Or, you know...by the fact they take a fancy to the game of football. Not everybody who attends a game or supports a club or likes the sport is hell-bent on this notion that their club has to get to the highest (or even a higher) echelon. If that were the case, the vast majority of clubs would have fans for whom that's such a rare occurrence it's hardly worth pining for. There are clubs who will almost certainly never get promoted, and many who surely face (as sure as night follows day, because that's the way it's set up, someone has to) their team getting relegated. Yet they still come to games. They're not "drawn by the prospect of their club progressing." If that were true, the converse would be true, and a likely-to-be-relegated team would see people stay away in droves. Unless, of course, you buy the notion that the romance of the "great escape" and the drama of that final day when you might stay up - but someone has to go down - makes an entire season worth it. Jesucristo, so many of you are so enamored of this notion that your agenda is the only true agenda, as if it's a piece of the True Cross.
Like I said with Tampa Bay. If they have a good season, they'll get more fans. They won't turn up to make Tampa Bay do well though. A team doing well (or looking likely to do well) will attract more fans. It'll make fans who go now and then go more often. It'll make fans with a vague interest more likely to give the game a go. Maybe you misunderstand. It's not the "prospect of promotion", as in some concept, that makes fans turn up. It's the sense that the club is showing ambition, has a good team, and has a good chance of going up this season. And yes, a team likely to have a bad season will find it hard to keep support. The "great escape" crowd boost only really applies to key games at the very end of the season. Likewise, some are so determined to prove it wrong that they don't actually follow the actual viewpoints of those discussing it. Anyone who likes the idea is deemed to want it for MLS.
Well, it is an MLS forum to be fair. And I personally view it as a simplistic solution to grow the game here that isn't going to work, might actually deter future MLS investors and is an idea fundamentally bourne of the insecurity fans have that unless we do things just like in England we're somehow not up to snuff. It isn't needed.
It's not even simplistic. It's just ill-considered. You have over a century of history of sports in the US to show just what goes wrong without the stability of a closed system, and a set-up which means pretty much any credible applicant can join the league if they want without having to get promoted. You also have the fact that you have to weigh up the gamble of what you might get if pro/rel worked against the rather grim scenario for the game if it failed.
As someone who was a fan of a yo-yo club once upon a time, I can vouch for the fact that they had far greater gates when they were leading the table in a lower division rather than bringing up the rear in the top division. Hope of promotion and a dejection of relegation play into fans minds and attitudes. Finances are considered as different to popularity? As in fans willing to pay their hard-earned money to witness a particular event? Nice try but an economist you ain't. Nor a comedian.
I've never understood the "English clubs have been doing it for years" argument to why MLS can't have Pro/Rel. Wouldn't the fact that they HAVE been doing it for years put more stock in the Pro/Rel argument? If it ain't broke don't fix it.
Not when the entire sporting culture and development of the sporting business has been completely different. We could just as easily say this about our franchise/closed system and why they don't do it. Exactly, and our system isn't broken ... not even close.
Personally I think it's part of the sport. It's in soccer nature to move up the ranks, our youth systems seem to accept pro/rel quite easily. I just think more people are turned away by the way the league is formatted now then otherwise.
Really? How so? Are the semi-pro leagues in Scotland that have no access to the Scottish Leagues not part of the sport then? Were the Korean leagues not part of the sport until they re-instituted pro/rel? Is the A-League not part of the sport?
Well for the scotish league you answered your own question. You're relating semi-pro to pro. I'ts like saying Arena Football should be expansion teams for the NFL. As for the other points, the national team play for those teams reflect the system they operate in. Pro/Rel forces teams to develop their own players (to and extent).
So when you say "part of the sport" you really mean "part of being a pro in some limited ways". And I noticed you ignored my examples of Korea and Australia. Yeah, because semi-pro players playing a game by the exact same rules as pro players is exactly analogous to the Arena League game, with completely different rules, and the NFL. Oh, and even so, Kurt Warner. How'd that work for England (birth of pro/rel) and the U.S. (no pro/rel) in the Group Stage at the last World Cup? Again, pro/rel has so little to do with development compared to other factors its not worth mentioning. Development requires funding for coaches, staff, and facilities fist and foremost, which requires interest.
Like most newbs who have been on BigSoccer for a day or two, you're still talking about the conceptual theory behind pro/rel and how well it works in other countries, without actually understanding the day-to-day realities of life in the American soccer system. Do a little research about how the relationship between MLS, NASL and USL-Pro works, financially and legally, and you'll see that pro/rel will never be a reality unless numerous things change drastically within the American soccer landscape.
All the posters have good points, in regard to pro/rel. What I do believe though, is that at the present moment American players are playing in Europe. For the most part, these are players who left the MLS for one reason or another. I am sure a guy like Brad Friedel or Kasey Keller can shed some light on this subject. It would be very interesting to hear on what American players who have actually played in pro/reg leagues at the highest levels of soccer would have to say on this subject. Players like this who are American can surely give American soccer valuable lessons on how to properly implement a professional structure from top to bottom. If we do not listen to these guy's, I think it would be pretty naive. These are players who came up through the NCAA system and blossomed in Europe's top leagues. I would also be interested what the current MLS players would say about a pro/rel system. Also the MLS owners, who would support pro/rel and who wouldn't. If any of the posters have any documentation on this subject it would be very interesting.
Um, no. Much more often than not, players/former players are not very good at the business end of the sporting world. Outside of that, Garber and the gang have done a masterful job at implementing "properly" a professional structure for soccer here in the United States.
Well Keller started in the old A-League I think before going to Europe and coming back, Friedel started in MLS and left. But I'm not sure why asking these guys would matter. Do you honestly think that these players left because of pro/rel? They left because the quality of play and the paychecks were bigger over there. Thats it. Its not like guys are leaving MLS clubs to go play in the first division of Thailand just so they can be in a pro/rel league. Look at it this way, there are pro/rel in European basketball leagues. Why do european basketball players come here to the NBA to play? Because the quality of play is higher and the pay is better. End of story. If tomorrow 19 oil billionaires bought MLS teams and decided to have 100M budgets, then MLS would be a super league on par with EPL despite being a closed league. Like i've said before these conversations are never REALLY about pro/rel. If you split MLS into 2 divisions of 10 and 9 clubs with pro/rel, do you think anything changes? What people REALLY want to see is MLS and soccer in the US rapidly grow. And people think that pro/rel is some magic button that if we add it, then the sport will grow overnight. But there is no actual proof that this happens. Pro/rel happened in those countries because the sports was widely supported so lots of amateur clubs got popular, went pro, and the FA tiered off all these pro clubs with multiple divisions. It made total sense. Post NASL there was only a handful of semi pro outdoor teams int he entire country. Pro/Rel is a solution to a problem we haven't had. And there is no evidence that states if you implement it, that we are going to get a ton of fans....why? Because pro/rel didn't CAUSE there to be tons of fans in other countries, pro/rel was needed BECAUSE there is tons of fans. Let me prove again that competitive structure doesn't matter... OK, there are tons of college football fans right? Well if you implemented football teams in European universities, would there be the same kind of support? Lets say you mimicked the competition format, leagues, and bowl games EXACTLY as it exists in the US. Would college football take off there? Does the fact that college football plays in a certain league structure or a certain bowl game the reason it is popular? No. You can't make something popular just by changing the way the schedule is balanced or the structure of the league or anything else. To grow a sport in a country take a long time, it is a cultural change. We are doing it now in the US but it is going to take awhile. Implementing pro/rel is not going to change anything overnight. I know it is not a direct comparison between us and college football in Europe since they have no cultural history of American football...but you get the point. League format plays an incredibly small roll in a sports popularity, CULTURE dictates popularity. We have a big college football culture therefore it is popular despite the format. We need to grow the culture of soccer in the US, and that takes a long time. You can't implement pro/rel and expect our culture to mimic 100 year old soccer cultures in Europe or Latin America.
I don't think there's any great mystery about how to set up pro/rel. Beyond deciding the number of places to go up/down, there isn't a great deal of organisation necessary. As has been said numerous times, but not totally grasped, nearly everywhere that has a pro/rel system had it to regulate the large number of clubs that already existed. Other than Japan, it's hard to think of one where they brought the system in to drive growth.
Yeah, $$$ and a higher league of competition. Can you name any American player who left MLS for a lower league and a smaller paycheck?
I understand the difference between the leagues and their relationships. Obviously the pro/rel change would be a major overhaul and would have to come from the top but don't say it's impossible. I just find it amazing that West Brom can be in Champ League standings after recently being promoted. It allows the "anything can happen" aspect of the game to flourish. Works for relegation as well *cough* Liverpool *cough*
I was thinking more in terms of second division without pro/rel. Imagining how an MLS2 might look structure-wise, that's a tough one. As for why watch Des Moines play when they could just watch Barca at home (with or without pro/rel), you could ask that question about any minor league team at any level. People have been doing it for years. And considering the time difference between the US and Europe, you might not even have to choose.
We have that here too, without Pro/Rel. See: Worst to First World Series ^ give that a go on the 'ol Googlemachine. Anything can happen in any sports league. It happens all the time in our sports leagues.
But the fact that west brom was in a different league where they have no where near the payroll or quality. its not like the worst team in the league. its the best team in the league below you being successful in the top league.