They may be a top 6-7 club performance-wise. However, it's only because of pro/rel that they have had the chance to get into the Premiership based on their performances on the field of play. That's the beauty of the system:- clubs rise and fall according to their own merits and means, rather than someone's - presumably educated - guess as to whether a particular 'market' can support a team as happens under the cartel system. With a population of only 100k, Blackburn would have a cat's chance in hell of being anything but a minor league team under the cartel system, especially with Liverpool and Manchester presumably also having two teams each. And US sport is much the poorer for not having that local identification, imo. Why don't you go to Blackburn and ask folks whether they would prefer that Blackburn not have a team and that they support Manchester United instead? After all, that would give those Blackburn fans more chance of following a team that won the Premiership so presumably they'd be in favour of it. Blackburn have won the Premiership one more time than they would have under the cartel system. And qualified for Europe on several occasions.
There's a problem at coming at this saying "Ask Blackburn to cheer for Manchester United"... because you're using inherently pre-set emotional ties that would have no factor when you're starting a league. America is huge, no one expects to have a team right down the street. If you're starting a league, the obvious places to throw down a club are the big cities. No one is going to complain "I'm not going to cheer for Baltimore! I live in Salisbury! %^&* Baltimore!" Who gives a damn? If you have a team for 50 years and it moves to another city, then people go crazy... But if you're just starting a league, no one is going to complain because their 50k person city doesn't get a team. They'll have a team to follow just as close as any other sport league here has. It is not really a big deal. You can't expect people who live in a country smaller than our states to have the same perspective on locality as a person who lives in a country the size of America. Also add that local identification has differing levels. There's state identification, a city identification, cultural identification, etc.
ahem.... The inherent problem with both arguments are.... Damn Colbert is on. You folk have fun with this. Can we start a new thread at least. Some schmucks thread is getting getting jacked
Exactly, I live in Alaska and the chances of my City or State of having a Major League sports team are slim to none (or in the case of hockey not as slim to none). Do I care? Not really. That's the life of living in a small market. So I root for teams in other cities. Sure, I ain't the biggest fan of Texas, but I still support the Dallas Stars. Give you an example. Sport "X" is a league in Europe with teams in say 16 different European cities: London, Rome, Paris, Munich, Berlin, Glasgow, Milan, Barcelona, Madrid, Moscow, Helsinki, Stockholm, Dublin, Athens, Prague, and Vienna (with possible expansion to Manchester and maybe Copenhagen or Brussels or Amsterdam). You love sport "X", you've been playing and following it since you were kid and you love the fact that they've got this league with all the best players in it. Thing is, you live in like Watford or Blackburn. You're never gonna get a team in the Major Sport "X" League in your hometown. But love the sport and you like the local team but you wanna root for a team in the big league so you support London because they're in England and you gotta show some support for the team in your Country (or State in the case of the US). Or you root for somebody like Stockholm because they've got that one player that you've always admired since you were a kid. That's basically what's it like for me. Sure it'd be cool if one of my local teams had the chance to promote and win a major title, but that ain't gonna happen (the NHL Salary Cap this season was $44 million, no team here could generate that much money for salary or even half that, cartel system or not). Just like a team from Blackburn or Watford would have no chance at competing against teams from the major European cities.
The chances are slim to none only because of the cartel system of US leagues that make it almost impossible for a place that's not in a big market to have a team. Obviously, you don't value the possibility of actually being able to watch live major league sports; many do.
What's so fair about giving the poor/bad teams advantages they don't deserve? MLS is a commie league.
Six european soccer clubs made 300 M$ or more last season. Here's the list: Real Madrid 396,6 M$ Barcelona 351,7 M$ Juventus 341 M$ Manchester United 329,3 M$ AC Milan 324 M$ Chelsea 300 M$ It's pretty impressive that Real are that superior even though they didn't even reach the quarter finals in the Champions league. Even more impressive that they are a pretty average top club in europe despite having those financial resources.
Isn't it amazing that despite MLS's "disadvantages": * no promotion/relegation * single entity management * franchises * supposedly meaningless regular season a coach has already been fired. If Checketts had been reading this thread he would have understood that he didn't have to do that since improving an MLS team is not important.
If england was starting from scratch to set up a league it's not exactly likely they'd devise a plan to have around 100 professional clubs and a system of several hundred other part time clubs. Most likely they'd adopt a system more along US lines. If the US had a full professional pyramid system of pro clubs, each (or virtually each) with 100+ years of history behind them, with several hundred other clubs below, the US probably wouldn't destroy that traditional league to go for a 16 club league organised by franchise.
"Obviously, you don't value the possibility of actually being able to watch live major league sports; many do." We can see pro sports all the damn time... And we're watching world class. We don't see third division level sports (and call it "pro") just because it's 15 minutes away. We can easily attend plenty of games with the best players in the world. We have seemingly a hundred different sports to go to. It's just that not big of a deal here, you should understand... you live in SF right? Alaska is an extreme example, but most countries these days don't have a huge piece of tundra completely seperated from the rest of the nation. And to RichardL... I don't see your point. I'm not telling England to adopt our system. Of course we wouldn't want to just wreck 100 years of tradition. I don't think England should wreck 100 years of theirs. I don't get the point of your statement... My only point was that some people in this thread are using the pre-existing emotions invested to make their point when its completely irrelevant. They talk about taking a team away from fans in Blackburn and "making" them follow Manchester United. It's a silly trick of rhetoric. There would be no emotional difficulty in this situation because if the country was big enough that Blackburn would not get a team, it wouldn't have a team to lose. That was my only point, that relying on pre-invested emotions of the existing league has little to do with this thread.
In my area, the CHL hockey team and AFL2 team are considered treasures to some extent(CHL) and at least a luxury(AFL2). It may not be 'dinho or Kobe, but it damn sure pro, and its damn sure fun. Alaska might be an extreme example, but Shreveport isn't. Sure I can travel a bit to see one of the Big 4 but enough to actually care and get to feel the pulse every game? No. But these thrid division teams actually bring the game to the people. The fans give a damn. And the AFL system is doing a damn good job. Most can attend a game or two. College road trip a father son trip to catch a baseball game(lots of them, tickets easier to get), maybe NBA or NFL, can be an experience to gain a fan. [/QUOTE] He showed the contrast of each system. America is very expansive and just starting to grow the roots of soccer. England is very dense, you see where I'm going with that. Its reciprocal really. However, if each were to pull some revisionist history, both methods would be considered. This might result in the Blackburn situation but I doubt it. More than likely, it'd be a bit of both resembling all the hockey, arena football, baseball, and soccer trends in second tier American sports. I'm not even touching Pro/Rel. [/QUOTE] Trying to figure out what people would have done had something else happened is trival at best and probably heavy in rhetoric. A team like Blackburn(6th-7th in EPL, but never challenging) exist in every American sport seemingly. Yes the demographics are different but I didn't break up Pangea. It just happened. But even if the circumstances were as you say, there would be fans that lost their minor league team that might feel a bit bad about it. Anyone losing their team probably feels bad about it.
Look at the population of Blackburn. In an American system, they would not even be allowed into the Premiership to prove they can finish 6th or 7th. They would be Blackburn United/City, playing Alan Smith as he comes back from injury. No they won't! Blackburn have won the league three times. In an American franchise system, they wouldn't have been in the league at all! So they wouldn't have their own team. Great. You're not really convincing me here. I'd rather watch Bolton lose every single game than have to pretend to support Man United because they're my nearest 'Major League' team. This is where you and me differ in our views on sport.
America doesn't have the history that England has. Many English towns are over a millenium old. People have stronger ties to the town they're from. For many Americans, a town is just somewhere to live.
And that's your loss. If say Anchorage had a team, that existed in a league with promotion/relegation, and say half a century ago your team had won some trophies, would you then like some foreigner telling you that your team shouldn't exist? If that was the situation, I just wouldn't follow any team.
Sorry that's too reasonable. Please ******** off and come back with a partisan opinion more suited to this site.
Whether they had a team or not, that doesn't mean they'd get behind a more distant team just because it's the nearest 'major league' team. If a franchise system happened in England, I wouldn't support a Manchester team. Mancunians are practically foreigners to me.
I understand your need to rant with all these post but, your first paragraph lost me. Really, Alan Smith? A rehab stint? That's what reserve games are for. Really this whole concept is re-dik-u-lus. Somehow, there is no Blackburn, but Anchorage now has a team? A bit of a stretch from what you said, but all the same, so is your argument.
This is stupid. The guy from Bolton is like a freaking brick wall. No perspective... No common sense. How shall we repeat again... In a way that he shall understand. "YOUR DAMN EMOTIONAL TIES TO YOUR LOCAL TEAM ARE COMPLETELY USELESS IN THIS DEBATE BECAUSE YOUR TEAM WOULD NEVER HAVE EXISTED." If your team never existed and no other other small area had a team, you would not feel robbed because there would be little to no precedent for you to have your own team. Much as RichardL says, if they started over, they'd go with a US-esque system. As well, you have to sort of comprehend how sports work in a country bigger than say... Indiana. If you live in a country as big as the United States, your association with other places is expanded a bit. As I stated in a previous post, we have various levels of local association, towns, counties, states, regions. Sure, someone in a different town is inherently different, but it is not as you say with people from Manchester being foreigners to you... We have so many other regionalized associations. So please, quit with the "partisan" drivel. Add some perspective of the places you talk about.
This isn't Hypothetical. Base Ball, or as we know it today, Baseball (as one word) organized a "professional" league among several hundereds of club in the Northeast & Midwest part of the country. Prior to organizing a league, there were literally scores of 100- 3 being recorded across the country. Initially, they allowed clubs from "smaller" cities, but since of these teams dropped out due to financial difficulties, it didn't take them long to put a limit on what size cities would be admitted into the league. The only city that I know of that created a team was Chicago. With the demise of the Excelsior club of Chicago, the city official rushed to organized a new "professional" club. The club will initially be called the "white Stockings," because of the white stockings worn by the players. After several name changes, the club is known today as the Chicago Cubs. All of the other teams were already established powers, like the Cincinnati Red Stockings, known today as the Reds. To my knowledge, there was never any promotion / relegation system based on performance discussed. If you wanted to play professionally you had to meet *their* requirements in order to join the exclusive club. Pike
I don't mean "professional", I mean professional. There was never a professional league of hundreds of clubs. The early baseball leagues had more like a 10-20 or so clubs, most of whom seemed to fold after a year before being replaced. It was that instability caused by clubs being unable to survive which lead to organisers restricting numbers to those they thought might actually exist the following year. In contrast, by the 1890s there were as many full time professional clubs outside the football league as in it - and they were established clubs rather than someone just forming a pro team from scratch and throwing it into a league and hoping. As I said, there were never huge leagues of clubs that got whittled down (if you can show me these leagues with hundreds, or even dozens of clubs, then please do). The baseball league's restrictions were about survival and credibility, not about setting up an elite from the large number of realistic competitors.
The National League was formed in 1876 as a way of stabilizing the chaotic transition to professionalism. Professionalism had earlier been shunned as "ungentlemanly." Before about 1870, the dozens of top-level amateur clubs competed for a championship in what was basically a boxing-style challenge system. There was one champion club, and other clubs would challenge them to a best-of-three series. In 1871 a group of clubs decided to become professional and formed the National Association, but it was very unstable, had no scheduling format, and churned through about 25 clubs over 5 years. The National League was created in 1876 to stabilize things, with firm rules for membership, and a standardized schedule with every team playing every other an equal number of times. It's quick success led to many professional leagues, with hundreds of clubs being formed in the next 15 years, including some rival "major leagues" but mostly plenty of "minor leagues." If the National League had wanted to form a 2nd division with pro/rel, there certainly would have been clubs out there to make it happen. What couldn't have been done is a national pyramid, because the transportation system couldn't have handled that before WWII. Leagues were by necessity restricted to a limited region. The only real difference between the majors and minors in those days were that the majors tended to have wealthier owners and they had teams in New York, which meant they were greater attention by the media. The "farm system" where the minor leagues became essentially a reserve system for the major leagues didn't come about until the 1930s.