The first truth can be proven by the odds. Nothing in American sports comes close. Judged on their gambling prices, both the Philadelphia Phillies and the Atlanta Braves are pretty useless at baseball, but as spring training dawned you could only get odds of 500-1 on them to win the World Series. Leicester was deemed 10 times less likely to win the Premiership. By way of contrast, bookmakers think that Bono stands a 5,000-1 chance of being the next pope.
The long odds last summer reflected a couple of realities. For starters, the Premier League, the most watched in the world, is an oligopoly: Four big clubs — Manchester United, Chelsea, Manchester City and Arsenal — have won all the titles in the past 20 years. The big four in England get most of the television revenue (especially once you add in the European Champions League) and they have the biggest stadiums so they can buy the best players and pay them better wages — and there has been a very high correlation between wage bills and league position. Last year’s Premier League winner, Chelsea, spent 215 million pounds assembling its squad, roughly 10 times the cost of Leicester’s team.
The other justification for the long odds is that last summer Leicester looked pretty useless. They had just achieved one sporting miracle, somehow avoiding being one of the three clubs that were relegated, despite being bottom for most of the season. “The Great Escape,” as it was known, saw Leicester win seven of its last nine games, an amazing feat for a struggling team. But miracles don’t tend to happen twiceÂ
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(BV) John Micklethwait-Leicester City on verge of most outrageous surprise in modern team sports
The first truth can be proven by the odds. Nothing in American sports comes close. Judged on their gambling prices, both the Philadelphia Phillies and the Atlanta Braves are pretty useless at baseball, but as spring training dawned you could only get odds of 500-1 on them to win the World Series. Leicester was deemed 10 times less likely to win the Premiership. By way of contrast, bookmakers think that Bono stands a 5,000-1 chance of being the next pope.
The long odds last summer reflected a couple of realities. For starters, the Premier League, the most watched in the world, is an oligopoly: Four big clubs — Manchester United, Chelsea, Manchester City and Arsenal — have won all the titles in the past 20 years. The big four in England get most of the television revenue (especially once you add in the European Champions League) and they have the biggest stadiums so they can buy the best players and pay them better wages — and there has been a very high correlation between wage bills and league position. Last year’s Premier League winner, Chelsea, spent 215 million pounds assembling its squad, roughly 10 times the cost of Leicester’s team.
The other justification for the long odds is that last summer Leicester looked pretty useless. They had just achieved one sporting miracle, somehow avoiding being one of the three clubs that were relegated, despite being bottom for most of the season. “The Great Escape,” as it was known, saw Leicester win seven of its last nine games, an amazing feat for a struggling team. But miracles don’t tend to happen twiceÂ
Read it all.