I don't understand what exactly you're arguing against here. Surely you agree that there are fanbases for American teams that are perfectly self-aware that their team is not likely to win a championship (or even come close) in the foreseeable future? The argument was that a club like Excelsior Rotterdam couldn't exist in America because they are unlikely to win a championship. But the reason why they're unlikely to win a championship is because they are a smaller club. I don't see how this is markedly different than, say, the Mets or the Nets or Jets. These are all the "smaller" teams in NYC because they have all, historically, sucked a lot more than the Yankees, Knicks, and Giants, respectively. Outside of the Jets (the NFL's parity makes it a little unusual - although the Jets will still manage to be terrible) there is generally little expectation that these teams can win it all and that, in turn, makes it more unlikely that they will (the Mets manage themselves as a small-market team, for instance).
It's only recently that the Mets have cut back their spending. Certainly through the 00s, they had a top 5 payroll. http://www.stevetheump.com/Payrolls.htm
Sorry I got your cities wrong. The small cities have populations that add up. If some of those people decide to only root for SEC teams and not pro teams in New Orleans, New Orleans has fewer fans from smaller cities, but there are people who could travel there from smaller cities. Louisville is the opposite of New Orleans in that the cities near Louisville are bigger than Louisville. Cincinnati, Indianapolis, and Nashville all have teams in at least one of MLB, NFL, NBA, and NHL, and Louisville doesn't have teams in any of those. I don't think it would make sense for MLS to have clubs in Cincinnati and Louisville. I think top level leagues should choose New Orleans over Louisville if both of them want teams.
Yup, and the fans have no problem with it, otherwise they would have bought a Feyenoord season ticket. In fact, if we in the Netherlands would apply the mls doctrine of only a club in a market that can compete for the title, or in other words limit a market to one club so itcan compete for a title, it would mean we only have 5-6 clubs, which obviously isnot enough for a meaningful competition. Plus it would ignore the fact that fans are supporting their local club because of emotional attachment, not because of glory hunters mentality. In fact it would mean the total revenue streaming into the clubs cash registers would fall. Feyenoord, PSV and Ajax almost always sell capacity against the little ones from 95% to full capacity. How on earth are you going to compensate that loss of revenue for each little club pruned from the league? One way would be the creation of the already talked about for plus twenty years BeNed league. But then too you would have max 12 clubs.
OMG. There you go again... Nitpick and cherry pick... that's been your fussbudget MO for years. So, much like with Ted and Ben, Chris is not here to defend himself so.... Please list for me all the other federations that have a "closed and locked pyramid that suppress their member clubs and confine them to pre-defined classes." Maybe he should have said "only major federations in the industrialized world" or something to that effect.... but I've read far more spurious opinions masquerading as fact in this thread alone and Bigsoccer in general. "Serial blocker?" The guy follows 1,500 and has double that number of followers. He's literally said he really doesn't have to block very many people, just a few argumentative types who want to monopolize everyone's time with perpetually contrarian anti-Pro/Rel arguments. ME: "The anti-Pro/Rel usual suspects..." YOU & BARRY: "But we're not anti-Pro/Rel..." ME: You and a tiny clique of Bigsoccer regulars have literally argued against it happening in America in just about every conceivable way. You can claim you're in favor of it only happening in minor league soccer, but even then, you'll still find a way to argue against my club winning promotion or the Tulsa Roughnecks USL club being relegated, despite finishing dead last for two of the last three seasons. You'll even argue in favor of the Oakland A's forcing my club to drop the "s" from the end of our name.... And sorry but, hypocritically enough, it is actually your buddy Kenn Tomasch who has two twitter accounts, one "echo chamber" where he literally follows nobody and has about 700 followers, and another one with this caveat: "Only confirmed followers have access to @kenntomasch's Tweets and complete profile. Click the "Follow" button to send a follow request." I have more respect for Mr. Kessel and his experiences and dreams for the sport of soccer in this country than I have for you and the rest of Bigsoccer's usual suspects. I believe Chris once stated that the only staunch opposition to #ProRelForUSA consists of "about ten people on bigsoccer." He's right.
Meanwhile, in American soccer..... Last night, Akron beat Michigan State and Maryland beat Indiana in the NCAA College Cup Final Four. If someone could convince me that college men's soccer could grow into something that would be superior to a tiered open system with teams ranging from rank amateurs to semi-pros to fully-pro all the way to MLS level clubs, I'll stop dreaming about #ProRelForUSA.... And in Minnesota.... It’s that time again. @NPSLSoccer annual owners meeting starts...NOW. pic.twitter.com/yYWFuSuRQA— Tulsa Athletic (@TTownSoccer) December 7, 2018 Current status: Just watched a dude (ahem, @SonnyDalesandro) sabre a bottle of Miller High Life with a butter knife. And it was magical!— Dennis Crowley 🇺🇸 // now on Threads @dens (@dens) December 8, 2018 Instead of attending the NCAA College Cup Final Four, Don Garber was pretty busy telling us how 28 won't be enough to satisfy MLS.... so, once MLS reaches 32 teams, will they party like it's 1978? .... So, Don Garber in 2016 .... Garber yesterday.... 'No doubt in my mind' - Garber expects MLS to expand past 28 teams Ryan Tolmich Garber wants MLS to become more of ‘selling league’ Associated PressDec 8, 2018, 8:59 AM EST LAWSUIT ALERT: Winning isn’t everything: U.S. Soccer Foundation files lawsuit against U.S. Soccer Federation
Perhaps the difference in the US is that those little clubs didn't exist in the first place. Clubs had to be created from the top down because the amateur clubs that existed before MLS wouldn't even be able to afford to compete in regional leagues without being bankrupted by the travel costs.
What certain people fail to understand is that the US had a strong local amateur scene but that's it's never been able to take the next step due to the logistics involved. For instance, in the 1920s the ASL split over Open Cup involvement. The 1927 and 1928 finals involved 30 hour train journeys from New York City to Chicago towards the back end of a fairly short season. The more ambitious teams wanted to focus on the competition that really mattered. Today it still takes over 28 hours to get from Penn Station in New York to Union Station in Chicago. It's really taken a massive investment to get a professional league off the ground and applying 19th century Victorian values really isn't going to work. Tonight's MLS finale should be taken as an example of what can be with the right vision and the right investment.
I've said these things to Ben and Ted. I've said nothing about Chris that I wouldn't say to him directly. There are several leagues that are closed and we've mentioned them before on this thread. It's not just MLS and Australia's A-League. This is his movements entire mission statement and I'd say that that is one of the most poignant statements he makes in it. As written, I'm afraid it's factually incorrect. If he meant something else then he needs to state it clearly. A mission statement isn't the place for generalised claims. I haven't sought to monopolize anybody's time nor are my argument born of contrarianism. This would suggest that he has criteria for blocking people that is largely based on them having an alternative point of view on a cause he champions. I've never blocked anybody on that basis, nor would I ever. My claim about his blocking comes from being swiftly blocked myself and knowing others that have been, whose views I considered reasoned and valid. We're not, no matter how much you'd like to think so. I've openly advocated expanding the pro/rel pyramid in UEFA and presented my views on what would be an appropriate situation to implement it here. That's the honest truth. I'm sorry that you won't believe that but your scepticism doesn't make you correct. Simply because I understand the logic in their doing so. Might I suggest that you would be the less likely of us to be rational about the subject as you had an emotional investment in the brand in question? I would happily and proudly count @kenntomasch as a buddy, yes. I've no knowledge of who he's blocked but I see nothing sinister in a person having an additional account that contains info he's more wary about sharing. That's far different from the person that coined #ProRelforUSA blocking people with opinions on the subject that differ from his. That's your prerogative. I have little concern about your level of respect for me. I myself have urged people who want to know the "pro" arguments to seek out Chris's work specifically. How could I be more fair than that? I'm sorry to inform you that he isn't. It has been well-documented that a majority of fans don't think we're immediately ready for a fully open system and I see them make valid arguments against those of the #ProRelforUSA movement every day. So I'm disappointed to read that Chris might so readily condescend, belittle and marginalize those who don't entirely agree with his cause.
You REALLY can't get past this, can you? The original Twitter account I don't use much. And the caveat is what Twitter puts on there when you choose to make your account private. I think I did that back at the beginning because I only wanted to use it get some news (mistake) and talk to a handful of people. I started the other one because I didn't want to go through the trouble of cleaning up the first one and when I made the second one, I didn't see the point in following anyone. There's very few Twitter accounts worth a shit. I'll do what I want, please. You can report me to the Twitter Etiquette Police if you like. You're not going to get joy from that.
Dutch commentator of the mls final went viral in the Netherlands, so much that many people want to see the repeat broadcast of it. Frank Kramer was having his last match comment with this final and made it a bizar happening in which he managed to mention only one player the whole match, sing a song and talk about Canadian nickel mines etc. Eurosport felt obliged to apologize about it.
Which says more about the pitiful state of US train travel than anything else. I've just returned from a month in a pro/rel country where such a journey would take under 5 hours...
The name doesn’t matter. Any pro/rel country automatically has faster transportation. It’s one of the magic benefits.
Yup, if there wasnot P/R, we wouldnot have a special train stop at the Feyenoord PSV, Heerenveen and Ajax stadium. For smaller clubs like Sparta and Excelsior we put in special tram and busstops. But only because of P/R.
All D1 FBS conferences are at the same level. The issue arises that the NCAA isn't involved in the postseason and bowl-subivision teams are allowed to make up their own postseason agreements with the bowl sponsors. They're just glorified exhibitions. I know all about how FCS works. I worked for an FCS conference that had affiliate members in both football and men's golf. I can tell you first hand how the politics of conferences works. For instance, there was next to zero chance the presidents of the conference I worked for would have ever allowed a private or religious school to join. One member decided to make a transition to another conference and the presidents of the remaining schools had to be begged off kicking the departing school's football team out of the league immediately. Again, there's a pride thing here. Presidents aren't going to allow their schools to go down. Purdue (one of the top engineering schools in the country and AAU member) isn't going to willingly go down to play midwestern directional schools. Besides the fact that Purdue is also a part owner of the Big 10 network and would lose roughly $30 million a year if they were kicked out of a league they helped found. I don't know why you're even arguing this. It's even less likely than professional pro/rel and more idiotic. That's me. I'm anti. But in your truther brain anyone who even points out one obstacle is "anti". Cool. Had nothing to do with pro/rel though. We have that already. First of all, MLS was also having their championship this weekend. Why is Don obligated to go to the College Cup. Odd you didn't mention the women's College Cup and that you never say how pro/rel would immediately make the women's pro game the greatest thing on Earth. You ignore Mexico and women. I'll let the gallery draw conclusions as to why many pro/rel advocates continue to ignore certain people. Secondly, expansion is a good thing. I know, you want USSF to arbitrarily make MLS stop at 20 so that 8 teams are kicked out of the league right off the bat. Then you want USSF to force MLS to allow teams into the league that they built who have played inferior competition. Marvelous. Or, we could have a 32-team league that spans the vast majority of the country's population, each with an academy and a minor league affiliate, which will go further to developing future players than constantly putting teams at risk of relegation ever will. I get it. You think Tulsa was burned so MLS expansion is a bad thing. I will say. While the flat circle of the Pro/rel in the USA thread will inveitably circle back to college sports, the merits of playoffs, complete lack of understanding of what continent we're talking about, it's a nice change of pace to see someone address the USA's lack of high speed rail. If kicking teams out of a league for one bad year could get us 100+ mph trains between our major metro areas, I'd be all for it.
I was actually curious--train service IS generally much better in much of Western Europe than it is in the USA (for lots of reasons) but I was just curious because there aren't many countries in Europe where you could take a direct trip that long and stay within that country. I do love how great public transportation is in many other countries.