Chivas USA was just a horrible idea... Ran by a horrible bigoted owner. But, I still believe that the league needs to focus on national footprint. For example, now that the southeast is FINALLY starting to be represented... I'd look at another 2 more Midwest teams, 2 more Southwest, and another Southern team next... Plus, adding Sacramento Republic, and the LA rebrand. And for the LA rebrand, it needs to be far enough away (inland empire?) that fans choose their team based on geography not ethnicity.
Tab Ramos interview regarding development: http://americansoccernow.com/articles/tab-ramos-talks-u-23-player-development-amp-mls Interesting comment on Gen Addidas. Good comments on LA Galaxy II and NCAA Soccer.
Regardless of the validity of this statement, the bottom line is you're not going to convince anybody to put up tens of millions of dollars for a franchise that might face being relegated to a secondary market after a poor season. Just. Not. Gonna. Happen
Your assumption is valid, .......when you approach a club as a business entity. But when you manage to establish it as a form of a tribe ( most clubs in Europe are akin to tribes, especially my club) it is loyalty to the tribe that will come first and money later. Most clubs in Europe started as neighbourhood clubs, that grew into professional clubs. Feyenoord, for instance is a neighbourhood in Rotterdam. For New York I would suggest a club under the name the Bronx or so to get a firm foundation as a tribe replacement. People want to be part of a tribe, it is our nature.
Has. Anybody. Even. Tried. You're just getting hosed by economic interests who want the whole pie for themselves. Actually, teams get compensated for being relegated. What is a secondary market anyway? Currently MLS revenue tends to be ticket sales. A secondary market would likely be a town with no major league sport franchise so the support for an MLS team would be undivided. I wonder how much difference there would be between the major/minor league in a country as big as the USA. Maybe not so much. The thing that scares people the most is doing something different. One flew east, one flew west, One flew over the cuckoo's nest.
That ship has sailed in the US. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the country was full of baseball teams. Every town, and plenty of companies, had teams, playing in a whole host of regional leagues. It was probably the only period in American history where a sport could have conceivably organized itself into a pyramid with pro/rel. But what happened was that the more stable teams in larger markets decided to band together to avoid having to share a league with teams from smaller markets, many of which were constantly going bankrupt. That's been the (highly succesful) model of American sports ever since. With a few exceptions, teams represent a city, rather than a "tribe." Your idea is about a century too late. And, frankly, given all of the negative aspects associated with the tribalism of European soccer (witness, for example, Celtic and Rangers), I'm glad American sports never developed in that direction.
The problem with that is that would work if the US was only the size of NY. America would literally have about 10,000 teams.
You're talking about MLS. I'm talking about coaching. What I said is true about much more than simply MLS, they exist in the NASL, in USL Pro, in the NCAA, and so on down the line all the way down to your local clubs. Of the issues we face, the structural issues are by far the most minor. The biggest issue is coaching. Coaching, coaching, coaching.
Then you need to throw out the entire MLS and start from scratch, probably with semipro teams of some sort. Good luck with that.
Nothing personal, but I think it's funny to see a University of Michigan icon next to the belief that American sports never developed a tribal nature. I mean, I suppose that you can argue that their Ohio State rivalry is merely geographic, but the Sparty and Notre Dame ones? No way. I also think that you'd be hard-pressed to argue that the Rangers-Celtic rivalry has heightened sectarian differences. If anything, their sports rivalry gives a relatively peaceful outlet for the tensions that have long existed within Scottish society.
I think when we talk about "tribal" in the context of sports, we're really talking more about some of the ethnic or sectarian-based teams that you see in places like Europe. We don't really have that in the US. The fanbases for the teams you listed are, demographically, pretty much the same. People talk up the rivalry, but most hardcore U of M sports fans have friends and family who are Michigan State fans. I'm hardpressed to come up with an example in American sports where the rivalry between teams is based on some sort of demographic distinction. Peaceful? When Rangers and Celtic play each other, those are the busiest nights of the year in Glasgow's hospital emergency rooms. People in Glasgow who want to avoid trouble on those nights go out of their way to not wear the respective colors of the teams on those nights. And it's not even the worst example of that type of thing. If you look at some of the rivalries in Eastern Europe, they're even more over the top.
That's not how I read the original post. Do Feyenoord supporters have ethnic or sectarian ties? Not true. Notre Dame is sectarian by definition. But by and large, Catholics are well integrated into US society nowadays. In such an explosive societal context, yes, it's relatively peaceful. Btw, do you have a credible source for the hospital emergency rooms claim?
An interesting editorial in NY Times today explains why we say "teams" instead of " clubs" like the Euros. Relevant graf We crafted the term student-athlete,” he wrote, “and soon it was embedded in all N.C.A.A. rules and interpretations as a mandated substitute for such words as players and athletes. We told college publicists to speak of ‘college teams,’ not football or basketball ‘clubs,’ a word common to the pros.” The intent was to persuade the public and courts that college players were not professionals entitled to benefits. In a 2006 Washington Law Review Association article, the law professors Robert McCormick and Amy McCormick went so far as to call it “classic propaganda.” Full article here if they still allow u free access. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/14/o...p-span-region&WT.nav=c-column-top-span-region Anyway, most people on these boards say it is our culture and has to stay. Massa say "teams" good, "tribes" bad.
I'll say that I also believe that teams fielding USL pro sides will prove crucial to the improvement of our development.... But, the main statement I want to focus people's attention to is that for MLS/USSF to improve, the best way is to allow the teams with the best academy systems to pull away from the pack and reduce the parity in the league.
If they lower the salary cap and/or reduce imports, then the teams with the best academy systems will be positioned to dominate. Do they have the stomach for that? In any case, I tend to think that the best way to improve is to raise the bar on coaching standards. Need coaches who've seen today's best teaching environments and follow their practices, not just ex-pros who happen to be friends with the right people.
I want to make sure we are talking about the same thing... I'm not talking about lowering the salary cap at all. I'm saying have HGP not count against the salary cap, at all, and if say Seattle want to establish the best academy system in the world, they could be spending 400m/year compared to New England Revs or another team not invested at all in youth development spending 3mil a year so long as the bulk of those players are HGP.
If we compare the current Sounders with the current Revs, Seattle spends many millions of dollars per year on its high-end players If anything, New England appears to have a slightly more extensive youth system To get Seattle to redirect a significant chunk of its wealth towards youth development, you're going to need to change the incentive structure significantly. Merely making HGPs cap-exempt is nowhere near sufficient. After all, they're cheap already.
The closest thing to an example we have in US pro sports might be Cubs/White Sox. I believe he's also saying HGPs wouldn't count against the salary cap of the team that develops them at any point in their career--meaning if Seattle had wanted to offer Yedlin $5m/year to stay home they could have done so without him counting against the cap or a DP spot.
Ignore which club is which...But understand the general premise.But you are on what I'm talking about inventive and cap exemption. However, I disagree with your argument... Mostly. If a club has a roster size of 30, and 24 are HGP.... That means that leaves a huge chunk of room to sign bigger talent with the leftover cap space.
You should be. major league sports have made it easier to pull in big bucks by blurring those distinctions and putting parks in swamps in New Jersey and calling them NY Baloney Club. How about NY Giants vs. Brooklyn Dodgers and the interboro rivalry of yore Ever hear of the shot heard round the world? It wasnt a sell out, in fact here it says the attendance was considered poor.... http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shot_Heard_'Round_the_World_(baseball)
Exactly. I think of Juan Agudelo, he could come back and play for the Red Bulls, and not count at all against their salary cap. I think once clubs are producing multiple Yedlin's and Agudelo's...it will help give a lot of teams a distinct advantage over others. To me, this forces clubs to dip into the development pool if they want to reduce the parity in the league. And for what it's worth, I wouldn't have a problem in the world, if any club were to become a dynasty team because they're the most invested in youth development.
I've never understood the supposed allure of promotion/relegation to a league. What benefit does it offer that isn't mitigated by a whole host of negatives? What makes the EPL and other leagues so great that a team from the small town can play with the big boys for a year or two while incurring a mass of debt to cripple themselves for years and playing utterly boring soccer as an overmatched squad in 95% of their upper level matches? What happens to MLS if it becomes La Liga and the only two-three teams with any chance of winning the league are in New York and LA? I don't understand what the fuss is about. I've been watching European soccer for 10 or so years and I have yet to give a crap about it in all but a very few rare occasions.
If it became clear to MLS fans that only a handful of teams could be competitive, that would kill the league. American sports fans have a lot of choice, so they can go watch other sports if their local MLS team is unable to ever be competitive. The vast majority of American soccer fans who follow European clubs are fans of a small handful of teams. Go to any soccer bar in the country, and pretty much everyone is wearing a Man U/City/Arsenal/Chelsea/Barca/Real jersey. Not surprisingly, none of those clubs are in any way affected by pro/rel (other than it giving them some new teams to beat up every year). American soccer fans have already rejected pro/rel, by and large, by their choice of teams.