That's not true at all. It differs by state but in general history is carefully preserved, even stuff that's too new for Europeans to call "history". I've lived in New York City and San Francisco and both places ring fence whole neighborhoods against development. There are historical plaques on every street. Graduates pour $ millions in charitable donations back into their universities and a lot of those donations go in to sports. College sports are a huge part of the upper-middle and upper class way of life, in other words part of the establishment, as are lawyers and politicians. They are virtually untouchable.
So you're telling me those sports are never in danger of collapsing. So what's the reference than to my remark about the EU Court specifically mentioning heritage in their ruling?
Biggest stadiums in USA with year built: Michigan Stadium 1927 Beaver Stadium 1960 Kyle Field 1927 Neyland Stadium 1921 Tiger Stadium 1924 Ohio Stadium 1922 Bryant-Denny Stadium 1929 Darrell K Royal–Texas Memorial Stadium 1924 Sanford Stadium 1929 Cotton Bowl 1930 Rose Bowl 1922 Ben Hill Griffin Stadium 1930 Jordan Hare Stadium 1939 Memorial Stadium 1923 Biggest stadiums in Europe with year built: Camp Nou 1957 Wembley Stadium 2007 (knockdown rebuild) Croke Park 1884 Twickenham Stadium 1909 Signal Iduna Park 1974 Santiago Bernabéu Stadium 1947 Luzhniki Stadium 1956 Stade de France 1998 San Siro 1926 Atatürk Olympic Stadium 2001 Athens Olympic Stadium 1982 Allianz Arena 2005 Old Trafford 1910 Olympiastadion 1936 Millennium Stadium 1999 Not a whole heap of difference,
That college sports, particularly college football, would be treated with the same level of heritage as soccer in the EU. It's 2019 and college footballers still aren't getting paid.
FA Cup 1871/72 (first professional team winners in 1882/83) The Ashes (England vs. Australia cricket) 1877 Football League 1888/89 (I guess you could argue this no longer exists) County Championship (English cricket) 1890 Before you ask cricket players were being paid as long ago as the 17th century.
I watched, granted that was in the last century, iconic stadiums on the news being flattened for new build. Feyenoord enters the next phase of the new stadium plans, but the old stadium isnot going to be torn down as it has a monument status. But the main point in the heritage case is that the EU Court spoke about the sport as such as a cultural heritage, that becomes threatened if certain practices by rich clubs would be permitted unrestrained. I donot see a threat like that to those US sports, as there's a seperation between the pro part and the "amateur" part. AFAIK they're financially unconnected.
Not my point. Berry brought it up as an argument in showing that it will be protected by courts like soccer in the EU.
Yup, Jose Mo always looks around checking if I'm in the press room before talking about himself as the Special One.
Basically fsf said that the EU courts take into account heritage when making decisions about soccer. My argument is that the our courts do the same for established sports in the US. The recent sports betting decision of the Supreme Court was a blow to NCAA but New Jersey had to fight tooth and nail for 6 years to get there.
Meanwhile, back on pro/rel, I see Stourbridge - Robert Plant's hometown team and my favourite non-league team when I was growing up - are top of the Southern League Central Division, pulling away from the pack along with Kettering Town. It would be great to see them promoted to a higher level than they've ever played at. Way back when I went to a few of their games, their rivals were Burton Albion and Kidderminster Harriers. Both those teams subsequently made it to the Football League, with Burton remarkably getting as high as the Championship. Meanwhile, Stourbridge went in the opposite direction before recovering over the last decade or so. The joys of pro/rel.
I'm not sure if I'm still on ignore but... The MLB has an antitrust exemption. Those more familiar might be able to clarify if the culture and history of baseball was a factor. We went back and forth on this for pages. The cultural heritage component was more about protecting the practices and integrity of the sport. It's not a hard barrier to any and all change. In terms of physical buildings, I have mixed feelings about historical status. As someone who has travelled extensively with a disabled person, it gets overdone when virtually entire districts of mundane housing, shops and hotels are exempt from accessibility laws because the property is over a certain age. But that's perhaps for another thread.
Tell that to the Championship clubs that aren't getting the Parachute millions ... or the new EPL clubs that find themselves with a new crisp 100m+ dollar bill. Pro/rel has to do with where you fall in the pyramid yes? And the money is tied to your placement in said pyramid, yes? hhmmmm that seems like there's at least "something to do" going on there Yes, where you said you'd punch me. You didn't waddle your way around to it or innocently end up there. You flat out stated it point blank. Yes, that time. You do realize how ironic that is considering your years long posting about how there's no debate here ... right?
I very much doubt fans of the three teams I mentioned would prefer a system where they were permanently locked into a specific level of non-league football.
Is getting to move up or down the only reason that people play soccer? No. People play it, watch it, buy tickets to it, because they find it entertaining. Pro/rel is not fundamental to the game at all, it's merely a way to organize leagues just like the World Cup's groups are merely a way to organize a tournament. Nothing more, nothing less. If the EPL decided to tell the English and Scottish FA's to pound sand, invited a dozen more teams to join from all over Britain, it would still be as popular. If the EPL decided to add another team to the relegation battle and the Championship decided to have all promotion spots determined by playoff, it would still be just as popular. When LigaMX finally drops pro/rel altogether, it will still be just as popular. You think it's fundamental because you grew up with it and it's all you know. That's fine. I can say, that having worked in sports in the US and knowing what I know about the American sports marketplace, pro/rel is nearly impossible to implement in any meaningful way and relegation will most-likely lead to teams going out of business at a regular clip. We don't relegate in any sport ever and we (Americans) aren't used to it. I might still support my local team if it was relegated but the vast majority of fans would not. Therein lies the problem. Funny you should mention that, Geoff. I've actually had this conversation with American fans who are "pro" and even an Englishman or two. Not once did anyone every raise their voice, other than to be heard over a loud bar. Why? Because most people don't get too wound up over a standings gimmick. I even had a conversation with a Leicester fan from Leicester who agreed that pro/rel probably wouldn't work here and would be very hard to implement. No one provokes you. You come in with blanket statements or bad arguments and can't stand being challenged. Want to put me on ignore. Do it but don't go bragging about it. TV contracts are facts. Attendance drops for bad seasons and the subsequent hit to gate receipts are facts. The fact that more pro and amateur soccer teams have been created in the past 5 years than any time since the 1920s in spite of a lack of pro/rel is a fact. You claim that soccer is being harmed by a lack of pro/rel and that it would help the game here. Those are pretty extraordinary claims and they demand extraordinary evidence. You don't want to provide evidence other than repeating your story about how Tulsa didn't get a MLS team and your conversation with Peter Wilt. You're a prime example of why there is no pro/rel debate or even a pro/rel movement. You have no interest in talking about reality. You have no interest in talking about obstacles. I'll bring up TV deals and how owners won't go for it, you'll scream about market snobbery and that I'm standing up for billionaires. You don't want to talk about how to implement pro/rel besides just some pie-in-the-sky fantasy booking where you would immediately kick 8-10 teams out of the top division for no good reason.
I'd love to have an actual debate. Not with you, mind you because you're incapable of it. At this point, most points about Pro/Rel in the USA have been made and this thread is a flat circle of topics that spin round and round. When I jumped in to the argument back on the old thread, I made a point about TV contracts and didn't even state whether I was pro or anti. So here I am, anyone other than Ruffy, bring it. What evidence is there that pro/rel will actually help the game in the USA? How do you get around all the myriad obstacles to its implementation? Is it actually necessary?
I've already suggested adding a new classification of independent MLS club, that is subject to relegation, gets none of the central roster funding but isn't subject to the same caps and roster restrictions. Any traditional MLS club that fancies its chances with the ability to spend freely, can relinquish their status. Likewise, teams that want the protections of the franchise system may still apply for expansion if the spots are available. The TV companies likely get their preferred markets and teams with the means and aptitude get to test their worth in the top tier. Do you think that would be a workable approach?
Correct me if I'm wrong but you're suggesting that, NYCFC for example, could decide to be independent and then they're the only team eligible for relegation but they're allowed to spend as much as they want? I could maybe see that working but you'd need a number of teams to buy in then pay off MLS because of single entity and all. If it were me and, gun to my head, I was forced to come up with a way to do pro/rel, I'd have MLS go uber-single entity and just have the bottom teams in the East and West go down and bring up the USL East and West champions. "B" teams are ineligible for promotion to D1. Of course you'd have to restructure the entire thing and come up with $150 million each in parachute payments to relegated teams and some sort of divisional standards for promoted teams. Louisville and Tulsa can't play in minor-league baseball parks, for example.
Have you ever been to the US? If the courts "didn't give a Shit about Heritage" the US wouldn't have any National Parks, monuments, or historical sites. Heritage didn't stop Arsenal from bulldozing Highbury and building high priced condos. It stop Man City from Bulldozing Maine Road. It didn't stop the FA from bulldozing Wembley. It didn't stop West Ham United from buldozing Upton Park..........Tottenham from bulldozing White Hart Lane..........
I was thinking more along the lines of there being a bunch of viable teams outside MLS that could come up as the first wave of "independents". So this would be a long term thing. If someone put a gun to my head and told me to come up with a plan, I'd take a selfie of the scene and post it on here with the caption "So Ted and I finally met". Jeff would then accuse me of cherry picking one bad incident to make Ted look bad, when I was entirely tolerant of Dan's 7 PART PARTISAN DISMANTLING OF THE DELOITTE PRO/REL STUDY.
I think I made clear in numerous posts, and in that taking the same stance as mschofield, Berry and barroldino, that given the current situation in US soccer P/R isnot a real option yet and maybe never. But given when the conditions in the USA are right in which P/R is possible I am of the opinion it is the best way to go and not the closed league system.
Yup, sell that to the Indian tribe whose territory and heritage is trampled on by the pipeline to Canada. They're not threats to EU preservation of soccer. Those are national matters and the UK tried as much as they could to do it their way. The Feyenoord Stadium has monument status, so our new stadium has to be built in another spot. Even if Feyenoord wanted to demolish it, they wouldnot get permission. To get monument status a building has to qualify for it. Simply being old isnot enough. The UK is notorious for their agency looking after heritage. I once watched a docu on a man (he was a famous actor or singer) who decided to buy a ruin of a castle that was crumbling down. The shit he had to endure from that agency was unbelievable by their demands on how things had to look like. The bloody thing would have been a pile of stones in a decade, but he wouldnot get permission to do anything if he didnot comply to their demands. So given the heritage culture in the UK I guess those stadiums didnot meet requirements.