Success or bust? The return of Michael Schumacher

When Michael Schumacher announced he would be returning to Formula One in December 2009, the motor-racing community didn’t react with quite the enthrallment that would be expected of the sport’s statistically most successful racer coming back for a final hurrah. After all, sport has seen many comebacks fail to live up to the hype. The iconic swimmer Ian Thorpe’s attempts to qualify for London 2012 spring to mind, as well as tennis legend Bjorn Borg failing to win any of his 12 matches in his 1991 comeback. Some have been more successful, like Michael Jordan returning in 1995 from an ill-fated spell in Minor League Baseball to lead the Chicago Bulls to three championships from 1996-98, and George Foreman returning after a ten-year absence from boxing to become the oldest World Heavyweight Champion in history at the tender age of 45, but what would a return hold for “Schumi”? Now that he has once again announced he will retire after the Brazilian Grand Prix in a week’s time, it seems appropriate to try and answer that very question.

Michael Schumacher is waving good-bye to Formula One once again at the end of the season

The 2010 season saw Schumacher mired in mediocrity, struggling to out-perform his team-mate Nico Rosberg. It was also the first season ever in which he had failed to finish on the podium, with a race victory, a pole position or fastest lap. Though continuing his working relationship with Ross Brawn, the technical mastermind behind his five successive titles at Ferrari from 2000-2005, the Mercedes he was in never seemed to suit his racing style. Though both cars were designed for different racers (Schumacher’s was designed initially for Jenson Button before he left for McLaren, and Rosberg’s for Rubens Barrichello who moved to Williams), Rosberg seemed to cope better with the Mercedes’ set-up, and as a result led to Schumacher finishing in 9th position in the drivers’ standings, two places behind Rosberg. His failings that year brought the first murmurs from people that he was “past it”, though former-world champion and Ferrari driver Fernando Alonso did state “he will always be super-class. If the car is right, he will be a contender that we will fear the most.”

2011 was marginally more successful for Schumacher, with strong performances including a 4th place finish at the Canadian Grand Prix and two 5th place finishes in Belgium and Italy. Also at the Japanese Grand Prix, he become the oldest driver since Jack Brabham in 1970 to lead a race, the first time he had led a lap since the same race in 2006. He ended up finishing the season in 8th place, a one place improvement on the previous year. Nevertheless, he still finished the season behind Rosberg, and there were signs that Schumacher was becoming more and more disgruntled in the sport The revelation from Brawn that there was a “break-clause” in Schumacher’s contract allowing him to walk away at the end of 2011, a year shy of the three year contract agreed, plus rumours of Mercedes trying to negotiate a contract with Red Bull Racing’s reigning world champion Sebastian Vettel for a 2012 drive, added fuel to the fire of Schumacher’s imminent departure. This never materialised though, and Schumacher added himself at the end of the Japanese Grand Prix “I have always said it’s a three-year programme, and that’s what it is”.

This season though has been somewhat of an unmitigated disaster for Schumacher. With one race left, he is lying 15th in the drivers’ standings, a whopping 50 points and seven places behind Rosberg, and over 200 points behind leader Vettel. Though this is quite clearly dreadful, it doesn’t tell the whole story. Schumacher has actually put in some of the best races of his return this year, but the luck has not fallen his way, with numerous mechanical failures and accidents leading to him retiring from seven races this season. In the first race in Australia, he was running third until a gear-box failure retired his car. The following race in Malaysia he qualified third but finished 10th after being hit from behind by Renault’s Romain Grosjean on the first lap. In China, he locked out the front-row with Rosberg, starting second, but had to retire after a mechanic failed to secure a wheel properly in the pits. Rosberg went onto win his first ever Grand Prix and Mercedes’ first since 1955. He then qualified on Pole for the first time in his comeback at Monaco, only for a gearbox change from the previous outing in Bahrain leading to a five-place grid penalty, eventually starting him sixth. Finally though he had some reward, after a chaotic European Grand Prix, a collision between Pastor Maldonado’s Williams and the McLaren of Lewis Hamilton a lap from the end meant that he overtook both, finishing in 3rd. This led to him becoming the oldest driver since Brabham to achieve a podium placed finish. That was where Schumacher’s luck deserted him completely though, and it was announced in September that he would be replaced by Hamilton, leading to him announcing his retirement in October, stating “There were times in the past few months in which I didn’t want to deal with Formula One or prepare for the next Grand Prix”.

Schumacher standing on the podium in Valencia this year. The only time he achieved a podium-place in his comeback

So what went wrong? Well at the initial age of 41, many, including motorsport legends Sir Stirling Moss and Sir Jackie Stewart, claimed that Schumacher wasn’t going to be at peak physical condition for a return to a sport that places the human body under enormous strain. This was summed up before he’d even stepped foot into a Formula One car again, as his return was actually delayed. He had initially signed up to replace a severely injured Felipe Massa at Ferrari for part of the 2009 season, but failed fitness tests due to a neck injury. Though the neck issue was resolved well enough for him to return to compete full time for Mercedes, concerns that he was just simply too old to recapture his old form of seven world title wins never went away.

The team he joined also was a shadow of its former self. The previous year they had won the driver and constructor championships, under the guise of Brawn GP, with Button and Barrichello at the wheels. But behind the scenes, the team was still reeling from parent owners Honda pulling out of the sport, leading to major cut-backs and redundancies. As a result, never, apart from at China this season, has Mercedes ever looked like challenging the front-runners (Red Bull, McLaren, Ferrari), and has often spent most of its time fighting in the midfield.

So is this a real fall from grace? Andrew Benson, the BBC’s chief Formula One correspondent believes this isn’t the case. “Schumacher was one of the very greatest (drivers) there has ever been. And nothing that has happened in the past 3 years can take that away”. Though it has not been the glittering ending to the career the Schumacher envisaged, or had when he initially stepped away, his achievements on the race-track are still unparalleled. The sport will miss Schumi, but maybe this time, the feelings won’t be quite as mutual.

The Expansion of Sport

We’re fresh off the back of another successful regular season NFL game being played in London, this time with the New England Patriots pummelling the St Louis Rams 45-7 in a one-sided contest. But, with this being the sixth time since 2007 that the NFL has staged a game on our shores, what is the obsession with the expansion of national sports?

This year saw record breaking numbers attend Wembley to watch the Patriots and Rams do battle. Though featuring a franchise that is broadly known in this country (the Patriots, mainly thanks to superstar quarterback Tom Brady, and the fact that they are the most successful franchise of the 21st century), obviously helps boost the popularity of the match, it isn't the first time they have played here. In 2009, they entertained the Malcolm Glazer owned Tampa Bay Buccaneers in a similarly uneven contest. Therefore, the high turnout this year has re-affirmed the belief of many of the suits in the NFL that England just simply can’t get enough of the game, despite it apparently being only the joint seventh most popular sport here, on a par with darts. The belief is so sure that there are two games pencilled in for next year, with the Minnesota Vikings clashing with the Pittsburgh Steelers before the Jacksonville Jaguars, who have signed a contract to play one game at Wembley until 2016, take on the San Francisco 49ers. This will be a real test of whether or not the game has “taken off” over here, but with three of the four teams new to London, it will give a chance to fans of those franchises to come down and experience a game first hand. Gaining a wider fan base is one reason for the NFL’s expansion, but another is money. Currently, the NFL is a $9 billion business, with revenue coming purely from the States. However, to turn it into a $20 billion business, then global expansion, and revenue, is necessary. Just like all businesses, the NFL is always going to be looking at ways to increase their revenue, and by taking the sport to England, it is the most logical way of them doing just that.

It’s not just American football that is trying to expand from a national to international scale. European Rugby Union is also trying to do the same thing. Recently, London-based club Saracens took on Parisian side Racing Metro in a Heineken Cup match at King Baudouin Stadium in the Belgian capital of Brussels. It was the first time that a top-level rugby match had ever been played in Brussels, and was seen as a “stepping-stone” to the continued usage of a developing country’s stadium as a ground in a Heineken Cup tie. With many European countries slowly taking up the sport more, including Belgium, Spain and Portugal to name but a few, the idea is to have these countries host top-level matches as a way to increasing the games popularity there. Expansion of the game is not stopping at Europe though, with the Rugby Union World Cup taking place in Japan in 2019, and with Russia and even Jamaica both registering interest in hosting the event in the future, rugby looks set to truly go global in the next decade or so.

Naturally, there are those that disagree with the degree of expansion being seen at the moment. When the infamous “Game 39” of the English Premier League was first mentioned, fans were quick to slate the idea, mortified with the thought of their favourite teams playing a supposed “home” match in a foreign country. Even though football is a truly global game, Premier League chiefs were very hot on taking a game overseas. Nevertheless, due to fan discontent the idea was never really allowed to get going, and after many years of it being dug up from the ground for month or two each year, it seems to be dead in the water for now at least. In fact, if it’s revenue that drives the need for expansion, it is often the fans that are the people who fight against it. The NFL are highly unlikely to give the “home” game to a team with a strong following or good record back in the States, such as the Green Bay Packers or the Baltimore Ravens. Before the Jaguars’ tenure at Wembley started, the NFL used to pick teams who were struggling for home attendances to give up the “home” game, due to the understanding that the fans and franchises alike would be upset if they were a successful home team having to give up that game. Even the perennially travelling Saracens team’s fans were sceptical about the game in Brussels, saying that due to them constantly moving (while they await the completion of the new Allianz Park in Barnet) and having such a small fan-base anyway, it just didn't make sense for them to be hosting games abroad. It really is turning into a tug of war between the owners of clubs who need to keep the money rolling in to stay competitive and the fans who desperately want to stop losing any chances to keep the team their own. The difference is that the fans now understand that expansion really is the main way of staying competitive, and have to let go the chance to see their beloved teams play as often in order to ensure that they keep winning trophies and having renewed success on the pitch.

With the great successes of the NFL’s invasion of the UK and of rugby’s progress across the globe, it appears that expansion of national sport is not only going to be around for the foreseeable future, but also that it is largely a success for those that persist. It’s the age where the club is no longer just that, instead, it is a corporate entity. Money is driving the success of many clubs, particularly in football with Manchester City and Chelsea, and in rugby with Toulon. The NFL has this slightly under more control with the draft system enabling less successful teams to remain competitive, but franchises still strive for that little bit more to help give them an advantage their rivals. Expansion provides the foundation on which money can be bought in easily and quickly. Those that succeed will have the edge in this day and age. One certainty is then that while the potential for expansion is there, it will be exploited by those who can.

Media Overload

You may have noticed that things have been a bit "quiet on the western front" as far as my blog is concerned. Never fear, here comes not one BUT two posts wrapped into one lovely thread. This won't take much explaining, and the sharp-eyed among you may have noticed the title of the blog. We are interactive today!

First, we have a podcast asking the question, are we as a nation "in it when we win it"? My team of reporters, Samuel Rowntree and Danny Butterwick, set about putting that question to some people in the know, and the whole thing is tied together by the dulcet tones of Rob Britton. The producer, ah well that is a rather dashing chap - me!

Second, we have a video package detailing whether or not American Football has finally "taken off" in the UK, in response to the regular season NFL game taking place at Wembley last Sunday. All those curious people out there will finally get to see me in the flesh, though not too much fortunately, as I am the chief reporter. My team of camera and sound men were Danny, Travis Sumner, and George Preece, and the whole package was wonderfully produced and edited by Samuel and Rob.

I hope you enjoy both these new bits of media, and let me know what you think!

Are we as a nation 'in it when we win it'? Golf and Tennis podcast by SSRsportJournalist

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WefSUt6RVLE