That's each way, btw. On May 17th, 2019, TalkSport published an article sympathizing with Newcastle fans for having to travel 4,579 miles to see all of their team's league matches. The day after, SBNation published an article sympathizing with Vancouver Whitecaps players and officials for having to travel 51,210 miles last season, including 10 round trips of over 2,000 miles. And most of that is in economy, with stopovers. They face at least 3 longer trips than Newcastle traveled all season to play teams in their own regional conference. No wonder they're shit!
It's called not having enough teams in a niche sport. It's a chicken and egg problem, really. When there aren't enough clubs able to afford to hire a bus to the next town, you need to look farther afield for opponents to populate a league. But if you're playing opponents farther away, you need more revenue to cover the cost, and fewer clubs can afford it... which means having to play opponents even farther away. This is why, empirically, it takes a city of at least a quarter-million to sustain a bare-bones, minimally professional club in the US for longer than a season or two. It's only in the last few years that most of the clubs in our second tier have been able to spend more on player wages than on travel.
All the talk is about pro clubs. When I search for amateur soccer in the States it's different from the Netherlands, or Europe in general. When one searches for info you get adult soccer leagues and youth soccer leagues. It seems there are no leagues or clubs that are all generation clubs. If soccer indeed is stratified by age the structure itself prevents the existance of all ages clubs as members have to be in different leagues. I donot get why this complicated way of structuring soccer on an amateur level is existing.
Actually, I have ... you just keep moving the goalposts because you have too. But, the common theme of "not reading what is actually stated" runs rampant in those such as yourself and feyenoord ... now he's claiming I stated Ajax's spending is huge. That's not what I stated. I pointed out that Ajax's spending was on a level they'd not done in over a decade and it just so happened to coincide with them returning to CL glory (which they'd not seen in an even longer spell). That fact doesn't play nice with his claims, so just like you he has to move the goalposts or try to fake news what I'm saying to keep treading water in the tar pit. For instance, he'd like to point to the fact that they were screwed out of the CL this year ... yet won't mention that they spent 2m MORE this season than last. Their best European run of form in 15yrs comes on the back of spending 50m Euros in back to back seasons. That obliterates his claims.
You should do research before making the claim the article describes why the top 3 are Feyenoord, PSV and Ajax. For your information, but it has been described by me about two years ago already, these three were dominant already in the amateur times. The current dominance isnot the result of CL money, the CL money is a result of a hundred years history of dominance. When one looks at the rise of Feyenoord (already described in here) they started as a club that had to use a pub at the edge of the Afrikaanderplein, where the pitch they used to play soccer was situated. Very humble, while we had clubs with decades headstart like Sparta Rotterdam with backing by well to do Rotterdam elite. Yet in a couple of years Feyenoord was on top in popularity. Within 30 years they built a 63,000 stadium. When professionalism was introduced it ment that the financially strong clubs began to dominate the title races. So the CL didnot change anything, it already was the case. Feyenoord managements sucks for decades on end and our last title came after a drought of 19 years. Nobody in his right mind will be able to claim that the drought was the result of CL money at PSV or Ajax. The CL revenues nowadays make it harder to fight Ajax and PSV, but not impossible with good management. AZ this season is the proof of that, run by NY baseball legend Robert Eenhoorn. With modest budget, but a blooming academy they are on the heels of Ajax this season. As Ajax did with the fruits of their academy in their run to the CL final that was just 30 seconds too long.
And that's just one game. Chattanooga (and Charlotte, a couple hundred miles further east) also have to travel to LA (twice) and San Diego.
I wonder what percentage of people in the US who follow Liga MX have roots in Mexico. I assume it's pretty high. I'm not sure the fact that Liga MX being the most popular league in the US dEsPItE iT mAkINg A MoCKeRy oF pRo/REl is an indication that pro/rel isn't important, it's just where the viewers' favorite teams play. As you pointed out with college football: fans have all sorts of complaints of how its run and ideas of how to make it better, but it's where your team is, so you watch it.
Depends on what you mean by "proof". I do think it can be used as proof that a pro/rel system CAN be a more stable system then a closed one for lower divisions. Obviously that doesn't mean it's proof that it will be in the US.
Odd tidbit of info: The Eredivisie played it's first season in 1956-57 ... what is now the CL was first played in 1955. The Dutch saw quite a bit of competitiveness and loads of champions before the advent of the CL (yes, Ajax/PSV/Feyenoord were on that list). In fact 24 different clubs won the Dutch championship in the 65yrs they played before the creation of the CL. PSV only one it 3 times, Feyenoord 5 times, and Ajax 8 times. For reference Willem had 3 titles, Go Ahead had 4, Sparta had 4, and HVV had 10. In fact, in the 13yrs the Dutch played before the CL there wasn't a back to back champion and 12 different winners. Only Willem wont it twice. Immediately upon the creation of the Eredivisie (again, the year after the CL was formed) we saw the rest of the Dutch clubs start to get choked out of the title picture. The first 13 years only saw 6 different winners with all three "big" clubs winning and only PSV not winning more than one. From there (69-70 season) it's all but cut off completely as Ajax/Feyenoord/PSV have won all but 3 titles (but only two teams have claimed them, AZ twice and Twente). Just some info and "coincidence" I came across.
So coupling HTTK Dutch history lesson and the article Jason shared... Seems like having some system not based on pro/rel is part of the problem? Be it the current SUM stockholder option or the "qualify for the CL by beating our domestic teams that don't get the CL funds" Didn't think it'd get interesting a thousand pages in.....
Access to an extra pool of money that the rest of the teams don't have. It seems like things have really been exacerbated when it moved from "Champions league" & "Cup winners league" to "even though it's Spurs they'd probably stomp FC Santo Coloma so maybe we should let more teams from the big 5 in..." Maybe a properly implemented superleague - more along the lines of the nations league and not any of the "permanent spots for the oil teams and Bayern" plans that hve been tossed around so far...
Or had "Professinal League Standards" that were less onerous/would have promoted the growth of regional yet professional leagues...
Because the all-ages sports club model has never existed in this country. We've had high school sports and collegiate sports for younger players. Once you age out of those, unless you're good enough to play pro, you'll end up playing in a local recreational league. We're a different country, with a very different sports history.
... but teams are promoted to and relegated from the CL depending on their table placement. It literally mirrors promotion qualification of leagues (and thus relegation aspect too). Depending on your finish you either auto qualify or have various playoff matches to get into the group. Slide down the domestic table and you're relegated from CL. How does NOT having a pro/rel set up matter to the MLS/CCL? The problem with it is incentive (no money in it) and historically poor regions making up most of the tournament field.
Huh? Professional leagues have to be sanctioned. What scenario are you talking about with a non-sanctioned pro league?
There are a lot of reasons. Geography has been mentioned many times but America was very different to Europe in the Victorian era, full of pioneers and immigrants. And unlike Europe, where sports were organized by well- meaning amateurs, there were no sports evangelists in the US willing to organize sports outside of colleges (baseball excepted). Professionalism didn't really happen until the 1920s and even by the 1960s college sports were still more popular than professional ones. It was only when TV became interested in covering professional sports that they took off.
It's pretty easy to see the appeal of a USL-1 or NISA that starts off solely east of the Mississippi. Or a California/Arizona/Nevada league.