{Mod note: this was moved over from the daily news thread (as I typically do whenever there are more than half a dozen or so posts on the same topic in the daily news thread). I had just closed the last thread on pro/rel due to post count, and it's as if the very fact of doing so caused someone at the SF Gate website to blog about it.} I have an idea. Since we will never ever have pro/rel in this country I propose the head coach and a randomly drawn player for the team that finishes bottom of the table is executed at the half time show of MLS Cup every year. Obviously teams are ok with finishing that the bottom year in and year out so this would give them some motivation to not finish at the bottom...
Re: Friday, April 13, 2012 Bottom-feeders need motivation of relegation San Francisco Chronicle I felt compelled to comment in the fish wrap that is the Chronicle. It just oozed Eurosnob before I even read it and I was pretty much correct. If half the fools who wake up in the morning to watch bottom feeding English teams and ignore MLS actually watched MLS they would be contributing to MLS' ability to sign some of those foreign player they so dearly love to watch at the witching hour.
Re: Friday, April 13, 2012 How many people is this? A couple of thousand nationwide? Seems like everyone wakes up to watch the front-runners and ignore MLS. As somebody who gets up to watch a bottom feeding English team (Blackburn) and follows MLs there aren't a whole lot of Rovers fans on this side of the Atlantic. And if you're willing to suffer through the sometimes dreary play of Blackburn, MLS doesn't bother you much.
Re: Friday, April 13, 2012 Alan Black is not a Eurosnob at least by BS's definition. He is Scottish. And likes MLS. He accurately tells us why pro/rel ain't happening. He knows pro/rel is a bad idea here, but he can't help himself. Just like Tinfoil Teddy, Dennis Justice and the other twitter crazies. Logic doesn't matter. Because oh my god, "it is life or death!" And for MLS teams, it would be death. They want that quick high of pro/rel and do not worry about consequences. MLS will always be a more competitive league than the EPL, La Liga, or the SPL because more than a handful of teams can compete to win. It is based on the American belief in playoffs and always will be. And Wynalda, in a rare bit of clarity, has a good idea to pay players based on incentives to win games. Which would keep even the bottom-feeders competitive since everyone wants more money.
Re: Friday, April 13, 2012 So, the threat of losing their job because of poor play isn't enough incentive?
Re: Friday, April 13, 2012 See . . someone should write a response editorial titled: Premiership middle table dwellers need motivation of playoff
Re: Friday, April 13, 2012 Losing their job ? Is that what you call getting sold to a different club (and still playing the game) ?
Re: Friday, April 13, 2012 The article was about coaches. They will, of course, lose their job on the count of poor play, a motivation that has to matter more than the club's relegation would. The claim is obviously weak. The one thing interesting to take away from that article, though, is that many fans don't really look at the issue rationally, based on the incentives at play for the people involved in making the decisions (ie the coaches and players). Instead, it's more self-centered and emotional: if the fan can wrap his head around the incentive for fans of a team, then he will believe a game to be important; if not, not.
Re: Friday, April 13, 2012 Blackburn? I'm sorry...but you can't really claim an EPL team to be a bottom-feeding anything. What really matters is the Lancashire Combination Division 3 Reserves (known for sponsorship reasons as the Williams Plumbing and HVAC First Division, Premier League, Serie A World Cup Un)
Re: Friday, April 13, 2012 ... yet the same managers are recycled. The simple point though, I agree on.
Re: Friday, April 13, 2012 There are effectively "playoffs" for European places, just as there are playoffs throughout the English pyramid for the last promotion place. Playoffs and pro/rel are not incompatible.
Re: Friday, April 13, 2012 Mexico also has both. Belgium also seems to have some sort of hybrid playoff scheme, in combination with pro/rel.
Re: Friday, April 13, 2012 Hey, as soon as you can find somebody who wakes up to root for the Lancashire Combination Division 3 Reserves but ignores MLS I'll retract my statement.
Re: Friday, April 13, 2012 Lowest level I personally know someone watches religiously (from the US) is Conference South. Go Boston United! Come on you Pilgrims!
Re: Friday, April 13, 2012 Hey guys... as long as this thread is here, what the hey. I'm going to try to have an adult exploration of where we're at with pro/rel next week. Do stop by. Here's the intro.
Re: Friday, April 13, 2012 Be careful, man, they made it to the 2nd Round proper of the FA Trophy. Show some respect. (For the record, I prefer my Winter Hobby Team to be on TV; I am not the Pilgrims fan in question)
Re: Friday, April 13, 2012 There are actually quite a few UEFA countries that use a hybrid play-off scheme to determine league position. The Turkish league started a system this year where the top 4 are in the Championship Group (all qualify for a European spot of some sort) and the next 4 are placed in a group to play for the final Europa League spot. Then apparently 8 other teams are put into 2 groups with the winner of each group meeting in a final (though I can't tell how it works from Wikipedia or even if Wikipedia is right on that).
Re: Friday, April 13, 2012 Oh, trust me, that's definitely right. If there are 94 things that Wikipedia is good at, obscure soccer things is definitely at least 6 of them
Re: Friday, April 13, 2012 Perhaps I could color in some history on this. Alan Black is relatively new to the MLS scene. He wrote a World Cup blog for the SF Chronicle website in 2010, which is about the most soccer coverage I've ever seen in the SFChron. Back in those days, MLS and the Earthquakes may as well have not even existed as far as the SFChron or San Francisco media was concerned. I was sick of the lack of coverage of soccer in most of the old media establishments in the Bay Area and decided to take action myself. I contacted Alan and invited him and the editor of the SFChron sports section to a 1906 Ultras tailgate. They were impressed and had a great time at the game, and last year, Alan wrote regularly on his SFChron blog about the Earthquakes and MLS. This year, the SFChron has stepped it up and added a weekly Friday column on MLS by Alan Black in its print edition. This is a huge change of direction for the paper that we should all be very pleased with. As for Mr. Black himself, he is not what I would call a eurosnob. He grew up in Glasgow supporting some now-defunct team that was non-partisan (i.e. was supported by both Catholics and Protestants). I believe 1 of his parents was Catholic while the other was Protestant. I don't think he really takes the standard eurosnob line on pro/rel here... it's not "MLS sucks, it needs pro/rel immediately!" It's more "pro/rel would be nice in theory but it's just not workable in the near-term for MLS." Anyways, he has been a very welcome and very important addition to the soccer media scene in the Bay Area.
Re: Friday, April 13, 2012 I follow a team from the Northern (Evo-Stik) Premier League, but there's really no way for me to "watch" them. I just keep track of how they're doing. (And since they're stuck in the middle of the table with no realistic chance at either promotion or relegation, I've kinda lost interest this time around.) ------RM