Fix MLS......Fix the sport

It is also because this is the reality of club culture at a lot of small professional clubs around the world.

 

Richmond was around for 20 years before affiliating with DCU in 2013 meaning they are actually 3 years older than the MLS club and it didn't help or hurt the culture.

 

Except Europeans don’t have monopolies like the 4 big sports which why the monopoly model will ultimately fail in MLS

 

Global competition is indeed a reality for soccer that most other American pro leagues don't face. However, competition for talent doesn't mean the structure is wrong. If anything, it makes it even more important to have stability because you can't compete for talent without major investment and you can't get major investment without stability. Imagine the impact of losing a key brand to relegation (LA Galaxy would have been relegated last year if we had that system). Imagine how reluctant investors would be to build new stadiums, training facilities, offer lucrative, multi-year contracts to players and coaches, etc. if that investment could be at risk with just 1 bad year on the pitch. Imagine how much harder it would be to convince elite players to come to MLS if you couldn't offer multi-year guarantees. They'd only sign with the "big" clubs and everyone else would never be able to land a DP.

Meanwhile, Liga MX is seriously considering suspending pro/rel for at least 4 years whereas there have been articles circulating on the lack of parity in European leagues. See links.

http://www.espn.com/soccer/liga-ban...ding-promotion-relegation-for-with-asensio-mx

You'll need Google translate for this one but it basically says European Soccer has a major problem. You know who will win most leagues before the season even starts whereas in America it's always unpredictable and entertaining.
https://www.tportal.hr/sport/clanak...ato-amerikanci-vole-doigravanje-foto-20180205

 

If relegation was a threat there is no way the LA Galaxy is getting relegated. In US sports when the time comes during the season where you are no longer in contention for a playoff spot you start looking forward to next year. You spend the rest of the year rebuilding. If relegation is a factor the only game that matters is the next game not next season because you might not be playing top flight next season if you overlook next week. It's impossible to say "well if we had relegation then the Galaxy and DC would be out of the league next year" because you don't know that, you play the game that is there for you. I see a similar argument from old school NASCAR fans, "well Jimmy Johnson wouldn't have 7 titles if we had the old points system." You don't know that because they tailor their gameplan to the system they have now.

 

If relegation was a threat there is no way MLS owners would agree to a parity system. No one will put their investment on even footing with others when failure means relegation. This is why Euro leagues have such a massive gap between the top and bottom of the league, while MLS is a much more tightly packed group.
There are positives to the survival of the fittest model, esp for fans of the mega cllubs. LAG would probably be one of those clubs if MLS had relegation.
There are negatives, as well, such as the near certainty that MLS would have folded a decade ago, and the US still wouldn't have a thriving top league.

 

Oh I absolutely agree. While I would like to see pro/rel eventually there is no way we could support it right now or anytime in the near future. Just pointing out the different factors that come into play outside of wins and losses.

 

I wasn't trying to imply you did disagree, was merely adding to your point. I do think this is a side of the discussion that is too often overlooked by those wanting promotion and relegation right now. There is no way owners in any league will ever agree to parity and relegation. It is either or.

 

Nope. Only 10 of them are reserve teams. And Cincinnati averaged 21,199 last season, Sacramento sold out every match and 7 other teams averaged between 5,000 and 9,000.

SPR's average was less than 5 reserve teams. A Rapids' fan can probably explain why.

The Football League was as a 92 club monopoly for 99 years, only promoting and relegating clubs to/from the league from outside the League based on finances, infrastructure and favoritism etc.

The Football League was as a 92 club monopoly for 99 years, only promoting and relegating clubs to/from the league from outside the League based on finances, infrastructure and favoritism etc.

Top European clubs want to make the Champions League a closed shop
Admittedly the source isn't that reliable.

 

Wasn't me that repeated that last paragraph, twas my stupid phone.

 

You're right, facts matter. Facts like "Reserve team" and "directly affiliated" aren't the same thing, and affiliated teams don't exist just because of the affiliation,.

 

Affiliated teams are independent organizations. Basically it's just an agreement to loan players, usually up to 4 or 5 from the reserve roster. Charleston used 4 Atlanta players last season, I don't think San Antonio and NYCFC had any intention of working together.

 

They are independently run clubs affiliated with MLS teams. They are NOT owned but MLS clubs and NOT reserve teams.

 

Independent affiliation is not some sort of oxymoron. Affiliations are often voluntary agreements that exist for limited purposes. The two (or more) organizations in an affiliation can be completely independent. The Houston Dynamo had affiliations with the Pittsburgh Riverhounds and then the Charleston Battery. Houston loaned three players to Pittsburgh. Sometimes they played, sometimes they didn't .

The next year the Dynamo switched to Charleston. That year Houston loaned them one player for the entire season. He started a few games and came off the bench quite a bit but there were games were he wasn't even on the game-day roster. The Dynamo also sent some guys down for a week or two at a time. They didn't always play.

How in the world would you consider Pittsburgh or Charleston in those years a reserve team?

In 2016 the Dynamo and local ownership started Rio Grande Valley FC. That team has coaches hired by the Dynamo and the Dynamo pick all the players including several on loan from Houston. That is a reserve team.

There are 10 or 12 of those kinds of teams in USL depending on how you exactly define reserve team. The other 20 or so USL teams may have affiliations or they may not but they are not reserve teams. The ones that have affiliations do not "exist because mls makes them exist."

 

I'll add that USL has teams joining this year from Indianapolis, Fresno, Las Vegas, and North Carolina. Next year Birmingham, Memphis, and maybe Austin will be joining. MLS has nothing to do with starting those teams. None of them will be reserve teams. Yes, they might agree to an affiliation deal but they will not "exist because mls makes them exist."

 

Yeah, there was a huge difference between OKC and Swope Park Rangers, both attached to SKC, but one played a couple SKC players on loan over the course of a season, while the other is fully stocked by SKC as a training ground for future sides. OKC had to thrive as a club on it's own, while SPR is succesful if it is doing a decent job with player devo.

 

While MLS isn't perfect, those who don't understand much about it are often the ones most convinced it's doing everything wrong. And when something is explained, they change their minds about what it is that bothers them.

 

This. So much this.

 

There almost seems to be an assumption among MLS detractors that without MLS we'd have a strong challenger to the Prem, or Bund, etc. The differences between the US professional game and top Euro leagues is put down to structural differences, timing of the leagues, promotion and relegation, single entity ownership, and a bias towards parity.
On the one hand, it's good news that such views exist, because they aren't based on decades of failure.
On the other hand, such views are wildling unrealistic. US pro soccer is significantly better today than it was in 1995, to the point that it is difficult to compare. But on a 10 point scale, with the top Euros being 10, it's hard to argue that MLS isn't now at least a 5, and maybe a 6. Back in the early 90s, it would have been tough to argue that US pro soccer deserved any rating at all.

 

I’ve never thought if there was pro/rel the US would suddenly be competitive with the Prem immediately or in the near future. My issue has been with USSF failing to take a long term view of putting in the infrastructure for pro/rel when it became a viable possibility and allowing SUM to essentially bully/extort MLS into the current set up.

The arguments that soccer wouldn’t exist but for MLS are nonsense. Prior attempts to form successful national soccer leagues failed for several reasons most of which were inherent to the time periods not simply because it was soccer.

The big 4 leagues stabilized. Back in the 70s and 80s all of the big 4 professional leagues were faced with major crises that threatened their viability/survivability

Since the new millennium and with enormous tv deals many niche sports have survived and have grown in popularity.

Had the MLS failed early on a new league would have spawned because of access to foreign sports markets, the advent of internet in its current form, and the development of the FIFA, PES, and FM video game series.

The problem for me is that the long term vision was wrong, which ultimately will have detrimental effects not only on MLS, but also US NT and youth development.

If people are ok with niche status with the quarterfinals as the ceiling in the World Cup then the MLS is fine.

If people want MLS to be a top league and the US to be a legitimate World Cup contender then the structure has to change.

 

I realize that nothing I say about pro/rel will change a person's mind if they are convinced it's the better structure for our pro leagues. But I think we often confuse pro league structural issues with youth development. They are two very different things. If we were developing more elite players at the youth level, the lack of pro/rel in MLS, USL, etc. would be completely irrelevant because our national team players would all be in the world's top leagues in Europe, just like the elite players from Brazil and Argentina.

And I think MLS shoulders far more blame than it deserves for USMNT failures. Brazil certainly doesn't have one of the world's best pro leagues, yet they've won more WC titles than anyone. In contrast, the EPL has more talent overall than any other league in the world right now. Yet its been 52 years since England won the WC.

I'd argue MLS is the best thing about US Soccer right now. It's creating more youth development and pro club opportunities for Americans than any other entity in our history and its success is helping expand interest in the sport. It's certainly better than any pro league we've ever had and it's light years better than our college system. Yet somehow, our greatest soccer asset is the focus of all the bashing.

 

Let's say that in a hypothetical situation MLS became the best league in the world. You would never be able to validate that because MLS teams don't play in the UEFA Champions League.