How many days since one of their clubs was front page international news? Chelsea football club was near the front in New Zealand this week, I don’t follow football at all and I recall it.
> How many days since one of their clubs was front page international news? Chelsea football club was near the front in New Zealand this week
London-based club Chelsea has been front page news in the UK this week because its Russian owner (Roman Abramovich) has been targeted by sanctions imposed as a result of the invasion of Ukraine, throwing the future of the club (and its massively expensive players) into doubt. Some casual googling shows that this story has been covered by Fox News, Deutsche Welle in Germany, Italy 24 News and others
Chelsea, Tottenham, Arsenal and at keat Paris Saint Germain are regularly big -- perhaps not front-page, but big -- news over much of at least Europe even without controversies about an oligarch owner being sanctioned.
I admit, I have a hard time believing that there are many people who would've never heard of London or Paris if not for their pro sports teams. There are absolutely some cities where I can believe it, like Liverpool or Manchester, but London and Paris?
The double negative is making my head hurt and it’s late - to confirm, you are saying:
People would have heard of London or Paris with or without their sports teams. Would you say the same of Manchester or Liverpool if their teams didn’t exist?
Can you think of any city that this applies to? Maybe a few English Premier League teams are as or more famous than the cities themselves, but there's a problem here. There is a near-zero chance of any of those teams threatening to move and using the stadium as a bargaining chip. I can think of a couple of moves that have happened in my lifetime - Meadowbank Thistle moving to Livingston (I'd be surprised if 5 people on this site were familiar with this) and Wimbledon moving to Milton Keynes (a move so deeply unpopular the bulk of their fans immediately formed a new team which now competes in the same league as the "old" one). This issue is pretty unique to the US leagues due to their "franchise" system.
> Maybe a few English Premier League teams are as or more famous than the cities themselves
Not more, but independently of the cities. At least when the actual city isn't in the team's name: I had heard if Chelsea, Arsenal, and Tottenham long before I realised they're all from London. (Likewise, [Västra] Frölunda being from Göteborg.) And I'm still not quite sure about Crystal Palace and the Queen's Park Rangers... (Only recently I pieced together that Crystal Palace are probably named for the famous wrought-iron-and-glass building at the ~1850s World Exhibition, but I can't recall where that was. Probably also London?)
Ehhhh... What?
I could follow your argument until this line but Paris and especially London are absolutely known for sport teams.