It's yet another argument that is full of wholes and doesn't consider the facts. Phoenix clubs are reborn pretty much out of the will of an existing fan base, coupled with generations of community and history. Most US clubs don't really have that, so there's less chance of "rebirths" in the wake of a team going bust.
Isn't this more of a function of the steep dropoff in support from the top clubs and the rest of the league (which isn't necessarily a function of pro/rel, but lack of equity within the leagues)? While I certainly can't make a serious argument about all the leagues in the world, but in my limited checks into leagues like Austria, Netherlands, and Denmark, it seems the primary reason why the second divisions in those countries is so low is because there is a pretty steep dropoff in support outside the top teams. As an example, in Austria, the top club, Rapid Wien averages about 15k per game, but the next best team (Sturm Graz) is less than 10k, while the bottom of the table is lucky to get 4k. The same is true in Denmark, where Brondby and Kobenhavn are in the 13k-14k range, while the bottom teams are in the 2k-5k range. Even more stark is the dropoff in Netherlands, where the top clubs (Ajax and Feyenoord) get above 40k on average, while the bottom of the table get less than 15k. If the decline in support for teams in the top division were less steep, I would imagine the dropoff between the divisions would be less steep as well. That being said, there is obviously a correlation between teams in the top divisions and attendances as the higher the attendance, the better the financial state for the team.
Depends on what you call a "rebirth". Does it have to be continuous, or does a situation like the Cosmos where the team died and several decades later the team comes back count? Or, perhaps, does a situation like you have in Atlanta count, where the Silverbacks succumbed to the darkness, but Atlanta United are coming into existence next season?
Remarkable good counterpoint. A quick look shows that a dropoff is still typical in the leagues listed and is understandably more pronounced depending on the performance after relegation. Those that get back into the promotion battle, tend to shed just a few thousand (some even stay the same an occasionally see a small bump), while those that don't can see a more dramatic drop (though not always). I still feel that there is a lot scope for drop-off in the US though, especially as many clubs don't have anything like the history to keep people coming. I'm very confident that a Los Angeles crowd would drop a relegated team like a hot rock. Nonetheless, your point still stands and is a strong one. I have placed you on "ignore".
Isn't that as much about the comments by the owner as much as the losing? While I'm certain the fans wouldn't be happy with the performance of the club, I'm not sure they'd be having the reaction you mention if the owner hadn't expressed how perplexed he was with that the fans felt they had ownership of the club when they weren't the ones spending the money.
Sorry. I didn't intend to imply that there wasn't a drop off in a team's attendance the season after it was relegated, but rather as a counterpoint to the numbers you gave in the difference between average attendance between D1/D2 and connecting it to pro/rel. Not that using the median is any better as the difference in median is pretty bad as well. My main point is that the difference in attendance between divisions isn't necessarily a function of pro/rel, but rather a continuation of the natural decline in support as you move down the standings of the pyramid. However, at the individual club level, there is a pretty obvious decline in support for individual teams as they move down the pyramid and increase in support as they move up. The amount of increase/decrease is largely dependent upon the club though. It's actually pretty fun to go through this site because it highlights the attendance in promoted clubs in blue and relegated in red. Just to pick Denmark between 2005/06 and 2014/15, there is a median increase of 54.7% when a team moves into D1 and a 37.5% decrease when they drop down to D2. You might say that the difference in percentage means that overall attendance is increasing, but consider a 54.7% increase from 3,000 is +1,641, while a 1,641 decrease from 4,641 is -35.4%. Basically, on median, teams that move up are just exchanging the same/similar number of fans. Not that it has anything to do with your overall point, so.. Umm.. I just wasted a good number of electrons?
Those comments certainly riled it up but the fans have been protesting before this. They've been calling on the 'empty answer' owner for a while. It seems a bit odd that an owner who actively is doing what he stated and positioning the club for true success (stadium investment, financial soundness, etc) going forward ... is having his head called for. So what is it truly about then, for the fans? Seems to me that this large commonality dispels the myth of pro/rel being a cause for popularity ...
Maybe I'm misunderstanding your point then? I'm not sure we can expect fans to accept losses, even if the owner is positioning the team for a better future. I think it is reasonable for fans to expect an owner to be able to walk (run a stable business) and chew bubblegum (field a competitive team) at the same time. Technically the things that Charleston's owner is doing is something that previous owners should have been doing and I'm not sure if he should be getting a pass because he happens to be the guy that is doing it. Winning. I'm not sure fans in pro/rel and closed systems are that different in that regard. It can also mean that the fans have a truly local team that they can support and that team has at least a remote possibility of moving up the pyramid and into better leagues. I'm not sure we can make that judgement based on if attendance drops when a team is relegated, or increases if it is promoted. For leagues that have an existing pro/rel system, the impact of pro/rel is already cooked into the system. Someone would have to look into what happens when pro/rel is implemented into a system for the first time and see if there is a correlation between attendance and the implementation of pro/rel.
It's a cake and eat too scenario though. In this case you have an owner that is coming in and righting the ship. He's fixing the red tape and positioning the club on much better footing. Yes, they're losing and face a possible relegation. But just as with Newcastle (the fans opting to accept and feel that the relegation is righting the ship) shouldn't the fans in Charlton not like, but be ok with the results given what is happening with their club? Instead, they're calling for the head of the owner and holding mock funerals for their club. They're walking out on the players and holding up matches in protest of a guy that is actually doing what's best for the club long term. We hear all the time in these conversations that "going down" isn't the end of the world and that "relegation can help a club" .... yet the Charlton fans are feigning its death. If that's the case, then half of what we get tossed at us about pro/rel is a load of shit. Well we can in the broader terms of pro/rel helping with popularity of the leagues. I mean AAA baseball would push for 3rd on that list with zero potential of a team being anything but a farm team (an oft chided thing in these discussions). I believe that most pro/rel advocates are blinded by the English system (by far the healthiest top to bottom) and don't realize that the lower level numbers really aren't superb at all (or they don't realize how popular minor league sports are here). Japan is the only arena I can think of too look for what you're talking about. However, there are so many other variables with Japan that I don't know a proper analysis can be made. They were drawing large crowds in the 60/70's (with pro/rel) but hit the shits with the rest of the soccer world ... the entirety of soccer in Japan has been restructured and pro/rel was re-introduced when J2 became a thing in the late 90's. Of course, they also have their 100 club initiative and heavy corporate hands in the mix as well.
I would be interested in that Lamar Hunt Open Cup league, but playing that many cup league games would require reducing the number of MLS games. With an unbalanced schedule, MLS has a more flexible amount of games than most countries. With 20 clubs, the number of games against each conference opponent could be reduced to 2 to reduce the regular season to 28 games. However, I think MLS games would make more money per game than cup league games. I don't see any type of promotion and relegation that would satisfy the owners, players, and fans happening any time soon. There might be ideas that could satisfy one or two of those groups, but not all three.
I'm not sure it is appropriate to expect fans to have a long term vision for their team. By their very nature they are largely driven by real time results. I also don't think it is appropriate to give the current owner a pass for doing good things on the business end of the team if he's not doing a good job on the field end of the team. He should be able to do both simultaneously, IMHO. If the statement about him increasing the player budget by 40% is correct, then I think there are valid concerns about whether he is a good owner even if he gets the business side of the team sorted. I see nothing to disagree with here. While AAA baseball is a valid counter-argument, I'm not sure how applicable it is to the argument that pro/rel would improve the popularity of US soccer.. One of the draws for AAA baseball is that the players there are the future MLB players. That isn't the case with how US soccer is currently set-up. I see nothing to disagree with here. Japan is a horrible example all around. J-League was never truly cut off from the JFL. Even prior to the creation of J2, teams had to apply to be J-League affiliates and then place in the top 3 spots of JFL to win promotion into J-League. They just didn't need to fear relegation to the JFL after a bad season. A better example would be K-League, which didn't really have a history of pro/rel prior to implementing it a few seasons ago.. They did have a "voluntary pro/rel" system for a few seasons, but no team took advantage of the promotion part, so no teams were ever relegated. It might be interesting to see what has happened to the teams that were in K1/K2 prior to the implementation and what has happened to them since..
Why do you believe that's what he's doing? The new owners have been calamitous in their (mis)management of the club. They are on their 6th manager in two years, have seemingly decided that they, rather than the manager, should pick the players, many of who seem to be useless Belgian imports. One manager was plucked from the Belgian fourth division. The club are also paying the owner's company £1 million a year, with Charlton seemingly reduced to being a feeder club for Standard Liege - a place to give loaned players experience, with academy youngsters thrown in at the deep end to make up the numbers. Yann Kermorgant, now at Reading, was a fans' favourite at the club, but revealed that he knew he had to quit the club after his first meeting with the new owners, branding them deluded, with no knowledge of football or how the game works. Minor sports aren't popular in the USA. If minor sports were popular, you'd see minor league sides who draw close to, or even outdraw major league clubs (on average, not for one-off games).
Right now, MLS has a 34 league games. These six would put them at 40, plus as many as 8 more for success. Given their roster realities, you are probably correct that is a big ask. Clubs in the CCL would be looking at another bunch. And, of course, there are the playoffs. So for success, as many as 60 games? I don't think it's too much to play 38 to 48 games in a full season. That's not unheard of in other leagues, in all competitions. But this stretches it a bit. It would require larger squads. but that's just thinking about the MLS sides. The lower league sides could find this to be a huge burden. As for pro/rel, among those groups, I think the owners would be dissatisfied, again and again and again.
I noticed one interesting thing about the way the K-League created its second division: clubs were selected for it purely on the basis of finances and fan support, not "sporting merit." Only two of the clubs initially in it were taken from what had been the second division, and none of the clubs "promoted" from below the second division had placed in the top five in their leagues.
I'm not sure this is entirely correct? FC Anyang was founded in 2013, but included elements of Goyang KB Kookmin Bank FC, which was in the 2nd division and folded in 2012. Bucheon FC 1995 was in the third division. Chungju Hummel was in the 2nd division. Goyang Hi FC was in the 2nd division as Ansan H FC Gwangju FC was relegated from K-League Police FC was in the R-League (Reserve league for K-League clubs) Sangju Sangmu was relegated from K-League Suwan FC were in the 2nd division as Suwan City FC So while 2 clubs did come from outside the 2nd division Korean National League, 2 came from K-League and 4 came from the 2nd division, or were newly formed with elements from a 2nd division team that folded. EDIT: That being said, neither K-League Classic (D1), nor K-League Challenge(D2) have seen a significant increase in attendance between 2013 and 2015. So, so far, pro/rel isn't proving to be a panacea to popularity, but it is likely too early to make that statement since it has only been 3 seasons.
Yeah, but a prevailing claim from the pro rel tweetmeisters is that the reason a strong lower league structure won't emerge is that nobody cares about clubs that will never be D1, which is why all the lower league clubs tend to fold. Therefore, upon introduction of pro/rel, Korea should have seen a colossal tidal wave of interest. I wait with glee for the moment one of these newly manufactured clubs gets promoted and wins the K-League Classic and Ted gushes about the joys of an open system and sporting merit.
Of course minor league baseball doesn't draw as much as the majors. It's played in small cities and towns.
There are minor league clubs in cities, as well. KC had a minor league baseball club. Footie fans know this because the Wizards were sharing their field, an abomination for soccer, with the T-Bones. I have no idea if they still exist. But they had a spell of popularity because the cheap tickets, and the fact that those were the dead years for Royals success. But their popularity meant maybe 10k on a good night. The city also has a minor league hockey team, and it is considered well attended, but that means 4k to 6k. Minor league sports don't draw the crowds of major league sports, no matter their location.
OK, I stand corrected. I did not realize that FC Anyang was a phoenix club and Goyang Hi FC had been renamed; I assumed they and Police FC had been "promoted" from farther down the league structure. But IIRC, the National League (former 2nd division) clubs that were selected to participate in K-League Challenge were selected over clubs that placed above them in the standings.
^ Didn't know some of that. I believe there are certain things he's righting though (investment in the stadium, righting the ledger, etc). Well, they are ... but clearly not as popular as their major league counterpart. I'm certainly not saying that nor have I ever done so. They prove popular when compared to other "lower division" league around the world. The Championship in England is by far an outlier in this data set. Germany is decent as well (though the avg is propped a bit by some clubs) ... and then you have Italy that has a 2nd division that doesn't draw as high of a % (30) of the 1st division as the AHL (32) does to the NHL. AAA Baseball att stacks up well against 2nd division attendances to the point of being on par with Liga Adelante (7300 this season for LA and 6500 and 7199 last season for the two AAA leagues). Aberdeen MD has a population of 1500 (2013 est) and draws 4200 to a Class A Short Season baseball team (which would be the 6th level in a pyramid structure). Hell even our bastardized Arena Football has teams that draw as much as some Championship teams (bottom 5 but still) .... I'm not sure how you deem minor league sports aren't popular.
I'd like to note, that while not soccer ... the KHL (russian hockey league) was introduced as the top tier of Russian Hockey to replace the old structure that included pro/rel. The aim was to compete with the NHL to be the top league in the world. Since moving away from pro/rel and the old structure the league is on much better footing and has regularly snatched rather big names in the world of hockey (to include Jaromir Jagr - since returned to the NHL). Also of note is that it is at 28 teams and counting (expansion plans still on going). It is divided into conferences and divisions just like our leagues here. Att is up 21% across the league since the first year of the new structure. Jokerit just moved from the Finnish league to the KHL for last season. Att went up and an American won the top goal scorer for them.
That's actually fascinating. Just read that they handle draft picks by holding a post season cup for those that didn't make the playoffs, with top pick going to the winners. The actually stretches across multiple nations too (Eastern Europe and Asia) and has foreign player limits.
The KHL is about as close of a case study as you can get of going from a 'Euro style' structure to an 'American style' structure. The change took effect in 2008, so we're almost a decade into it and it has been a resounding success and is trending upward.
What investment in the stadium? Nothing's been built at The Valley during his time there. What virtually all 2nd tiers do though, elsewhere, is have 2nd tier clubs roughly on par with their top division counterparts. Some of that, no doubt, is due to some of the top division clubs not being that amazing anyway, but what you don't get is the cliff edge across the board drop in support that you get when there's a major/minor league split.