Human Traffic

There's a rumor that Tottenham offered Newcastle 30 million pounds for striker Andy Carroll. There are two things that should strike that as odd to the American sports fan: one, why would anyone want to leave Newcastle for Tottenham (other than the prospects for Champions League soccer, the London life, more money, a more organized and more dynamic team contending to the top of table: trifling matters, all); two, could you imagine the Yankees, say, buying Cliff Lee from the Rangers in the middle of the season for $45 million dollars?

Actually, it doesn't seem that much different than a mid-season trade between teams, such as when the Rangers acquired Cliff Lee from the Mariners for several players this past season. The difference is the composition of the exchange. In soccer, it is typically a sale, although the occasional exchange of players does occur. In baseball, of course, sales of players have happened, most infamously when the Red Sox owner sold a young pitcher named Babe Ruth to the Yankees for enough money to finance a Broadway play.*

So in either case, teams have the ability to bolster their squads during the season. With soccer, there is the January transfer window, a time of hot gossip and rumors and salacious details about who's moving where and for how much money. In baseball, there are the rumors about which failing teams are prostituting their talented players to which contenders for future prospects. Basically, the same transactions, except on the one hand, it is for money, and on the other, for players.

What's the difference? Both involve money, really, but with soccer it is a more direct involvement, cutting out the representative markers of actual players.

Is there a reason for the difference, be it cultural or economic?

My first thought was that of the salary cap. In football, a salary cap means that trades of players must involve contracts of approximately the same value. In this case, an exchange of players requires a flexibility when it comes to the roster that isn't required in European soccer, where teams can simply buy a boatload of talent--up to a limit, of course, based on rules dictating the number of "homegrown" players that must be included on a 25 man roster--and there we get into all sorts of European labor issues that, while fascinating, are beyond the scope of a random sports blog.

The problem with this comparison is that there is no salary cap in baseball. There is a luxury tax for teams whose payrolls exceed a certain limit each year, which could act as a salary cap, except that the teams that have paid it, the Yankees and the Red Sox, for example, don't care about a salary cap, because they basically print their own money as baseball marketing empires.

Is it cultural? Free agency marked a big change in American sports scene. Prior to the struggles of Curt Flood and his successors, teams could hold on to a player even without a signed contract; players had no leverage, no unions, and could be sold or not sold depending on the desire of the owner. Free agency means that players have a lot more control over their careers by seeing out a contract and being free to go where they wish.

This does not seem like it would preclude players being sold in the middle of their contracts, though, assuming the buying team could reach an agreement with the player, much as a soccer team will generally try to negotiate contractual terms with the player after having a bid accepted by the team and before the transfer is actually complete. Furthermore, soccer does have a form of free agency, ever since the Bosman Ruling.

So what is it about American sports versus soccer that promotes the use of trades in the one and transfers or straight sales on the other? Does it matter? Does it have a root in different labor cultures? I genuinely want to know.



* No, No, Nanette for those trivia buffs among you