This is a fair point. Regardless of how the games are promoted, fans still make their own calculations.
I'll agree that what I said was unfair about many fans. But I don't think it's unfair about the promoters.
I look down on those people as well but at least Streisand is going to give you more effort than most of these players during there games.[emoji4]
I'm not going to weave around 867 posts, so I apologize in advance for repeating anything said. I'm against pro/rel in the United States. I don't see how it's remotely feasible. For European countries and other counties I do understand how it's feasible. EPL, for example has 20 teams in roughly 7 or 8 media markets. EPL will never lose the London, Birmingham, or Manchester markets. There isn't a massive soccer fanbase in a place like NYC to support 3-4 teams a year, you would be splitting up the fanbases too much. Therefore, in a pro-rel scenario it's quite feasible for a given season for both NYRB and NYC to be dropped to a 2nd tier; which ultimately would be idiotic and a loss of money. People want to watch NY vs NE/Boston, LA, Miami, and so on. Losing that market just might cripple the MLS... Losing any of the top soccer markets for a season in exchange for markets like Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and so on just doesn't make sense. I'm from Pittsburgh and I see the Riverhounds averaging 2.6k fans a game. We have HS football games that draw larger crowds. You're not going to gain fans by just plugging them into the first tier and then them dropping the next year. Fanbases across the globe are simply far more established. Plus geographically the countries are much smaller. England is roughly the size of NY with a population of Texas. The sport is far too young in the US to support pro-rel. Plus geographically, the US is so spread out, which also works in America's favor in terms of media markets. The MLS can theoretically have teams in 25+ separate markets, so there's not much internal competition within those markets for fanhood. A person living in Seattle will end up being a Sounders fan; a person living in Atlanta will likely be an Atlanta United fan.. Speaking of ATL, Atlanta United averages roughly 50k fans a game, if not more. It would be stupid to add another team in the ATL and split the fanbase, which is what pro/rel could ultimately end up doing. For a pyramid, I think the MLS should look more at the MLB model. Use the USSF to use USL & NASl as the 2nd and 3rd tiers to the MLS and each MLS team as an "affiliate" at those levels. Plus I think the USSF needs to do more to pressure the clubs at those levels to get television deals and promote the living **** out of them. And at the same time, use the lower tiers to grow the sport in secondary media markets. Also, I do believe that Euro leagues are onto something in terms of a draft. I don't think soccer needs a draft. With academies and lower level clubs, home-grown talent just simply moves up & down the tiers until they're on the top level team. Plus they can always be loaned/sold to clubs here in the US & abroad. As for future growth of the league, I do support raising the salary cap, and by a lot. Americans want to watch the best of the best. However, I do know that under the current league format it's rough to do so. Get rid of DP, and TAP, triple the salary cap. It will earn the league greater broadcast exposure as well as merch sales; thus, earning the league more money to go out and get even better players. The league doesn't need pro-rel to accomplish this. And remember, just because something works overseas doesn't mean it will work here, and the same for a sport like basketball, just because the American model works here, doesn't mean that pro-rel, for basketball, isn't potentially needed. Each model works for their geography & demographics. Neither is perfect.
Are you referring to TV audience here? Because there were no Birmingham teams in the EPL last year. Wolves were the only representative of the West Midlands at all. Citation needed: yes, biggest baseball teams happen to be in NY and LA. In football, the biggest teams are in Dallas and Pittsburgh. Nobody wanted to watch a team from Boston before 2001, and nobody has wanted to watch a team from Miami since maybe 92. Nobody could watch a team from LA for two decades. The Lakers are obviously big, but most of America would probably prefer the Knicks get relegated. None of this applies to MLS, anyway, because nobody watches it on TV.
Well, except that there have been a few seasons when none of Birmingham City, Aston Villa or WBA have been in the Premier League. Silly argument anyway as there aren't London, Birmingham or Manchester "markets". Oh, and remind me how long there was no team in the Los Angeles ",market"? Did NFL die on the vine in that period?
I agree with a lot of your post but, I don't agree with the lower divisions becoming a baseball style minor league. I think professional soccer is expanding nicely under the umbrella of MLS. Tripling the salary budget alone won't help because, well, Champions League. Players want to play against the best and many fans want to watch the best. The median salary has more than doubled in the last 5 years but you wouldn't think there's been any improvement listening to the Europhiles.
The entire country is a single TV market. Which is the case in many geographically smaller countries. There are local channels, but it's hard to divide them by market because they overlap or don't match metropolitan areas. Note that a number of US media markets (distinct from metropolitan areas) have larger land areas than England.
Yes, the NFL survived nearly 20 years without a team in LA, but there's also a reason why they pushed three franchises to move there and ultimately the Rams and Chargers took them up on that.
That's logical. The Pirates radio network is aired as far away as eastern Kentucky and encompasses all of WV. But in that case, it makes Pro-Rel that much easier; EPL will never lose eyeballs because it's a single market.
NFL didn't push anyone into LA. Quite the opposite they created special rules to keep LA open in order to leverage cities into paying for new stadiums. Finally Kroenke decided to ignore the rules and built a stadium in LA on his own dime forcing the NFL to let him move the Rams. The NFL didn't (doesn't) want the Chargers in LA, but the combination of the Spanos' families incompetence and the voters of San Diego calling their bluff forced the NFL to allow the Chargers move in order to save face.
So when Aston Villa, from the 2nd biggest city in England, got relegated and Burnley, population 80k, got promoted, it had no impact on Premier League eyeballs? Still waiting to hear why the NFL didn't implode when it had no team for 20 years in the 2nd biggest media market in the country.
The Fire and Dynamo would be replaced by two other teams, though. Better teams, in fact. So MLS would still have the eyeballs they're currently not getting and Fire and Dynamo fans would still be able to see their team. I'm not sure how we're losing eyeballs in the process.