The All-Encompassing Pro/Rel Thread on Soccer in the USA

Discussion in 'Soccer in the USA' started by bigredfutbol, Mar 12, 2016.

  1. barroldinho

    barroldinho Member+

    Man Utd and LA Galaxy
    England
    Aug 13, 2007
    US/UK dual citizen in HB, CA
    Club:
    Manchester United FC
    Nat'l Team:
    England
    If successful, I could see such a scenario evolving into #2, possibly supplemented by #4 & #5.
     
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  2. Paul Berry

    Paul Berry Member+

    Notts County and NYCFC
    United States
    Apr 18, 2015
    Nr Kingston NY
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    MLS could sign the entire England, France, Belgium, Croatia, Spain, Argentina and Brazil national squads and people would still finding excuses to call it inferior. The only way to prove otherwise would be through the UEFA Champions League (the Club World Championship isn't a proving ground).
     
  3. Paul Berry

    Paul Berry Member+

    Notts County and NYCFC
    United States
    Apr 18, 2015
    Nr Kingston NY
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    @KevFu

    I checked the 50 biggest metro areas. The only ones I can find without professional soccer teams, current or planned, are Riverside-San-Bernardino-Ontario, Baltimore, Cleveland, Virginia Beach/Norfolk, Providence and New Orleans.

    I'm including Miami and Jacksonville as pro teams and a Milwaukee team has committed to USL 3.

    22 of those teams have or plan soccer specific stadiums. I don't know how many of those teams would be interested in MLS branding but I suspect very few.
     
  4. newtex

    newtex Member+

    May 25, 2005
    Houston
    Club:
    Houston Dynamo
    Milwaukee is committed to USL D3?

    Madison, Wisconsin is on the list but I don't see anything specific from Milwaukee. Madison is 75 miles from Milwaukee. It is not part of the Milwaukee metro or tv area.
     
  5. barroldinho

    barroldinho Member+

    Man Utd and LA Galaxy
    England
    Aug 13, 2007
    US/UK dual citizen in HB, CA
    Club:
    Manchester United FC
    Nat'l Team:
    England
    The Inland Empire tends to support teams in Los Angeles County or to a lesser extent, Orange County & San Diego.
     
  6. Paul Berry

    Paul Berry Member+

    Notts County and NYCFC
    United States
    Apr 18, 2015
    Nr Kingston NY
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Schmadison schmilwaukee.
     
  7. I ment it in a way as being an alternative for American fans of the Big 4 sports. Outside the USA there's nothing (except the basketball clubs I mentioned) that could be used as a surrogate/substitute by American fans, unlike the foreign leagues for the American soccer lovers.
    So they have a monopoly on where a big 4 club comes and the fans in cities left out are gold plated hostages for their brothers in crime, the networks.
    Mls hasnot got that luxury. No club in my town? Rather watch the EPL/LaLiga/BuLI etc. than mls on the networks.
    There's no "hostage" situation paying big dividends for mls as it is for the Big 4.

    What would happen if the Chinese basketball clubs would buy up all the stars and pay them beyond what the US clubs can pay and put the matches on pay tv or on line? What would that do to the cosy situation for a Big 4 sport and their alliance with the networks?
     
  8. Expansion Franchise

    Chattanooga FC
    United States
    Apr 7, 2018
    TV ratings bear out that a soccer fan in a non-MLS city is far more likely to watch the European leagues or Liga MX than MLS. On the other hand, it's also far easier to find those leagues on TV than MLS.
     
  9. barroldinho

    barroldinho Member+

    Man Utd and LA Galaxy
    England
    Aug 13, 2007
    US/UK dual citizen in HB, CA
    Club:
    Manchester United FC
    Nat'l Team:
    England
    The College game is very much an alternative in American Football and Basketball, while Minor League Baseball and Soccer see comparable attendances to non-D1 Soccer leagues around the world.

    Anyway, my general point is that pro/rel isn't going to stop people from choosing a perceived higher standard of league around the world.

    I get what you're saying: there's no reason why an American would choose MLS over EPL if they don't have a top flight team to root for but as other nations with pro/rel see people choosing EPL over their domestic leagues, it's clearly more to do with quality.

    Then there's also stigma and demographic. Unlike in Europe, where soccer is very much mainstream, soccer in the US is something of a hipster sport. This is ironic as the more hipster-y of my friends growing up in England, tended to be more likely to scoff at football for its popular appeal. In the case of the US hipster, part of the appeal is because it isn't an everyday part of American culture and any attempt to make it so, is prone to being derided as a poor substitute for the "real thing".

    In those people's eyes, the US will never "do it properly".

    Just look at the furor over team names: San Diego FC is "generic and derivative", Bayern San Diego is a "laughable ripoff" and The San Diego Sharknados is "AN AMERICANIZED AFFRONT to Foote-BOL.". They literally cannot win with some people.
     
  10. Expansion Franchise

    Chattanooga FC
    United States
    Apr 7, 2018
    Damn, though: "The Sharknados" /chefskiss
    U.S. soccer wouldn't be ready for that.
     
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  11. Yoshou

    Yoshou Fan of the CCL Champ

    May 12, 2009
    Seattle
    Club:
    Seattle Sounders
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Tell me about it.. The running joke up here in Seattle is that we'd get a day of summer per year if we were lucky, now I'm including A/C in the "must haves" for the remodel we're starting in the next year or two.
     
  12. Paul Berry

    Paul Berry Member+

    Notts County and NYCFC
    United States
    Apr 18, 2015
    Nr Kingston NY
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    They'd watch college basketball instead. The TV ratings for the NCAA (college) finals and NBA (pro) finals are pretty similar.
     
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  13. Elninho

    Elninho Member+

    Sacramento Republic FC
    United States
    Oct 30, 2000
    Sacramento, CA
    Club:
    Los Angeles Galaxy
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Few Americans are fans of only one sport. Many are casual fans of all the major-sport teams in their city. The bandwagon effect is much bigger in US pro sports not because US fans transfer their allegiance to another team, but because when a team is doing badly many of the casual fans choose to spend more of their time and money on a different sport.

    Second: college teams sometimes outdraw pro teams when playing in the same city on the same day. Los Angeles didn't really miss the NFL when it was absent because the two most popular American football teams in town were USC and UCLA. Now that LA has two NFL teams, they're still only the third and fourth most popular football teams in LA. There was one weekend that USC, the Rams, and the Chargers all played at home, and USC outdrew the Rams and Chargers combined.
     
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  14. Beau Dure

    Beau Dure Member+

    May 31, 2000
    Vienna, VA
    Baltimore and Milwaukee are indoor towns.

    Pity about Virginia Beach, which has a half-decent facility.
     
  15. Beau Dure

    Beau Dure Member+

    May 31, 2000
    Vienna, VA
    I'm borrowing this idea for a blog post I'm doing.

    Funny thing about it -- a lot of those 11 clubs are also big-time soccer clubs.
     
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  16. M

    M Member+

    Feb 18, 2000
    Via Ventisette
    Absent pro/rel, imo it is inferior. And that inferiority has nothing to do with its standard of play.
     
  17. Paul Berry

    Paul Berry Member+

    Notts County and NYCFC
    United States
    Apr 18, 2015
    Nr Kingston NY
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Do you think deciding pro/rel over 4 seasons is fair?
     
  18. CrazyJ628

    CrazyJ628 Member+

    Jul 16, 2007
    The center of the Earth
    Club:
    Real Salt Lake
    Just throwing this out there that the most popular soccer league in the US has historically made a mockery of pro/rel. Has regularly relocated teams or circumvent pro/rel and is dropping pro/rel. And fans generally don't care.
     
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  19. Paul Berry

    Paul Berry Member+

    Notts County and NYCFC
    United States
    Apr 18, 2015
    Nr Kingston NY
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Yes it's a real mess.

    The team promoted in 2014/15 were immediately relegated.
    The team that replaced them were immediately relegated and folded.
    The team promoted in their place had no money, no TV deal and had to appeal to fans to raise money for transfers. They were immediately relegated but paid $6 million to get out of jail free*

    In 2017/18 the team promoted to the second division didn't finish the season as they failed to meet stadium requirements. Another team returned to the second division after a hiatus while they tried to find investors. A team in a major city folded, so the owners bought another team and relocated them to the city in question.

    2018/19.
    *The team that finishes last in D1 can avoid relegation by paying the league $6 million. Half goes to the winners of the second division and the other half into the league's pockets.
    There is no automatic promotion. If they don't pay the $6 million, the league will play with 17 teams, elect a second division team, or give the spot to an external organization.
    A similar system exists between the second and third division, however not many teams are certified to play there, in which case the bottom team pays the club/league $800k.
     
  20. barroldinho

    barroldinho Member+

    Man Utd and LA Galaxy
    England
    Aug 13, 2007
    US/UK dual citizen in HB, CA
    Club:
    Manchester United FC
    Nat'l Team:
    England
    You didn't even mention everybody's favourite:

    In 2013 Queretaro FC were relegated, so they bought Jaguares who were still in Liga MX, relocated the team to Queretaro, transfered Queretaro FC's players and staff to Jaguares, rebranded the Jaguares as another Queretaro FC, effectively retaining their place in D1. The original Queretaro was folded.

    Adding to the fun, Jaguares retained their place in D1 by doing the same thing with San Luis FC.

    Effing ridiculous. Then again, this is the same league that not so long ago was deciding playoff qualifiers via randomly drawn groups.

    But come the next CCL season, when an MLS club gets dumped out by a Liga MX club, there'll be some American pro/rel fundamentalist using it as an example of "an MLS MacDonalds Franchise being dumped out by a REAL Football (NOT SOCCER!!!!!111!!!11) Club!!!!! #ProRelforUSA".
     
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  21. Elninho

    Elninho Member+

    Sacramento Republic FC
    United States
    Oct 30, 2000
    Sacramento, CA
    Club:
    Los Angeles Galaxy
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    And the result was that San Luis was effectively relegated, because the original, folded Queretaro FC was replaced by a newly founded club called Atletico San Luis that started play in Ascenso MX in 2013.

    Meanwhile, there were also shenanigans with the promoted club, CF La Piedad. That club was bought by new owners who moved it to Veracruz, which had been without a professional club since Tiburones Rojos lost their license in 2011. La Piedad was renamed Tiburones Rojos de Veracruz, and the "prize" for promotion was that La Piedad fans were left without a club.
     
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  22. ThreeApples

    ThreeApples Member+

    Jul 28, 1999
    Smurf Village
    Club:
    San Jose Earthquakes
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Avoiding this kind of thing is one of the ostensible reasons that they have restricted pro/rel. They limit the promotion licenses to a small number of teams that they expect will be financially stable enough to resist selling themselves out.

    There are also the more raw motivations to protect the current clubs from relegation and to give themselves an opportunity to fill future open slots by election.
     
  23. Crawleybus

    Crawleybus Member+

    Oct 18, 2013
    Club:
    Chelsea FC
    Barry Fry once said that Maidstone United were the Manchester United of non league football, Maidstone made it to Div 4 in the 1980's then went bust, re-formed as Kent Invicta in the early 1990's in the Sevenoaks and district Kent league where they played 'village football' in front of maybe 200 fans (other clubs had one man and his dog for attendance)! Now after god knows how many promotions (about 9 I think) they have made it back as far as the conference, they now have a new stadium and play in front of around 2'500 fans every home game - its been quite a ride! All thanks to pro/rel, pro/rel isn't just about the Premier league. The dream at Maidstone is to make it one more step back in to league football and derby games against their hated foe Gillingham.
     
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  24. Placid Casual

    Placid Casual Member+

    Apr 2, 2004
    Bentley's Roof
  25. Paul Berry

    Paul Berry Member+

    Notts County and NYCFC
    United States
    Apr 18, 2015
    Nr Kingston NY
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I think they've dropped the pro in pro/rel, as the team finishing last in La Liga can avoid relegation by paying the league US $6 million. As I understand it, if they are relegated the league will decide which team will be promoted, run with 17 teams or give the spot to outside investors.
     

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