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The Bilbao Blueprint

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Content provided by David McWilliams and John Davis. All podcast content including episodes, graphics, and podcast descriptions are uploaded and provided directly by David McWilliams and John Davis or their podcast platform partner. If you believe someone is using your copyrighted work without your permission, you can follow the process outlined here https://ppacc.player.fm/legal.
We're in Bilbao this week, and it’s got us thinking. How does a football club that refuses to sign non-Basque players manage to qualify for the Champions League, raking in close to €100 million from TV rights, match days, and UEFA money, while Dublin’s best bet is a few fivers from the Conference League? The answer is in economics. The Basques were Europe’s forgotten industrialists, the only region in Spain to undergo a full-blown Industrial Revolution, powered by local iron ore, steel production, and a shipbuilding boom that made Bilbao Spain’s biggest port by 1900. Then they lost it all. Globalisation, China, and the EU opened the floodgates. Unlike post-industrial towns in the UK or Ireland, Bilbao didn’t roll over. They moved the port. They built the Guggenheim. They chose ambition. And they proved that even a small, isolated, ancient people, who speak a pre-Ice Age language with no known relatives, can build a modern economy with global reach. What’s our excuse?

Join the gang! https://plus.acast.com/s/the-david-mcwilliams-podcast.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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567 episodes

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The Bilbao Blueprint

The David McWilliams Podcast

1,180 subscribers

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Manage episode 485136407 series 2507859
Content provided by David McWilliams and John Davis. All podcast content including episodes, graphics, and podcast descriptions are uploaded and provided directly by David McWilliams and John Davis or their podcast platform partner. If you believe someone is using your copyrighted work without your permission, you can follow the process outlined here https://ppacc.player.fm/legal.
We're in Bilbao this week, and it’s got us thinking. How does a football club that refuses to sign non-Basque players manage to qualify for the Champions League, raking in close to €100 million from TV rights, match days, and UEFA money, while Dublin’s best bet is a few fivers from the Conference League? The answer is in economics. The Basques were Europe’s forgotten industrialists, the only region in Spain to undergo a full-blown Industrial Revolution, powered by local iron ore, steel production, and a shipbuilding boom that made Bilbao Spain’s biggest port by 1900. Then they lost it all. Globalisation, China, and the EU opened the floodgates. Unlike post-industrial towns in the UK or Ireland, Bilbao didn’t roll over. They moved the port. They built the Guggenheim. They chose ambition. And they proved that even a small, isolated, ancient people, who speak a pre-Ice Age language with no known relatives, can build a modern economy with global reach. What’s our excuse?

Join the gang! https://plus.acast.com/s/the-david-mcwilliams-podcast.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  continue reading

567 episodes

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