I don't know about the NHL or MLS, but the NBA each conference has 15 teams. Half is 7.5, since you round up at or after .5, 8 is half. When you have an unbalanced schedule where divisions and conferences are used to decide who gets in and who doesn't you may run into scenarios where a team with a losing record does get in. Bummer. Making the playoffs isn't supposed to be a reward, it is a chance to prove if you are a championship team or not. If a team with a losing record who isn't in the top half of the league is able to win in the playoffs more power to them. Maybe they had trouble gelling at first as a team, or had injuries or something, but were able to put it together and play better than everyone else when it mattered most. Moving on to things that actually matter. How about we talk about ways to make refs better, or get rid of stuff such as flopping, constant complaining to refs, and excessive time wasting that doesn't get called for delay of game. Or how rules such as only having 3 subs both hurts the game and puts players at risk for injuries. Or how not having a salary cap and allowing a few billionaires to outspend everyone makes it so there is no parity.
I looked at 1970 as well. I picked 1990 because it seemed far enough back to give a good sample size but still brings it into the modern time. Also wanted to include the era before the premier league. But here is the biggest factor. Since the issue is whether pro/rel causes inequity I could not have stacked the deck because pro/rel has existed in English football since the 1800's. If pro/rel were causing the inequity than we should see a consistent pattern. But we don't. We currently see an era of a few clubs dominating but since pro/rel hasn't changed and other things have it doesn't take a genius to point out that it's probably the factors that changed that are causing it NOT the one thing that hasn't.
You pick 2 very rare cases of teams losing their star player (Robinson and Manning). No the Spurs didn't tank that year. They lost their 2 best players for more than half the season. The best player played 6 games. In the NBA one player can make you a 20 win team or a 60 win team. And David Robinson was that damn good. Now the Celtics did tank(and were terrible anyways) and guess what it didn't work. They didn't get the #1 pick. The Vancouver Grizzles weren't eligible for the #1 pick. The Colts in 2011 also were hit by a major injury and being hurt by that player and his locked in Cap number. Most teams in history after losing the starting QB usually suck that season. While Luck pretty much said he was coming out for the 2012 draft. He could have changed his mind very easily. Also the Colts also almost blew having the #1 pick. The Colts "tanking" cost the head coach and staff their jobs and the GM their jobs.
Ok, so you've basically abandoned the NBA comparison, which is a good idea. Things are obviously more complex than just pro/rel driving non-competitiveness. But does pro/rel play a role in the process? In particular, the financial consequences of promotion or relegation are vastly different from 20 years ago.
We talked about this pages ago. This idea that a franchise will tank a season is ridiculous. The players and coaches that take the court every night are playing for their jobs (if not with that franchise, then for another). There are hundreds of other quality players out there that would give just about anything to be on the court on their place. No one is tanking. The front office and fans might want that, but the guys actually playing the game aren't doing it.
To explain a team losing a lot of games, you just have to cite incompetence, rather than some conspiracy theory. The players on a bad team try just as hard as the players on a good team. They're just not as skilled.
But, wait, I thought players become more skilled if they are put in the position where their team might get relegated. And they try harder. By some metric that no one has actually come up with, but which usually comes down to "Listen, I watch a lot of soccer, and I can tell when someone is trying 4% harder, and exactly why."
I know this because I've heard TV commentators say things to this effect, and goodness knows, they're never wrong.
I don't follow any leagues other than MLS. But, I'm guessing that the even if the players of a bottom rung team in EPL step up their game to come in 17th rather than 18th, their jobs still aren't secure. They're in the same boat as, say, players on Montreal Impact this season. So, I'm not really seeing the difference.
But...but...they'll be better players for having gone through that crucible, don't you know? Because that's why we're not producing better soccer players. Because they don't know what it's like to really push hard to finish 17th instead of 18th. And if they did, they'd be as good as Rooney and Ronaldo and Messi, whose exploits for small, relegation-threatened clubs are legendary* and helped make them the players they are today. Or so the story goes. *Because "pro/rel creates legends." You had to be there for that one.
When did I abandon the NBA comparison? I stand by it. As for Pro/Rel being the cause of the inequality I still don't see it. For me the there are 3 big changes that have caused the current inequity in England. Champions league, International Markets, Sugar Daddies. If you made the premier league a closed league tomorrow I don't think you would see any change in the inequity. Man United and Liverpool would still be the biggest most supported clubs. Arsenal would still have a new stadium in London. Chelsea and City would still have sugar daddy owners. I still don't see how the threat of relegation makes West Brom less competitive?
In the universe *I* live in, the Premiership wants to add a 39th game. In the universe *I* live in, clubs pushed to change the Champions Cup to the Champions League.
No, it's not. It's OVERBLOWN, but it's not ridiculous. I'm a Panthers fan. We were sucking in 2010. But we weren't sucking so bad that it was clear we were going to have the worst record with Matt Moore playing QB. Matt's not great or anything, but he's a workable backup. He can play, in other words. Then the Panthers trotted out Jimmy Clausen, to see what the kid could do. And what they found out is that he can't play. The experiment was conclusive after one start. But they stuck with him for no other reason than to be sure Matt Moore didn't lead them to a 4 win season or whatever and put them with the 4th pick instead of Cam Newton. (It was supposed to be Luck but he decided to stay at Stanford another year rather than come to Charlotte.) But let's be clear...this was NOT a case of a competitive team tanking to get the #1 pick. This was a very bad team choosing halfway through the year to be really awful.
In the NBA there are 30 teams representing about 300 million people, or 340 million if you want to include Canada since there is a Canadian team. Mean while in Western Europe (since that is where all the major leagues are) there are 5 major leagues (England, Germany, Spain, Italy, France) of 20 teams plus all of the lower division teams that can earn their way into the top leagues representing 400 million people. If the US and Canada had as many teams in the top league as the Western European top leagues do per million people there would be 85 teams in the NBA. But yeah, lets talk about how the NBA has too many teams even though all of the best players in the world play in a single league instead of across how ever many soccer leagues there are, and that league serves 300+ million people instead of 50 to 75 million.
But then you open yourself to ridicule. Others have already pointed out the incomparability between basketball and soccer, and even with that in mind, the only way to make the EPL look close to the NBA is by distorting the evidence. Holding up titles won by Leeds and Blackburn in the early 90s as though they represent modern EPL parity is idiotic. It's tough to say what would happen without pro/rel. Two things that are clear, however, are: EPL revenue streams are jaw-droppingly big. Many EPL clubs don't reap longer-term benefits from those revenues because they spend frantically to avoid the financial cliff of relegation.
I have already debated this, I dn't agree with you and you can feel to research, their are plenty of articles that take that position - it is not unique to me. How did the Celtics do last year? Sitting Rondo even when he could play? They weren't trying to win either. - And the fans know. When people in NE were talking bball last year, all all anyone was saying was how they hoped they would lose as many games as possible for a good draft pick.
A team can tank even with the players giving their all. One way, when MAnning gets hurtgo pick a QB that was already retired. Yeah, plenty of ways for a team to tank that involved players throwing games.
A team that wins the NBA title plays like potentially 110 competitive games a year - this doesn't include pre-season. Also, this is in the period of about 8 months - 30x8=240 days - we're talking almost a game every two days. You don't think this contributes to the injuries and crappy games all over the NBA every night?
So, there is a better way to allow these people to have skin in the game - allow pro/rel and they can all have a team with a shot at the title.
Or it might be that Matt Moore suffered a season-ending shoulder injury. But if you are correct, why did the coach bench Clausen in the middle of that very same game, only to put in Tony Pike (another rookie). Was it because Clausen was playing too well and the coach didn't want the Panthers to win?
Leeds were in the 2nd tier in 1990. They were league champions in 1992. Of all the sides you'd expect to be title challengers, who aren't being, how many have actually been relegated since their last challenge? how many have been relegated in the last 30 or 40 years? You have to factor in the fact that there's no salary cap, complete free agency, and no draft. There are reasons why Aston Villa, Everton and Spurs can't challenge like they could in the 80s, and none have anything to do with relegation.