The YBTD Pro/Rel Thread, Part 9,614

You must be referring to playoffs. Building on that, what's also interesting, and again, just spitballing, but would an equitable financial system under which with two games left in the season, just about every club still has a chance of being champion. I can imagine a system like that producing a lot of different champions. In a system like that, at the beginning of each season, every fan of every club could have a legitimate hope of glory.
I mean, what' we've got here is also nice. Good ol'Bmunch

 

would love it, see no reason why that couldn't work with Promotion and Relegation

 

That article is bs. All the journalist had to do was look at the Seattle Parks and Recreation website.

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And people tend to play in Hispanic leagues, or Caribbean leagues of whatever because they choose to.

 

Yeah, I think after the initial lay down of assets .... everybody's eyebrows raised (including Hunt/Kraft/et al) and it kind of went "ooooooo k ... sum'a bitch" and the actual depth of the waters that needed treading were revealed. Horowitz was literally in over his head. He knew, and THEY knew it.

How does the current structure not always have the best teams in it every season, in the same division? Even with the ebbs and flows of certain teams, the best teams are still in our top divisions or "major" league.

This dangers on selective application of principle here. We'll automatically have MORE "eh" teams but not necessarily have more "good" teams? Given how our other leagues have grown, and how MLS itself has grown the ratio has stayed the same ... and would imply that the total numbers would go up.

Well the system contributes to the issues that befall many clubs with overspending or reaching beyond their means. It is also contributing in other ways (teams closing academies etc).

A club with "nothing" to play for that has a chance to derail a playoff push or keep a team from a division title/first round bye/etc certainly has "meaning" and we see those scenarios all the time. An absolute shit DCU team in 2013 (like set records for futility bad) certainly played a meaningful match against playoff chasing Philadelphia in Oct (3rd to last match of season) that saw DCU gain a draw that ultimately helped keep Philly out of the playoffs.

Yes, "meaning" is subjective. Sure, two teams going head to head for the final playoff spot VS a match with only one of the clubs having playoff seeding on the line can OBJECTIVELY have more meaning assigned to one over the other. That doesn't render the other void of any meaning at all.

What you're defining as meaningless happens in pro/rel as well.

The revolving door at the bottom of the table quite literally keeps that from happening.

 

You don't think German immigrants are passionate about soccer?

Russia 3.5M


Turkey 2.8M


Poland 2.8M


Romania 1.1M


Greece 443k


Serbia 308k


Croatia 441k


Italy 860k

 

What about her asking him to prove that his players were "local"? I mean, officially, everywhere has a policy of anti-discrimination. It still happens. His statement about the white teams not having to pay up front may not have been accurate, but you can see why he might think that, and why he may be turned off by what he sees as the "white" soccer establishment. And you think the fact that they choose to play in those leagues, which mostly aren't scouted by MLS or college coaches, has nothing to do with money? If there's no problem, why does Alianza de Futbol exist? In any case, I didn't mean to get on that tangent. I only brought it up to refute a point by another poster. It's probably only tangentially related to pro/rel, if at all.

 

That was not what I meant at all. I meant that in the US, kids have traditionally grown up playing traditional american sports like football, basketball, and baseball. If they play soccer, it's often one of many sports that they play, and their parents and coaches often know very little about the sport. They often don't watch soccer on tv much, don't play soccer in their free time with their friends, etc. Immigrants in the US are much more likely to be passionate about soccer than people who have been in the US for many generations. I didn't think that was a remotely controversial observation, but I mentioned it because he may not be as familiar with the soccer culture of the US. I only mentioned it because he said most of der Mannschaft were relatively well-off, and I wanted to inform him that a big chunk of potentially great soccer players in the US are not well-off.

I was comparing people born in America to immigrants in America. I wasn't comparing immigrants in America to immigrants in Germany, or anywhere else. If that wasn't clear, I'm sorry. Obviously people in many countries are passionate about soccer. That's kind of my point. I mean, the US has bought more tickets to the World Cup than any country other than the host, and the US isn't even in the World Cup. What does that tell you?

 

What makes you think they don't ask non-Hispanic players for their addresses? I would imagine there's a player registration system for insurance purposes at least, and the parks department has an appeals process if a minority group or minority group individual has a grievance.

Alianza de Futbol Hispano offers what is considered to be the largest scouting program in the United States. With free tryouts in 10 different cities, Alianza gathers some of the best scouts from Mexican teams, MLS and American colleges.

The Sueño Alianza is designed to allow scouts to watch some of the most talented Hispanic youngsters in North America, so it really shouldn't be surprising the exhibition games were rather professional affairs, from the tactics used to the soccer on display.

I would think it's because a bunch of people got together and formed a league which caters for Latino communities.

How MLS embraced Latinos: 'We view the Hispanic market as part of our DNA'
- Luis Miguel Echegaray

While I don't disagree that there may be discrimination, I think reflecting the perceived experience of one individual, without checking facts is just lazy journalism.

 

Has anyone addressed what would happen to MLS owners $200 million+ investment in Major League Soccer LLC?

 

Fair enough. I'm not sure that checking the website and seeing that they have an anti-discrimination policy is better, though. I agree that MLS targets Hispanic fans. That's a different thing, though. That affects their bottom line.

If you haven't read it, here's a good interview about Jonathan Gonzalez and Alianza. US Soccer actively discourages their scouts from going, and some scouts hide behind bleachers because they're not supposed to be there. A small but growing number of MLS teams do send scouts, to their credit, but it's mostly Liga MX and FMF. https://www.socceramerica.com/publi...henberg-our-federation-lost-jonathan-gon.html The DA is the preferred route to MLS and the National Teams, and the DA teams either draw mostly from expensive pay-to-play teams or they are themselves pay-to-play. In any case, I've forgotten how this relates to pro/rel.

 

I imagine the argument is pro/rel would put pay to play out of business because those clubs would be moving up the ladder instead of being stuck in DA.

Or something.

 

I think the typical argument on here is f-those guys. By starting a top level pro league, expanding it and improving it while losing money, building stadia meant for the game, building support cultures, starting academies and funding B sides in USL, MLS owners and their corporationy money have ruined the game in the US.

 

Has MLS discussed an exit from the single entity structure in any capacity? That would need to be addressed even if the lower leagues were MLS run, wouldn't it?

 

The issue I was addressing was allowing the best teams to always play each other. One way to address this is to limit the size of the league so every team plays every team during the regular season. The issue there of course is you leave fans without teams in their market. Which is the primary way I think you draw fans to MLS.

Or you can expand out giving more fans in more markets a team but then it becomes impossible for everyone to play everyone potentially reducing your high profile games.

That's the issue I was addressing, probably should have used the term conference instead to make it clearer.

So if England goes to a closed league and just adds 20 teams from the lower division is it adding a proportional number of "good" vs. eh teams?

Which could be addressed by having a salary cap, revenue sharing, mandating academies etc. before you're even allowed in a league that could promote to MLS.

And we both agree that if it were to ever work here there would have to be changes to suit the US system. I'm fine with that.

Okay guess we watch sports for different reasons.

 

Could definitely do that, but there are two concerns I would have. The first is how many would you have? If you only have one or two interleague games you could have a situation where your biggest names and most popular clubs still may not play each other over multiple seasons. A second concern is that you are potentially impacting the sporting side for the good of TV by having certain teams play a tougher schedule to garner ratings. Now I am not naive to the fact that it already happens but you open yourself up to the old criticism that MLS is less a sports league than a marketing exec's personal experiment.

 

The broadcasters definitely want LA-NY matchups. Chicago would also be preferable, though the Fire have been at best mediocre the past 19 years. The Boston market is potentially huge as well, though MLS won't push the Krafts that hard to get a SSS due to Bob helping to keep the league afloat back in 2002 as well as being an initial investor. Philly is a curious case as well. Surely the league would be even better with a Good Philly team competing against DCU and the NY teams. That's a LOT of passionate fans right there.

TES when it's full and rocking is one of the better atmospheres in the league. The SOB's when united and in full voice, rival any SG in the league. Yes, I'm biased.

Something that cannot be underestimated is the draw that teams in NY, LA and Chicago have when playing on the road. I can only speak for Union games, but when these teams are in town there is a definite buzz in the stadium. When Chicago came to town there was a ton a Germany and Munich jerseys in the concourse. When the Galaxy and their stars visit, the energy in the stadium picks up. The NY teams of course bring a different kind of energy to the building along with their traveling horde. These things can't be underestimated.

Surprisingly Kaka and Orlando didn't have that much of an effect here in Philly at least.

 

I think the it's more about the stars. It's not so much NY vs. LA as it is the chance for Zlatan (or any other big star) to play in the New York market. Which means who you want playing who will change over time.

The obvious response to this would be in pro/rel you could have a situation where they didn't play because one was relegated, which is fair. But you could mitigate against that by having relegation clauses in DP level players contracts, and having multiple teams in your biggest markets, which MLS already has.

 

Yes, as suggested NYC and Atlanta could be two points apart but NYC end up playing SKC while Atlanta hosted Colorado. Also, there could well be an odd number of teams.

 

Of course.

 

There isn't, techinically, is therre. Problem is practically there's a huge reason.
When you level the playing field, create a system in which every club has an equal shot at glory, you level the playing side meaning every club has an equal shot at the drop.
The sorts of ego-driven billionaires who want to invest in sport clubs (not really money winners usually) are also those who don't like the idea of being relegated. In pro/rel leagues, that means they spend way more than others to create an unequal playing field. They don't want an even playing field when the primary reason they're buying a club is look like Johnny Big League.