Unless you’re asleep at the wheel you are aware that a number of the top Argentine polo players will not be playing in America this coming season, and the reason may be simple greed.
For the last few years Adolfo Cambiaso, the Pieres brothers, the Astradas, the MacDonoughs and the Merlos boys were charging exorbitant fees to ply their skills on the playing fields in Florida in the winter.
I just read a column on Polozone about how there are only six teams in the U. S. Open in 2009 with a number of the perennial contenders taking a pass next year.
Now we’re not talking about patrons who can’t afford to pay these talented athletes, we’re talking about patrons who think the fees are getting out of control.
For years, the Argentine players have been the lords of the game throughout the world. They have taken over the venues of Europe and are now promoting their own Argentine Polo Tour that is in direct conflict with the US winter polo season. The Argentine Polo tour has been designed to cater to the wealthy Europeans in an effort to extend the South American reach into the pockets of the continental patrons.
When is enough enough? It may be right now. It might be time for the polo industry to make a market correction much in the fashion that the real estate market has.
If you think this doesn’t affect you because you play low goal polo, think again. Just as the fees being demanded by some of polo’s high-goal divas are being refused, so will the ever-growing demands of the lower-goal foreign pros.It might even get to the point where new players want to improve their game to the point where they don’t need to hire a one-goal or two goal professional to cover their shortcomings. What will be the results of this financial confrontation on the polo fields? Will the patrons go to the government and ask for a bailout, or maybe our approach to the game will make the adjustment. Maybe we’ll take on some responsibility for carrying the game ourselves. Maybe we’ll start “buying American” and employ some of the American professionals who have been all but relegated to supporting roles in US polo.
As interesting as things are on the America polo scene, I’m looking forward to how the international economic woes might affect next year’s European seasons.
2 Comments
th0000001113pm08, 42008vUTC11bUTCThu, 13 Nov 2008 13:28:23 +0000 11, 2007 at 08:46p11
I think Women’s Polo should be supported to the extent they can someday integrate the sport completely, with coed teams at the highest level…
Perhaps that may level the “paying field” when it comes to the upper eschelon of the sport… ? maybe… Not to say that any of these players, male or female, low-goal or high-goal, aren’t worthy of just compensation, but if cliques of top-level, inernational players begin demanding too high of fees, it could cause quite a rift amongst sanctioned bodies within the sport, as well as a deterioration of global cohesion…
I mean look at women like Sunny Hale…? She’s awesome !! Let’s see the WCT take center stage for a bit…!
Signed,
P. Threebee
Carpenteria, CA
th0000001114am08, 52008vUTC11bUTCFri, 14 Nov 2008 02:00:45 +0000 11, 2007 at 08:46p11
I couldn’t agree with you more as it relates to the WCT.
Its growing rapidly on its own, just think what it would do if heavily supported and promoted by the USPA!
I for one am on board with anything to do with the WCT, and maybe one day soon we will see some type of an International Challenge match between women, or even co-eds.
Again I ask, why not?