The biggest sports story of the past week broke on Sunday when twelve of the biggest European soccer teams announced that they were forming a European “Super League” that crossed international boundaries and would replace, at least for them, the UEFA Champions League. They announced that they had financial backing from American banking giant JP Morgan Chase and that this new tournament would bring untold riches into the game.
Within 48 hours, backlash from all corners killed the idea. But the Super League is a symptom of a larger trend in sport that has been underway for years but has been rapidly accelerated by financial setbacks of the global pandemic.