Nobody is arguing that some people wouldn't enjoy it. You just seem to feel the need to pretend that they would flock to watch to the promotion playoffs in huge numbers, when the NBA championship playoffs were going on. Sure, people would be interested. But not interested enough nationally anywhere even close to the interest in crowning the champion of the league.
This whole discussion ignores a large part of why pro/rel was created in the first place. England had too many teams that were qualified to participate in the First Division than could feasibly be fit into a single division at that time. They came up with pro/rel within a single league system (the Football League) to circumvent this problem. The Premier League breakaway happened only recently, which created pro/rel between two leagues. This could only happen in a situation where, once again, there are more teams than could fit in a single division and teams in both leagues can justify the additional financial risk involved in such a setup. US Soccer hasn't reached the point where there are more MLS-qualified teams than could fit in a single division (whatever # of teams that is), so there is no reason for pro/rel to exist today. Furthermore, if it were to ever reach this point, it will most likely be pro/rel within the MLS structure (meaning, MLS1 and MLS2 being both part of the same single entity system). A pro/rel system also requires a decrease in parity to ensure big markets are less likely to be relegated, and I don't think MLS will want to take this huge risk, especially because it has a TV ratings problem as it stands. Most likely what will develop is one of the following: 1. The league gets large enough (26, 28, maybe even 30 but probably not given the TV ratings problem that currently exists) that it can treat the Eastern and Western conferences as separate league with a common MLS Cup playoff. 2. The league breaks the conferences down into divisional play (a highly unpopular idea but just as likely).
I think that the two go together, but from a slightly different perspective. They aren't linked by cause and effect, but by the prevailing attitudes both at their origins and today. Most soccer leagues around the world were formed as sporting endeavors first, and became for-profit businesses second. As a result, there is much less of an emphasis on making a profit than there is in making the competition fair for all. The distinction that I would use between those leagues and American pro sports leagues is this (for the most part): Most soccer clubs try to make a profit in order to field a the best team. Most American sports teams try to field a championship team in order to make the best profit. While there are exceptions to both of those rules, they're just that: exceptions. Also, soccer has been governed by people other than those owners since the beginning. They are amateurs without a vested interest in the profits of the clubs, driven solely by making the sporting competition fair for all. As a result, purely sporting concerns are not cast aside easily in favor of making money. On the other hand, the decisions made by the various collections of American sports team owners have always been more about business than sport. As business tends to do (contrary to the beliefs of the Libertarians and other deluded "free-market" utopians), sports leagues did whatever they could to shield themselves from as many market forces as possible, and made consolidating and protecting their own ability to maximize profit its top priority. So rather than allowing other clubs to spring up in its city and provide competition (in the business sense), they came up with things like protected territories (aka, creating local monopolies). Obviously, being relegated is good for no club's bottom line. Anywhere in the world. If sports leagues truly were about the "free market," they would allow as many teams as the market would bear, and let the strongest ones succeed while the weakest ones fail on their own merits. But they don't, and there is not even a slight possibility that they ever will. This is why I laugh out loud at anyone who claims that pro sports have the first damned thing to do with the "free market." And anyone who seriously believes that pro/rel could ever happen here.
And only DID happen because it was better for business than not doing it. In England, if the Premier League closed itself off to pro/rel, it would have caused such an enormous backlash on the part of fans that the profits from the TV money that led to the league's creation may very well have been negated. Even if that were not the case, the FA would likely have forced them to allow teams to be relegated from and promoted into it, on pain of expulsion (I doubt I have to explain why that could never happen here). Don't think for a moment that every club in the Premier League wouldn't shit-can it the moment they think they can and still make as much money. Pro/rel doesn't exist because it can, it exists because it has to. Similarly, it will not happen here when it can, but when it has to, and I can't think of a single rational reason why it would have to.
There are scenarios which make it the profitable move, but they are all highly unlikely. 1. MLS expands to capacity and finds some hamhanded way to do it and guarantee big markets never get relegated. 2. MLS slows down expansion prematurely (meaning before that hypothetical maximum I talked about), leaving some people out in the cold who go to NASL. NASLs current financially capable teams (of which there are only 4 as of now: Cosmos, Minnesota, San Antonio and Indianapolis) work with these teams to dramatically increase the standard of the league and force sone sort of merger. 3. It is demanded from above (USSF, FIFA). 4. It is demanded by fans. #2 is the only hope in reality, and that is a very distant hope which requires all things to go right. In fact, I think all four of those NASL teams end up in MLS when all is said and done (even the Cosmos).
The focus of that particular paragraph of mine was not to win the larger conversation, but rather was to point out that your list of 3 absolute requirements that must be fulfilled in order for some promotion/relegation to succeed was nonsense, or at least your absolute point #2 was nonsense. Your list of 3 absolute requirements indicated that a sport would need a very betting-friendly format in order to be popular in the U.S. I pointed out one of numerous examples that don't have a particularly betting-friendly format but are nonetheless wildly popular in the U.S.
MLS wouldn't be the first league in the modern era with three teams in the NYC market - especially with a N?J/NYC/LI split.
If I meant that, I would have said that. What I did say (among other things) was that in order for "massive" (your word, not my characterization of your word) interest in promotion playoffs, anywhere close to "national media coverage of college sports championships like for NCAA football and basketball," it would take some sort of gambling incentive, which made the NCAA basketball Final Four as popular as it is. If you need to distort my words, and pretend that I meant something other than that, then that says all one needs to know about your argument.
There has been a lot of discussion bandied around recently that colleges ought to get out of the business of creating minor leagues for the NBA and the NFL and should focus on their core mission of educating students. Even leaders of the NCAA themselves have participated in this second-guessing. I'm not speculating that this is going to happen anytime soon, but if the NCAA were to dissolve so that the college sports teams don't have to adhere to amateurism, then the teams that were formerly the college teams could now help form the lower divisions wherein the teams have existing huge sentimental natural connections to the local fans. If there were major shifts in the U.S. sporting landscape, its pretty easy to see how promotion and relegation could fall into place.
you mean that there would be a rule that the promotion playoffs would have to take place on the same day and time as the NBA finals? it seems to me like the lower division schedulers could figure out a way not to have to go head to head. Even for the NBA finals they don't play every day consecutively.
After reviewing I confess to a slight distortion. Nevertheless you are completely out to lunch that your absolute requirement #2 would be an absolute requirement. helpful, sure. Absolute requirement. No way.
This is something that I wish would happen, but it won't. Winning sports teams just do too much for the schools for them to jettison them, and relinquish control over all that money....er, I mean, not supervise and mentor those student-athletes. I think that it would be more likely for schools to allow athletes to major in their sports, and confer degrees in football or whatever.
Well didn't both leagues that did eventually end the arrangement? I mean the Giants and Dodgers of course moved away, and the Devils no longer play in the Meadowlands.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Newark still part of the NYC metro area? I mean, it's only like 8 miles west of Manhattan, right?
Technically it is part of the metro area as it is only about 12 miles west. But it's also not part of the NY Metro Division. And the Devils, particularly post move, do have a very Jersey centric fan base. You don't see much if any cross pollination with Devils fans on the NY side of the River.
The divide seems like more because only the riverside highlands are habitable on the Jersey side of the Hudson with marshlands and the wide turnpikes creating sort of a no-man's land between Newark and Manhattan. My brother and I were chatting with a security cop at the United-Red Bulls game at Harrison last Labor Day Weekend and he told us that the Red Bulls fans are largely from Bergen County.
they sure were seeing its from both sides of the hudson that they draw from. despite a majority (like 60%) of fans coming from NJ theres still a lot of fans coming in from brooklyn and lower manhattan because of easy train access from those areas. hell its arguably easier to get too than the bronx or flushing, make no mistake the red bulls are no Jersey Only team like the devils. NY/NJ indeed. So if literally everything changed than things would be different. gothca, but if things stay relatively the way they are theres no way Pro/rel is happening ANYWHERE. you bring up the brick wall for the whole FOR Pro/Rel argument, America would have to be what it isn't in order for it to work and have any positive impact. theres no adaptation of mindset to a place where its necessary. also the NCAA isn't a minor league for the NFL or NBA, and getting rid of intercollegiate sports seems like a good way of killing local spirit (can you imagine Tuscaloosa, Gainesville, Ann Arbor and so many others without college football?) and losing money that I'm sure the colleges are making.
[quote=" So if literally everything changed than things would be different. gothca, but if things stay relatively the way they are theres no way Pro/rel is happening ANYWHERE. you bring up the brick wall for the whole FOR Pro/Rel argument, America would have to be what it isn't in order for it to work and have any positive impact. theres no adaptation of mindset to a place where its necessary.[/quote] yes so I guess you agree with me that its a theoretical discussion and almost certainly not going to happen. I think you are mistaken, however, if you believe that the current U.S. sporting structure-system developed out of a strong preference of U.S. fans to avoid promotion and relegation systems. [quote=" also the NCAA isn't a minor league for the NFL or NBA, and getting rid of intercollegiate sports seems like a good way of killing local spirit (can you imagine Tuscaloosa, Gainesville, Ann Arbor and so many others without college football?) and losing money that I'm sure the colleges are making.[/quote] NCAA division 1 football doesn't have the Title of being the NFL minor leagues, but in practicality they operate as feeder leagues for the NFL. I guess that over 95% of NFL players received training by playing in college football. The NFL has no other feeder league from which their players have received training in large numbers. ditto for basketball, although NBA teams have a lot more foreigners on their teams. if the system were to swap, Tuscaloosa would not lose football but their team would instead play in the D2 league or perhaps even in the NFL itself on some years. Most D-1 colleges lose money in sports. For the 20 or so schools that make money, I'm sure there would be a way to compensate those schools to give up their sporting teams and their stadiums so that they can be privately run pro franchises.
In fact, it developed without a thought to promotion and relegation at all. Because at no point in the development of sports leagues in this country did we have too many teams anywhere, which is the issue pro/rel was designed to mitigate. Proles want it now because they think it would be cool and Euros would stop laughing at us, even though we do not have the problem of too many teams who are good enough for any level of the game. Especially the top one. And what "U.S. fans" want is far less important than what the actual investors in teams and leagues want. It has always been thus. Given there is no groundswell of support for the idea now (no matter how much the proles try to tell you they are the tip of a spear of a movement, because they are not), it's absolutely got no momentum. American sporting culture grew and developed without a thought at all - for or against - the concept.
Very simply: conflict of interest means the owner/operator (Kraft) is controlling two football clubs. One in NFL and the soccer club in MLS. It is rather hard to invest energy into two different clubs at once. Everyone in the states knows which team the man prefers. After all, when you enter Gillette Stadium, the sign says" Home of The New England Patriots", not the Revolution.
That's not a conflict of interest. The idea that a businessman can't own two assets and seek to have them both perform up to their best potential is silly.
Sort of; the underlying "problem" with the MLS is Garber is in charge of all teams. By definition the president of MLS has conflict of interest in regards to competition. I do not think that is resolvable as more investment is rewarded with a guarantee of immunity for actions taken or missed. This conflict grows as more under-capitalized interests are admitted to the MLS to compete against more capitalized interests without a mechanism to punish capricious spending and reward on the field proficiency.