Owen Jones tells us that the defeat of the European Superleague is a victory for people power against markets. No, it’s a proof of the fact that markets enable, support and ensure the victory of people power:

The great ESL revolt of 2021 has shown that corporate boardrooms are not invincible, and that business decisions that prioritise profit over wider social needs can be exposed as hubristic rather than lucrative. Rather than a one-off, the debacle has provided much-needed political education to millions about an economy rigged at every level in favour of unaccountable vested interests. It was grotesquely self-evident in football; but it should be obvious everywhere else, too.

The specific point of the ESL was to create a cartel. One that had a hard cap upon how much of the revenue could be paid to the players. It was indeed an attempt to recreate the experience of American sports leagues where there is no competitive entry and relegation and thus there’s considerable capitalist power and therefore profit.

The solution to this - evidenced by the very thing they were trying to do, remove it - is that system of promotion and relegation of teams. Or, as we can also put it, competition within the rules of the market.

Markets and their competition are, therefore, the very things which control and often enough entirely destroy that capitalist power. Which is what we’ve been saying for decades now, economists for centuries, and it’s about the time that Owen Jones caught up.

We entirely agree that cartels, monopolies and economic restrictions are bad things, the solution being more markets. Now that we’ve proven this with the example of football perhaps we can all - Owen included - agree that this applies more widely?