Anyone still remember this? http://forums.bigsoccer.com/threads/don-garber-simulate-promotion-relegation.1595348/ Its been some time and given the recent growth of the league this may be a good point to revisit the conversation. There is no doubt that, at some point, the US and Canada can support 28 t0 30 top flight clubs. Instead of us looking at the old world form of pro/rel, are there any possibilities that exist for a modified form? One that keeps the owners happy and injects a bit of competitive drama. Maybe there isnt, but it can make for some interesting ideas at least. Cheers
Yes I remember. I still maintain that he was talking about incentives to teams that do well. If I remember correctly, allocation money was talked about right after he said that. There was a bunch of stuff about finances in the same thought pattern when he was talking. Why bring this up anyway?
That was said when the World Cup bid was still going on. It was meaningless gibberish to distract Blatter; it meant nothing.
Although you can get away with it often, simulation can earn you a yellow card in soccer. hence i dont think Garber was ever serious in trying to simulate.
There was chatter about comparing MLS-USL Pro player movement to a sort of individual promotion and relegation. Ala the farm system in other sports. That's as close as your going to get in American sporting landscape.
I like it! I have an idea, we could re-brand the regular season and playoffs as the qualifying stage and knockout stage. That should fool a few people.
I've posted thoughts on that before. If MLS has anything resembling promotion/relegation, it might be in a mixed-division format: two divisions continuing to play a lot of regular-season games between each other, with the teams in the higher division getting only a slight (10-20%) salary cap bump and a slightly higher share of TV revenue, and possibly even with the top teams in the lower division getting into the playoffs. And instead of limiting the number of teams going up and down, it might be a format where almost half of the teams in the upper division have to compete in promotion/relegation playoffs, so that second-tier teams have a better chance at being promoted. Limiting the loss of value that comes with relegation is the only way I see pro/rel being palatable to MLS owners. Mixed-division formats aren't entirely without precedent internationally. The Swiss league, among others, used to re-split the top two divisions into three leagues at midseason. And for most of the 1980s and 1990s, Kuwait had a playoff system where the second-division winner qualified for the championship playoffs along with the top teams in the first division.
It was a stupid idea (that bears no resemblance to actual promotion and relegation) then and it is a stupid idea (that bears no resemblance to actual promotion and relegation) now. Mods, please close this thread.