See, I do care. You're spot on about pro/rel but I would never in a million years want the revs to be Leeds. It's hard enough being the Everton (and sometimes Sunderland) of MLS. It would be beyond exasperating and frustrating to be a Forest or Leeds fan and know you've had a history of winning titles and even the UCL in Forest's case, yet are in the second or third division. We are not Sacramento or Omaha or some other small city. A second division team just wouldnt fly here - there are fans too many loyal fans of the sport. Sure, it might teach the owners a lesson or make the fans satisfied at some level of "haha I told ya so!" Like in Newcastle with Ashley, but its not a sustainable business model if you've got legitimate aspirations of winning in our sport (I'd like to believe they do, deep down, want to win - on the cheap). If you think the revs get no publicity now, just imagine dropping to the Cannons or Breakers (R.I.P) level? No thanks!
So it would almost be like the ownership would have to start trying harder? Oh dear. For the record, because we're in an upper tier sports city my expectation is that Everton's probably our worst-case scenario in pro/rel world. By the way, that's better than our current situation. I suppose they could be the disaster that is Leeds, which plays in a sizable urban area, but I can't worry overly much about that. Kraft would have to screw the pooch hard, and then keep screwing it, to keep the Revs in a lower division.
Well, lets walk through a pro/rel scenario where we become Leeds. All it takes is one bad season, i.e revs 2010 or Chicago 2016 then you go down. Like what happens in other countries, the top players look elsewhere, so potentially good bye to guys like Rowe and Fagundez. Now you're playing the Rochester's and Charleston Battery's of the country. But what happens if we play to the level of the competition? Then maybe the Pittsburgh Riverhounds, Charlotte and the other MLS club goes up and we stay down. Year 2 of pergatory. More half decent players leave and we are now a USL side talentwide (think Revs in 2010/2011). We become a team of Tierneys, Pat Phelans, Videira, Niouky etc. Grinders that belong in the USL. The part where we become Leeds is when another first division team joins us and a second division team has an epic year, taking up the promotion spots. Then, like the prem you have to compete with the bouncer teams like Sunderland and M'boro who aren't good enough for the EPL sometimes, but generally finish close to the top 3 in the second division. If, for example, Chicago hires a good coach to stay up and fails like Newcastle did with Rafa, then that coach sticks around and wins the second division, there goes a spot. Given our ambition vs the rest of MLS, it would probably be us, Colorado and Minnesota every year. Remember margins are small; if they have just a tiny bit more talent and an owner with ambition they move up and we stay in the USL. I could see a Cincinnai, Charleston, Rochester or Sacramento moving up fast if given the opportunity. Like Leeds, the revs have about the same desire to make the next step. In fact, ask any longtime Leeds fan how they feel about annual trips in the league to Doncaster and Blackpool vs Manchester and Liverpool. I'm sure their response would be a long sigh and ..colorful.. language. I know mine would be! Year 3...rinse and repeat. Attendance is now P-Bruins level. Media people long since forgot there was a pro soccer team here. More fans become apathetic. Millennials stop coming and we regress back to families/youth soccer. Maybe the revs have a good year and "almost" go up, management is happy. Brian and the FO turn a profit. 5,000 a game in Gillette. Status quo. In short, pro/rel would be ugggly here under Kraft. The only saving grace for pro/rel in this country would be automatic promotion if you win the Open Cup or something. Given how risk averse he is, Kraft would need an "out" to sign off on it given the massive financial risk. Apologies, tangent over.
Let me put it this way: The Revs currently set the bar at making the playoffs (top 12). Sometimes they fail to reach that bar. With pro/rel the bar would be lowered to avoiding relegation (top 20). I expect there would come a year they would fail to reach that bar, too.
And most teams in sizable cities bounce right back. Sure, you can spin paranoid fantasy about how it all goes downhill from there, but that's not how it goes most of the time. I know we bust on Kraft and Burns (deservedly), but it would be an achievement in ineptitude for them to wallow in a lower division. But if they did that the problem isn't pro/rel, it's them. Nothing protects us from truly awful ownership. "At least we're not being relegated" provides no consolation. In that scenario there would be an incentive to change. It's far more feasible that in a 28-team MLS (where we'll be soon enough), the Revs could spend a decade in the weeds. Only 40% of the league is going to make the playoffs.
To me, this is the fallacy of the pro/rel argument. The problem already IS with the ownership. You seem to think that pro/rel will force them to fix that problem. I don't think it will. Is there any difference between "spending a decade in the weeds" of Div 1, and bouncing back and forth between Div 1 and Div2?
In either case we're not being protected from disinterested ownership. The thin gruel of not being able to be relegated does nothing for me. Kraft is a problem regardless of the system. Relegation would throw that into stark detail. What the reaction to that would be, I don't pretend to know (though I suspect he'd notice something that cost him money). We know Kraft is largely unfazed by missing the playoffs in the current system. Yet, for the record, I don't want pro/rel because I think it would wake Kraft from his torpor. He very well might be immune to that. My reasoning is simply I enjoy pro/rel leagues and it would be fun to have one here. I don't care if the Revs remain protected from themselves. I try not to adjust my worldview based on Kraft's shoddy ownership.
My view on pro-rel is not so much about what it does to me (i.e. the Revs). Yes, if it happens, Kraft may wake up and do something, like the article that prompted him to sign Jermaine Jones. Or he might do just enough to avoid being relegated. In other words, we'd be the second or third-crappiest team in the East, just like we are now. This is like casino gambling. I am against it not because I'm afraid I'm going to lose all my money, but because someone else could, and probably will. We might not go down, but Philly or Chicago or DC or Montreal will, and that is not good for anyone.
I can see where you're coming from but I am having a hard time wrapping my head around your comment about the revs being Leeds. They've been down for 7 years. Why would that be a good thing?
So you really think Kraft is going to care more if the Revs were to be relegated to the USL? If he barely acknowledges that he owns a soccer team in the top flight league is he really going to put more money, effort and mindshare into the club at a minor league level? The fear of getting relegated is definitely a motivator in some places, but all it would mean here is a more Boston Cannons level of existence than a Boston Bruins level.
I didn't say it would be a good thing. I said I'd have no problem with the Revs suffering the consequences if that was their level of ineptitude. It really shouldn't be hard to keep a Boston team in the first division.
I don't know what Bob Kraft would do. Yet "Bob Kraft is bad" doesn't play into whether I'd like to see pro/rel in this country. I would like it (because I like it everywhere else it's used) and Kraft would need to get with the program.
Yet the best way to speculate what someone might do is to look at their previous behavior. As for it working in other places, that's great for those places, but it's also irrelevant for how a system like that might work here. Imagine comparing how the Montreal Canadiens market to their fanbase, in comparison with the Tampa Bay Lightning, when they first started. Not like you could take either model and use it in the other location. No one in Tampa would understand what "la rondelle" is, and Montrealers don't need to have the offisde rule splained to them. And while "LOL" is used way, way, way too much these days, when I read "Kraft would have to get with the program" I literally LOLed. Just curious as to who would make him "get with the program?" If such a person exists, perhaps they should do that now, without the Revs being relegated first.
I didn't say he would get with the program, just that he'd need to (just like everyone else). Or we're screwed. But we're screwed anyway if that's his level of "don't care." And I cannot stress enough how I'm not giving Bob Kraft an ounce of power over how I'd like the world to work. You keep going back to Kraft, but I don't give a crap about him. Either he responds to shame and greed or he doesn't. Not my concern.
Since Bob Kraft owns the team, there is really no discussion about how the Revs might be managed without his involvement. We could have pro-rel, a parity=parody league, a league where one team dominates and wins literally all the time or a one-team league like the NASL where the Cosmos are both champions and last-place finishers in the same year. Whatever happens with the Revs is 100% up to the decisions made by Bob Kraft and his henchmen.
this move was a bit of a head-scratcher until I read about Harvard Medical School. http://www.bostoncityfc.com/news/former-vitesse-arnhem-and-international-keeper-joins-the-lions/ Boston City FC has signed former Dutch Under 20 national team goalkeeper Wouter Dronkers, who spent the past three seasons with Vitesse Arnhem of the Eredivisie, the top professional league in the Netherlands. Dronkers has also played with FC Twente, where he was part of the club’s UEFA Europa League squad, while the club was managed by former England boss Steve McClaren, who guided Twente to the Dutch title and won the Johan Cruyff Shield, also known as the Dutch Super Cup. Dronkers has represented the Dutch national team level at every age group from Under 15s to Under 20s
Update on Hartford stadium redevelopment project: http://www.courant.com/community/hartford/hc-news-hartford-dillon-stadium-20180409-story.html
Orange County SC vs LA Galaxy II April 7, 2018 10:00 PM Mark Segbers comes off the bench in the 23' and scores the first two goals in a 3-0 win.