Because it is bitter, and because it is my league
Posted on April 20, 2012 5:16 pm
I should know better, I really should.
And yet, here I am, reliably as one of Pavlov’s dogs, murdering valuable electrons mocking the idea that promotion and relegation is feasible for MLS.
No, that’s not a mixed metaphor. The correct response to an article or blog post about promotion and relegation is to bark with animal rage, then drool all over it.
I mean, intellectually, I know the Internet isn’t a gigantic conspiracy to piss me off personally. Emotionally, though, is a different story.
And I’m not saying every soccer writer in America should have committed my works to memory, but, every time I’ve pointed out in tedious, ponderous, masochistic detail why promotion/relegation advocates have smeared lamb’s blood on their doors to ward off the Angel of Reality – it’s like I’m talking to walls.
Well, no, walls don’t come up with horrible ideas. Maybe a wall that has “There should be promotion and relegation in MLS” scribbled on it in crayon. I don’t know. I’ve even lost confidence in my metaphors.
So why am I here once again gamboling about in the wilds of promotion and relegation – the soccer blogger child’s garden of easy victories (as Tom Stoppard said about Dada)?
Anyway, here’s the golden passage:
Relegation can mean the wilderness. Some teams never return from the depths.
And not just because I now feel a little better about my metaphors (are we talking about some underground or oceanic forest here?). Typing out “some teams never return from the depths” should have triggered some thought process along the lines of “oh, right, so that’s why MLS doesn’t want to banish any of its hard-won markets for all time. Never mind” or something to that effect.
Why is it so hard to understand that the only people punished by promotion and relegation are fans and owners? The idea that MLS coaches who miss the playoffs are any more secure than Premiership coaches who embroil themselves in relegation battles is silly enough that I wish there was a shorter way to convey that the concept causes me to laugh audibly.
And the idea that MLS players are complacent because their team will be around next year is insulting enough I’m always shocked that any current or former player suggest promotion and relegation. The number of truly secure MLS players can be counted on the fingers of one of Nightcrawler’s hands. (Claremont-era X-men reference.) The rest either dream of the halfway decent salaries one can command abroad, or are furiously defending their roster spot against some up-and-coming hotshot or some iron-jawed USL stalwart. All this within an average career length just this side of Major League Russian Roulette.
Keep in mind the perks and lifetime security that an above-average MLS career offers – which is to say, practically none. The number of NFL (or Premiership) fans who make as much in a year as their heroes is trivially small. The average MLS salary these days pokes above six figures…just in the same way that the average salary of the people in your elevator is north of a billion a year if you share a car with Carlos Slim. The median has held steady around $80,000 for a couple of years now, which sounds pretty groovy until you remember that a ten year career in MLS is downright Methuselahesque.
I must have misread this chart, because it implies that over 40% of MLS fans have a household income above $75,000. But in no other “major” sport do even a tiny minority of the fans make anywhere near as much per capita as the players. This is why the Players Union thinks about striking so often, and tends to resent we fans when we don’t support them.
That bumper sticker that asks why we don’t pay teachers as much as athletes? Well, we still pay MLS players more than teachers – they wouldn’t be able to eat otherwise – but if we judge the difficulty and importance of jobs by salary, MLS players are by far the most replaceable and vulnerable performers in American sports. (As a point of reference, in 1970, under an antiquated and exploitative labor system in baseball, Curt Flood’s salary under the reserve clause was nine times the national median household income.)
I’m not saying MLS players never puppy-dog it. A national team player not wanting to miss the World Cup, or a player in the last year of his contract (preferably fresh off a failed transfer bid) – their motivation can take a dip. Relegation, however, would solve neither problem.
But the whole premise that there’s something wrong with MLS because we don’t annually fold a team fundamentally misunderstands what the average person gets out of sports in the first place – the diversion of competitive entertainment, or, put more simply, to see who wins. This is why they don’t cancel baseball and football games once division races are decided. This is why other drivers continue to show up to races even though they’re no longer in contention for the Piston Cup or whatever the hell it is. This is why Stanford and Cal keep playing each other, even though the outcome usually weighs on the Pac-12 race about as heavily as sunspots.
And this is why tickets are sold to individual games, and games are broadcast. There’s plenty of self-contained drama in each match. So you don’t care who wins a Portland-Philadelphia game in March. I didn’t care who won the Iran-Iraq War, but a bunch of other people did.
For once, this isn’t about casual part-time fans and hardcore supporters. You, dear reader, since you’re here, probably place yourself in Category B. What do you want, when you go to a game?
Right. Not to be attacked by zombie rape-weasels. Also, to have a good time. You can have happy, boisterous, noisy fun, like in Portland or Seattle or Kansas City. Or you can have the New York Red Bulls experience – where the abyss no longer stares back, but just nods and pours you the usual.
If the week-to-week atmosphere at the stadium is worth the effort, then promotion and relegation isn’t necessary. And if the week-to-week atmosphere at the stadium is a chore, then promotion and relegation won’t help.
The Premiership doesn’t need promotion and relegation any more than MLS does. Unless the premise is that Arsenal and Manchester United fans will give up the sport if they have to face the prospect of watching them play WBA forever. Which, I don’t know, maybe. But let’s say the Premiership commits a monstrous injustice, and closes their league at twenty as of next year. How many Arsenal or Manchester United fans would boycott their teams in solidarity with Leeds fans?
Actually, why not simply have promotion and relegation based on attendance? The twenty best-supported teams compete in the Premiership, the next twenty-four in the Championship, the next twenty-four in the Ultimate Supreme, and the next twenty-four in the Maximum Superb Imperial Global Just Call It The Fourth Division Already. By definition, it would be better for fans, and it would take the awful prospect of relegation out of the hands of indifferent, mercenary coaches and players. That’s assuming England doesn’t want to adopt my conference idea from a couple of years back – but I don’t think I included Crawley Town in that model. I don’t think I had heard of Crawley Town two years ago.
Teams like Juventus would LOVE adopting the sole criterion for Giants Cup qualification as the sole criterion for divisional alignment.
It takes more than a Nightcrawler reference to make you a BAMF, Dan. You need to be banging a hot stewardess who sews custom-designed dolls. She’ll make you a BAMF.
Alan Black’s piece seemed to be publicly advocating pro/rel in MLS, but its essence seemed more centered on letting Alan Black’s readers know that Alan Black understands what other people mean when they say “promotion” or “relegation.” If he straight up calls it “The Value of Promotion and Relegation Explained to American Soccer Fans Who Only Watch UCL and WC Matches” and says “pro/rel can make watching matches between crappy teams worth watching, the way Hunger Games can make watching tween girls fight each other exciting,” then it comes across as patronizing, which would be more sincere or honest or constructive or “better” than what he actually wrote, but also ickier drivel to have to read all the way through.
Another thing missing in this promotion/relegation discussion; particularly as it relates to the US market, is TV contracts. What kind of a TV deal would MLS get of there was a even slight chance NY, Philly, or Seattle gets relegated? How much lower would the NBA TV deal be if there was a chance the Knicks and Lakers would not be there? We could make a case that Seattle fans would still watch MLS even if regulated, but you would have a hard time convincing a TV executive of that as you sat across the table negotiating a deal. Just something else to consider.
Did you know there’s something called promotion and relegation? And then some teams qualify for something called a “Champions League.” It’s a shame you Americans don’t know what that is. And did you know England has a tournament in which amateur teams play against pro teams? Too bad Americans can’t come up with something like this.
I know it won’t work with MLS and basically with the entire U.S. sports mentality, and I’m not even going to argue the ridiculous motivation factor concept. But there are some positives to promotion/relegation.
It solves the problem of automatically leveling teams based on their support which prevents the painful relocation problem that we face in the U.S. (Yes, I know there have been some teams, like Wimbledon FC that moved, but that is a very uncommon situation). It also provides the ability for anybody in any city or town to create a team and have the team rise to any level they can sustain (like AFC Wimbledon). IMHO, promotion/relegation is the primary reason that soccer league pyramids exist in the first place and why there are stable teams at lower levels.
Lower tier leagues in the U.S. are always going to struggle because US fans will always look at it like a minor/developmental league. And many of these minor leagues and teams depend on support from their major league and team to survive. And maybe if we as a country had a different perspective on this those lower tier teams would get better support. But that is an entire cultural shift of a country and there’s no way soccer would be able to lead the way in that shift. Which, again, is why I say I know it won’t work here.
But think of all fans in smaller cities that aren’t quite big enough to support a top division team, but are too big for a minor league team. I’m sure fans of those teams would love to have their team play up with the top teams, even if it is only for a season or two before they go back down. Do you think Wolves fans would really prefer to have been in the Championship for the past few seasons rather than getting to play in the Premier League even though they’ll probably be relegated this year?
Do we get to hear Reading supporters whining (whinging?) next year because their ticket prices will increase with promotion to the Premiership? Last time they complained because the cheapest tickets were an “outrageous” $35 a game. Isn’t this to be expected upon promotion, and if it isn’t, why not?
Bravo on the headline Dan, but you left out the “naked and beastial” part! Promotion/Relegation is exciting and horrifying at the same time. For the promotion chasers, it can be a case of “be careful what you wish for”, since the upgrade in competition is usually tough for them to handle. For the relegated teams, it’s devastation deluxe, especially the ones that get knocked out of the upper echelons and back to relative obscurity. By the way, Crawley Town and Torquay United are locked in a death struggle to see which one gets automatic promotion to League 1 in England. One will go straight up, and the other will have to take their chances via playoffs. Crawley have never been this far up the English pyramid. Torquay were in League 1 once (about 6 years ago). They got relegated to League 2 on the last day of the season, then got pushed down to the Conference the following year, where they spent two years trying to get out and back into the Football League.
Better motivation would be giving draft picks or allocation to people other than the bottom teams. Stop rewarding teams for finishing last.
Not only that, but Alan Black got a basic fact of MLS structure completely wrong. MLS is not a franchise system, its a single corporation where the owners are shareholders. In the European sense there is no pyramid in the U.S. NASL isn’t a lower league. They are a competitor. Just because they suck at competing doesn’t mean they aren’t a business rival of MLS. Relegation would be like Coke giving their secret formula to Pepsi.
@whitecloud Doesn’t the USSF sanction MLS as tier 1, NASL as tier 2, etc.? It’s less a pyramid than a tower, I guess, but the hierarchy is still official.
Here’s the thing — every country that has instituted promotion and relegation has had something in common. They’ve had enough teams interested in competing at the first division to make it feasible.
@ji_shuheng. Its a non-binding thing. USSF doesn’t actually have the regulatory authority to govern commerce in the U.S. And if they want to try it I’m sure there is a court somewhere that would have a good laugh at them. Professional soccer is a money loser. Economics is the driving factor in there not being more top leagues, but the gap was once closer between USL and MLS where they were true competitors. That situation could occur again, but not with the current ownership of NASL and USL. But, there actually is nothing preventing a new league from starting up and competing directly with MLS, it just isn’t economically likely.
@whitecloud — I think that’s what ChampionsWorld v MLS will decide.
Beyond that, though — sure, you could start a soccer league that isn’t sanctioned by USSF. Just hope none of the players have any interest in playing for national teams.
It wouldn’t need to be unsanctioned by USSF. MLS doesn’t have exclusivity on being the only tier 1 league, they just are the only one that there is.
One of my few disagreements with Dan is that he cites as a reason against Pro/Rel that the owners would hate it. That’s a perfectly good reason why it will never happen, but it’s also a reason why I’m in favor of it. If you were to ask me which model “cartel” or “open league” is better for owners, and which model is better for soccer fans and players; it’s a different answer for each.
“It wouldn’t need to be unsanctioned by USSF. MLS doesn’t have exclusivity on being the only tier 1 league, they just are the only one that there is.”
Of course it wouldn’t need to, but it would be. At least if it tried to use any existing assets extorted from the public treasury for the multimillionaires and billionaires who own MLS teams. Any league that tried to legitimately compete with MLS would get the Dema Kovalenko treatment from the USSF.
TCCMTLA
Dan, why have you somehow magically denied us to respond to particular posts? Perhaps you have a big chub for ampersands.
Jerk away:
@whitecloud. Beau is correct, and, unless very, very, very rich people, and the opportunistic people who know how to play them, have suddenly lost all the advantages they enjoy over enterprising, creative people who do not play by the “rules” (Whatever makes Sepp and Phil happy), USSF is the only game in town. And it is now a wholly owned subsidiary of MLS. Trust me, Sunil Gulati is not beholden to the fees paid by local rec teams to AYSO. He is fried by bigger fish.
Having made that obvious observation, the fact that rich people like something does not make it bad. Very, very, very rich people tend to employ very, very, very competent people like Don Garber.
voros, this argument is proposed all the time, but I disagree. A closed league like MLS can get the [u]median[/u] salary of its players higher than that in a pro/rel league – simply by dictating it across the league. And which fans suffer? Do soccer fans in Wilmington, DE or Camden, NJ, suffer because there is no way for a hypothetical Wilmington or Camden team to get promoted to MLS? That’s absurd.
I’m always interested in the conversation that begins “Promotion and relegation is better for fans and players” to be explored and explained, rather than just nodded at as it goes past.
When is it “better” for fans? For the 90 minutes on the last day of the season when it’s high drama to see whether or not you survive relegation? Surely, that’s dramatic, but if you don’t get 90 minutes of drama out of a soccer match [i]most[/i] of the time you go to the stadium, [i]why are you following soccer?[/i] Is it “better” for the 12 months [i]after[/i] you get relegated, especially when you know you might never get back? Is that “better?” Does that make up for the 90 minutes of Great Escape drama? I’m asking because I honestly don’t know. I can’t see it.
Is promotion exciting? I’m certain it is, we see examples of it every year in other leagues (and by “other leagues,” of course, I mean “England). But then what? If the Minnesota Stars had won promotion to MLS, without an owner, with a substandard stadium and with a small fan base, do you think they’re going to be able to ramp up to MLS level in four months? [i]Montreal had two years from the time they were announced as an MLS team until they played their first game, and couldn’t put together a competitive side[/i]. And that’s in a league built and managed specifically to create parity.
Do we think it would have been “better” for Vancouver’s fans if they’d spent the one terrible year in MLS and gone right back down to whatever the second division was? How’s that investment looking now, Mr. Kerfoot? Enjoy St. Petersburg, it’s lovely.
To which proles and San Francisco newspaper writers will usually say, “Well, Vancouver would just play harder and be smarter and do things better.” Why are they not playing hard being smart and doing things as well as they can be done [i]now[/i]? Does Vancouver strike you as a New England or Chivas situation?
You can say “Fight harder,” but success is still not guaranteed, because it’s largely a zero-sum game: only half the teams (and players) in a given league can possibly do well [i]at the expense of the other half[/i]. Somebody’s going down (in this scenario), no matter how hard they play.
And if you believe that the 18 or so adult men you’ve never met but who have your city’s name on their crest and some pithy slogan on their collars don’t play hard [i]most[/i] of the time anyway, again, [i]why do you follow soccer?[/i]
Is it in the players’ best interests to usurp their lives because their team got relegated? So how is this system “better” for them?
It’s great if you get promoted, sure. Not that there’s any guarantee that a second division player will stick around when a team goes up (see, oh, most of the teams that have done so in recent years).
But, see, the conversation never gets to that point. Because what most of the people who advocate for this system (which will never be passed by a majority of the very rich men who own these teams) are [i]really[/i] saying is, “It’s in your best interests, American Soccer Fan, if your domestic soccer setup looks as much like England’s as possible. Just trust me on this.”
Well, I don’t trust them on this. Because I’m not seeing how you can advocate the Minnesota Stars being in MLS at the expense of the Vancouver Whitecaps is “better” in the long term for anybody except those who are intent on not having English people deride them for not living in a “real” soccer country.
In a related story, an edit button would be nice. If my post could get relegated, I’d have worked harder on it. Apologies.
And frankly, in a city with the density of teams as England has, the casual fan will just follow whichever local team happens to be up while hoping the other team gets promoted. It’s us weirdos who are massively tied to just one team. The fact is, most people who go to games go to enjoy the particular game they’re at. When I’m at games outside the U.S. I find that I am more likely to know where in the standings the home team is than the fans I talk to. That’s universal. Pro/Rel really doesn’t factor into it. They don’t need it to enjoy going to games. If going to games gets to be too much of a drag, they’ll just go to a movie, instead.
The only fans that pro/rel is potentially better for is the rabid hardcore group – and you can tell by declining attendance of most teams that get relegated many of those are just as fair weather as the casual fans.
Pro/rel seems more egalitarian. Of course, having salary caps plays that role, too, and a pro/rel system and salary caps are probably incommensurable. Maybe if you’re a NY or LA or Seattle fan you’d rather have pro/rel without salary caps than salary caps without pro/rel, maybe that would make MLS teams stronger in the CCL, maybe… no, I’m out of devil’s advocacy ammo here.
The one place I can think of where pro/rel might work is NCAA sports, were you to abolish the conference system. Not because I think that would be a good idea, but because it would more closely mirror the transition of regional competitions to national leagues. You know, by historically successful proponents of single table. Like Benito Mussolini.
@kenntomasch
I think the point is more that teams in the 2nd tier would be of a higher quality if there were promotion/relegation, not that Minnesota Stars should have been promoted. You can’t really believe the disparity between the top Championship teams and the bottom Premier League teams is as big as between the top NASL teams and the bottom MLS teams.
@holden — But the thing is that the vast majority of teams in the lower divisions either (A) don’t have the money to move up or (B) aren’t interested. The exceptions have all been “economically promoted.”
Consider South Korea. They tried promotion/relegation, only to have division champions decline promotion. (They’re trying again.)
So that’s why I’ll say again — let’s wait until we have enough clubs that can do it and want to do it. Then we’ll talk.
We think of the top division as a promised land that would make all these clubs soar. But the fact is that a lot of clubs are perfectly content to build where they are now. Take a look at what the Richmond Kickers are doing these days for a prime example.
@Beau Dure
Oh, I’ve already said I don’t think pro/rel will work in the U.S. I’m just pointing out that people who are for it are not envisioning the current NASL teams as the 2nd tier in this mythical system.
Ah — fair enough.
So, because it’s my blog, it’s somehow my fault that no one’s tags work and no one has an edit button?
Mateofelipe – I changed the comment order to chronological because it encourages people to read every comment, to avoid repetition. A quote function would be nice, but what am I supposed to do – actually check the control panel and see if I can make changes?
[b] and [i] work, but you need to use great than and less than symbols, like it’s html, not brackets, like for the forum. [u] didn’t work when i checked just now.
I really like the idea of pro/rel! I mean, fundamentally, I find the whole concept undeniably appealing.
Ok, I’ll admit it. I didn’t read the article. But I’m going on record saying it was extremely insightful and informative. Also, blindingly sarcastic, and 100% right 80% of the time.
But it doesn’t matter. Resistance is Futile.
Fortunately, there’s a decent chance you’ll die before you get Assimilated. There’s no point in talking about pro/rel until MLS has had 32 teams in four divisions for at least a decade, and there are a dozen other USL1 markets clamoring for entry. At that point, all the assumptions usually brought up in the pro/rel discussions will be completely different, and it’ll probably make sense.
Until then, cheese blintz, anyone?
I checked as far as my limited attention span and negligible skills will let me, and JSH ended up being more helpful than me. But yes, all the things you can do in the forum, you can’t do here. I find it tempting to blame WordPress, and so I will. But I’ll email someone about getting single-button quote and BigSoccer HTML onto this.
Because on my blog, the customer comes first, and the blogger comes second. Or not at all. “You Only Live Twice” may be the dumbest movie I’ve ever seen, and I saw most of “Big Money Rustlas.”
Anyway – Gumby, you’re right. It’s an appealing idea, which is why in a lot of ways England was fortunate to have stumbled on the system. But you need very, very strong second division markets – and that’s why comparing anyone to England is unfair, because England has by leaps and bounds the best and strongest lower division teams in the world. If MLS ever got that many markets, it wouldn’t make sense to relegate any of them, because of the playoff model.
You did remind me of a cliche I used to use instead of arguing this topic – we might as well argue about changing the national anthem to “Daddy Wants a Cold Beer” by the A-Bones. Maybe it’s a great idea, or maybe it’s not such a great idea, but it’s never going to happen either way.
I think pro/rel should be implemented in MLS before college sports, though. Everything about college sports revolves around local rivalries…with the POSSIBLE exception of USC-Notre Dame. The BCS system is a blue giant of a hot mess, and the moves to superconferences show that traditional rivalries take a back seat to cash – but you would never, ever get Ohio State to take Michigan off the schedule and replace them with Oregon. (Besides, the player – sorry, “student-athlete” turnover would put programs even more at the mercy of recruiting than they are now.)
I long ago discovered that it’s useless to to discuss topics such as the National Health Service, gun control or promotion/relegation with the average American. To the average European, these things are so obvious that even debating them is like debating whether oxygen in the atmosphere is a good thing.
There are a couple of sports in the USA in which Pro/Rel would work wonderfully. Baseball and College Football. In both of these sports, there are hundreds of teams throughout the country at various levels, teams of all levels have thousands and thousands of fans at every game, fandom is handed down from parent to child, and the sports have 140+ years of history on which to draw for support for the team that goes down.
It would kill D1 soccer in the USA.
“these things are so obvious that even debating them is like debating whether oxygen in the atmosphere is a good thing.”
Which means you haven’t thought it through. It’s just another system, and if nations outside of England got rid of it tomorrow, you’d be surprised how little changes. England would need to adopt an American-style regional conference system in order to be fair to the number of strong teams outside the top. But even then, if the top 20 most popular teams were locked into a Premiership now and forever, the quickness of the adjustment would startle you.
On the other hand, promotion and relegation would kill MLS one market at a time. Oxygen in the atmosphere is indeed a good thing, but it’s far from the only thing in the atmosphere.
90% of the arguments for promotion and relegation are bogus, and the one that it would somehow ‘motivate’ coaches in a way that termination wouldn’t is one of the thinner ones I’ve seen in that thin field.
That said, I do remember a back and forth with you about who was better off between the then-relegated Newcastle and the perpetual-loser the Washington Wizards. Needless to point out now that a couple years time here has helped my case out immensely. Not only is Newcastle better off than the Wizards, they’re better off than had they narrowly staved off relegation.
Dan, you’re confusing two issues. 1) Is pro/rel in MLS *feasible* right now? (we both agree “no”), and 2) Is it an inherently better system? (where we disagree).
Saying it’s just another system is like saying democracy and despotism are two political systems. Sure, you can make arguments as to why despotism is better, but you’d be wrong. If you honestly think English fans would quickly learn to accept a league without pro/rel, then I think you have grossly underestimated us. It’s as fundamental to our league structure as the conference system is to yours; there’s as much chance of the NFL introducing it as there is of the Premier League going the other way.
In any context, a cartel is great for those members of the cartel, and crappy for everyone else. In the context of MLS, it’s what allows the league to extort a huge amount of money out of anyone else who wants to join. There’s no particular reason why a team should have to pay to join, other than the cartel system allows it. And this, more than anything else, is why it won’t happen.
Here’s a couple of question I’m interested in hearing your answers to: One reason why pro/rel is a moot point in MLS is that MLS isn’t “full” yet. How would you feel if one of the criteria for expansion was success in the current designated 2nd division (ie, currently NASL)? Would you feel any different about pro/rel, if the NASL was a strong and stable league?
(BTW, opponents of pro/rel should avoid straw man arguments, like what happens if an unprepared club should find themselves promoted. If a club doesn’t feel able to make the step up, they don’t. If a club isn’t able to meet the financial/infrastructure requirements of the higher league, they don’t get promoted. It doesn’t call into question the whole system if this happens.)
“….what happens if an unprepared club should find themselves promoted. If a club doesn’t feel able to make the step up, they don’t. If a club isn’t able to meet the financial/infrastructure requirements of the higher league, they don’t get promoted. It doesn’t call into question the whole system if this happens.”
So why relegate a team that is able to fulfill or exceed those requirements?
Because the players and coaches screwed up? They’re all gone, man. Only the fans remain to suffer the punishment.
EDIT – Stan, lemme try to recall some of the details of that Newcastle v. Washington Wizards argument. My gut reaction is that I probably should have pointed out that the two teams are not analogous – Newcastle is a nationwide institution with a fanbase and a tradition stretching back a century, the Wizards aren’t. Newcastle would have been better off not relegated; the Wizards (deprived of NBA revenue sharing) might not survive it, is the argument I hope I made.
I would think that keeping their jobs is strong enough motivation for any player or coach. Relegation might put an exclamation point of horror on an otherwise soul-crushing season, but coaches and players on a team that finishes in the cellar of an American sports league are just as likely to find themselves in the unemployment line as their English counterparts.
The quaint notion that Eleven Guys From a Pub FC can rise up from the East Anglia Depressed Coal Mining Town League into the EPL is romantic, certainly. Realistically, though, borderline teams ping-pong between dominating a lower league and serving as the whipping boys for the teams in the higher-level league. As a fan, this doesn’t strike me as a particularly attractive feature of a sport.
In any event, pro/rel exists to deal with a problem that does not exist in the US: more teams than there are spots in the top division. If there are enough markets to support such teams, MLS can continue to grow to any number of teams. The artificial cutoff of 20 teams doesn’t really make sense in the context of a country the size of the US.
“EDIT – Stan, lemme try to recall some of the details of that Newcastle v. Washington Wizards argument. My gut reaction is that I probably should have pointed out that the two teams are not analogous – Newcastle is a nationwide institution with a fanbase and a tradition stretching back a century, the Wizards aren’t.”
I don’t think we got that far. This was when Newcastle was in the second division, and the Wizards were about to pick first in the draft (full disclosure: I caveated at the time, ‘if it weren’t for the lottery’, thinking Wall would make a real difference).
So, to the point: how much tradition is enough to make that work? The Knicks have a long tradition, would they be cool relegated?
“Newcastle would have been better off not relegated;”
In human affairs, we never get ‘real experiments’, the other choices are just counterfactuals. Still, we occasionally get rubber-meets-road moments like this one, where a theory predicts results that didn’t happen.
How, exactly, would Newcastle be better off if they’d finished 16th that year? They never fell out of the Top 20 clubs worldwide in terms of franchise valuation, and if the Premier League season ended today, they’d be in line for a Champions League spot. What outcome better than this is at all plausible?
Answer: there isn’t one. Newcastle, if they’d just barely staved off relegation, would likely not have cast off as much dead contract weight as they did, or rebuilt as much as they were able to, playing with the safety of the Championship.
Yes that’s right, I said safety. Newcastle knew it could shed salary short term and acquire prospects that might take a while to pan out (or might not have) and still contend for promotion, because it’s the Championship.
“the Wizards (deprived of NBA revenue sharing) might not survive it, is the argument I hope I made.”
You’ve forgotten half the equation, the expenditure part. And the Wizards’ dominant expense is. . . players.
Here’s how the revenue/expenditure thing really works in major professional sports (and this holds in both CBA-negotiated leagues and free markets): when revenue goes up, the players get the vast majority of that money, and when it goes down, they take the hit.
Why? In the CBA-negotiated league it’s because the players tend to have more name value than ownership, and they’re able to negotiate the vast majority of all league revenues that are not overhead for themselves.
In the typical European player market, it’s because only a small percentage of pro players are ‘scarce resources’. Once you’ve dropped down the ladder even a little bit in terms of what part of the player market you’re in, the supply of labor increases dramatically. You don’t have to go down very far at all to hit the point where supply (players who’d like to be pros at that level) is far greater than demand (the income of the clubs chasing them).
If you’re a club like Newcastle with sound fundamentals (you have to have some group of core fans who are fairly committed, but they don’t have to be the majority of folks who come out, and for any club they almost never are; and you have to be one that wasn’t knee-deep in debt when you were relegated in the first place), relegation is a cushion.
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I don’t happen to think the US Soccer market is ‘ready’, but I do think Beau has the ‘readiness point’ wrong. “When there’s a bunch of teams in the second division that are MLS-ready” is set up as a Catch-22, since the second division is not promotable (and all the more so since the handful of clubs that have met that distinction in the past are gone–the NASL is stuck with all the bad and none of the good of pro/rel).
The readiness point is more like the point where MLS is paying its players enough that they are the dominant expense of the league. They’re not at that point yet, partially because the league isn’t mature enough, and partially because they’ve had an advantage over the players in CBA negotiations so far. (That being that the league is still essentially ‘bigger’ than its players. Based on US sports history, that can’t continue forever if MLS wants to keep growing.)
“In any event, pro/rel exists to deal with a problem that does not exist in the US: more teams than there are spots in the top division.”
That’s more or less a fiction. For any remotely successful league (and MLS is that), there are always more teams that would like to be in than there are teams that are in. The US mediates this with franchise fees, Europe with promotion and relegation–but there’s nothing saying that the difference could not be split.
Well, sure, there are probably more teams that would love to be in MLS. But there are no teams outside of MLS that are MLS-level in terms of things like fan base, financial means and stadium size.
What soccer teams in the US or Canada are being unfairly excluded from MLS?
The ‘teams’ that are excluded from MLS don’t have a name–because they were never awarded a franchise.
I make no claim about the ‘fairness’ of that, I consider that line of argument to be bunkum. But when you subtract claims of fairness and their rebuttals, you’re left with a non-normative fact that both systems reduce the field from those who would like to give MLS a go down to some arbitrary number. The difference between the two being that promotion and relegation leaves something meaningful left over for the teams outside top flight, and the ‘closed system’ aims not to.
Don’t we have pro/rel already? By the middle of October, if you’re good enough, you get “promoted” to get a chance to compete for MLS Cup. If you’re not good enough, you get “relegated” to wait for next year.
And best part is, as @Beau wrote in his brilliant book I continue to mean to get around to reading all the way through, we no longer have to worry about any of our “relegated” teams going out of business.
And of course, we also know that none of the “promoted” teams will go out of business because what do we think this is anyway, the Women’s League?
“Don’t we have pro/rel already?”
Er, no.
Ooh, the Knicks. Now we’re getting meaty. Yes, they would survive relegation. But yes, their fans would be punished for at least a year with – well, depending on what kind of semipro league becomes Division 2, either home games against Bakersfield or the University of Kentucky.
To phrase the premise is to state the danger – the Dolans are perfectly capable of screwing up near-guarateed promotion back to the NBA. The Knicks are too big to fail entirely – we think – but it does neither league nor fans any good to have the Knicks out of the top flight for any length of time.
As to the whether Newcastle was “better off” being relegated – well, if a year of safety is a good thing, why don’t Liverpool or Aston Villa just take the rest of the year off, rest up in the Championship, and come roaring back the year after to Champions League glory?
EDIT – I have an edit button, and I’m gonna use it – it’s a little silly to say MLS teams exist in potentia, because without dedicated owners, those teams do not exist. It’s one thing to say “Of course Salt Lake City is a viable potential market, and all MLS has to do is award the franchise,” but that’s not the way it works. It took the vision and leadership of Dave Checketts to make that happen.
Could St. Louis support an MLS team? Unquestionably. Would giving it to Jeff Cooper have been a good idea? Signs point to no.
The fact that I’m adding this to a post about Knicks futility is high comedy, by the way, and I expect to be thanked for it.
That said, Stan, the franchise fees are a way of ensuring that the new clubs don’t just coast on the massive amounts of capital the old guard put up to get this thing going.
I tend to think they’re on the high side, at least if we’re to believe what we hear about the 20th club sweepstakes. But if they can get it, well, then Anschutz and company will have truly recouped their investments.
But as far as the NASL argument goes, others have said it better — when we have a demonstrable clamor for more than 20, or perhaps more than 24, first-division clubs, then it’s worth a look.
And to those who say “Oh, there’s no way a closed system would open up like that,” feel free to look at the first few years of England’s league system. In fact, according to at least one reading of the history, they didn’t have pro-rel until the Football League overtook a rival organization.
The bottom line — and this is where I hope salmacis is reading — is that whatever’s most feasible is best. Is a pro/rel system best in England? I’d say so, though I hope they’re able to work out financial details so we don’t see repeats of the Leeds United bust. Does a pro/rel system work in my 30-and-over coed indoor soccer league, where we all play in the same location with the same expenses? Sure, though we might get our butts kicked this season now that we’ve been promoted. Does it work in tons of youth leagues? Absolutely.
We’ve seen economic promotion (Seattle, Vancouver, Portland, Montreal), and it works pretty well. Then again, Salt Lake turned out pretty well building from scratch. I would’ve liked to have seen economic relegation for Tampa Bay and Miami, and I’d prefer it for any team that might run into trouble in the future.
One day, perhaps MLS will be at a tipping point at which so much money will be flowing through that it can attract more cities AND provide parachute payments to relegated teams (which we already see elsewhere in the world).
Or, you know, we could have some people take over U.S. Soccer and impose pro/rel in its league standards, thereby inducing MLS to collapse and be replaced by an unfunded pipe dream in which we’ll end up with semipro teams drawing about 2,000 people.
@Beau Wasn’t that 20th team price tag being bandied about specifically for NY2? With the implicationed that if #20 was Orlando or Phoenix or.. or… or… that it wouldn’t be quite as high?
I think there is indeed an extremely high figure for NY2, and that deal could be more complex because the league is investing its own effort in stadium development and so forth. So yes, I think Orlando wouldn’t need to pay quite that much.
That said, I think it was still pretty high. At some point, you’d have to think a prospective owner would look at the expansion fee and think, “Hmmm, I wonder if the Hunt group is ready to let go of Columbus.”
“it’s a little silly to say MLS teams exist in potentia, because without dedicated owners, those teams do not exist.”
Exactly. There has never been a case in MLS history where the league excluded an actual, honest-to-goodness team from the league. There have been a number of pie-in-the-sky and speculative organizations out there that tried to worm their way into the league, but MLS was smart not to do business with them. The fact of the matter is that if a well-funded team in a viable market with a quality stadium (or viable stadium plan) shows up with an expansion fee check, they will be in the league a few years later.
For people who claim that the lack of pro/rel is excluding teams from MLS, my question is: what teams are you talking about?
I think the biggest plus for PRO/REL(P&L) is fan retention and engagement. It’s too easy to dismiss the power of a dollar and a dream. Green Bay of all places is a football mecca. How many great, unique chances are being missed because MLS only goes after the largest markets. How much better could the product on the field be if it were more of a meritocracy. Surely money will win more often then not, but why give a place like Atlanta a place only because they can pay the entrance fee. I’m sure altanta will do fine but why be content with average when there may be something special that cannot be seen. I remember a time when Rochester was out drawing MLS teams. Now that they are D3 no one gives a hoot in Rochester. It’s obvious to the fans they will never make it into MLS. The potential was there for another Green Bay though. Opportunity lost….
It is absolutely true that the expansion fee has been great for the league, and that it has kept out only more speculative ventures that the league doesn’t really want around. If MLS had been run like the NASL (original) was, there’d be a team in Rochester, and its odds would be bad. We should be grateful there isn’t one.
But when expansion fees start to rise dramatically, as they have, that’s demand. It’s certainly not supply, as all of the big 4 have many more teams than we do. If MLS teams haven’t existed in potentia as of yet, they certainly will.
“As to the whether Newcastle was “better off” being relegated – well, if a year of safety is a good thing, why don’t Liverpool or Aston Villa just take the rest of the year off, rest up in the Championship, and come roaring back the year after to Champions League glory?”
Of course I’m cherry-picking. Newcastle is the only team that’s actually better off being relegated, and that’s only in hindsight. With hindsight genius we see that when presented with having to rebuild, they rebuilt really well.
90% of teams wouldn’t reproduce that, it’s just that, with the ability to cut dead weight, to still win most of your games with a vastly smaller payroll, and to in all likelihood be back in short order with a team that’s younger and better value for dollar, the revenue hit you’d take makes way less long-term impact than you’d think (and the long-term impact of being the Washington Wizards and teaching your fans to expect that you’ll lose most of your games every year is worse than you’d think).
Another reason why they wouldn’t do that is pure ego. Another is the embarrassment if anyone caught you tanking in that way, or even if it was widely suspected.
“One day, perhaps MLS will be at a tipping point at which so much money will be flowing through that it can attract more cities AND provide parachute payments to relegated teams (which we already see elsewhere in the world).”
I’m only debating you as to the best way to measure that day. The best way, it seems to me, is when the player salaries are high enough (including for those teams at the lower end of the salary table) that relegation pretty much automatically means major cost savings to go along with the revenue hit. At current MLS base salaries, that’s not the case.
I don’t have an edit button, but I should add: at 5% basic wage growth per year, it would be a long damn time before it was the case, but I foresee a day coming when that growth rate won’t be tenable, either because MLS will actually want to compete internationally, or because the players will win a CBA negotiation.
@Beau Didn’t HSG announce years ago (like, shortly after OnGoal bought the Wizards) that they wanted to sell the Crew, so long as the buyer was right and would keep the team in Columbus?
Yea, instead of having skin in the game and engagement, rochester fans watch more euro ball. Thus making it harder to win them over in the long run. You can almost follow any euro team you want on TV these days. The absence of P&L just prolongs the MLS ascent because its a catch-22 between quality and interest.
And it’s this big assumption that its only a matter of time before we are at the same level as euro. That may never happen.
I like the New York City Soccer League. Its a brand new league for Youth soccer in New York city, looking to bring together many under-served youth clubs in New York city. they are an independent league without of all the bureaucratic fees. My club along with a few others helped start it. I hope we can bring our soccer neighbors in other states to unite and develop a brand new association of soccer, which will have its own national cup. Feel free to message me.
@Stan- as a diehard Toon Army member, you’re entirely wrong. What happened with the Magpies was going to happen whether or not they got relegated, pretty much because Ashley finally realized if he didn’t start running the club right, he would have been lynched and his body dumped in downtown Sunderland. He had been playing with fire the past few years by raking in big payouts from transfer fees, then not spending that money, so once he saw the fanbase reaction when they were near the relegation zone was enough to put the fear into him that he had to drastically change his way. If anything, relegation actually delayed that by a year, because the parachute payments are pretty much offset by the TV revenues lost by playing in the Championship, and being in the Championship meant that there’s less of a pool they could have picked from compared to being in the PL (Sol Campbell and his walker, anyone?). There were huge changes coming whether or not Newcastle was relegated, so as someone with a bit more insight, I really can’t buy your argument.
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