The united open pyramid was a great development which only took the FA 128 years to implement and another 13 to complete.
I thought that the oldest current soccer club in the US was Beadling Soccer Club of Bridgeville, Pa. founded in 1898. Bridgeville is near Pittsburgh. The only club that I am aware of that was founded in 1862 was the Oneida Football Club of Boston, which was disbanded just two years later, and which played a game (called the Boston Rules Game) that is thought to have been more similar to rugby than to association football.
I think the Milwaukee Wave are the current longest consecutive season professional soccer team, 1984.
No, it wasn't. It was both top down (The Football League) and bottom up, with the final link being created in the middle of the structure.And I'm not convinced it was the raising of standards that caused that final link to be created. Many clubs were deserving of Football League status before that point. And, just as importantly, the re-election system meant there was considerable dead wood in the Football League that was protected by that system.
They were always pretty much the best-supported non-league team. But I remember being surprised when they managed to get elected to the Football League. Not sure what Southport did to end up failing to be re-elected that year. And, whichever way you want to cut it, their rise to the Premier League was quite remarkable.
Again, comparing the natural evolution of the sport/leagues in Europe vs the USA is not an apples to apples comparison (as you say later). The USA/CAN are in a unique position. All those other nations saw Premier Leagues grow from the bottom up, as thousands of teams played soccer and the ones who became premier teams/business came together. The US was/is trying to jump start having premier teams when the thousands of teams in existence toiled away in relative financial obscurity. Forming MLS was to get a national league of soccer on TV and raise the popularity of the game. I think that turning expansion into a “Who’s getting promoted?” game show on cable TV would have been a better route than replicating what the other big four leagues did. The other big four leagues didn’t fight for popularity because they existed before huge TV contracts. This is my point, exactly: Other nations’ soccer premier leagues naturally evolved from a bottom up because football is their national game; It isn’t in the USA. The US had a 40-year World Cup drought which began when less than 1% of homes had TVs, and ended when most households had more TVs than people, and during that time MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL were all on TV while soccer hardly ever was. The better comparison would be “How would European nations grow an upstart BASEBALL league.” The reason I bring up nation size when talking about attendance is because you’re comparing teams in smaller countries with less distance between cities. Most major cities in these countries have multiple clubs within them. Naturally the bigger/better club is going to be one that draws more new fans; but when it comes to ONE-TEAM markets, the vast majority of people root for their hometown team. Comparing attendances of D2 teams in Italy and Spain, et al, ignores the obvious factors of multi-teams, and the known fact that generally, more population = more fans to draw from = higher attendance when you’re winning. (That’s not a straight linear correlation, but who’s the biggest and richest teams in the other Big Four sports? The Yankees, the Dodgers, the Lakers, the Toronto Maple Leafs in hockey, Boston in everything, the Bulls in basketball, etc). So comparing Empoli and Parma to what attendance might be for an MLS-2 side fighting for promotion ignores those factors. No market the size of Florence is getting TWO franchises in an MLS/MLS-2 system. The two team markets of MLS are New York and Los Angeles, which are 20x the size of Florence. No market the size of Parma is getting an MLS-2 franchise because they’re too small. There’s 27 untapped markets in the USA/Canada the size of Florence. They’d be the TOP soccer team in those markets. The top soccer team in Florence averaged 26,092 in attendance. Soccer’s their #1 sport and it’s not in the US, but you’re probably looking at a number between Empoli and ACF Fiorentina, not just Empoli.
I don’t think so either. But now that soccer is a “normal Big Five sport” in the US, MLS is growing. And the time to look to PRO/REL wasn’t for the “benefits” of PRO/REL as competitive system; but as a means of creating MLS fans in a lot more places than will be MLS fans when there’s no chance of having a local team in MLS. That’s not totally true. MLS takes in 100% of national revenues: National broadcast rights, league-wide sponsorships, online merchandise sales. MLS operators generate local revenue from tickets, local sponsors, local merchandise, local broadcast revenues, parking and stadium revenues… and hand over a PERCENTAGE to be divided among the investors. That percentage is in the 30 to 45 percent range. It’s not 100% into the league-wide funds to be distributed. And that is where MLS-2 could create more revenue. Obviously, making MLS-2 “equal partners” doesn’t fly; but if let’s say even if MLS is sending back all the MLS-2 local revenue percentages back to owners… … they’re still increasing the amount of online merchandise, national broadcast revenues, and national sponsors. One of the main drivers of league expansion in NFL, MLB, NBA and NHL has been “adding TV markets so the national TV deal gets bigger.” When you’re selling a MLS cable package that includes some MLS-2 games late in the season - the promotion playoffs; it increases your TV rights value. Selling a subscription service for streaming - like MLBTV, NHLTV, NBATV — would include 60 markets instead of 30.
I think that’s the fundamental disagreement, and only our Geek Out gene makes us discuss the details when this basic disagreement decides our views. The standard MLS line is “We’d consider PRO/REL when the second division raises their level to necessitate PRO/REL” But when Second Division clubs raise their level (like Orlando, Atlanta, Cincinnati, Nashville), MLS welcomes them to pay an massive expansion fee and join them in MLS (which weakens the Second Division). There’s zero incentive for MLS to ever stop accepting expansion fees, and have someone join their club via winning on the pitch rather than by cutting a check. There’s zero incentive for any MLS investor to put the asset — which either cost them a very large check; or has grown into a massive ROI — at risk of relegation. We’ve seen it countless times in the other sports — and also in college conferences: The Big Ten didn’t relegate Northwestern when they added Nebraska, they just added Nebraska, Maryland and Rutgers to make their TV rights more valuable. But THIS: You think the only way MLS PRO/REL happens would still be a closed system: MLS expansion hits 40 teams in 20+ years, the biggest/richest say “We’re forming our own league, and we’ll have PRO/REL with promotion bringing up the best of you have nots to take turns competing with our big, rich clubs.” The only real difference between THAT VIEW and my view is that you think it could happen organically, and I say ORCHESTRATE EXACTLY THAT, NOW. That way, they: - brand the have nots as MLS clubs for a few decades NOW instead of later - Control the have nots national broadcast/merchandise rights NOW instead of later - Get 30% of their local revenues NOW instead of later. - Make the have nots LIMITED partners instead of full partners NOW instead of making them Full Partners and effectively limiting their partnership from the top later. - Retain the brand equity of “Major League Soccer (MLS)” they’ve spent 20 years building instead of calling the new top level something else and leaving MLS to the lower division.
The headstart the big 4 have (and one should be aware they're only big in the USA) is that the cities deprived of a (top) team have no other option than watch the big 4 teams on tv. Soccer on the other hand isnot a USA only sport, so cities with soccerfans without mls can route for a mls team, but have also the choice of the (super)teams in the world via tv or on line. So the big 4 can screw the fans by creating a shortage that cannot be met by world wide available teams and cash in via tv and multimedia. (However I would suggest basketball fans in cities without a team to check out the Euro leagues top teams like Real Madrid etc. They could be pleasantly surprised).
I like Euroleague basketball. The NBA has been healthier since it started to play more like Europe. (And Europe is healthier since it got rid of the ridiculous trapezoidal free-throw lane.)
First of all, comparing the US to how leagues evolved in Europe is something the European contributors do every day, multiple times. And there's no reason it couldn't work. If NASL 2.0 had stuck to Commissioner David Downs' vision of being "the best second division possible" we could be part way down that road. Forming MLS was US Soccer's way of landing the World Cup, nothing more, nothing less. Actually competiting for popularity against upstart leagues to net big TV contracts is exactly what did happen in the case of NFL, NBA and NHL. I don't see the relevance. MLS is not going to introduce promotion and relegation because it would threaten it's business model The only way to compete. There's plenty of money to do it. Look at the potential investors who aren't going to get an expansion slot (exactly how AFL started), look at the money the likes of Silva and Commisso are willing to throw about, look at the 20 or so American owners or part owners of European clubs and there must be more Paul Allen's out there whose investment in MLS is a pittance compared to their overall wealth, I don't know. Maybe the first step would be to get kids playing it in school. Even in the 1980s there were hundreds of thousands of American kids playing soccer and every NCAA program had a soccer team, so it wasn't a totally foreign sport. Professional rugby league in England is an example of a sport that hasn't expanded beyond a small swathe of the country because it's not played in 95% of schools. A couple of decades ago English cricket introduced a 3 hour game which would blow a budding baseball league away. Imagine a game of baseball where both teams scored 150 runs and you get an idea. I don't think the Canada Soccer Association will allow any US leagues to plant any more igloos in their domain once their Premier League kicks off in 2019. Which are the American cities without Major League franchises (and where is the money going to come from)?
Where on earth did I say it was the only way? I mentioned it as a possibility. That is exactly what the Premier League did. And it had to be talked down from becoming a closed league by the Football Association. But you assume a "major" league wants to dilute it's brand by including "minor" league teams. MLB doesn't, even though it owns them. And again using the example of the Premier League (sorry), a number of Championship clubs proposed a (closed) PL 2 but were turned down. The UCL is protecting it's brand by squeezing out teams from smaller leagues. Gone are the days when Malmo or Belgrade could regularly compete on the big names in Europe.
I understand your point. Calling USL MLS 2 may make fans feel more connected to the league as a whole. But we don't know that. Sorry, I should have clarified that I meant league revenue, not including team revenue.
On the subject of Wigan I managed to dig out this little gem featuring Sunderland fans at Wigan' s old ground.
But they wouldn't be eligible for tournaments, e.g. CCL or Canadian Championship. Actually, I'm not sure you'd even be able to field a team if the federation didn't sanction it?
The US burning and looting Canada, while expecting the locals to support them and getting their asses kicked. Where else have we heard that? Sorry, don't mean to take this thread off-topic.
Summary of my position of why pro/rel can be introduced in MLS: D2 teams bring themselves up to a standard where it makes economic sense to integrate; An alternative D1 league threatens MLS commercially; The top clubs threaten to form some sort of premier or super league and are persuaded that pro/rel between MLS 1 and MLS 2 makes sense; Outside forces, such as media companies, make an huge unconditional offer dependent on pro/rel being introduced; MLS starts losing a shed load of money and need a new gimmick. More likely: a pyramid system will be introduced outside of MLS.
This isn't true. Ice Hockey, Baseball and Basketball certainly have strong followings in other countries and I believe American Football enjoys a moderate following in Germany. Many nations where the domestic open-system football league is not considered "high quality", see heavy support for teams in England, Spain, Italy and Germany. If US teams were of the standard of Barcelona or Man Ci... Man Ci... Mmmaan Ciiit... Bayern Munich, I suspect that many of the individuals that slam MLS, its mechanisms, approaches and league format, would be happily watching and not giving Chattanooga FC's "civil rights" a second thought. Did you know that 11 of the 16 Euro League participants are permanent license holders, who are guaranteed a place in the tournament indefinitely? For the domestic leagues that already have one or more license holders in the competition (such as Spain), the only way their other clubs can play in the Euro League is by finishing high enough to qualify for the following seasons Euro Cup, then winning it outright.