I honestly don't see what that article about minor league baseball clubs has to do with the topic at hand. Minor league baseball is specifically designed to be just that -- minor league. The Columbus Clippers have no intention of ever hosting major league games. It's designed to be a feeder system for players to develop until they can help the big club. It's a completely different model. Those teams aren't trying to achieve individual, independent success. They're there to achieve whatever level of success they can while achieving their bigger purpose, supplying talent for the clubs they're affiliated with.
It shows the dangers of having a model where "minor league" teams are merely vassals of bigger teams. Aren't there reserve sides in USL?
Aren't there reserve sides in lower level Euro leagues? Germany, Spain and I believe Portugal all have B teams in levels 2 and down. So is it dangerous for those leagues?
It’s certainly unsatisfactory. Of course, those leagues aren’t entirely built of farm teams and they aren’t closed.
There are. He also knows there are reserve teams in USL as well. In Spain, reserve sides can get promoted all the way to the second division and in Germany I don't think they can go higher than the third division, but I could be wrong there. Either way, when a US league has reserve sides in it it's wrong but when Spin does it..... Despite your semantic hair splitting, please back up your assertion or admit you're wrong. Fan owned clubs are a good thing. I actively root for the Green Bay Packers partly because they're a fan/community-owned club, which incidentally plays in a closed league. There's nothing stopping fan-owned clubs from existing in the American context either. Chattanooga FC is partly fan-owned and they're playing in the third division.
It illustrated how they're learning to concentrate the resources and have figured out a more efficient way to use the minor leagues ... Not sure how that states a negative about them
Is the sole purpose of the leagues they play in to be a "farm" league for major league teams? Are all treams in the leagues they play in farm teams? Do they play in closed leagues?
Is the sole purpose of the leagues they play in to be a "farm" league for major league teams? Are all treams in the leagues they play in farm teams? Do they play in closed leagues? Really, yours is the equivalent of some pathetic "both sides do it" argument... "
No, that's more the Professional Development League in England. Not quite sure why you're talking about baseball.
The USL's sole purpose is not to be a farm league believe it or not while they've stated that the deal with MLS helped stabilized the league it doesn't preclude them from one day possibly trying to get D1 status. Recently they floated the idea of forcing all MLS 2 teams down to USL D3 but some of the more academy driven MLS teams have complained about it. By the way the MLS 2 teams are some of the more competitive teams so game wise they're not exactly dead wood they help the talent level for the most part not hurt.
On average, the MLS reserves are not more competitive than the independents, although there have certainly been exceptions (RBNY2, Real Monarchs, SPR). Each season, about half make the playoffs, but usually mostly low seeds and the ones that miss the playoffs, really miss the playoffs.
In essence the BIG clubs of Europe view the "smaller clubs" as feeder teams anymore. The small clubs develop players and the large clubs swoop in wheel barrows full of $$$ and buy up all of the talent. While teams may not be promoted in Professional American Sporting Leagues, players certainly are promoted. Players also get relegated in America. I don't get all of the hair splitting. Citing Minor League Baseball in all of this makes no sense either as it's a completely different model. Minor League Baseball is a way to grow the game at the grass roots level in America, and bring Professional and Semi-Professional Baseball to small town America. It also helps MLB teams grow their fanbases outside of their home cities. Soccer is not the most popular sport in America, in fact it's not even the 4th or 5th most popular sport. The sports at the professional level hasn't reached its tipping point yet, and may not reach it in my lifetime, if ever. Should it reach the tipping point where there are enough professional teams for there to be a need for Promotion/Relegation, I'm all for it. The United States is just not even close to being there yet. Not to mention that the USSF is still largely disorganized and visionless IMO.
I agree except the Red Bulls (2016 Champions) and North Texas (FC Dallas) stand a good chance of sweeping the regular season in their respective divisions this year.
So, if Union finishes the season above Hertha in the table, yeah, there is going to be a lot of celebrating. If Union beats Hertha home and/or away, there's going to be a lot of celebrating. But, before this season, Hertha and Union met in actual matches that count only in the Pokal and during Hertha's demotion seasons (10-11 and 12-13, i think), so there isn't a lot of history between the two. Union was the club of dissident east Germans, people who used 90 minutes each weekend to make sing thinly veiled protest songs while watching soccer. Hertha was the west German team. So Union fans didn't hate as much as aspire to Hertha, though nothing to do with football, all to do with Hertha's fancy free society. Hertha fans haven't really had much reason to hate Union, as Union has always been, quite obviously, the weaker of the two.Also, really, the Hertha fan base isn't known for being passionate, equate them to say the Dallas Cowboy fans. I mean, when I came to Berlin, Hertha's fans referred to their club as "scheisse Hertha." But I do think both fan bases really like the idea of derbies and an intense rivalry.
That's why I said there were exceptions. In contrast, the other two L1 MLS reserves teams are the bottom two on the table, lower than the USL-C reserve team in the league. It's quite feast or famine with the reserves: in the Championship, RBNY2 is on the top of the Eastern Conference, and none of the other ones will probably make the playoffs. In the West, one or two might qualify as low seeds. They also hold down the bottom spots in each conference, with SPR currently at .6 PPG.
Also worth noting that for NTSC, their PPG is lower than Lansing's in the 15 games since Pepi moved to FCD, their position on the table is largely due to the 22 points in 9 games while he was still there. They're still really good, but that start distorts the picture somewhat.
This would be a better argument with proper context. Using SPR as an example, since you mentioned their poor performance this season, in 2016 lost in cup final, 2017 lost in cup final, 2018 lost in conference semis (final four). If we're judging the quality of independents versus reserve sides, I think it's tough to say that reserve sides have been dragging down the USL any more than the weaker independent sides. Except in attendance. We've had tables that have shown quite a bit of reserve side success, but we've only really had a couple reserve sides that have attracted the attention their level of play would seem to deserve.
The hair splitting comes down to that a club can profit from it's capability to, or plain luck having one, develop a talent or talents and in the process rise with them up the pyramid. Not so in the closed shops. Certain posters have posted that the P/R setting is ment to make the rich clubs abuse their financial power by carrying in loads of money to buy away the talents. (Do I have to post quotes of that ) from less to do clubs. The difference with the closed shops, which is an institutionalized abusing of financial power because the talents have no other option than join the closed top leagues, is that the ManUnited, Arsenal, Liverpool, Bayern, Ajax, Feyenoord, PSV first did have to make that money first to get into that position and they're not guaranteed to stay in that position. Manchester United must this season make the CL or they face a huge cut in sponsor and European Cup revenues, going into the region of 200 million. So if Leicester City FC can keep in the top 4 this season, they make a grand leap in earnings. So in the P/R environment from the top to the bottom your revenues depend on how you perform. In the lower half you have to worry about a drop in revenues if you relegate, in the top of the league you have to worry about not making the CL. So the P/R environment forces from the bottom to the top to perform. Not so in the pampered closed shop. Who cares if you have a bad season, next year another try. In the P/R environment it's a constant alertness. Constant challenge produces quality, "Maybe next year we'll do better" environment produces mediocracy.
The point is that while the teams may change (except RBNY2, they're consistently good), there's always pretty much: 1 or maybe 2 actually strong sides 2 or 3 that make a low playoff seed 3 or 4 that are bad 1 or 2 that are butt It's a somewhat rotating cast in those positions. My point about SPR isn't that they're blight on the league or something, I specifically included them in the exceptional category. The point is that if SPR wasn't there, it would be another reserve team (I mean, it would be Hartford this year, but they're an expansion team and 3 of 4 at the bottom of the East table are reserves sides - the next one up on the table is also an expansion side). I do think it's fair to call out the weaker (non-expansion) independent sides: but I think that's why the whole reserves issue is so complicated. It's a pretty easy argument to make that the truly bad independent teams are concentrated in the western conference, but it's the reserves teams that help keep the western conference feasible from a travel perspective.