DONALD PERDOCI – Writing 2150t: Spring 2021

Donald Perdoci Outline

Hook: Have you dreamt of traveling to a beautiful place, especially a stadium, but your dream was cut in half because of Covid-19?

Statement of the problem/debate: The unfortunate pandemic has overall had multiple effects on earth, two of those effects being decreased traveling and financial losses. I will find a sport that has faced both of these issues: soccer. Since the beginning of the pandemic, lots of people have been unable to travel (within a country or overseas) due to the fear of getting infected, or they have lost their jobs and therefore they have found themselves in difficult economic situations. These problems have led to soccer getting blown by financial hits. However, there are tools that can help accomplish traveling without even having to move from your place, keeping your money saved and also bringing some income to soccer. The advanced technologies (apps and games) make possible for people to virtually travel across the world without any cost. In the meantime, an idea for the sport of soccer to generate income would be to make sponsorships and contracts with the apps.

Thesis Statement: For more than a year now, financial blows that have struck soccer have also left their mark on many other areas that in a way or another are connected to soccer, such as business, employment, traveling, etc.

Body Paragraphs

Subargument #1: The overall income loss of the most watched leagues and clubs of soccer.

Support 1: “Twenty of Europe’s biggest clubs lost more than €1bn in revenue over the past year while almost 10% has been knocked off players’ average values as the game struggles with the economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a study by the market analyst KPMG.” (Lowe, 2021)

Support 2: “And if sports remain shut down for a total of three months (it may well be longer), sports occupations could lose a total of $12.3 billion in earnings by mid-June. That’s an average of $133.4 million in earnings every day, or $92.6K every minute.” (Burrow, 2020)

Support 3: “Instead, more recent forecasts estimate a total loss of €4 billion across 20 top leagues (rather than five) and two seasons (rather than one).” (Cole, 2020)

Subargument #2: How the absence of fans in the stands has affected their teams.

Support 1: “Whilst the full financial impact of COVID-19 is yet to be felt,” reported Deloitte ahead of the 2020-21 season, “it is anticipated that the clubs in smaller footballing countries and those in the lower leagues of larger countries will be hit the hardest. These clubs typically have a greater dependency on matchday revenues.” With nobody coming through the turnstiles, clubs are innovating ways to create revenue on matchdays.” (Cole, 2020)

Support 2: “Fans in stadiums don’t just affect box-office receipts, though that’s obviously a big driver. They also affect stadium sponsorship, hospitality and merchandise, all important revenue streams for clubs. The impression here is that the 50% figure might be on the conservative side, which would further drive down that €4 billion in lost revenue.” (Marcotti, 2020)

Support 3: “A broader, 20-team sample of European teams calculated an aggregate loss of revenue of €1bn, with an 18.5% decline in revenue at Manchester United, 12.3% at Tottenham and 7.9% at Liverpool. Liverpool’s decrease, a result of having to play behind closed doors and their early exit from the Champions League, where they were knocked out by Atlético Madrid just before lockdown, was mitigated by a 14% rise in commercial revenue.” (Lowe, 2021)

Subargument #3: There are millions of jobs that are being lost because of lack of activity.

Support 1: “The global value of the sports industry is estimated at US$756 billion annually. In the face of COVID-19, many millions of jobs are therefore at risk globally, not only for sports professionals but also for those in related retail and sporting services industries connected with leagues and events, which include travel, tourism, infrastructure, transportation, catering and media broadcasting, among others.” (United Nations, 2020)

Support 2: “The economic impact of COVID-19 on US sports has been a low blow. When every sporting event was canceled or postponed in mid-March, this surreal move impacted approximately 1.3 million sports jobs: furloughed, reduced, or erased.” (Burrow, 2020)

Support 3: “Despite showing accounting profits of nearly €200m (£178m) over the past three seasons, working capital is limited even at a big club like Liverpool who have been hugely successful on the pitch.” (Marcotti, 2020)

Subargument #4: The techniques the clubs are applying to avoid losing money.

Support 1: “Clubs and broadcasters will lean on technological solutions to deliver new types of content and diversify revenue sources. Sponsors will require more meaningful relationships with clubs and supporters to ensure they are getting their money’s worth. Again, this is likely to involve digital solutions, as big data and club websites are put to work personalizing fans’ experience (and advertising profiles).” (Cole, 2020)

Support 2: “Madrid returned a profit despite income dropping by 8% through cost-cutting measures including 10% salary cuts applied to all their players and summer sales. They did not sign anyone in the summer and while they have the biggest budget in the study it has reduced by more than €200m this season.” (Lowe, 2021)

Support 3: “Not every club is in the same boat. Some have owners who are in a position to directly inject cash or take on debt to deal with the issue, but the problem is very real and it’s felt in the transfer market. It may appear as not being terribly important because ultimately when players are bought and sold most of the money “stays in the system,” shifting from one club to another, but in fact, in accounting terms, “player trading” — and the fact that through the magic of amortization you can generate paper profits seemingly out of thin air — is hugely important to many clubs.” (Marcotti, 2020)

Conclusion: To sum up, during the last 13 months the most watched sport in the world, soccer, has experienced some major changes, mostly for worse. First come the considerable economic losses, then follows business, traveling, unemployment, players and teams’ development etc. All of these outcomes are a result of the ongoing virus.

Sources

“The Impact of COVID-19 on Sport, Physical Activity and Well-Being and Its Effects on Social Development | DISD.” United Nations, United Nations, www.un.org/development/desa/dspd/2020/05/covid-19-sport/.

“Covid-19 Impact Leaves Major European Football Clubs with €1bn Loss.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 14 Jan. 2021, www.theguardian.com/football/2021/jan/14/covid-19-impact-leaves-major-european-football-clubs-with-1bn-loss.

“The Economic Impact of COVID-19 on US Sports.” Emsi, 20 July 2020, www.economicmodeling.com/2020/05/28/the-economic-impact-of-covid-19-on-us-sports-up-to-92-6k-lost-every-minute/.

Marcotti, G. (2020, September 10). Football’s economy has taken a hit from COVID-19, but it’s not as bad as first feared. Retrieved March 26, 2021, from https://www.espn.com/soccer/blog-espn-fc-united/story/4177249/footballs-economy-has-taken-a-hit-from-covid-19but-its-not-as-bad-as-first-feared

Cole. (2020). How is COVID-19 affecting the Football (Soccer) Industry? Retrieved March 13, 2021, from https://www.masterstudies.com/article/how-is-covid-19-affecting-the-football-industry/

Tilp, M., & Thaller, S. (2020, October 02). Covid-19 has Turned home advantage into Home disadvantage in the German Soccer Bundesliga. Retrieved March 19, 2021, from https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fspor.2020.593499/full

Latest announcement on HOW Covid-19 will affect the Premier League, EFL AND SPFL | Sky sports news. (2020, March 13). Retrieved March 20, 2021, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MU5QWjRJApc

Donald Perdoci Marvel

In one of his interviews, filmmaker Martin Scorsese states that Marvel movies are not cinema. He goes on to provide a few arguments why he thinks this way. Here is one of his claims: “Many franchise films are made by people of considerable talent and artistry. You can see it on the screen. The fact that the films themselves don’t interest me is a matter of personal taste and temperament. I know that if I were younger, if I’d come of age at a later time, I might have been excited by these pictures and maybe even wanted to make one myself. But I grew up when I did and I developed a sense of movies — of what they were and what they could be — that was as far from the Marvel universe as we on Earth are from Alpha Centauri.” In other words, Martin Scorsese is trying to convey that movies nowadays are different from the concept he has developed about them, and these differences may have come due to time. Movies of 2010’s are not produced with the same perspectives that movies of the 1980’s were. He admits that if he was younger, he would have a better opinion about Marvel productions, but he comes from a different era of movies and this plays a huge role on his points of view. However, even though they are different from former film forms, Marvel movies have a great significance in the American cinema. They generate about $4 billion and attract over 100 million viewers. Marvel Studios have settled new styles of films, which include sci-fi, action, and superhero genres. (Dewan, 2020)

Another argument of Martin Scorsese is: “For me, for the filmmakers I came to love and respect, for my friends who started making movies around the same time that I did, cinema was about revelation — aesthetic, emotional and spiritual revelation. It was about characters — the complexity of people and their contradictory and sometimes paradoxical natures, the way they can hurt one another and love one another and suddenly come face to face with themselves.” Here, Martin Scorses is trying to point out an element that he thinks is absent in Marvel movies: the paradoxical nature of characters. He sees many elements of cinema in Marvel movies, but what’s missing is spiritual revelation, mystery or genuine emotional danger. Nevertheless, this can be seen in Marvel pictures. Marvel has given a type of humanity and sensitivity to their characters who seem to be exceptional to possess such feelings. This feature can be noticed in the heroes and villains as well. “We see the fury and the betrayal behind Killmonger in Black Panther, a longing for acceptance and control in Loki, and the distorted perceptions of saving the universe in Thanos, and for a moment we sympathize with them. We understand them, albeit in disagreement, but their motives are clear and for some, it is not pure evil.” (Kaity, 2019)

Dewan, Rohan. “Sorry Scorsese, Marvel Movies Are Cinema.” The Tide, thermtide.com/9777/popular/sorry-scorsese-marvel-movies-are-cinema/.

/* inline tdc_css att */.tdi_107{padding-right:10px !important;}/* custom css */.tdb-post-meta{ margin-bottom: 16px; color: #444; font-family: ‘Open Sans’, et al. “Why Marvel Superhero Movies Are Important.” Nerds and Beyond, 28 Jan. 2021, www.nerdsandbeyond.com/2019/10/28/why-marvel-superhero-movies-are-important/.

Donald Perdoci Synthesis Letter

Topic: How has Covid-19 impacted the world of soccer?

Research Questions:

Has Covid-19 had a direct impact on soccer players’ careers? How so?

What is going to happen with the development of teams?

Dear Professor Beacher,

In the process of researching the impact that Covid-19 has had on the soccer world, I found many useful sources and I picked the ones that I thought are more reliable. Not only do these sources help in providing information about the connection between soccer and Covid-19 but they also made me learn more about my topic as well.

The first article focuses on how soccer is the sport where players get injured the most, and since the start of the pandemic, the injury rate has only gone up. This is a result of the overloaded schedule of games as seasons across the world were postponed due to the virus. The article also mentions how the international federation of soccer (FIFA) has been trying to prevent the frequency of injuries by amending some new rules, such as increasing the number of substitutions a team can make in a game. The second article gives more insight about the impact of Covid-19 on soccer clubs. It talks about the thrive of academy players, which is one of the few positive effects of the virus, the financial hits which according the article are not as severe as they are shown in the media, the development of technology and how teams are trying to use it to make profit etc.

The third and fourth articles mainly focus on the damage that the pandemic has caused to some specific European soccer leagues such as German and English leagues. These two articles touch on the inability of fans attending the games in the stands of the stadiums and how this has affected teams. Not having fans in the stadium is quite a big disadvantage for home teams as they would provide motivating force to their players. In addition, in the articles it is pointed out that authorities have been trying to apply new regulations to keep people safe but at the same time they have been unable to bring them back to the stadiums. They suspended the leagues for a certain amount of time but it seems like the absence of supporters in the stadiums will last longer than expected.

I believe the information I have obtained from these 4 sources will help me better address this topic and also explain it more transparently to the audience. Now I have more knowledge about the effect of Covid-19 on soccer and this will definitely help me present in a better way to whoever reads my research. That being said, I have to combine all the information together and if need be, add more in order to make it seem clear and precise.

Sincerely,

Donald Perdoci

Donald Perdoci Draft 1

Topic: How has Covid-19 impacted the world of soccer.

The reason I chose this topic is because I am a soccer fan and I would like to talk about how Covid-19 has changed this sport for more than a year now.

Primary Research Questions:

1.How are the main institutions of soccer dealing with the current situation of the pandemic?
2.Will there be additional restrictions or will the actual ones change?
3.What is going to happen with the development of teams?

Remember, good research questions should not have clear and obvious answers. Check your first two questions again. We can easily answer these questions with a few simple Google searches. Your third question is a little more open, since it is asking about future practices. I suggest trying to focus your efforts on this question or a similar one that explores the impact that COVID has had on the more unpredictable elements of soccer in general. For example, are the risks associated with playing more compact schedules too high Will this eventually lead to less competitive matches, especially for smaller market clubs?

Entry 1

Reference Entry:

Mota, Santos, & Marocolo. (2020). Change in Soccer Substitutions Rule Due To Covid-19: Why only Five Substitutions? Retrieved March 12, 2021, from https://cuny-bb.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/fulldisplay?docid=cdi_doaj_primary_oai_doaj_org_article_145ea01988f549659ea54f3e178f00b7&context=PC&vid=01CUNY_BB%3ACUNY_BB&lang=en&adaptor=Primo+Central&tab=Everything&query=any%2Ccontains%2Ccovid-19+soccer&offset=0

Summary:

The sport with the highest number of injured players is said to be soccer. Statistically, players have a higher chance of getting injured during games than during training, this due to multiple factors, such as fatigue, collisions, nature of the match, etc. Therefore, some of the rules of the game have been changed, and one of them is the substitution rule. In March of 2020 soccer seasons were interrupted worldwide to prevent the spread of coronavirus. Leagues resumed but this caused an overlay of the schedule where teams had to play several games in a couple of days, which logically increases the risk of injuries. Hence, FIFA (International Federation of Soccer) temporarily authorized the increment of up to five substitutions for each team per game as compared to the standard rule of only 3 substitutions for each team. Soccer is a physically demanding sport, therefore this rule was amended to help decrease the injury rate of the players during a game.

Reflection:

I believe that the rule of allowing teams to make 5 substitutions in a game is much needed for players and teams as well. [We want to try to stay away from agree/disagree or “I believe” statements for this research/essay. Instead, we want to focus on simply providing an analysis of the work we are reading.] The reason I think so is because playing 3 or 4 games per week is very risky for soccer players because they are being exposed to the probability of getting injured and this may affect their season or even their career. When a player gets injured, he loses his form and will need time to go back to his old form, thus his spot in the starting line-up is questioned. This scenario usually happens with long-term injuries, but it may happen even with short-term ones. The reason this rule is beneficial to teams is because they can’t afford to lose their players, especially important ones, due to injuries. If this happens, then their chances of competing for a cup or league get smaller and smaller. That is why I think FIFA made the right decision when they added the 5 substitutions rule.

Quote:

“Modern soccer has several matches with 72–96 h between matches, generating congested schedules; an issue for clubs and medical staff (Ekstrand et al., 2004; Dellal et al., 2015). Now, with seasons resuming, this issue is exacerbated as most soccer clubs are involved in upwards of two matches each week.” (page 1).

Reason for choosing to paraphrase this quote: This sentence clearly shows how soccer players might become injury prone due to the excessive fatigue caused by overloaded schedule. As mentioned above, playing a couple of games in a week may affect players’ performances.

Paraphrase of this quote: There is a time period of 3-4 days between games in modern soccer which is considered to cause a very tiresome schedule for teams. This problem is not addressed to clubs only, but also to the medical staff of the teams. With the continuation of the season, this issue has become worse and worse since soccer clubs will consequently participate in more than two games per week.

Entry 2

Reference Entry:

Cole. (2020). How is COVID-19 affecting the Football (Soccer) Industry? Retrieved March 13, 2021, from https://www.masterstudies.com/article/how-is-covid-19-affecting-the-football-industry/

Summary:

Fans who have watched a game of soccer from the standings of the stadium are now watching them from their home. There are lots of challenges that the sport is facing, and here are some of them; changed routines, matchday innovation, youth players thrive, developing technology and relationships, financial hit not as bad as predicted etc. People not attending the stadiums means no income for clubs from sold tickets, which leads to inability from signing big name players who cost millions of money. This results in the thriving of academy players, who can make it to the first team and will cost no money. However, the financial loss is not as bad as predicted where leagues were said to lose billions of money. Soccer businesses are also evolving with institutions opening up to offer degrees for those deeply interested in the sport. [I think this source might be good as an introduction/background information about how COVID has affected soccer in general.]

Reflection:

I am with the same mind that soccer has irreversibly changed, hopefully not for too long. Even though the article suggests that the financial hit is not that huge, some big clubs are in debt of billions of euros. This has happened mainly due to the lack of generating income that fans and stadiums bring. Also, I agree that players of youth teams are getting more chances in the first teams, and this again due to the small capacity of income. Transfers are hardly being made since the value of the players is too high for some teams, therefore they look up to their academies to find the players they need. Overall, the article does well in explaining the drastic changes that are occurring in soccer which otherwise, I believe, would not occur if it wasn’t for the pandemic. The safety of people ( players included) is of course what matters, but as a soccer fan I would like to see the stadiums packed with fans again. [Similar to my comment on the previous reflection: you have some good information here but stay away from offering your opinion; and instead, try to give more analysis about what this means.]

Quote:

“Instead of investing tens of millions in headline-grabbing signings, managers and coaches will invest unprecedented time and care in their youth squads, therefore promoting local talent.” (page 1)

Reason for choosing to paraphrase this quote: I strongly believe that one positive effect of the pandemic in soccer is the decrease of players’ market price. During the past decade, the price of decent players has gone so up ( for example $80 million) that in my opinion it is inconceivable to think that he is worth that much. I am not quite sure if it has to do with the currency or with business, but some players don’t justify their worth with what they show on the pitch.

Paraphrase of the quote:

Coaches are looking to improve their teams by using the local talent that they have at their disposal, with many academy players trying their hardest to make it to the first team. This, however, is an unusual event since coaches prefer to spend millions of money on signing players from other teams.

You’re off to a good start with this topic. We just need to focus on narrowing your focus so that you are researching/writing about a topic that is smaller and more argument-focused.

Donald

Hi everyone!

My name is Donald Perdoci. I was born and raised in Albania and I came to the U.S 4 years ago. I am a freshman at Baruch and my major is Economics.

My two hobbies are soccer and chess. I started playing both at an early age although I have been much more related to soccer. My biggest achievement in soccer throughout years has been winning the division title twice in a row in high school.

As for chess, I like to practice or watch chess videos on internet when I have free time. I have had the opportunity to do this more often since the start of the pandemic. Besides chess, in my free time I also like to read books or draw whatever I decide to.

Lastly, I really enjoy this class and I am looking forward to working with you guys during this semester!