A new way?

We really need to set up a FAQ for these sorts of things....

 

The problem is that while it's a legitimate topic for discussion, there seems to be a "Why doesn't MLS have promotion/relegation?" thread about once a week and the issue has been hashed out to death here.

I'm a lot more on the "for" side of the fence on Pro/Rel than most here, but even I understand the serious problems and issues that would need to be addressed before it had any shot of working.

If you scroll back through the threads in this group you'll find plenty of very long discussions on the topic. Understandably most of the regulars here are pretty much talked out on the subject.

A similar situation might be to go on to an English politics board and start a thread about whether England should continue to financially support its figurehead Monarchy. Obviously that would likely be a discussion they've had many, many, many times over.

 

Um, you are kinda new here, aren't you? Yes, I would tell you that.

 

Let us know the team of standard in Philadelphia, Houston, Detroit, Phoneix, Cleveland, San Diego (only PSL), St. Louis, Tampa, Pittsburgh (again semi-pro PSL), Cincinatti, Indianapolis.

If you think the PDL teams are candidates, you have a different impression than I do. I think they're mostly amateur players.

 

The main reason we don't have pro/rel is tradition and geography. Our first big sport was baseball, which is played pretty much everyday. Plus, England would fit into a small state like Alabama. So, it was impractical in 1887 for the Baltimore Orioles to play a game on Sunday in Baltimore, then play in New York on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, then play in Cleveland over the weekend, before going to Denver. So we developed closed leagues.

Also, a few years ago, the A-League champ folded. What do you do then? Pro/rel is a fine system in many ways (altho completely irrelevant to the SPORT, except that soccer isn't played every day and that mattered 120 years ago.) But we just don't have the inherent interest in the sport here.

Think about a typical European league in basketball or hockey. As I understand it, they're mostly pro/rel. Is that the reason why the NBA is a huge league and the French basketball league isn't? No, it's because the French aren't as interested in basketball as we are. We just like the sport, the league itself isn't the key. College basketball is popular here. There are many areas where high school basketball teams get thousands of fans for home games.

Soccer was once a very popular sport here. The US made the semifinals of the 1930 World Cup, and had popular club teams that drew fantastically well. Unfortunately, many of the big teams were associated with factories, and the Great Depression killed our pro league, and political isolationism in the 30s resulted in subtle social pressure against a "European" sport.

By the time there was another reasonable attempt to start a pro league, the US sports scene was saturated.

MLS is slowly growing. We may well have 20 clubs averaging 20,000 fans in 10-15 years. That's not England or Germany, and especially not good when you consider how cities we have with 2 million plus metro areas. But it's a nice league.

The potential income from TV is pretty massive here, because of our population. If ratings go up a nice amount, it could mean very big money to the league. At that point, our 20,000 attendance is less important than the TV contract, and we could compete financially with any league in the world for players. That might take 10 years, it might take 20, it might never happen.

But it's our league, we like it.

 

And let's not forget that any talk of pro/rel must consider that it seems clearly not in the financial interest of MLS owners to have it. Probably won't be in their financial interest anytime soon. So this discussion will go on and on but will remain mostly theoretical.

 

For what its worth, even countries, like Mexico, that have a strong soccer sports culture and DO have a pro/rel system, the big financial owners (like America, Chivas, etc.) are NOT too happy with pro/rel system. Seeing it from a $$ view, it's not a good system. You invest heavy $$ and then see it go "down" into a division where it will get NO media coverage, lower attendances, loose sponsorship revenue, etc. So what to do? A) Fix it with a system of percentages, back-room dealings, etc. or B) Sell your team and buy the one going up.

The days of soccer where it was just a couple of lads with beanies and university sweaters kicking about and thinking that pro/rel system met some kinda Socratic ideal are loooooooong gone.


El Chapulin Colorado

 

The reason why teams don't like promotion and relegation is because it punishes mistakes. Most of the world has promotion and relegation because it is considered a sport first and not an entertainment product first.

 

I also casually resent someone coming on heer and suggesting to us we should run our league. This poster seems to be relatively well informed, and well meaning but there are a lot of 'fans' of British clubs here in the US, and I highly doubt that any Brits would take too kindly to an American suggesting and pointing out flaws about the Premiership.

 

I don't think anybody is so arrogant as to think that there aren't flaws with any league. My personal annoyances relate to the acronym EPL, when nobody calls La Liga or Serie A "SLL" or "ISA". However, around the world the only people having dull seasons are those with nothing to play for and relegation gives you something to play for, rightly or wrongly.

For the record, I'm neither for or against promotion/relegation as a concept but am against it being used for MLS.

 

I've always been open to the idea of pro/rel in MLS.

IN 30 FINANCIALLY SUCCESFUL YEARS!!!

Really, though. It's a pipe dream.

Some people say it's geography, or lack of history, etc.

I say it's MONEY (soccer doesn't get enough of it), TALENT (most of the US's best atheletes go to other sports) AND lack of history. MLS can succeed, but not on the multi-tiered platform that other leagues have organically developed over the years.


Plus, so many of our players come out of our NCAA system. In other words, College. That's an entire other system of play that takes attention away from MLS. (it's not their fault, it just works like that).

 

I actually don't get tired of the popular (ha ha, funny word for them) discussions. It's often in the re-hash threads that the experienced posters give nice, concise commentaries.

 

Anyone have a link to 'Sticks "Rules for Newbies" thread?

 

I think he nailed it. One more factor that I would is the interests of the public, cities, and investors.

In Japan, soccer some how became very popular and the league just kept expanding every year. The league started in 1993, and by 1999 they had too many clubs and had to divide into two divisions.

Reason? Cities, towns, and the public, wanted to invest in soccer club, by making their per-existing amateur clubs to professional clubs to make profits.

Not until MLS starts making serious profits, their will be no investors, the league won't expand, and their will be pro/rel system.

 

Um, this makes it kind of sound like pro/rel is just around the corner since the first two have just happened. (The league has added three independent investors in the last year and will add two teams in 2005, and that's official).

Next you'll tell me that Bobby Convey and DaMarcus Beasley won't get bought by European teams until their play in MLS becomes more consistent.

 

Promotion/relegation is historically unlikely to happen. Ever. Just look at any other major US sports league, including ones with multiple level minor leagues.

Promotion and relegation just does not work with the business plans of US major sporting leagues, including MLS.

With promotion and relegation, there's always the possibility that the team may drop down, severely decreasing revenues and probably causing the liquidation of the team's assets, i.e. players. This uncertainty gets factored into valuation of the club and leads to teams willing to pile up massive debt to avoid relegation.

Back to the US: In the US, each league is all about increasing the value of franchises. Each league partly does this by putting in huge barriers to entry. This leads to 10 million dollar expansion fees for MLS. Or $300 million for a NBA team in Charlotte. Or $700 million dollars for a NFL team in Houston.

The only way that pro/rel system might happen is if the anti-trust exemption for sports goes away, because owners are not about to vote against their own economic interests.

 

Well, I would guess that most people here would tell you that there is good and bad in both systems. We miss out on having that annual turmoil where the club has spent twice what it took in expecting to get promoted and now they're in big financial doo-doo. But yes, pro/rel does liven up the end of the season for teams that suck. Each team in the US has an equal chance of greatness but so many of them seem content with mediocrity. We're proud of the improvement that MLS has made, both in itself and in raising the level of soccer in the US. But a couple of years ago, after the contraction, there was a whole lot of people who didn't expect the league to last another year. Most of the mainstream media still seems to think MLS is a futile effort. So welcome to America.