I'd argue there's also the small number of games. Fans (in any league system) will tolerate this--to a degree. At some point, you need to show that there's a plan in place to make it happen.
To the degree that tanking happens--and it seems largely an NBA thing--while I agree that it's wrong to assume that individual players make a conscious decision to throw a season. BUT...they can eventually 'check out' a bit when they realize that the decision has been made not to compete. I don't know how a coaching staff keeps the locker room once that becomes known. If soccer ever gets big & entrenched enough here for pro/rel to be economically feasible let alone optimal let alone necessary, that would make me very, very happy. I still like the idea of having MLS as a a closed league and the rest of pro soccer in a pro/rel pyramid...but I'm afraid MLS might have expanded beyond the point where we could do that.
I still wish we'd have had a Pennington that never got hurt ... that dude was ********ing great. That wrist injury took away his play-fake, which was insanely good and set up so much for him. Then he just had the niggling ones that never let him be what he could. So you agree that parachute payments reward failure. Nice of you to finally admit it. I asked this of you LONG AGO, and several other times, but never got an answer. Let's try again: How is it a weakness for a league to be set up so that all teams are able to address needs without having to worry about falling into irrelevancy? That's a shit example. Willfully ignoring what the actual price(s) of failure are in our leagues just shows you are, at best, a bad faith argumentative troll. Given it's substantial monies above anything they lesser competition they are going into has, it's quite the reward. Silly scenario ... you didn't give the banished teams a payout.
Funny because ALL of the teams in the US top league looked exactly the same as they normally do except.......well except nothing!
Did you realise Liverpool have just one their FIRST Premier League title? First championship for 30 years! Leeds get a shot at it next year - exciting innit. 15 years ago Arsenal weren't expected to ever drop out the top 2 let alone become mid table 'also rans'! You do understand that (for obvious reasons to most) football clubs evolve slowly? Just to mention as well, of the three of last years promoted clubs that we were informed would ultimately just be cannon fodder and would simply go straight back down twisted up. This now gives us a predicament, if the two that survived were 'lucky' and therefore are simply destined for relegation next season do get relegated then what about the three that have been promoted this year? Surely they are next season's 'cannon fodder' and are destined only for relegation no? They can't all go down surely? And what of Leicester? One season wonders destined only for relegation (once there luck runs out) they MUST be relegated next year no? Burnley have been 'destined' for relegation for years now haven't they? They will surely get relegated next year too? And as for Palace! Hmm sounds like 15 clubs are going down next year, unless they have money of course, in which case they will easily walk the league Championship next season! :-D!
Hey @Crawleybus, you need to respond to this prediction you made about Man U, then I'll pay attention to any new points you're making.
It's interesting how you react when confronted by an opinion different from the monoculture of this group.
Back in the day, when this thread was new-ish, there were a couple of very active posters who were rather stridently anti-pro/rel. Of course, that was back when we also had much more dogmatically/self-righteously "give me pro/rel or give me death" type posters, so it all sort of balanced out in a ridiculously hyperbolic way.
" In essence, the Warriors are tanking, which means to intentionally lose as many games as possible for better draft positioning and to keep picks." Oh. https://bleacherreport.com/articles...State had a 64,a last-second goaltending call.
And? Is there a point? They have just won their first ever Premier League, their first Championship for THIRTY years! They have won two Champions Leagues in that time though, what has that got to do with the price of baked beans?
Your prediction Man U would be happy to just take 7th this season, and your repeated insistence that the standings in the middle of the year proved that the big 6 weren't destined to finish in the top 6. Yet, as many many responses to you said, 5 of the big 6 finished in the top 6 and the 6th finished just 3 points off the pace in 8th, in what many of their fans are calling a horrible year for them.
And this has to do what exactly with pro/rel in the US? Over the last 3 to 4 year's can you name me one top 5 pick in MLS that was anything more than a solid player(nothing special). So saying it's some sort of reward in MLS is just flat out wrong.
Big 6!? What happened to the 'big 3'? Who is moving goalposts here? Besides I think Utd ARE delighted to finish 3rd... and only THIRTY THREE points off top spot too! lol. With Arsenal in eighth we are going to have to start calling it 'the big eight' now don't you think? ;-)
Thank you for confirming just how meaningless games are for the bottom dwellers in closed league MLS.
Are you equally willing to admit that late-season games for midtable teams are meaningless in open systems?
"Competition committee could look into tanking According to Daniel Kaplan of The Athletic, a league source said it is “likely the competition committee will have to address this issue” of the Dolphins’ tank job." Oh. " The problem is, tanking is bad for the game but it can work for teams. The Houston Astros and Chicago Cubs did something similar, stripping the roster all the way down, and won championships after building back up." Oh. https://sports.yahoo.com/competitio...ns-tanking-but-what-can-nfl-do-210222607.html "The only way to prevent tanking in the NHL is to end the draft as we know it. The NHL’s lottery system under which the top three picks are all subject to pingpong ball drawings has made the process a more equitable one, but the draft still is designed to reward failure and organizations still stand to benefit more by losing more." Oh. "https://nypost.com/2019/02/07/overhauling-the-draft-process-would-solve-nhls-tanking-issue/
With European qualification, promotion playoffs and relegation, the number of teams that have meaningless games games at the end of the season is small. The problem that closed leagues have is that, absent anything to play for at the bottom of the league absent "better draft choices", they end up having oversized playoffs to sustain interest. Effectively their eggs are all in that one basket, a basket that directly affects the importance of the regular season.