An Interesting Read

The article alludes to the early 1900s. In the early 1900s, you didn't have as much of a distinction between a kid and adult. The article kind of pushes the philosophy that if you treat your kid like an adult, your kid will act like an adult. If you allow the kid to step up on its own then it will be just fine. I think that could have worked then. But not now. I think NASL in the 1970s tried this parenting philosophy. MLS is now trying the other parenting philosophy.

For example, MLS is now a teenager with parents (owners, single entity). The parents give MLS a curfew (small salary cap) and strict rules (DPs, homegrowns, internationals, allocation) so it doesn't do drugs (spend too much), doesn't get knocked up (act older than its age) and stays focused on school (slow growth, building a foundation, and getting better). Some think the teenager (MLS) could go to Harvard (top 4 leagues in the world) others think it is destined for community college (mediocrity). But in my mind, you got to let the kid be a kid and take care of it until it is 18. Sometimes I think the parents (owners, single entity) are a bit too strict with MLS. But they have began to trust the kid (MLS) a lot more lately because teachers, adults and fellow kids respect it more and see its potential.

 

KCbus and I have both read the drivel coming from Soccer Reform. Not interested

 

Ahhh, Tinfoil Teddy. His rants are full of bullshit conspiracies and confusing metaphors. He's an idiot who has absolutely no idea what it's like for soccer teams in this country. He browbeats people on twitter and refuses to answer questions that prove him wrong.

In short, he's a ********ing idiot.

 

I'm not even going to get into the level of idiocy of the guy that posted the stuff you linked to.

I will however point to the irony of your Freudian slip.


Of course, think about the most recent "success stories" in terms of pro/rel. I'm not talking about the teams that "make it" for a year or two and then flounder. I'm talking about the actually success stories.

Do they have the technicality of playing games out on the field to "earn" promotion ? Yes. Is that the truth behind their promotion/success story ? No. MONEY <---- is the truth. Man City ? Yeah. Swansea was bought out as well.

Despite the guise of an "open" system, things aren't any different anywhere else in the world. You have to splash, and splash big to be in the top division, let alone actually be a top club/win the top league title.


So how is it really any different ? We just do it up front here.

 

You obviously wern't here when Tinfoil Teddy was a member of BigSoccer. That deluded asshole was spewing bullshit on a regular basis, as well as starting trouble whenever he could. That fool made idiots like DCU1996 look like posers by comparison.

You're better off not taking anything that nutbar says seriously.

 

As you've probably guessed, Ted W.'s views are pretty unpopular around here. On the assumption that you're honestly neutral on the subject, here's the a quick rundown of a few of the problems with the above argument.

1) On your showing, it would cost someone close to $70 million to buy a chance at promotion into MLS. If the NASL owners had that kind of money to burn, they'd be MLS owners. The issue with finding more teams for MLS has never been $70 versus $100 million.

2) There is more than money keeping minor league teams from building major league stadiums. A city is not going to be as eager to approve or support a minor league stadium that might be a major league stadium at some point down the line. And banks aren't going to finance a stadium if they don't know if it'll have a team in it drawing 5,000 fans a game or 15,000. And teams are not going to want to take a bath opening a huge stadium while they're still in the minors.

3) The relegated clubs would fail. A minor league team won't sell enough tickets to open the doors to Red Bull Arena. Second division soccer in this country is held together with baling wire and popsicle sticks right now; major league teams dumped into that environment will face economic catastrophe.

4) Not to mention, even if they don't get relegated, no major league team will ever be able to build a stadium again. Imagine telling a bank that you're one bad season away from playing in a league with an average attendance of 4,000 fans a year when you're asking them to take a chance on a 25,000 seat stadium. The same goes for jersey sponsors, stadium sponsors, everything. You are offering them more risk, and so you will get paid less.

5) And then there's the TV deals. If you're ESPN, does the added drama of promotion and relegation make up for the possibility that neither New York nor Los Angeles are going to have teams in the league? Remember, New York won the wooden spoon two years ago, and the year before that, LA was second-to-last in the league on goal difference. Replace those two teams with Richmond and Rochester and see what the ratings look like. Or, worse: relegate Vancouver and Toronto, and see what happens to your Canadian TV revenue.

6) Promotion and relegation would basically require getting rid of the current parity controls on the league (something Ted is in favor of as well). In other words, MLS would presumably start to look like the major European leagues, with one or two "haves" and a lot of "have-nots." That works for countries where everyone lives in or near one or two big cities. The United States isn't like that, and most fans in most places would get screwed over.

7) Especially since you'd also have to get rid of territorial exclusivity--meaning you'd inevitably end up with the richest clubs clustered in the biggest cities. How does England get around problem number five? Easy: they have six clubs in London. You can do that when you only have one big city in your country. But pull four or five random teams out of MLS and stick them in existing cities, and it starts to look a lot less like a national league.

8) When English clubs get relegated, they lose fans. But for that same reason, those fans don't stop following the league, because there's usually another club within a few hours' drive that they can follow. What do you tell a Salt Lake fan if Real gets relegated, then folds because they can't afford Rio Tinto?

That's just a quick primer. Maybe, some time in the future, when there are large, stable second and third divisions that can sell out MLS-size stadiums, and investors clamoring to start up pro soccer teams, promotion and relegation could be a possibility. But the idea that instituting promotion and relegation would instantly create those conditions is just silly. In the current economic reality, it would be a disaster for everyone involved.

 

...with a completely uninteresting thread title.

 

Chapka's post should be a sticky at the top of this forum.

Well said.

 

Swansea weren't big spenders by any means in the championship.

Actually, in most of the world you don't need to spend big money to stay up. The leagues with big tv deals for the top flight are the exception, not the rule.

The hard part for most clubs going up is down to the number of fans the clubs have. If you can only get 7000 in a league where the average is 10,000 it's going to be tough to stay long term.

 

I agree with the other points, and even the implication behind the point here, but the idea that English fans just go and support somebody else if their team goes down is just flat out incorrect. That doesn't happen at all.



ps, for anyone who doesn't realise, the guy who writes that soccerreform site used to post here regularly and was a pro/rel evangelical nutcase.

 

Swansea were bought out and built a new stadium which in turn drives more revenues. They spent, perhaps not directly on players, but they spent and had money infused into the club.

Big money is relative to your club.

^ case in point.

How do you fix the 3K att gap ?

Right now, the answer is "overspend in hopes of attracting the crowd and/or extra revenue sources from winning and hope it happens before the loan payments are due ..."

 

It's a well-cherished belief among many English fans that it doesn't happen. But the numbers (and common sense) suggest that it does. There's an interesting chapter on the subject in Soccernomics (published in the UK as Why England Lose.

I know American sports fans who are diehards for whatever baseball team they grew up with. But I also know plenty who root for the local team, even if they've only moved there recently, because going to baseball games is fun. Relegation screws both sets of fans over--the diehards because minor-league games aren't on TV, and less-loyal fans by taking away an opportunity to see a major league game.

 

Liberty Stadium was built by Swansea council. It's shared with the city's rugby club, as was largely financial by a retail development.

There was no super-rich owner pumping millions in.

No. The way is to have a smaller and cheaper squad, and pick up cheap bargains from lower down instead of proven talent.

That's usually the way they've been able to go up in the first place, but sustaining it is difficult.

They don't just spend as if they've got the same budget as everyone else.

 

Sorry, but you don't understand the culture at all if you believe West Ham fans, for example, are going down to White Hart Lane or the Emirates this season because West Ham are in the championship.

The local rivalry is such that they'd hate those clubs and all they stand for, even more so with them lording it over them for being in a lower division.

The 5000 fans that might stop watching a team when they go down don't start watching somebody else. They just stop going altogether.

Well yes, relegation is a bad thing. But so is losing. Nobody says losing should be abolished because it makes people miserable and ruins their match-going experience.

That's because people are smart enough to realise that the flip side of losing is winning, and that makes people happy and gives them a great day out.

Similar with pro/rel. Relegation is bad for fans of the relegated club, but it's very good for the club that replaced them.

 

In that case, clubs could only hope to be that lucky. Didn't know that.

^ yes, that's the way it should be done.

Your last line though, misses my point of relativity. Overspending (regardless of amount) is overspending.

In '02 the club was completely bought out by the Consortium was it not ? I thought so .... '02 or '03 roughly. From that point, the club got the new stadium and slowly started popping for players above what they had normally. I know Jason Scotland was a big help a few years ago and just last year they bought Sinclair.

Sure, it might not be "millions pumped into the club" but it's relative to their expenditure, not other clubs, in terms of pouring money into their squad.


And now in hopes to sustain, they've popped their biggest ever transfer fee on Graham.

 

To be honest, I don't know Swansea's finances well enough to know how well they are keeping to a budget.

What I do know is that with a ground that only holds 20,000 it'll be tough to stay up more than three or four years. It puts them at a disadvantage in comparison to WBA etc. They'll also generate less sponsorship (through being a smaller club). The TV money should really benefit clubs that spend wisely though.

Mind you, the comparative success of all the promoted sides does possibly hint at financial reality biting at a few clubs now.

 

That's the key ^ in my opinion.

Taking a big picture snapshot of say the last 15-30 promoted teams (5-10 years) would probably provide a very good set of data points that would show the financial reality of spending to be promoted, spending to survive, and spending to have any chance of actually gaining ground upwards.

 

As an aside, and to perhaps highlight how the TV money gap can skew things (or highlight how a lack of such a gap would ease things considerably, Club World Cup semi-finalists Kashima Reysol were playing 2nd tier football in Japan in 2010, and won the J-League title this year.

The number of back to back promotions in the football league is also still fairly high.


Clearly if you do have a lower income stream than the clubs in the division you've been promoted to it'll be tough, especially if you have a lower income stream than all the other clubs (e.g. Blackpool).

The perhaps incorrect assumption is that any promoted club would always have that handicap. It's easier to view it that way in the USA, where no current 2nd tier club looks likely to draw 17000 or so if they could be promoted, particularly if they were to struggle if they went up.

 

I think the big disconnect for most of the pro/rel campaigners, from our arguments against it is highlighted by your first sentence there.

Myself, Jasonma, Achowat, and many of the others that put up the debate against it merely state that pro/rel has become a big device in the money issues facing clubs all across Europe (most famously) and the rest of the world. Certainly, the advent of huge TV contracts and the subsequent gaps created between the divisions is the primary concern. We get that, and state as much. Most on the other side though, simply ignore pro/rel's synergistic properties in the matter. It is quite clear that it plays a big role in the money problems. We've never stated that it is the only function, nor have we stated it is the primary one.

I know that you understand the actual merits/stances we're debating ... but you're in the 1% in this debate.

 

Soccernomics pretty much breaks the whole of soccer fans into two factions, Nick Hornbies (like the author of Fever Pitch) and everybody else. The Hornbies are still going to support Arsenal even if they're D5. Everybody else, the people that believe soccer is a right good way to spend a Saturday, are going to head to the Bridge or something else.

Some important things to note when discussing the above paragraph:
*English fans would likely not consider the Championship to be minor league.
*Every single person who would take time out of their day to talk about soccer on a message board is, almost be definition, a Hornby.

 

The amount of casual fans who just go along to match because it's nearby is tiny. The premier league is something like 90% season ticket holders. There are no casual season ticket holders. It's a pretty hefty financial committment that you aren't going to make if you just want to watch "some football".

And I know loads of fans who support a variety of clubs. Even those who have a loose support don't go and watch other clubs if their club isn't in the top flight.

I really never met a single person who attends football matches on even a semi-regular basis, say one or two games a year, who goes to games as "something to do on a Saturday afternoon". He goes to his club's games, or not at all.

I've genuinely never met a single one of these people who regularly goes to random premier league games as something to do.

As I said, a West Ham fan would hate all the other London clubs. He'd get no joy at all from watching Arsenal win.

I mean, do you relieve believe that when Man City dropped out of the top flight, some of their fans would pop along to Old Trafford instead?


The exceptions would be exiled fans, who might pop along now and then to watch a game in his new city, or groundhoppers, who tend to only ever visit a ground once. They are a tiny % of any crowd.


I have heard of cases in the US where if one of a city's teams is doing badly, fans might go and watch the other instead, especially if they are in the play-offs, but that just doesn't happen here. Fans would not cheer their local rivals. They'd want them to fail. If Bristol City were in the play-offs, the thought of them winning and going to the premier league would be stuff of nightmares for Bristol Rovers fans, all of them.