Another pro/rel thread yayz!

Discussion in 'MLS: Commissioner - You be The Don' started by Black Tide, Apr 13, 2012.

  1. triplet1

    triplet1 BigSoccer Supporter

    Jul 25, 2006

    Well, and MLS could contract or move Brownsville, but either way what was the point? To indulge someone with a lot of money and let them found a team somewhere that made no sense? Because whether you bought your way into a closed league, or spent 100 times what other teams could spend in a series of lower divisions (and well beyond the income generated by the team) in order to win successive promotions, you're team isn't sustainable.

    What's really bugging people here?

    I submit what really bothers you and others is that the league is now expensive and, therefore, "unfair" to the little guy. You think little guys and little cities won't get teams. Forget NY2, if we only had pro/rel, we just might get Brownsville for a couple years.

    It's an egalitarian (and, forgive me, naive) world view that anyone can have their moment in the first division sun and the sport will win new converts because of it.

    Sorry, I'm not buying.

    I don't want to watch some crappy team from some little town playing in some crappy little stadium with the local mortuary advertised on their shirts who gained "promotion" because they outflanked some barely solvent second division "clubs".

    And most of America won't either.

    But before you cite the need for "David v. Goliath" matchups like in the NCAA basketball tournament, MLS is already short on Goliaths. You would seek a competition of Brownsville v. Springfield.

    That is, David v. David.

    Which is just two short little guys throwing rocks at each other.
     
  2. ceezmad

    ceezmad Member+

    Mar 4, 2010
    Chicago
    Club:
    Chicago Red Stars
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Well I was just pointing out how the system is different, like I said is not just meet the requirements and you are in like you were making it sound at first, it is a little more involved than that.

    A closed system you must be invated to the party and then be allowed to get into the party

    An open system as long as you dress up like the party requires you will be allowed in, they just kick you out when you become the drunk in the party and they let someone else in from the line.

    That is all.

    I would not want to have to buy a 1/19 of MLS LLC, plus my first team is the Veracruz red sharks, if I were filthy rich I would buy them ;)

    Edit: maybe I would buy the Red Stars.
     
  3. RichardL

    RichardL BigSoccer Supporter

    May 2, 2001
    Berkshire
    Club:
    Reading FC
    Nat'l Team:
    England
    Debt didn't help Coventry, but a big issue for them was also a move to a new stadium.

    Often it results in a boost for the new club, but their's was quite a bad deal. They don't own it, and don't make much in the way of extra income from the stadium either as a result. As they now pay rent, despite crowds rising a bit, they actually make less money than when at Highfield Road.

    It's also a pretty dull bowl of a ground, probably oversized for Coventry, and they just never got the 50% rise in crowds that other clubs get.

    They have struggled badly with relegation, but that was 11 years ago, so it's not as if they still have high earners from the premiership days at the club still.

    They are hardly a yo-yo club either. This is only their second relegation for 60 years.

    They are hardly a stranger to on-the-field struggle though. They've only finished higher than 10th (in any division) four times since 1959.

    Despite a remarkably long stay in the top flight (1967 - 2002) they were always punching above their weight, and the championship is more their true level. I'd expect them to be back within 3 or 4 years.
     
  4. Potowmack

    Potowmack Member+

    Apr 2, 2010
    Washington, DC
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    The Brownsville FC example is missing one of the criteria for getting into the league: an attractive market for the team. MLS has no interest in a team located in Omaha, Nebraska. Even if Warren Buffet is willing to throw money at the league and build a 25,000 seat shrine to soccer, the league would want him to establish that team in an attractive media market where the seats will be full, or mostly full, every game.

    It's an odd hypothetical situation, though. Are there really billionaires out there who want to put teams in Butte, Idaho and Juneau, Alaska who are getting the cold shoulder from the league? Currently, the only two cities on the horizon are NYC2 and Orlando.

    The pro/rel argument seems to assume that there are teams out there that are just dying to get into MLS but there aren't enough spots for them. Okay. What teams are those?
     
  5. RichardL

    RichardL BigSoccer Supporter

    May 2, 2001
    Berkshire
    Club:
    Reading FC
    Nat'l Team:
    England
    I don't think it's exactly much of a reach to suggest that dedicated intensive training under the eye of coaches trained to specialise in teaching a sport, will provide a better level of training that being trained for fewer hours by PE teachers with little or no knowledge about how to train players in that same sport.



    As for young players not getting a chance in a pro/rel system, there's certainly truth in that, but it varies a lot depending on the manager and his style. Some love to put kids in. Others love to pack their team with experienced pros.
     
  6. Potowmack

    Potowmack Member+

    Apr 2, 2010
    Washington, DC
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Are you arguing that pro/rel helps player development, or not? If so, how?

    If not, then what other positive impact would pro/rel have on American soccer?
     
  7. Stan Collins

    Stan Collins Member+

    Feb 26, 1999
    Silver Spring, MD
    I'm making a smaller point around the margin here, which is that to argue it's the right decision, you have to admit a decision had been made, and that standards change when the league has more interest. To wit, Cooper's bid probably gets a team in 1998, on paper it looks stronger than Ken Horowitz's Fusion bid.

    Today, Vergara and Checketts don't get in with the actual bid they had. The new Checketts has to come with something better than 'trust me, I'm connected' on the stadium front, and Vergara's 'I don't know where we'll play yet, though I prefer LA' doesn't cut it today either. And of course, they'd have had to front a whole lot more money today.

    So the answer to the question "if you meet all the criteria, are you automatically in" is "no." Because the criteria are changing, and will change precisely to assure that not everyone who would like to be in gets in.

    Sorry, I did add the analogy later. I shouldn't have used the long jump, either, because if I'd used the high jump, I could have said they 'raised the bar.'

    Which has definitely been a good thing, and will continue to be such for a while.


    There is no immediate ceiling (though there are very good reasons the big 4 don't go above the low 30s), but the league's expansion policy is designed to engender a feeling of competition and scarcity. If ten guys lined up tomorrow to pay $40 million for an expansion team, ten guys will not, in fact, get in. Instead, expansion will go to $80 million and five will get in (or somesuch, whatever price it takes).
     
  8. ceezmad

    ceezmad Member+

    Mar 4, 2010
    Chicago
    Club:
    Chicago Red Stars
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Exactly my point, it is more than just meeting a financial and stadium criteria, being selective on what markets or whom (mark Cuban in baseball) is also part of the criteria.

    Agreed, a solution with out a problem, but I would say if the expansion fee was say 1 million USD there would be a few teams that may make the jump to MLS, would MLS want those teams/markets probably not.
     
  9. triplet1

    triplet1 BigSoccer Supporter

    Jul 25, 2006

    We can assume different outcomes, but still the fact remains when real decisions have been made the number of potential ownership groups who have actually been denied teams in MLS is very, very small.

    Because for all the bluster about the standards getting higher, I submit history suggests that if you pay the fee, MLS caves in on almost everything else. Once, the league wanted expansion teams to have soccer specific stadiums and grass fields. Today, an artificial playing surface in a tarped off stadium shared with a football team is perfectly fine. Ownership? Sure, MLS may have taken Chivas USA as a result of a bad marriage (brokered by USSF?) after Vergara tried to put an MFL team in LA, but if MLS is more finicky today it didn't stop Saputo from getting in, and I think many of the old guard genuinely hate his guts. Yet, when he finally ponied up the money, they took him (even though that meant again moving to an uneven number of teams and messing up the schedule).

    To be frank, I have a hard time believing ten years ago Vancouver, Portland, and Montreal were part of the master plan any more than RSL or Chivas USA were, yet here they all are.

    Let's be honest, the more valuable a league becomes and the more people want in, the harder it is to turn down a well capitalized bid from a decently sized city. People talk about suing. Congress talks about hearings. And leagues get more . . . pliable.

    I stand by what I said earlier. Yes, there are standards, but in practice they do not prevent a well capitalized group from obtaining a team if their check clears.

    I wish they did, but, hey, they didn't ask me. ;)
     
  10. Achowat

    Achowat Member+

    Mar 21, 2011
    Revere, MA
    Club:
    New England Revolution
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I know that, and you know that, I just wanted to see if DCU had a better answer than "That's how ManUtd does it". I'm sure he doesn't, though
     
  11. triplet1

    triplet1 BigSoccer Supporter

    Jul 25, 2006
    Certainly -- but, as you know, the economic consequences of relegation from the Premiership are brutal.

    Let's look at what waits in store for Villa if they drop.

    Villa's turnover is about £92m -- just outside of the Deloitte Rich list but still one of the wealthiest clubs in the world. On that, they reported a loss of £56m last year.

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2012/feb/28/aston-villa-losses

    I'll admit in this case the fear of relegation didn't make Villa spend foolishly (although chasing the Champions League probably did), but look what relegation will do:

    The year before last, the Premier League handed Villa just over £49m, representing Villa's share of the TV pot of gold, and it should have been close to that again last year. Upon relegation, even though the Premier League has increased the parachute payments, Villa will get £16m next year from the EPL (the first installment) -- a net decrease of £33m. (Yes, they would get some TV money in the Championship, but Sky's three year, £195m deal for the Football League that starts in 2013 works out to be about £1m per year per club, although I believe the Championship teams do get a bigger slice of that shrinking pie).

    Net it all out, and realistically Villa is facing a £30m loss of revenue from the Premier League if they drop.

    That's about a third of the club's current turnover. And we haven't even begun to account for the lower attendance (and lower gate receipts) and sponsorship losses that will undoubtedly follow.

    For a club already hemorrhaging money, it's crushing.

    So, yes, stadium expenses didn't help Coventry, but I'm sure they were hoping they could scramble back to the Premiership and afford the costs. More to the point, its very difficult for any club to plan well financially when so much revenue may be lost because of relegation.

    But I'm not telling you anything you don't know.

    Advocates of the system, particularly as it would be applied in the United States, simply do not value the importance of economic stability for development of new professional soccer teams IMO. This idea that the system promotes creation of vibrant new clubs that swiftly rise through the ranks is, I submit, difficult to prove. Even in England, what's the highest level a truly newly formed club (as opposed to a reorganized one) has risen to since MLS was formed? AFC Wimbledon in League 2, which currently is drawing about 4,300 per match? And even there the club was formed in very unusual circumstances with a core group of jilted supporters.

    It's not like the United States hasn't had professional soccer for decades -- the ASL was formed before any league in continental Europe officially embraced professionalism. Our history is rife with some pretty good professional teams and some reasonably good leagues that never sunk deep roots because too many teams were simply too financially unstable. They blew away. So time and again professional soccer in the U.S. has had to start over, repeatedly re-taking the same ground.

    To its credit, MLS made stability its top priority, but open promotion and relegation strikes at the core of that because, invariably, the economic consequences will be severe to the relegated.

    It isn't worth it IMO.

    Time to go cheer on Villa.
     
  12. RichardL

    RichardL BigSoccer Supporter

    May 2, 2001
    Berkshire
    Club:
    Reading FC
    Nat'l Team:
    England
    There are hardly any new clubs formed here, although part of that is because pretty much every town has a team already. There are certainly incredibly few towns capable of sustaining professional football that don't at least have a decent semi-pro team. You'd probably be looking at places like St Helens or Warrington, hotbeds of Rugby League.

    Ignoring the rugby league support, you'd also have to factor in the detail that setting up a new club with a 10,000 or so stadium, suitable for league football, would cost in the region of £15 million, and would still require at least four promotions just to get to the football league.
     
  13. triplet1

    triplet1 BigSoccer Supporter

    Jul 25, 2006
    Just so.

    And I think the same is true in much of the world.

    Now, I ask the advocates of pro/rel to consider this: would the system result in the creation of more new, high quality teams in more new markets if applied in the United States and Canada?

    That's really the litmus test to grow the game, isn't it?

    Look at what MLS has done since 2005. Even if you set aside the successes in Seattle, Vancouver, Montreal and San Jose (which were, in each case, constructed on the foundation of earlier USL or MLS teams) and focus just on new MLS markets like Toronto, Salt Lake City, Philadelphia and Houston. All four are playing in new soccer specific stadiums and all are drawing well (over 18,000 giving Houston the benefit of the doubt based on advance sales in their new stadium). Of the de novo teams, only Chivas hasn't been wildly successful.

    That's incredible.

    That's the benefit of stability.

    I submit had USSF insisted on open promotion and relegation, we would not have seen that kind of investment in new markets and new stadiums.

    And MLS would be demonstrably weaker, not stronger.
     
  14. ceezmad

    ceezmad Member+

    Mar 4, 2010
    Chicago
    Club:
    Chicago Red Stars
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    MLS Single ownership of all teams could not exist with pro/rel. IMO
     
  15. JasonMa

    JasonMa Member+

    Mar 20, 2000
    Arvada, CO
    Club:
    Colorado Rapids
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Seeing one of the two teams I follow on the island of Great Britain officially relegated today and seeing the other being all but relegated with today's results I'm not seeing the appeal of this system.

    The team that got relegated today got promoted 10 years ago. Maybe I'm just more tuned to the team now, but today's relegation sucks more than the promotion 10 years go was enjoyable. The enjoyable part 10 years ago wasn't the promotion, its that we won the division.

    (And since that team isn't available for listing under favorite teams I wonder if I've given people enough information to determine which team I'm talking about. ;))
     
  16. RichardL

    RichardL BigSoccer Supporter

    May 2, 2001
    Berkshire
    Club:
    Reading FC
    Nat'l Team:
    England
    Nobody in England enjoys relegation either. You aren't meant to.

    That may be the key part there. The club just wasn't as important to you when it went up.

    That's actually the opposite to the emotion over here. Going up is far more important than winning the title. Winning the title is nice, but going up is the main thing.


    I also think for a club that blips down a division for a year or two it's not quite the same, as you are only returning to where you feel you ought to be.

    Compared to someone like fleetwood, getting into the football league for the first time ever, returning to a division will never be quite as intense.


    Overall though, saying you don't like the system because it's bad when you get relegated is a bit like saying you don't like sport, because it's bad when you lose. For ever loser there's a winner, and for every relegated team, another is promoted.
     
  17. Stan Collins

    Stan Collins Member+

    Feb 26, 1999
    Silver Spring, MD
    Even if we're only concentrating on the fee and leaving aside the logistical issues (which aren't provable either way), the fee itself has gone up dramatically. And what that says, economically, is that demand was greater than supply at the former price level.
     
  18. triplet1

    triplet1 BigSoccer Supporter

    Jul 25, 2006
    Reality is more muddy, IMO. I think the timeline suggests that the expansion fee reflects the value of existing franchises that were sold, which, in turn, probably was based on a multiple of earnings of MLS and SUM which have increased handsomely.

    Again, there is no scarcity Stan. There is no evidence that the expansion fee has gone up because MLS is artificially restricting the number of teams it awards. Even Montreal, which was denied, got a team almost immediately after Vancouver and Portland were awarded the two slots supposedly being contested. For all the talk about "pausing" in the expansion process (which might create demand) , there is no evidence that MLS has never done it.
     
  19. HailtotheKing

    HailtotheKing Member+

    San Antonio FC
    United States
    Dec 1, 2008
    TEXAS
    Club:
    San Antonio Scorpions FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Then why in the blue perfect hell do you talk about the MLS at all ? Why do you care about what the league does ? Why do you constantly troll about the league, its practices, and the people that support it ?

    GTFO.

    So we're back to you making this shit up again and just hoping people would forget you've already posted it 100 times over ? Awesome.

    Your work, show it.

    Which is relevant to the pro/rel discussion how ? Oh right, not at all.

    Have you done your homework ? (no) .... I have, in fact I've posted it more than once when you've tried this line of shit before. You've yet to show yours. Remember the last time you tried this crap and you were talking about both the SuperDraft and college ? Yeah, I posted it then and bitchslapped both of those retarded comments of yours.

    ... also: http://www.mlssoccer.com/news/article/2011/08/11/eight-standout-mls-academy-players-headed-college ... they dynamite, it goes boom.

    http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/writers/tobias_lopez/09/28/mls.college/index.html

    Also, take a look at this list: http://www.mlssoccer.com/superdraft/2012/roundbyround ... and think about the first month and a half of the season.

    WTF ? The article you quoted, AND THE SHIT YOU PUT IN BOLD SAID EXACTLY THIS: "The USSF HAS DECIDED..."

    Jesus you're retarded. You don't even know what you quoted.

    If the best youth players want nothing to do with college .... how do you explain the kids coming out of college, into the superdraft, and starting as rookies or 2nd year players ?

    It's exactly like that in soccer. Do your homework. Check over any roster in the MLS and see for yourself. Take a look at the SuperDraft lists for every year it has existed. Look at the names and where they came from. College develops soccer players. Period.

    No, we don't all agree on that.

    For the 8721st time, you didn't address the point. Pro/rel has nothing to do with player development.

    AGAIN, what does pro/rel have to do with player development ? We have proof that pro/rel is not required to produce the best players in the world at a sport. Pro/rel does nothing for player development that our system doesn't.

    Oh hey look ... DCU1996 gets throat punched on a point so:[​IMG]

    What do PE teachers have to do with HS Athletic teams ?

    I get your overall point, and on the grander scale there is substance to it. You either don't know the difference though, or are over generalizing and know it.
     
  20. triplet1

    triplet1 BigSoccer Supporter

    Jul 25, 2006
    If I understand the argument correctly HTTK, they contend that (a) professional team academies do a better job of player development than colleges (which may be true), (b) promotion and relegation stimulates the creation of more well capitalized professional teams because they now have the prospect of advancing up the ladder to the first division, and therefore (c) pro rel provides more teams with more academies which translates to more, better developed players.

    Again, all of this assumes if the expansion fee was dropped and pro/rel implemented we'd see a host of well capitalized teams formed in lower divisions capable of founding these academies and training these players.

    I just don't believe it.
     
  21. JasonMa

    JasonMa Member+

    Mar 20, 2000
    Arvada, CO
    Club:
    Colorado Rapids
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Alas, this will likely not be a blip or two. They had to become the only semi-pro club int heir division this year to remain financially viable. I'm guessing that's going to prevent a quick return.

    No, I said the dislike when we lost was worse than the like when we won, so I didn't like the system. The balance wasn't there.

    In contrast I liked the Rapids last two seasons more than I disliked the two seasons prior. We missed the playoffs but there was "always next year" when we did (and in 2009 it was literally next year, when we won MLS Cup in 2010).
     
  22. RichardL

    RichardL BigSoccer Supporter

    May 2, 2001
    Berkshire
    Club:
    Reading FC
    Nat'l Team:
    England
    I confess to not know the US high school sports system that well, but how many high schools employ a specifically trained soccer coach? How many sports lessons per year in high school are spent playing the game?

    Not really.

    The Scottish 2nd division isn't packed with full-time clubs (I doubt any are). Queen of the South, this season, are pulling nearly double the crowds of the best supported Div 2 club.

    (assuming it is QotS, the only 2002 winners I could see who were relegated yesterday.

    Unless Ayr also drop, they'd almost certainly start as favourites next season.

    I actually think the Scottish League's system doesn't work that well because the division are so tight, any would probably be better with two divisions of 16 rather than three of 10.

    QotS also suffer through being an outpost. It's much harder for them to sign players, asking them to move to the southern border, than it is for clubs in the central belt of Scotland, not to mention the extra travelling costs.

    The fact that I've never heard anyone from a country that has the system say they dislike it, and certainly nobody saying it's imbalanced because relegation is worse than promotion is good, suggests it's a view of American perspective. The focus is always hugely waited towards the negative of relegation rather than the positive of promotion.

    For Queen of the South the alternative is to opt out of the Scottish League and join the relegation-free East of Scotland, playing the likes of Getna and other more local sides. It would offer much more stability, and the chance of winning the league regularly, but I doubt any fan from the area would want that. Nor would many want the Scottish League to somehow rearrange to being a system without any promotion and relegation.
     
  23. triplet1

    triplet1 BigSoccer Supporter

    Jul 25, 2006
    I think you would be very surprised. It varies from school district to school district and state to state, but most large high schools in metro areas are fairly sophisticated. They have not only a varsity head coach, but a number of assistant coaches who work with the younger players on the junior varsity and freshman teams. (The same structure applies for young women's teams, btw.) The quality of coaching has also improved dramatically. Years ago, when I was in high school (and I thank for not asking how many years), soccer wasn't even a intramural club sport and we were, as you suggest, given a few days of "instruction" from a PE teacher who literally read from a manual. Today at that same school, there are several teams and several coaches, the boy's varsity coach is English and the teams compete all over the state and, for some tournaments, the upper Midwest.

    Again, for big high schools I don't think that's atypical. Because of high participation numbers, soccer now gets a lot of financial resources in many school districts. Here are the high schools that were competing for the top division high school championship in Illinois:

    http://ihsa.org/SportsActivities/Bo...ormationResults.aspx?url=/data/sob/3info1.htm

    There are still some maddening issues -- high schools and colleges typically allow unlimited substitution, which makes a big difference in the style of play IMO -- but the resources going into high school soccer have increased dramatically.
     
  24. JasonMa

    JasonMa Member+

    Mar 20, 2000
    Arvada, CO
    Club:
    Colorado Rapids
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    That's my point though. To somebody coming to this system that wasn't raised in its culture the cons outweigh the pros. I would expect Europeans to prefer the system to what we have. I'm not saying the American system is better than pro/rel universally, but I believe its better for Americans and my current experience with following the European teams that I do is reinforcing that fact.

    And I'm not suggesting that at all. I wouldn't want QoS (yes, you did get it right) to leave the SFL.
     
  25. RichardL

    RichardL BigSoccer Supporter

    May 2, 2001
    Berkshire
    Club:
    Reading FC
    Nat'l Team:
    England
    When and why did you get into Queen of the South?

    It's just a little odd that getting promoted in 2002 didn't seem that much of a big deal to you. It was, after all, a return to the second tier for the first time since 1989.

    Maybe as an overseas fan, there isn't much difference between a Scottish Div 1 match and a Div 2 one. You just lose a lot more often in Div 1, and it's not as much fun as a consequence. The difference in status and the appeal of playing Morton and Partick instead of Stranraer and Arbroath perhaps just doesn't register.

    The alternative is to have the SFL run as a closed league, with perhaps regional divisions and a play-off for and overall champion.

    It would bring stability, but probably kill fan interest
     

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