I see the problem.. You've never actually been to a live soccer game, have you? Or, at least, you've never been to a live soccer game with kids. You also haven't been to a MiLB game recently. For most of the "successful" MiLB teams, it has very little to do with "wiling away" a hot summer evening, it's about the entertainment away from the field that gets people to games now adays. Soccer has quite a bit more action than baseball and as such there isn't as much need to distract people between the action like at a baseball game. It's also a lot easier to fit in the three hours a soccer game requires (game time + commute time) vs. the four hours a baseball game requires. With how busy people are now adays, its a lot easier to make a three hour commitment then it is a 4 hour commitment.
Wow, you just had to go douche. Seen plenty of soccer games. Take the kids often. And I've lost count of how many minor league, independent league and summer league baseball games I've attended (hundreds, in a slow year I'll go to a dozen, make sure to catch a game every time I travel). Anyway, the only thing you got right in that nonsensical response is that soccer has a lot more action. Of course the point you completely missed is that baseball rakes in money BECAUSE it isn't non-stop action. It's a relaxed game perfect for hot weather, at every level. Successful MiLB teams have nice stadiums, good food and reasonable prices. None one is buying tickets for the between-inning sumo suit battles (which are awesome). So, given that part of the lure of baseball is that it's a game which actually allows fans to waste a little time, they don't mind if the players cycle through minor league systems all season long. As long as the park is nice, the food is tasty, the weather is good and the prices are low, they're pretty much satisfied. It's low key. Meanwhile soccer fans, at least the folks I know, are far from nonchalant about who is playing for their team. They're far from nonchalant about anything having to do with soccer, nothing low key about them. So I'm far from sold on the notion that soccer fans will take kindly to consistently losing the best players off their team every time one of them has a good month, which is what happens if you're a farm team. Independent lower division clubs still lose their best players, but they at least have some control over when. They certainly don't lose them right before the team's biggest games of the season (which happens all the time in MiLB).
Most of these MLSnobs are douchebags...they are scared of change. No one is talking pro/rel now only in 20-30 years when D2 is stable, but they have some idiotic concept that it will not work in the U.S., yet countries like Japan, south Korea and yes the "Socceroos" are considering it, hell even Don said their is a 10 year plan, I don't know what he means but I've heard from is mouth Pro/rel will not work YET. These MLSTrolls only feel superior because they are geeks who only support anyhing MLS and shun the rest of the leagues. At least NASL never had concepts like countdown clock and running PK's yep those are the two things I will repeat forever but these MLSTrolls want to forget about it.
How can there be MLSTrolls in an MLS forum? And the original NASL had a 35 yard offside line, so what?
I like the term MLSnobs. I could wear that with pride. MLSTrolls doesn't work as well. MLS has been nothing but change for its entire existence. Why in the world would fans of MLS be scared of change? Have any two consecutive years of MLS play had the same teams, rules, playoffs? I think its reasonable that if you only support an MLS team then you have the right to put a little more weight behind your opinion than behind the opinion of someone who doesn't support MLS. I honestly cannot think of a single person on these forums who thinks MLS is perfect the way it is. Speaking only for myself I think pro/rel is an outdated concept that keeps other leagues from stability and makes it difficult for small market teams to plan long term. It definitely adds some contrived excitement to the bottom of the table, and I wish there was an alternative way to create that, but for the foreseeable future the American soccer market cannot support it. If Garber comes out tomorrow and says that their exhaustive study has surprisingly found that pro/rel is the best way to grow the sport, then I would accept it without protest even though my team, DCU, is a good candidate for finishing at the bottom next year. It will indeed be interesting to see what happens in Korea and Australia. In other countries I imagine pro/rel developed fairly organically once there were more soccer clubs than spots in the first division. Australia, at least, seems to be talking about creating a second division even though they can't really support the teams they already have. If Australia actually goes through with it and it ignites the small-town fans to support their local club and soccer becomes huge there, then that would be pretty compelling evidence for reconsidering our beliefs about how it would work here. Until then I suggest we all support the European model, namely to not even worry about pro/rel until there are enough stable teams to make it an issue.
Don't like what MLS fans have to say about your team's league? Don't go onto MLS forums. It's not like we're en masse invading the NASL forums and talking about how shitty a league it is, and how the concept of pro/rel between the NASL and MLS would be the death of MLS. There is absolutely nothing in the world forcing you to come to the MLS forums and talk about pro/rel for the 753,356th time. Go back to your corner and cut yourself. Also, did anyone else get a chuckle from this? Message: MLS does not like to do things differently, and it reflects negatively on them. Message: MLS did something differently, and it reflects negatively on them. Catch 22 Oh, and as for this little gem... OH NOEZ, you're going to keep telling us about something that MLS tried to do over 10 years ago, but didn't work out, and was promptly dropped for the benefit of the league? You're a madman, A MADMAN! That is seriously one of the most retarded things I've ever read on the internet. This is pure 4 year old temper tantrum material right here. Next you'll be telling us you're going to hold your breath until MLS implements pro/rel...
That includes you. If you have nothing to discuss except cry that it's our forum, put me on ignore idiot.
there will be rel/pro in MLB before MLS....does rel/pro make sense in MLB? yankees/redsocks regged replaced by the Eugene Emeralds and the Witchita Boomers...and the MLB has stable d2 and d3.... besides whitestar....MLS has rel/pro already... rel...Munity and Fusion pro...seattle, vancouver, portland, montreal,....(NYC2)
found this confusing as well. Like trolling on about how the US is better then mexico on the US boards he's ignored all the examples proving it wrong. My guess?? he's either too young to follow or remember or simply didnt follow the original NASL.
DCU1996, Whitestar, and Bartleby all in the same thread? The retardation is seeping out of my computer screen.
No, you don't eat emos for breakfast, you bitch about how American emos should be more like European emos, and then post links to podcasts talking about how the European way of angst is superior. https://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?p=21094702#post21094702 https://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?p=21426027#post21426027 https://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?p=21373141#post21373141 Believe me, effort has been made to discuss this in the past, in both MLS and non-MLS forums. If you and your simplicity would just prefer I quote myself, point to it, and that "that", I can have that arranged. As for why I continue to reply to you when you've shown that your fetal alcohol syndrome has made your imagination and reasoning impervious, well, it's no more futile than from how you continue to make posts about pro/rel when you must know by now what our reaction is going to be. Humans are imperfect beings, I guess. That, and procrastinating on schoolwork is kind of a hobby for me. Also, you could always just put me on your ignore list, which given your popularity on these forums would decrease the number of times someone calls you a moron by 0.00021% Also, you can't accuse someone else of crying while you yourself are 'tard raging... So, when you're cutting yourself later tonight, remember that it's down the street, not across the road...
First off I never intended this thread to go the pro/rel route some imbecile started it with: "While I do realize this thread's true intentions is a not so thinly veiled attempt by WSW to open up the pro/rel discussion for the 5,678,324,562 time, I will chime in." So I was talking about the pyramid structure and expansion in MLS.
When it comes to professional sports, yes there is. As has been stated before (as all pro/rel arguments have been stated before, over and over again), professional sports has been established big business in the United States for 100 years now. That's a century to determine what works and what doesn't work. If we needed pro/rel, if it was the way to do things, surely someone would have successfully done it by now. And this is yet another worn-out fantasy, this idea that FIFA is gonna put the squeeze on the US and force us to restructure our league. They will be shovelling snow in hell the day that happens. ------RM
Hate to break it to you, but if there will ever be a promotion/relegation system in US and Canada, it will not include the NASL. In the future MLS may split up into MLS1 and MLS2, kind of like the J-League, but the NASL will never be part of the equation. See now, you just provided the prime example of why you'll never see promotion and relegation between NASL and MLS. The fans are not the issue here, it's the owners. Anyone who lays out 15 years of investments in the league or even a one time $30 million fee is not going to just allow Jeff Cooper to stroll into the league by winning the D2 title, it simply won't happen. And you if you can't understand why, and you can't, then obviously you're too young to own any kind of collateral or invest in anything of value. Comedy gold right there, you can repeat that as long as you want.
And if there is going to be pro/rel between MLS and D2, this is how it'll be done, IMHO. There will be a MLS-D2 league created either from existing MLS-D1 teams, or a combination of MLS-D1 and "new" expansion teams. The expansion teams will all have to meet certain financial and readiness criteria, including a proper stadium (15k seats - actual seats, not benches - amenities, etc), and will have to pony up an expansion fee to get into D2. Also, if you think the expansion fee is going to be less than what the last expansion fee paid to get into MLS-D1, you're on crack. Once D2 gets big enough, you might see a D3 league created, but as metros11 said, NASL and USL will not be part of the pro/rel unless they pay MLS enough in expansion fees to get their teams into MLS-D2.
I can see that. Teams like San Jose, DC United, and New England would be relegated because of their stadium or ownership issues. I still don't see someone like Kraft going down to a "D2" league, but I don't think NASL will become a second league to MLS. I can see something along the lines of Yoshou's prediction because of all the MLS 2.0 teams coming in and forcing the other teams to keep up.
Why would NER and DCU be relegated because of stadium/owner issues? Both the owners and stadiums would meet any stadium/owner requirements MLS might apply. However, I can see San Jose not meeting the stadium requirements, but if/when they get the Epicenter built, they'll be fine.
I don't use this forum anywhere near as much as I used to, but there were regular pro/rel threads back then and this has developed into another one. Doesn't MLS already have its own form of promotion? Except this isn't the type of promotion we have in England because there is as yet no relegation and MLS promotion isn't based on gaining points from a lower division, but Seattle, Portland, Vancouver and Montreal all look like promotions to me. They're all cities with established soccer teams and traditions and have all joined MLS with teams with the same names and colours as their lower league teams. As for relegation in any form. That may be while away yet, but don't forget Miami, Tampa Bay and the Quakes. All have been taken out of the league and in the case of the Florida teams other teams have now sprung up in those areas and the Quakes are now back in MLS. This looks a lot like relegation to me, just a type of relegation we don't have in my country.
I'd say that depends on MLS expansion. If the league sticks at 20 teams (either by choice or just to catch its breath after doubling its membership in recent years or because FIFA threatens to go nuclear if MLS grows beyond 20 teams playing a spring-fall schedule), then I wouldn't expect any sort of MLS split. Meanwhile we are seeing NASL/USL teams jumping up to MLS. That precedent has been set and I'm guessing they will be highly successful franchises for the most part. So, if NASL (or whatever the tier 2 league calls itself in the future) gets its act together, I could see a merger with MLS down the road (in the completely hypothetical scenario of pro/rel coming to MLS). At least I wouldn't categorically rule it out. If MLS doesn't have to reinvent the wheel, then that's good for MLS. And I doubt there's anyone on this planet who's overly romantic about the current NASL. For the moment, it's tier 2. If MLS made changes to create a tier 2 from its own membership, then that would become tier 2 (and it very well might look to incorporate stronger franchises from NASL in tier 2 if it were to split). So I wouldn't expect too many tears shed for the NASL if another tier 2 league took its place, especially if that league worked in pro/rel with tier 1.
I doubt MLS stops at 20 on it's own accord. If there are interested owners with enough money to get a franchise, then they'll add the team. The problem now appears to be a lack of interested parties that actually meet MLS's requirements. Even the mythical NYC team has only been tossed around by Garber as being something MLS is interested in. If there really was an ownership group that met MLS's requirements, there would be more than the "zOMG!! TEH COSMOS!!!" coming from people that are drinking the new Cosmos group's kool-aid.
So has Garber. Which is why I said it wouldn't be stopping at 20 on it's own accord. The only way it stays at 20 is if USSF stops it from expanding.