He particularly cites the election of local officials

He particularly cites the election of local officials.But do we want this model of society? Increased local democracy can have adverse consequences of the "not in our back yard" variety I was in Florida earlier this year. The local populace of a town stretching over 20 miles had just voted to continue a ban on public transport! They did this "to keep out undesirables".Equally we would have to be prepared for what electing officials can mean. A Southern wife came upon her husband in bed with his mistress Enraged, she took her gun and shot them both dead A local wave of sympathy saw the jury acquit her She then proceeded to stand for local judge She won. This kind of system can mean killers as judges.Surely, it is time for us all to take a good look at all of the models on offer. The US model may be in the ascendancy, but is this not a consequence of the particular technological changes of the Nineties being American. In the 1980s, talk was of the Japanese economic miracle and of German super-efficiency. Where is such talk now?Globalisation is a game that every country can play - but only one can win.

If we allow that victory to take place without rules, and to be too complete, we may have cause for regret. The losers may just up-end the monopoly board.Christopher Walker is a director of Hill Samuel: christopher.walker hsam.co.uk. A gentle, professional smirk touched the face of ESPN news reader Dan Patrick as he pretended to read the script in front of him, then looked at the camera. The CBS network, he announced, had won the right to renew its ownership of college basketball television rights for $6bn Of course, Patrick had an interest.

ESPN is owned by CBS's rival, the ABC network, which was an underbidder for the same rights but came up short by a billion dollars or so. Even had it been delivered in a normal tone with a straight face, the figure Patrick announced was an unprecedented sum for any sports property. Records are also being shattered on this side of the pond. The rights to broadcast live Premier League football are up for grabs the year after next. Judging by the jostling going on in the tunnel, the next winning bidder will have to pay around twice as much as the pounds 670m BSkyB shelled out last time.At least BSkyB can argue that the Premier League is the pinnacle of domestic football competition. CBS's deal with the National Collegiate Athletic Association will allow it to cover 63 student fixtures in the 64-team annual tournament It lasts three weeks. Sometimes, but not often, it yields one of the defining sporting moments of the year.

However, even with that possibility, for $545m a year for 11 years you would want a lot of highlights that would entrance a lot of viewers.That won't happen. The best college players are now leaving after one, two, or three years of their college stint to join the National Basketball Association (NBA) Ratings are down. This year's figures were down by almost 30 per cent from their high point in 1992.So why pay such money for an apparently diminished product? Two reasons - strategic and economic - says Dean Bonham, a Denver-based sports marketing consultant. "A network, today, must have appropriate programming to compete with satellite and cable," he says.It needs "signature" events to keep an audience attuned to, or at least aware of, the network's other programmes.A similar consideration motivated the infant BSkyB to blow its fellow bidders out of the water in its eagerness to acquire Premier League football rights. That high-profile coup has been used as the foundation of BSkyB's assault on the rest of the UK television market."CBS will attempt to make a profit on its purchase," Bonham says.

"Whether that's possible is a big question."With its college broadcast rights, CBS also acquired cable, satellite, digital television and home video properties. For the same period, it will also own rights to radio, internet sites, electronic and retail merchandising, marketing, licensing and sponsorship.These ancillary rights were so attractive that companies like ISL United States, a subsidiary of the Swiss-based sports marketing conglomerate which deals the rights to the World Cup, were prepared to bid for them separately.The CBS bid continued an association with college basketball which began in 1982, became serious in 1990 when it acquired exclusive rights, and then all-encompassing when it paid the then massive sum of $1.73bn over eight years for those rights in 1994.It was the size of that expenditure which prompted it to retreat when Rupert Murdoch bid a then unprecedented $1.58 billion over four years for the rights of half of the National Football League (NFL) games for his upstart Fox network.Murdoch's successful offer had the dual effect of giving his new network some competitive legitimacy (as well as winning over around 20 formerly CBS-affiliated stations across the country) and marginalising what had been the number one network in the country.CBS learnt its lesson well. In January last year, along with Fox and ABC/ESPN it made a successful bid for NFL rights when they came up for renewal. When totalled, their combined offer was a staggering $17.6bn over eight years.Sporting events have become the engines of the networks. A Seinfeld or The Simpsons might come along once in a generation and carry the rest of the network along with their own momentum.