Yup, they can be, until enough clubs fold that there aren't enough left for a league. Which is what happened to every professional league in the US before MLS started.
But none of the leagues that failed in the US were single-entity. Give me an example of where that has happened.
I guess they didn't get the memo about the public's huge demand for relegation thrillers. Meanwhile I quite enjoyed watching Manchester United make the next round of the playoffs.
It was literally the only Premier League game on in England today and I didn't watch it because, well, it's Wolves against Aston Villa. The German games were deciders, which is why they were interesting. Spoilers: Bremen were up for it and won 6-1 finishing in the relegation play-off spot above Dusseldorf who lost 3-0 to Union Berlin..
Well, it sounded like you were complaining there was no relegation football to watch. But there was and you chose to ignore it. And additionally it meant something at the other end of the table too, with Wolves now in fifth position. That's one of the joys of pro/rel; opposing teams can have completely different incentives to each other. And the good news for neutrals is that the relegation battle still looks very tight to avoid the last two spots to join, presumably, Norwich City in going down. Fox Sports really messed up in their game selection. Had they featured one or more of the relegation games, I certainly would have had an incentive to watch.
I see Brentford are closing in on a Championship playoff spot. It would be cool to see them in the Premier League as they'd be the 55th team I'd seen play at the top level.
Bremen shook off an entire season of scoring woes and manged to hang 6 goals on Koln. We're in the relegation playoff. Thought for sure we were sunk.
It's hypothetical, as no league has folded in Europe, simply because they can't. Their raison d'etre is to organise competitions for member clubs. So if clubs fold so much (= stop being professional) then their places will be taken by amateur clubs. But that's hypothetical too as it would mean something very bad happened in the world that all pro clubs are in financial trouble. covid
I didn't see that you'd posted this when I posted above. Nice to see Josh Sargent notch a goal off the bench. I'd like for things to work out with him & Bremen.
The only case in the last half century I can think of in England where a league folded is the Athenian League (best league name ever...) that folded after most of its teams left to join the Isthmian League (second best name...).. But that didn't involve teams disappearing. There have also been a number of league mergers.
There's a Wiki for that. Association football Football Alliance (1889–1892) Athenian League (1912–1984) Chiltonian League (1984–2000) Surrey Senior League (1922–2003)
The last two merged with other leagues. Similarly the Cheshire County League and the Lancashire Combination merged to form the North West Counties League. Ditto the Midland League and Yorkshire League merged to form the Northern Counties East League.
So my hangover from Thursday night (who would have thought that drinking 3/4's of a bottle of Laphroaig 10yr. all by myself would lead to one?) is finallly gone so figured I would address your concerns. And I am sure the league people would argue it was for the best, but it still goes directly to the sporting integrity of the league. Right? I'm not trying to tell someone else how much or little it should matter to them, just pointing out, it does matter to me. But do any of us believe they wouldn't be willing to do this again? If Ronaldo says he'll come to MLS we would all expect MLS to heavily involved and wouldn't be surprised to learn they made it happen, even if it meant improving one side at the expense of another. And from a business perspective that would be unequivocally the correct decision. But again circles us back around to what is the point of MLS?
I don't think Blank et al would accept the league helping the Galaxy to sign Messi and Ronaldo unless LA Galaxy were actively trying to sign them, and no other clubs had expressed an interest, or Messi and Ronaldo's agents specifically stated an intention to join LA Galaxy. At that point I would expect the league to do something most other leagues wouldn't do, which is step in and made sure everything went smoothly in a way that was beneficial to the league as a whole. This is the sort of responsibility other leagues would love, I'm sure. (Ronaldo owns an apartment in NYC btw).
Guess we'll have to disagree on this. I think the league would do what ever it took, perceptions of fairness be damned, if they had a chance to sign Ronaldo. From a marketing standpoint they'd be crazy not to. And I think a vast majority of MLS fans would not only be fine with that they'd be so exited about #CR7toMLS trending on twitter it wouldn't bother them at all. I suspect we may actually see this happen. If I were a betting man I would put it better than 50/50 that Ronaldo plays in MLS at some point in his career. Finally I don't mind leagues having strong commissioners/roles. I actually think it's something Europeans leagues would benefit from as shown by the "Every club for themselves" approach that you saw at the start of lock down (you can shove your null and void up your ...oh sorry I digress). It's just when that firewall between the "money making" side and the "creating a fair competition" side seems to be compromised that I have a problem.
The epl title is done, so it's boring days now for the remainder of the matches, right? RIGHT? WRONG Suspense at a high now, as CL/EL tickets are still in limbo and the same for relegation or not.
SS&E owns SAFC I'm not sure the XFL was destined to fail this time around. There was A LOT there that was enticing and beneficial for the game of football as a whole. And yeah, any BIG attempt at sports is going to have to have tv. No more than Juventus fixing matches (or Italy on general), less so I'd say. Completely fair, though I will say it's easy to do this TODAY. Then? Not so much. The league absolutely still muddles but also doesn't outright pull a Landycakes anymore either. The direction and effort of the last 5yrs is a much better indicator to me, than something from a period when they literally had to do what it took to keep existing. Superstars pick their spots, period. How does it work out any differently than a big end Euro club tossing enough money at a Ronaldo or pricing up an Andy Carroll at the expense of clubs that can't? End result is the same. The point of MLS is to continue it's trajectory so that it doesn't have to rely on anything like that anymore.