural and social concurrence starts to tie the fans and the club more. That’s when temporary failure becomes more forgiven. It is no more this street club against the club of another street, but the club that represents the City best against the clubs of other cities. The more the club succeeds, the more its fan base expands the same way it was initially created: Results increase awareness. Awareness makes more people interested. Interest creates addiction. Addiction structure loyal supporters, added to the support inherited from father to son originated in that small street, then through the City, the nation, and worldwide.
I am not sure if the term “Bandwagon” is originally offending. I am not an expert in English terminology. But if we use it with good intentions and based on the definition and argument above, there are two kinds of club followers: Ex-bandwagons outcome (Loyal fans), and current bandwagons (fan base contenders). So called bandwagons are people who became interested in the club when the club proved capable of bringing pride, joy, and satisfaction. Some of them became loyal fans and the rest decided to aboard the ship when the wind started to blow in another direction. But there is an important question here. Is it only about the people? It seems that the club has nothing to do in this matter, which is not the case at all.
To understand the clubs’ role and responsibility we need to consider the club as any other firm, organization, or business. If you own a restaurant, you invite people to visit and try your food. If the first time they visit you fail to satisfy them, you are done and dusted. If they leave your restaurant smiling and praising, you can be sure they will come back again. But it will take more than just few successful trials before you can consider them as loyal customers. They need to enjoy some more lunches and dinners, to start recognizing the staff faces and names, to feel comfortable with the way food is served and the food diversity available, and most importantly start sharing the nostalgia of the memories they share with that restaurant. When they become that loyal, then they will forgive you if for once the launch was overcooked. A bit too spicy. Or the service was not up to the expected standards. During trial period they forget you. When they become loyal, they forgive you.
That’s how clubs create fan bases. Like loyal customers. Using marketing terms, clubs successful period is the marketing campaign. Bandwagons are the leads. Permanent supporters are the loyal customers. Successful periods -full with titles- act as marketing campaigns. It generates leads and increases awareness and attractiveness. Leads may visit your showroom because your marketing campaign was successful. That’s your opportunity brought to you on a golden plate. Now it’s your job to turn the leads to loyal allies. If they end up visiting your showroom without buying anything, then it’s your fault not theirs. If they buy just to get advantage of the offers promoted through the marketing campaign then you are lucky because that will buy you more time and extend your opportunity to do your homework. If they vanish the moment the marketing campaign cycle ends, that’s because you –as a club- failed to show more interesting features about your club/business beside titles/offers. You failed to create a more personal/human-like relation with them. You failed to make them aware that your club is so special in many ways that bring even more pride to its fans than titles.
If they jump out of your ship when your club wins no more, don’t call then glory hunters. They are so, because you failed to show them the glory lies behind supporting your club, regardless of the titles won or lost.
English premier league was the subject of the first part about the best league in the world. I apologies first for some spellings in the first part –I updated the post fixing where I thought there was a need for editing. This part will be brief as there are lots of factors the EPL have in common with the rest of the world leagues.
If it’s not convincing to consider the EPL as the league to crown, its more unlikely to find a sold case for the liga to consider it the best league in the world.
Evaluating the EPL in the first part was based on what the league generally stands for:
“Is it an exhibition to enjoy the game? Is it the level of competition? Is it the mechanism that helps the domestic level to improve and feed national teams that represents the respective country? Is it an environment that helps the game’s evolution throughout the tactical clashes that take place between the clubs involved? Is it the mean that transform football from a game to an economic module helping the country and the people financially? Or maybe, it’s a mix of this and that.”
For being an exhibition, the liga and the Serie A are the same. They are more like a Shakespearian theater than a music concert. In a Shakespearian theatre, you can expect the artists to have more quality, the music is more correct and the lyrics are of the best ever written. Yet, lady gaga will always generate more headlines than Andrea Bucelli. More audience. More dancing and chanting and fun.
The liga is the place where you find the Picasso type of footballers. The techniques and skills. The offense and the flair. But it’s also where the stadiums are only attended in occasions. The fields are not always up to the standards and the media coverage ranges from “not that good” to embarrassing. Matches schedule is also a bug that hurts the liga’s market value.
As mentioned in the first part, it’s not accurate that the EPL is generally more competitive than the liga. Yet, while competitiveness means different objectives from avoiding relegation to qualifying to the Europa league, champions’ league or winning the title, the competition for the title is still the most attractive face of all.
The gap between Barcelona and real Madrid as title contenders and the rest of the liga teams is getting wider every season. The solution must not count on blocking the improvement of the big two so the rest can catch, but to help the rest to grow in a stable manner. Some of the teams were so close to break through, and the failure was mainly the result of sloppy management than anything else. The most recent example is Valencia. They were up there. They needed two more seasons of stability with some smart signings and a new monster will start competing for the title. Instead, they decided to take risky shortcuts. The most irresponsible decision was to start building a new stadium while not sure how to sell the existing one. From there on, it was a free fall. Deportivo was another example. And the list is long. That shows the need to put some guidelines to channel the clubs’ management on the proper path. That’s even more important than injecting more money. With bad management that will not really make a difference. Ask the English premier league teams.
Taking about the EPL, the main demand in Spain is that the TV revenues should be distributed as it happened in England because that will help to create a more competitive league. While I agree on the first part (the distribution) I don’t believe in the second part (enhance competitiveness). It didn’t happen in the EPL anyway. The teams competing on the title are the ones financed by sugar daddies, not TV returns. The rest are less competitive than the liga clubs as I pointed out in the first part.
Still, there is a need to reconsider the distribution of TV revenues. The change will not damage the big two as much as it will help the other 18 teams to finance their operations (even though at the moment, the change will be bad for Valencia because they will earn less money than they do through the existing system- proving that the change will not solve problems alone).
On the bright side, the liga is no doubt the best big league when it comes to feeding the national teams. Not only the first team but all the way through the youth squads. Barely can you find a Spanish club without a proper youth setup. Its hard to predict how long that will last, but at the moment the liga is perfectly fitting to develop domestic talents into world class players.
Unlike the liga, the Serie A suffered a decline in football quality in the last few years. It’s a heartbreaking to compare this Serie A to that’s of the nineties for example. Other than sharing all the mentioned defects of the liga, the continuous scandals Italian football faces make things only worse for the Calcio to heal.
Even though, the tactical level of the Italian football is still superior in many ways, that’s not enough to rescue one of the most popular leagues in the world. Unless the clubs start to trust the youth more, invest in the infrastructure and the stadiums (some are disastrous even for amateurish leagues), and until the FIGC gain the trust of all its members and maintain enough stability, the Calcio will never be the league we knew.
Then where can we find the best league in the world?
It’s possible to build a case for any league. In fact, leagues of France, Holland, and Portugal for all the players they generate for the national team and the number of players they export (economical factor) added to the level of competitiveness (regardless of the quality of competitiveness) can build a case. South American leagues are also unfairly overlooked.
But in my opinion, the best league in the world at the moment is the Bundesliga. It’s not the best league for any specific reason but it generally ticks more boxes than any other league. Financially it is stable and the clubs are governed by strict regulations to control the books. The competitiveness is improving. The youth setup is impressive feeding the national teams. The stadiums are also wonderful. I can’t claim that a football fan will straight forward find it more exciting to follow the Bundesliga than the liga, the EPL, or the Calcio as the German teams will need some time to build their fan base abroad. But if there is a module to follow, that’s the one I can recommend.