This whole theres no parity in the NFL argument got me curious so I looked at some past standing. Since the formation of the Premier League theres been 4 champions with 11 teams finishing in the top 4 during that same time theres been 11 super bowl winners and every team has finished in the top 4 of their conference except the Cardinalz, Browns (since 1999), and the Texans (since 2003), and if you consider these Browns as the original browns and the ravens as a new team (which I didnt) then its just 2 out of 32 teams.
Re: Expansion Prediction & Ideas Catch-All [Part 3] A good example of a turn around was when the St. Louis Rams won the Super Bowl in 2000. The year before they had gone 4-12, but in the '99 campaign they turned it around to 13-3. If you didn't have relegation, does anyone think that a team like Derby could come back and win the EPL next year?
Re: Expansion Prediction & Ideas Catch-All [Part 3] Yes, well you can conclude that the Premiership is boring because there is no parity and the NFL is the exact opposite as there is so much parity that a team dead last one year can win the Super Bowl next year. While the NFL isn't as bad as the premiership, both situations are not as ideal as some might think. You need a balance of the two which the NHL does well, where a team builds up and becomes good for about 6-8 years before needing to rebuild. Albeit, lately, even the NHL has shifted and has gained more parity but nothing like the NFL is. However, I guess that has more to do with the dynamic of the sport itself that imposes that kind of situation. You only play 16 games in the NFL so a team that goes on a hot streak will have a good chance of making the playoffs regardless if they are a worthy team or not. In the NHL, 82 games will seperate the pretenders from the contenders. One hot streak alone will not gaurentee you a place in the playoffs.
Re: Expansion Prediction & Ideas Catch-All [Part 3] I can definently see where youre coming from. A few years ago I though there was too much parity in the NFL. You win a super bowl then you become crap, but now I think teams are able to figure out how to manage themselves in these new condition so theyre able to keep their window of success open a few more seasons longer.
Re: Expansion Prediction & Ideas Catch-All [Part 3] There is certainly more parity in the NFL, especially with fluctuation in the middle of the league each season. I do however think that teams in the NFL run in 3-5 year cycles. Like I said from earlier, the average players career in the NFL is 3.5. So with that type of roster turnover, parity is almost inevitable. If you look at a league like the NBA that has a salary cap, per se, and the cap can have the adverse effect that it has in the NFL. An NBA team can draft a franchise player (Lebron James) and be a legit contender for 10-15 years. Teams in the NBA are built through luck, and there is almost no parity to speak of.
Re: Expansion Prediction & Ideas Catch-All [Part 3] Other than the Buccaneers, I can't think of a team that has won a Super Bowl in the last 10 years than became crap after they won. Superbowl caliber teams almost always have 4-7 year runs. The Bucs won the Super Bowl on the back end of a 5 or 6 year run of dominance in the NFC. The NFL has not much more parity now than it had in the 80's and 90's
Re: Expansion Prediction & Ideas Catch-All [Part 3] Of course it was much more involved and complex, but the team didn't move because of any punishment for sucking. You were trying to suggest that if teams are abismal failures here in the USA, that they would fold or be relocated, and it isn't true at all. Teams are not held accountable for losing here in the USA...ever.
Re: Expansion Prediction & Ideas Catch-All [Part 3] Ummm... I think you have me confused with someone else, I've never said anything in this thread about teams moving. I was just commenting about the Browns relocation not being the way you described it.
Re: Expansion Prediction & Ideas Catch-All [Part 3] After Elway left, the Broncos lost all but two of their games the following season after winning the Super Bowl I think. However, that has more to do with Elway being amazing than anything else.
Re: Expansion Prediction & Ideas Catch-All [Part 3] What the average career length for a premier league player? I could have sworn I read a few years abck it was only about 3-4 years as well.
Re: Expansion Prediction & Ideas Catch-All [Part 3] I remember the article that was in FourFourTwo from a few years ago. It was about 4.5 years for the average length of a players Premier League career. They sumized that what through off their data was that relegated/promoted players sometimes only lasted one season in the premiership, even though their playing career was much longer. They then tried to take the average length of all professional players in the UK, and the numbers were even lower (like 3.5 years). The other problem with those numbers was that the lower tier professional divisions had "pro" players who could not live off of their wages and were forced to quit football, shortening their career. They then decided to take the top 3 divisions in all of the 4 "major" leagues in Europe (england, italy, germany, and spain), and found that the average footballers playing career was somewhere around 5 seasons. The problem with measuring professional soccer/football players in comparison to NFL players is that there are so many more pro soccer players spread out through so many more levels of professionalism. Also, since the academy system is so prevalent in Europe, it is much easier for them to supplement rosters with reserve and youth squad players. Here in the US, we have no academy systems for any of our leagues. The closest things we have are in Hockey and Baseball, and those league structures (as far as player personal) are closer related to Europe than they are the NFL. Hockey and Baseball teams are less dependent on drafting and more dependent on scouting, and signing of youth international players. The NHL has made an effort to make their draft more important over the last few years, but there are already talks to scratch it, because there is no interest and they feel the level of college hockey is going down every season. They also fear that leagues in Europe and Russia are going to start taking their players, because in those leagues players don't have to enter a draft and can sign freely to any team they wish.
Re: Expansion Prediction & Ideas Catch-All [Part 3] They went 6-10, and the lost Elway, and Terrell Davis. They also went 11-5 the next year, and the 6-10 season was their only losing season under Shanahan. Who has kept them as a contender every year but that one in his 13 years as head coach, until this past season where he went 7-9. That was also the tail end of a 4 year run in which they won two superbowls (probably should have won in 96-97 as well). In 95 they went 8-8, but barely missed the playoffs, and really should have made them if not for blowing 3 of the last 5 games when Davis was nagged with injuries and McCafery, Sharpe and Anthony Miller all missed time with injuries, as well as Romanowski and Mobley on defense (among others). Parity comes in the form of player injuries in the NFL more than it does from the salary cap.
what if...... theres all this talk of current usl clubs becoming mls teams. and then theres all this talk about a promotion/relegation type system. theres people opposed to that. but to be fair, and to see how the relegation thing works out, why doesnt mls and usl pair up to have a playoff and the winner becomes the next mls club expansion type thing. with talk of vancouver, montreal, rochester, atlanta, and others tipped of coming, you can kill two birds with one stone. you can see how the fans react to that, and mls will have a new expansion out of all the teams intersted in it now this is out there, but its just a thought, take it easy if you disagree
Re: what if...... I'll take it easy . First, it would be financial suicide. A typical USL team would go broke after a season in MLS. Plus, chances are a USL winner would not be able to replicate their playoff win on a consistent basis in MLS. Why go up for a year when you'll either fold, or be going back down voluntarily in a year or so, because you can't handle financially or on the field? In short, it wouldn't work.
Re: what if...... im not saying a team stays just for a year, im just saying theres many usl teams/cities interested in joing mls, why not have a competition to test a playoff thing, and bring a team up. now im not a complete moron, this idea is out there, but it was just somthing on my mind and just a thought for the future of the league
Re: what if...... No, you're not a moron by any stretch of the imagination. It's just that for most USL teams, neither the money nor the infrastructure is there to make the move. Most USL owners are playing with the equivalent of AAA money at best, and even the Vancouvers of the league would have to build another stadium with the proper seating capacity (which the 'Caps are trying to do), which would cut even more into their budgets (unless the 'Caps play for a while in a revamped BC Place). Plus, they'd still have to pay the expansion fee, which, from what people are saying, is about to jump to 40 million dollars. Very few of the USL-1 teams would be able to do that. Seattle had to bring a big-money guy (actually two big money guys--joe Roth and Paul Allen) to pull their bid off. Sure, Montreal is almost ready to go, and Vancouver may not be far behind (Atlanta has neither the money nor the stadium as yet, but that could change), but you also run the risk of a lower tier team winning that playoff, and then not being able to deliver when they get to MLS, either by not having the money or stadium, and losing the bid, or by spending themselves into oblivion trying to keep up. Not a horrible idea, but probably not workable.
I think the promotion is not a problem. Initially, don't do automatic promotion. Promotion by condition Let's say we have 3 top teams in USL in a given season. First MLS check for the minimum requirement for promotion. Second ask the team if they want to get promoted. Relegation is the problem.
I think the MLS can set up a 2nd division in which it encorporates all the USL teams (or all that want to join, plus all the other candidate cities that are anywhere near being remotely possible, then in addition to the standard championship deciding table, there is a promotion table that is based on all the factors that MLS would decide to grant a full-fledged franchise to. The MLS could treat its second division as the entire 2nd division mirrors in MLS 1st division with contracts and team ownership and operating rights and the such, AND MLS2 (or maybe each of its conferences) is treated as a single team at the MLS table. There should be a minimum promotion points requirement to be considered, which will decide if any teams go up, and then a promotion playoff between all qualified teams regardless of championship table final standings. This will encourage fans to attend MLS2 games even if their team is crap, because a high attendance will increase the clubs standings in the promotion race. I think you can have relegation under this system too if a team falls below or well below the promotion requirement for a certain number of consecutive seasons, which in normal cases would call for a relocation or completely disbanding the team, but if all or nearly all have a city already in MLS and MLS2 there wouldn't be much point to relocate, and why completely shut down when you can just go into MLS2 and try operating on the cheap and offering professional soccer to your areas most hardcore fan base so as to not piss them off, also there is also the possibility of revitalizing soccer in the area one day, when they are more ready to accept the team after they have been around for a while.
Re: what if...... Well, how well a soccer team does on the field doesn't tell us anything about how good the market is for MLS expansion. I could use the same argument against pro/rel in general.
My MLS: Pacific: 1. Los Angeles Galaxy 2. CD Los Angeles 3. San Jose Earthquakes 4. Seattle Sounders 5. Portland Timbers 6. Vancouver Whitecaps Heartland: 1. Colorado Rapids 2. Dallas Toros 3. Houston Dynamo 4. Kansas City Wizards 5. Salt Lake City Royals 6. Arizona Firebirds Midwest: 1. Chicago Fire 2. Columbus Crew 3. Toronto FC 4. Olympique Montreal 5. Detroit Arsenal ("Arsenal of Democracy") 6. St. Louis Knights Atlantic 1. DC United 2. New England Revolution 3. New York Red Bulls 4. Philadelphia Independence 5. Inter Miami 6. Atlanta Locomotives and MY USL WEST 1st Division 1. California Victory 2. Las Vegas Outlaws 3. San Diego Pumas 4. Sacramento Saints 5. San Antonio Generals 6. Austin Aztecs 7. Milwaukee Bavarians 8. Minnesota Thunder 9. Cleveland Stokers 10. El Paso Diablos 2nd Division 1. Tulsa Roughnecks 2. Omaha Cowboys 3. Memphis Rogues 4. Fort Worth Tornado 5. Louisiana Creoles 6. Empire FC (Riverside) 7. Calgary Rovers 8. Indiana Mustangs 9. Oklahoma City Chiefs 10. Albuquerque Aztecs EAST 1st Divisioin 1. New York City FC 2. Puerto Rico Islanders 3. Rochester Rhinos 4. Carolina Hawks 5. Charleston Battery 6. Tampa Bay Raiders 7. Orlando Wonders 8. Nashville Rangers 9. Alabama Hearts 10. Pittsburgh Athletic 2nd Division 1. Richmond Kickers 2. Virginia Beach Mariners 3. Charlotte Eagles 4. Fort Lauderdale Fusion 5. Baltimore Barons 6. Cincinnati Kings 7. Hartford Admirals 8. Ottawa Republic 9. Syracuse Salty Dogs 10. Providence Patriots
You forgot the Georgia Gerbils, the Hawaii Hamsters and the Michigan Mice. Do you forget that as a whole, MLS is still in the RED! Are there supposedly going to be Ten Million more PAYING soccer fans in this country? Wow, I hope you don't really believe this. Either you might want to go outside and get some fresh air, or pass that our way!