With 2 top teams making the Champions' Cup, and with (presumably) the 4 top teams making SuperLiga, and with the 8 top teams making MLS Cup, there is an increasingly diverse and positive set of competitive incentives at the top of the league. As a result, MLS continues to move in the right direction, making the regular season more meaningful, and thus more compelling. But what makes many of the world's soccer leagues just that much more compelling is the threat of relegation providing that extra bit of competitive incentive for teams at the bottom of the league. MLS desperately needs to find a way to provide this kind of competitive incentive at the bottom of the league, but relegation is NOT going to be a realistic option for a very, very, very long time (if ever). So, how can the league encourage competition at the bottom of the league, especially as it expands and an increasing number of teams fall out of playoff contention earlier and earlier in the season? My solution: formalize the wooden spoon by imposing a points penalty on the team that finishes last in the league at the end of a season. As a trial, start by imposing a 2 point penalty on the team that finishes last in the league. A 2 point penalty is modest enough that it can be overcome (even in the first game of the new season with a win), but it is likewise substantial enough that it could mean the difference between making the playoffs or not and/or SuperLiga or not, etc. In a league with as much parity as MLS, 2 points can be worth a lot, and avoiding that kind of penalty could/should inspire some fight at the bottom of the table. It's not as punitive as relegation, but punitive enough to increase the competitiveness and meaning of the regular season. Thoughts? See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wooden_Spoon_(award) and: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MLS_Shield#The_Wooden_Spoon.27s_Rebounds
MLS already gives something to the worst team. It's called the "#1 draft pick". Oh, you want a disincentive to finish last. My bad.
Wow. Seriously? Nobody has anything to say about this idea? I posted this on bigsoccer with the faith that at least a few dozen people would reply negatively to my idea and tell me where I've gone wrong. And I had further faith that at least one of those few dozen people would make an intelligent argument. Maybe even propose an alternate non-relegation disincentive at the bottom of the table. Instead, people reply to yet another f*cking relegation thread, started just a few hours later? Fellow geeks, help me out. How can we add some important competitive incentive at the bottom of the league? If not a points penalty as I've suggested, what else? I'm convinced that this is an important and compelling part of world soccer, giving extra meaning and fight to the regular season. Without relegation being a realistic option in MLS, what other punitive options do we have to inspire a battle at the bottom of the league and further emphasize performance in the regular season?
I like the idea. Plus, it'd make for great comeback stories - Spoon-to-Cup? that's a bit odd, but you get the idea. I'd like to see more considerable end-of-season cash prizes for the players. It's a traditional approach that takes virtually no effort to implement - just make sure the players know about it.
Columbus has a Supporter's Shield and an Open Cup. RSL and Chivas have as many trophies as the Red Bulls do.
The points penalty is a no go. However, we could give out an actual "trophy". Have it be the Supporters' Spoon, cause MLS would never give out such an award. It can be given out to the "winning" team's fans at MLS Cup weekend. Here's a posthumous list: 1996-Colorado Rapids 1997-San Jose Clash 1998-New England Revolution 1999-MetroStars 2000-San Jose Earthquakes 2001-Tampa Bay Mutiny 2002-D.C. United 2003-Dallas Burn 2004-Chicago Fire 2005-Chivas USA 2006-Columbus Crew
I actually think it is a very good idea and would certainly be something substantial that both players and fans could agonize over in the final weeks. The main argument against it would seem to be that starting the season in last place before even a game has been played (even if it is easy to overcome) might limit the buildup to a new season and subsequent ticket sales. There's a pretty strong tradition (invented by Chicago Cubs fans I believe) in American sports of wiping the slate clean at the end of each season and starting out with unreasonable hopes for the next year. This throws a bit of cold water on that early season excitement, but once people get used to the idea it could easily become something to rally around. Other possible ideas would be to reverse the order of draft picks so that the best non-playoff team gets #1 and so on down to the last place team with #5 then start with the eighth place team like normal. Fans might care about this, but the players themselves wouldn't be too inspired. Financial incentives would inspire the players but I doubt fans would be on the edge of their seats worrying about the backup goalkeepers paycheck. Something a little more European would be to designate a certain number of dollars as the league's transfer money, say 13 million dollars. Then, rather than giving each team 1 million distribute the money by position in the table. This way the top teams earn more money to be used in the following years. The salary cap would stay the same so there wouldn't be a huge talent gap, but the teams with more transfer money would have an easier time getting new players still in their prime. And if they didn't need the money for transfers they could give it to the players as bonuses. This would be something both fans and players would care about and would create a running narrative between seasons. It might lead to a less drastic version of the rich and poor syndrome in most European leagues.
How about they stop giving out You Suck Allocations? I don't know why you want to only penalize the team that actually comes in last....what about the team that comes in 2nd to last? Why do they escape punishment? It's not like they did significantly better. I don't really see the point in this idea, to be honest. Unless your contention is that the worst team really didn't even try....and thats too cynical for even me. It's silly to hand the last place team a points penalty while simultaneously giving them the #1 draft pick and a You Suck Allocation. Smacking them with one hand while patting them on the back with the other. Either the league is for forced parity or they aren't.
I agree with most of this post. The whole draft/allocation scheme is a joke. The last thing that you want to do is REWARD a team for being bad. That needs to change. If you want a truly competitive league, you have to provide both an incentive to finish at the top, and a disincentive for finishing at the bottom. Right now, MLS has positive incentives at the top AND positive incentives at the bottom. And that's just ridiculous. The competetive paradox here is that the WORST place in the league to finish is 9th (under the new playoff rules). You just barely miss the playoffs, and you don't get the allocation/draft rewards of the teams below you. Finishing 9th should NEVER be less valuable than finishing 13th. That's just f*cked up. But that's how MLS is structured. So, on that, I agree with you tex. But, the reason that I would limit the points penalty to only one team (for now) is because there are only 13 teams in this league. We should introduce something like this in a conservative way. Once the idea catches on, and once the league expands a little bit more, it might then make sense to expand the size and/or scope of the punitive disincentive at the bottom. Look, I'm not cynical. It's not that I think the last-place team "isn't trying at all." But it is absolutely the case that once a team is eliminated from playoff contention, they have f*uck-all to play for. And as this league grows, that problem will grow with it. It's already a crippling competitive problem (from my perspective anyway) in all of America's other major sports leagues. What makes most of the world's soccer leagues so much more compelling is that there is incentive at the top AND disincentive at the bottom. It severely reduces the likelihood that a team will just coast through the weeks, maybe even months, left in the season if they fall off the top of the pile. Yes, I realize that there is a "tabula rasa" tradition in American sports whereby a team should be able to start fresh at the beginning of a new season. But if "fresh starts" come at the price of "rotten finishes" than it's a tradition that needs reexamining. A punitive disincentive to finish last helps inject competitive meaning into a too often senseless end to the regular season for a number of teams.
Have a lottery (non-weighted is probably fair, but you could make an argument to weight towards the worst team or the best team in the non-playoff group) for the top pick in the draft from the worst teams and there is no incentive to be last. Now to get an incentive to try harder to finish not last, ever heard of competitive spirit, pride, keeping your contract options high, and keeping your fan support. That's plenty for me as that's all anyone is really playing for in any spot of the table in any sport.
I think this is micromanaging. Even the much revered European system has dead spots in the table. 10th place, safe from relegation, out of contention for Europe. You aren't going to be able to dictate a motivation for every single team to play every single game. It's been pointed out in this thread already that this idea is pretty directly opposed to the idea of enforcing league parity. It's just one guy's opinion, but I think a league that encourages parity is a good thing. I think that's something that our system has that is better than most other places. I like having renewed hope at the beginning season that my cellar-dwellers are going to turn it around this season. If they start from a clear competitive disadvantage (like -2 points) then the system encourages the rich to get richer. I don't think the idea to pay cash bonuses to players based on league position should be dismissed so quickly. Money is the greatest motivator in the world, and doing this also doesn't really harm the parity encouraging system already in place. True that this maybe doesn't inspire the fans quite as much, but I think maybe the fans would be inspired indirectly by watching players who are working just a little bit harder.
The only thing I can think of that might resemble the pro/rel structure is to have the bottom team get "relegated" the next season. Here's what I mean. The two worst records in 2006 were RSL and Columbus. Using 2006 as an example, the two worst records have a one-game playoff to determine who gets "relegated." In 2007, the team that lost would be "relegated", meaning regardless of how well they do in 2007, the best they could possibly do if their record is good enough is be the 8th seed in the playoffs (or 4th seed in their conference.) If RSL was the team that lost that playoff in 2006, then even if their record was the best in MLS in 2007 they would still only be the bottom seed in the playoffs that year. If they suck again in 2007, then they have to play in the relegation playoff, and go through the ritual all over again. At least that would give the two worst teams some incentive to stay off the bottom, in order to have an unimpeded chance the following year. In all honesty though, with only 13 teams and 8 playoff positions available, any relegation-like system like the one above is only going to confuse the average sports fan. Hardcore fans might understand it and like it but in trying to build the fanbase it probably won't make any sense to them. That being said, it's no less confusing than the myriad of rules in the NFL.
I disagree. But I like your choice of words. The goal isn't to completely ELIMINATE "dead spots" in a league. The goal is to REDUCE the number of "dead spots," thus increasing the competitiveness and meaning of the regular season. Micromanaging would be to prescribe specific incentive/disincentive for every single spot on the table. I'm not doing that. I'm arguing that incentives at the top aren't sufficient for a fully motivated regular season, especially in an expanding league. There is, of course, a danger in excessive incentive/disincentive. And that would be micromanaging. But I hardly find my conservative proposition excessive. Parity is a double edged sword. Overall, it's a positive paradigm, I agree. But this ain't AYSO. There should be rewards for success. And there should also be consequences for failure. MLS has no (real) consequences. In fact, as discussed earlier in this thread, MLS actually rewards failure. And rewarding failure is an ultimately destructive course, in both sport and life. (It's ironic, don't you think, that in a hyper-capitalist nation like America we're so wedded to anti-capitalist principles in our sports leagues. We want free markets - where the potential for competetive carnage is greatest and the effects of stratification real - but we want managed parity in our sports. Anyway... that's a topic for another thread on another board.) A 2 point penalty doesn't "encourage the rich to get richer." It "enriches" nobody. At worse, it punishes (temporarily) a single team (for a single season). It shouldn't effect their ability to recruit and improve in the offseason, or cripple their overall ability to compete in any individual game. I'm therefore unconvinced that it has any substantial negative effect on overall "parity." But I am convinced that it could have a positive effect on motivation. Especially at the end of the season. And that's good for the league. Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't they already do this? Aren't there already pay bonuses in the league?
One arguement that I dont agree with is that by giving the worst team in the league -2 points that its going to hurt them in getting new players and the fans are going to be lest optimistic about the next season. This is why I say that because like already mentioned -2 points isnt that much and will be easy to over come but if its so easy to over come then how is it going to make such an impact on the last place teams? Also I dont know if I am in favor of kicking someone when they are down which is what you do when you give the last place team some kind of penalty. I would love to see the bottom half of the table more competetive even when they are out of playoff contention. How do you do that I dont know but i think its a good idea to do some thing to help fix the problem. Why punish the worst team when its clear they need the most help??
Because in soccer as in life there are winners and losers. Losing should never be rewarded over winning because you encourage mediocrity at best, failure at worst. What makes this sport exciting around the world is that there are consequences for winning (like international competitions) and for losing (usually relegation). Well we don't have relegation and we actually reward failure thus making MLS less compelling for the average soccer fan in this country who watches other leagues. The idea is to create something on the bottom of the table similar to the Supporter's Shield at the top.
Relegation is a joke, it is a way of fooling fans, of clubs that will never win the league championship, into thinking that finishing as the 4th worst team in the league means something. Giving teams high draft picks, doesn't really reward them. As we have seen, some of the best players come from the later rounds in the draft. Hey Jade, I wanted to listen to the show, that you were on but the link from your post, for the replay wasn't working...
Repped. And I too am much more in favor of a lottery system, like the NBA/NHL instead of straight order like the NFL. The cash bonuses are also good too.
Do you really think they look at having the worst record as a "reward"? Do teams celebrate getting a YSA over winning... to get into the playoffs.... to get to MLS Cup.... to become MLS Champions? I love those press releases. Well you're in America honey....unfortunate, isn't it.... What makes sport exciting in this country is the ability to get back up and dust yourself off the next year....the perpetual hope....the renewing devotion to your team, even if they are the Cubs....the chance to sneak in as an underdog and pull an upset....the ability to work hard with another chance....the American spirit. Don't get me wrong, we value winning above all of that, but we don't necessarily value punishing the plain ol losers. And we value parity being a positive force for a (young) sports league's stability, fan base, and staying power. Again, they aren't "rewarding" failure, that's just how some people twist it. MLS just wants them to be better, and have a chance the next year. Of course, you're you (and a DC fan/self-proclaimed marketing genius), so this is pointless. That's fine, even without the penalty. In fact, that version is a good idea.
I do have time in my office schedule on Wednesday afternoon. I don't think we should have too much trouble getting your head disengaged from where it is currently stuck.
I just dont see the -2 points making that big of a difference. Like I already said you are saying that giving the team a -2 points at the start of the next season is going to make the bottom teams fight it till the end or atleast make it more competitive but then you also say it will be easy to overcome the next season so the players are going to know that so I dont see them killing themselves to save 2 points that will be easy to overcome. I agree something should be done I just dont see that being the best idea. I would say money is a motivating factor and everyone complains about the salaries so why not give bonuses to teams that dont finish last or some type of variation of that. I would think that might help teams go out and give 100% in the final weeks of the season. Does MLS pay any type of bonus to the teams for making the playoffs?? That might help make the middle of the table more competitive if the teams gain money for making the playoffs and that money had to be given to the players at the end of the year. As for the bottom since regulation isnt happening for a long time I dont see any way of making it better but I like the fact people are trying to come up with ideas cause its needed.
Yeah, see, now that's just unnecessary. I feel like this thread is actually a decent, necessary debate, and personal attacks like that... ah, forget it; I forget where I'm posting this stuff... my expectations are cleary misplaced. So... (To skip my rant about relegation, please ignore the following few paragraphs) If you think that relegation is a "joke." That it is way of "fooling fans, of clubs that will never win the league championship, into thinking that finishing as the 4th worst team in the league means something," well, I'm afraid your just plain naive. I'm sorry, I'm not trying to insult you, but it's absolutely ridiculous to make this argument. In England, for example, there are hundreds and hundreds of club teams, and simply being in (or staying in) the top league "means something" quite substantial on it's own. Additionally, avoiding relegation means millions and millions of extra pounds in your bank account. Not only because of your increased share of TV revenue (which is astronomical), but it means bigger gates next season when the big teams come to your ground, more exposure - worldwide, and an increased ability to recruit top talent. That money and exposure can help you build and impove your team. It's not a guarantee, but it sure helps. Oh, and it means that you actually have the opportunity (however poor or unlikely it may seem for some teams) to compete for the championship. I'm fully aware of the problems of big-club semi-monopoly at the top of leagues like England. I don't need a lecture on it. And that's not the purpose of this thread. But it's just ignorant to say that the money, exposure and opportunity gained by avoiding relegation "means nothing" and is some kind of ruse on fans. The real ruse on fans is pretending that end of season games mean anything in a league where there is no consequnce for failure. (If you've chosen (wisely) to skip my relegation rant, please begin reading here) Anyway, this thread isn't about relegation. It's about creating alternative consequences in MLS to discourage failure/mediocrity. And in that vain... What is clear to me is that the debate reduces to this: are "fresh starts" more important than "rotten finishes"? I'm over-simplifing here, but that's the fundamental question behind this. I understand the defence of "fresh starts" - hell, even the defence of managed parity. But I disagree with it. It values "hope" over everything else. It values early season interest over late season interest. And for me, that's backwards. Especially because (right or wrong) I believe managed dometic parity means continued international failure. In sports where the only important competition is your own league, managed parity has it's virtues. But long-term this strategy wont be doing any favors for MLS, which operates in a much larger and more competetive global envirnoment. Anyway, at least we all seem to agree on one thing. That the Wooden/Supporter's Spoon should become a more formal "award." Even if the only "penalty" associated with it is shame. And I think we also all agree that the draft/allocation scheme needs reworking. So, lets start there.