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Soccer Talent Scouting Application Teams Up With Video Game Publisher
ClockEndGooner writes Professional club football in Europe, or soccer, as it's known here in the States, is perhaps the most expensive and costly professional team sport in the world. Yesterday, Spain's traditional powerhouse, Real Madrid, fielded a starting eleven roster that cost the club over $637 Million (£382 Million Pounds Sterling) to acquire and assemble over the past six seasons against rival club Sevilla in the UEFA Super Cup match played in Cardiff, Wales. With billions of dollars spent by the top teams in the world's most competitive leagues in Europe, and billions more at stake from TV royalties and commercial licensing rights, its crucial talent scouts, general managers or "gaffers", sporting directors and club owners and the rest of their back office staff do their homework before recruiting and signing new players. Prozone Sports Ltd. has turned to game publisher Sports Interative's popular Football Manager video game to include more player data and archived video footage of tens of thousands of players from across the world in its Prozone Recruiter application to help clubs make better and more informed decisions on player performances and strengths. Though not officially published, it is known that many of the top clubs in England, Spain, Germany, Italy, France, Holland and Russia rely on Prozone Recruiter.
It's a natural consequence of the underlying system.
A slightly better soccer player can add millions of spectators to each match that team plays. So, the player is indeed causing a production that corresponds to his cost. It's not a player's "fault"; they are just a product. Arguing over a professional sports player price is like arguing about the price of a marketing campaign.
A simple marketing campaign can cost more than the life's salary of an university professor, and yet it doesn't add any value to society. But that's a problem of capitalism, not of the marketing industry nor the sports industry.
Services are not too expensive nor too cheap in themselves; they cost as much as the market values them.
If my experience at conferences has taught me anything, it's that without football we'd have a lot more very sober and very grumpy scientists in Europe.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
And I still have to turn it off after a couple minutes because it's putting me to sleep.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!