See, I think that's backwards--I think there's pro/rel because there were too many clubs to begin with. And the continued existence of pro/rel allows all of them, or at least the vast majority, to maintain. My understanding about the history of the game in England is that the clubs came first, and then the league structure followed. Is that not right?
I disagree. There may have been many clubs, but that doesn't mean that they would have garnered the level of support that many outside the Premier League (or, historically, Div One) do. Do you think teams such as Derby County and Wolverhampton Wanderers would garner the support they do if they were permanently consigned to a minor league?
I spelled out exactly what I thought was wrong with the moderation of the (previous) pro/rel thread. I am hoping this one will be moderated better.
What are you disagreeing with? I never said that Derby County or Wolves would garner the support they do in a closed league--in fact, I specifically said England should have pro/rel. My point is that clubs came first, league structure came second.
As though that's the issue regarding the moderation given some of the stuff that passed for debate on the previous thread. Odd, because I never claimed otherwise. But there is an important point here that pro/rel is a big factor in England having so many clubs with "too much genuine support" as you specifically put it in the post I responded to.
There isn't a particular reason why the clubs would be locked into being permanently confined to a minor league system. Even within closed systems there is movement up and down the divisions. It's just handled in a different manner than pro/rel. It is also conceivable that if pro/rel hadn't existed in England, that the smaller clubs in England would have gone under bythe early 40's and people in those cities could have started supporting nearby clubs that did survive. That's essentially what happened with the various sports here in the US. In the late 1800s and early 1900s there were a multitude of teams scattered across cities and towns of all sizes. Slowly but surely the ones in smaller towns started to disappear and fans of the sport in those cities started listening to games for surviving clubs on the radio and/or traveling to games in cars along the newly created highway system. So.. yes.. Pro/rel allowed England to keep the number of clubs that it had when pro/rel was implemented, but I'm not convinced that pro/rel is why soccer is popular in England.
Drop it. I said that clubs came before the league structure. You said "I disagree". Now you say "I never claimed otherwise." You need to stop being so obtuse.
Lots of small towns had minor league and semi-pro teams back in the day. When I was a kid in the 70's, my grandma used to tell me about the time the local baseball team (town of around 600 people in western Kansas) beat Denver; fifty-some years later, she still remembered that day.
In the context of the US sporting landscape, they aren't. If they were popular, you'd expect the better supported clubs to be able to outdraw the lesser supported major league clubs. That's actually a good thing for you overall argument. It's been said many times, after all, that if a club got relegated from MLS, crowds would nosedive, as they'd be treated as minor league, with all the apathy that implies. To argue that minor league teams have good support - as good as foreign leagues with pro/rel, actually implies pro/rel as a concept would be workable in the USA
On the one hand, I can see an argument where pro/rel might have been possible in the United States as far as baseball goes, if it had been installed over a hundred years ago. But on the other hand, I wonder if travel distances would have made that nearly impossible. As noted above, my parents' hometown team in western Kansas hosted a team from Denver back in the 20's (or maybe the 30's). That's not a short travel distance. But thanks to trains, it was pretty doable. But how much further would have been possible for a small team like that? It's notable that Denver--the team from the bigger city (and presumably one with more money/resources) was the team that did the travelling. I'd be interested to know how far the Almena, KS team actually traveled for games. Going to Denver would be one thing, but crossing the Rockies? How could a team from a town of a few hundred people do that? So, for lower leagues, I'd say regions/conferences would have been necessary no matter what. The country was just too big. Unless we're talking well over a century ago; then maybe all the teams would have been east of the Missouri. I don't know. This is all counter-factual.
Says the moderator who didn't. You said " There are just too many clubs and too much genuine support to go to closed leagues, IMHO." See that "and" in there? The "too many clubs" I would agree at least somewhat predates the introduction of pro/rel. The "too much genuine support" is, imo, a result of pro/rel helping to create such a vibrant "minor league" structure. Without pro/rel, England could have ended up with many less-well-supported "minor league" clubs and the kind of gulf in support between its First Division and the rest that one typically sees with closed leagues.
This is very true, but I was more referring to the halcyon days of the late 1800s and 1900s where major cities* like Akron, Canton, Decatur, Toledo, and Syracuse had major league teams. *Okay, not major
The semi-pro game didn't fold, and that didn't have pro/rel until the 80s. There wasn't even a pyramid until then - just regional leagues, and clubs could apply to join other leagues if they wished. What does seem to be clear was there there was something of a shift away from non-league clubs in the 50s/60s. Growing car ownership would have made travel easier, and tv would have made the top clubs more alluring. The best situation for a club is to become effectively a team for a whole region, by virtue of all other clubs in the area lacking any sort of success. You see that in places like Norwich or Brighton. If Plymouth could ever get their act together they could easily support a premier league team.
If you have substantive complaints, take them to PMs. Yes, I see it there. I also typed it. It means that, in the here-and-now, going to closed leagues would be a mistake because the fan base broadly supports and is invested in the pro/rel system. There is no opinion there, one way or another, for what is responsible for creating that support. Hence, my confusion on what you're disagreeing with.
Got it. On other sports--Omaha, NE had a long tradition of minor league hockey. It was quite the hockey town back in the day; there's a reason why the smaller University of Nebraska @ Omaha has hockey and the larger U of N @ Lincoln doesn't.
It is also far rarer and is usually unrelated to performance on the field of play. Hoping that your team can bribe its way into a closed league is a little different than seeing your team get promoted based on its performances on the field of play.
I also see that I got the timing of your comment wrong. I thought you meant the game happened in the 70s, not that your grandmother was still talking about it in the 70s.. So, my response wasn't necessary. Although, I will note that minor league hockey is a strange bird. Given the relative lack of popularity of hockey in general in the US, one would think that it wouldn't really work, but it seems to be relatively successful. There are 5 junior league teams here in the PNW and they average between 4k and 7k, which is higher than the MiLB teams in the same cities get.
Except that the clubs and support predate the system. You don't see that level of support outside of the teams in the top tier in 99.5% of the pro/rel leagues in the world. Next. Yes, I feel that Bolton would have better support if they were a solidified Championship club as opposed to one facing the issues of being a 'punching above their weight now strapped with debt and money issues club' fighting off relegation from the Championship. 100 years ago Bolton was getting 13K ... this year they're getting 15K .... what wonders pro/rel has done for their support! No you wouldn't ... why would I ever expect the CC Hooks to outdraw the Tampa Bay Bucs? That makes no sense in the context of the US Sporting landscape. None, at all. You're projecting one point into another here. Minor league sports are popular here. That doesn't mean it isn't relative though. It's one thing for the Aberdeen Ironbirds to draw 4200 to a baseball game on avg (in a town of 14000 people) but quite another for the Baltimore Orioles to drop down a level and draw 9K ... those are to completely different circumstances. A Major League team going from Major League att/sponsors/tv money/etc to a Minor league set of the same things would be a crucial if not fatal hit. That doesn't equate to the leagues/teams not being popular ... it's the divide between the two. No shit Major Leagues and teams are MORE popular. The Honda Accord doesn't occupy the top slot among sedans anymore (and hasn't for a while) but that doesn't meant it is no longer a popular choice. So is seeing your club not able to earn it on the field despite all of the support and resources in the world. For all the "inclusiveness" touted about pro/rel it is also just as, if not more so, exclusive.
M, there was enough support in the 1880s (and under-the-table illegal payments because the league was meant to be amateur) that the game went pro and leagues were set up to provide regular fixtures through which steady revenues could be earned. These leagues led to teams becoming strong enough that competing national leagues were set up, ultimately leading to the merger that caused pro/rel to be created. The teams outside those leagues were successful enough that they joined the Football League via continued expansion. Following World War I, the Southern League had grown so successful that most of its clubs were added to the structure creating division three. The league saw major expansion after WWII and with the regionalized Division 3 containing 48 clubs, they were nationalized and converted into Divisions three and four. All of this expansion occurred using clubs outside the Football League, so it wasn't promotion and relegation itself that made the game popular. Nobody was saying "I love this sport because teams move up and down". Now the fact that the Football League had a system that could allow for potentially unlimited clubs, possibly made the maintenance of such a vast number of clubs more viable. However, there is nothing to say that the Football League saying at 92 "We're full" (which they sort of did in a way) and firmly ending all expansions or elections, would have had a major impact on popularity of the game. The non-league game might have died but as the election system wasn't exactly free and easy with promoting and relegating members after it hit 92 teams, I think it's unlikely that much would have changed from the scenario that @RichardL outlined above. And even if they had, I expect that people would have just adopted other local teams the way they did in US sports.
Maybe not, but any team joining the Football League at the lowest level knew that through performances on the field of play, they could move upwards in the league structure. Would those teams have been as well supported if their status had been essentially permanently fixed at the level they joined the league? I doubt it. Imo, it was the existence of pro/rel within the Football League that provided a significant catalyst for the strong growth in support of teams outside of the top level.