Seems ironic that while Yank fans, including yours truly, are pushing MLS to adopt promotion/relegation, Ipswich Town's chairman is suggesting the English leagues go the other way. From ITFC's website: http://www.itfc.co.uk/content/news/...Club+News&archived=&StoryID=7474&PageNumber=1 CHAIRMAN PREDICTS RADICAL CHANGES IN THE GAME David Sheepshanks has predicted the possible emergence of two elite divisions at the top of English football based on criteria rather than merit - and with no promotion or relegation involved. Leicester's fall into administration, following the same path as many of the relegated Premiership clubs over the past few years is an indication of the gulf that exists financially between life in the top flight and the First Division. It's a drop that the Town Chairman feels may soon prompt a radical change in the structure of the English game. "I was very pleased to see that Sir Brian Mawhinney has been appointed as the new Chairman of the Football League and it will require all of his ability to do something to prevent Division One from becoming effectively cut off from the Premiership," says the Chairman. "The status quo is no longer sustainable nor acceptable. We may well ultimately see the emergence of two elite divisions - in my view possibly even elected on CRITERIA as opposed to MERIT - perhaps even with no promotion or relegation beneath them - thereby propagating the emergence of a USA-style franchise ownership system. "Although our inner instincts may be to throw our hands up in horror at such a suggestion, I actually believe that something radical along these lines may be the solution. "Apart from the idea of asking Celtic and Rangers to join Division One, thereby enhancing its TV/Sponsorship value, nobody in the game seems to be coming forward with any other ideas. "There is a limit as to how long Premiership clubs will tolerate being relegated into financial turmoil at best, or bankruptcy at worst. "The conundrum is how to create a viable life for two divisions at the top (as opposed to one as now) and yet preserve the very important divisions below."
No irony at all. Several "American mutilations" of the game like Salary Cap and Roster Limits are being bandied about overseas as well. It makes business sense, is all.
The English Foootball League used to have 4 divisions with over 90 teams. When the Premiership split away in the early 90's, the financial gulf began. The Premiership works out financial deals separate from the Football League, such as TV contracts and merchandising, and Premiership teams end up being significantly richer than there Football League brothers. When one talks about the financial troubles with the lower-level clubs, don't discount the effects the formation of the Premiership had on the situation. - Paul
The proposed salary cap is completely different to the kind in US sports. It isn't a maximum limit to try and create parity, it's a proposal for clubs to agree to spend no more than a certain percentage of their income on wages, which in theory would stop clubs spending money they haven't got trying to keep up with everyone else who is also spending money they also haven't got. I don't recall ever hearing any calls for limits on squad sizes. Basically here you have a chairman of a club who completely failed to think about what might happen if his club got relegated. He agreed to hugely increase the salaries of former division 1 players upon promotion to the premiership without any contingency for reducing them if the club went back down. It seems that every single short-sighted chairman who believed that his club were now one of the big boys, yet got a rude awakening once his club went down, comes out and says the same thing - normally when it looks like they aren't going to make an instant return. The football league cost Division 1 clubs $4.5 million each per season after botching the TV contract they had, then compounded that error by hastily shackling themselves into a very poor 4 year deal with a satellite broadcaster. Not surprisingly the chairman who arranged those deals (one of whom I'm sure was a certain Mr David "astute businessman" Sheepshanks) were kicked off the board in a vote of no confidence by the other chairman. The bigger Division 1 clubs are competitive financially against smaller Premiership clubs in terms of merchandising and ticket sales, but what kills them is that Premiership clubs get at least $18 million a year more TV revenue. Unless premiership clubs agree to share this money (unlikely) or TV shows a sudden surge in interest in football outside the premiership (also unlikely) nothing is going to happen. Also, there is absolutely no need to stop pro/rel between the first & second divisions. If Division 1 magically gets some more money then there just isn't any need for it to only go to clubs who meet certain 'criteria'. And if pro/rel between Divs 1 & 2 was stopped then there's the little point of the fact that doing that will do absolutely nothing in any way shape or form to generate more income. Leicester's debts, along with Derby's are to a large extent due to building new stadiums. The cost of building work has also hit most league clubs pretty hard.
While it's not exactly the same as the US concepts of a salary cap and a stable league, it is definitely a move in that direction. IMHO, the US method is best, because it does the most for the game and the fans. The clubs make money, the players make money, everyone gets paid and the fans get exposure in the major markets live and everywhere via TV. What's being proposed is kinda like changing the First Division into a minor league rather than a promotion/relegation second tier. The reason the Scottish Premier League is so often brought into this equation is that it essentially has two tiers, Rangers & Celtic, and everybody else. While Rangers and Celtic play everyone, no other teams realistically almost ever have a chance to win the league. So by increasing exposure in between the two leagues you can make the second tier profitable. By ending relegation (and thus ending promotion) you prefent financial catastrophe. The salary cap thing is just basic good business sense, and the real shocker is that something similar hasn't been put into place earlier. With the FA acting as the UK equivalent of a US league office, it can decree these sorts of good business sense rules from the top-down. But, it needs the support of the majority of the clubs with power to back it. What may shake out from all this is that cities and regions may end up backing less teams, as the derbies within a city may be reduced. For example, if this is done then London may only have 2 or 3 Premiership teams, and some of the former top teams in the area may find themselves shut out permanently. This would likely cause a trending towards those Premiership teams rather than simply the neighborhood team. Similarly, teams like Man City might get squeezed out, despite being very very popular. I don't expect the promotion/relegation to end anytime soon, but I wouldn't be surprised to see it get modified repeatedly every year for several years eventually leading to a permanent end to the pro/rel system. -Tron
sorry, but not true. His (and it's only a few chairman proposing similar ideas, nobody else) idea is to stop relegation between Div 1 & 2, not the Premiership and Div 1. Making Div 1 into a minor league would be a disaster as the whole league would be pointless. An example would be the Conference, which is effectively Div 4. Before automatic promotion was introduced (and only for 1 place) in the mid 80s crowds were less than a third the size they are now as winning it brought no reward. Stop pro/rel and the same will happen in reverse. Do you really think the Ipswich chairman was advocating a solution which would prevent his club from getting back into the premiership? The Rangers/Celtic idea was that by inviting them into Div 1 TV interest in Div 1 would increase and Div 1 clubs would get a better TV deal. The reason for those two's dominance is purely because they are far bigger clubs than anyone else in Scotland. The get 50000 and 60000 at every game. The next best supported side gets about 12000. 20 years ago Celtic & Rangers both had far lower average crowds so the gap was smaller. ....except for those clubs outside the elite group who wither and die. Football league crowds, in the last 15-20 years have increased more than premier league crowds, so it's not as if people are shunning league clubs in favour of premiership teams. The reasons for their financial troubles have nothing to do with poor support. The only problem is that in Germany, where restrictions are already in place, it has been found that many clubs still fail to get their accounts in order and have been kicked out of the league as a result. The killer really is player's contracts. My team have a wage bill of $4.5 million per year and we are breaking even on crowds of about 15,000. The other day we played Coventry who are in debt having come down from the Premier. Their wage bill is $15 million and their crowds are lowers than ours. They should be selling their high earners, but their astute chairman has decided that it's better to gamble on a quick return to the premier than trying to restructure their squad to make it affordable. The amazing thing is that you say the above like it's a good thing. I don't as quite simply there's no need, or more importantly, demand for it to be ended. You ask any chairman advocating this solution what the entry criteria would be and I bet to a man it'd be just loose enough to allow their club to be accepted. It's all about protectionism, nothing else. as a footnote, the US has 5 times the population of the England. So try to imagine an NFL with 100 teams, with a secondary league of a further 360 more gridiron teams below that, and below that about 1000 more semi-pro gridiron teams, all of which have been around for at least 100 years, with their own deep traditions. Then try to imagine why implementing something which would cause the collapse of most of those teams is not regarded as a good thing.
There is one intangible factor that makes this issue far more complicated: the fans. While the majority of them support bigger clubs, there are still plenty of them who will simply not accept these kind of changes.
One thing you also have to take into account is that the bigger (and more powerful) premiership clubs, the ones that make the biggest profits not only don't care about the 'dangers' of pro/rel as they are unlikely to be involved, but they would be against any moves towards profit sharing as it would be them subsidising the others. You also have to bear in mind that the premiership is not an automonous body of elite clubs like the NFL - there have been something like 35-40 different premiership teams since the premiership began 10 years ago. It's not as if it would be easy to draw a line and say "this X number of clubs are big clubs and could form part of an elite group, the remaining Y clubs are small clubs who aren't good enough." - the support for individual clubs drops off at a gradual gradient.
One thing I've noticed whenever this comes up, is that it's almost always Americans who say pro/rel will meet the same fate as the dodo birds. Not Brits. Whether that's because Americans can look at the situation logically and without emotion, or because Americans don't know what the hell they're talking about, that's for you to decide.
To put it another way, imagine something halfway between college basketball and college football, but with the lower echelon teams having somewhat more clout.
I think there would be criteria similar to NCAA Division I-A Football. There are 117 schools in I-A and to get in, your stadium must have a capacity of 30,000 and you must average 20,000 per contest for five years. If not, you get sent down to I-AA. I really wonder if the FA would allow this but in the case of the franchise-based English Premier League, a club with a ground seating 40,000+ and averaging 30,000+ for five years would be admitted to the league. Hypothetically. After that, they shut the door and no one else is allowed into the league. Then, they could set salary caps, roster limits, and other features to insure competitive balance. Who knows? Maybe even championship playoffs. Now if there's one thing I-A needs, it's a playoff. Speaking of college, is there collegiate sport in England? Not just exhibition, but for competitive purposes? National championships? What not?
The first part I'll skip past, just to say that it's not wanted by anyone, so it's unlikely to happen. Certainly a unilateral salary cap would just see the best players leave and the standard go downhill compared to other leagues - something the NFL, NBA etc don't have to worry about. No, there is no college sport as such. There are college teams but spectator interest is zero (literally family, friends, people walking the dog past the field and no more than that). College sports results are not listed in the papers, not even local papers. Unless you hadn't guessed college sports are not covered by TV. So college sports generate no money at all. Consequently universities do not pay young sportsmen & women to come to their university. Add to that traditionally footballers (and sporting types in general) are not overblessed in the brains department and it would be hard for them to get a place on a degree course. I say 99% of footballers, if not more, join a pro club at 16. Imagine if youth development followed similar lines in American sports, so rather than college teams featuring the stars of tomorrow, it was just teams made from a collection of ordinary students, would anyone still care?
I can certainly understand that the fans don't want to change what they love. I'm definitely accustomed to sports the way they're managed in America. Athletic scholarships exist mainly because higher education is so expensive here. I couldn't tell you why collegiate sport became so big in the States. It probably has to do with the Ivy League. Those schools pioneered so much in American sports. They did so through competition among each other. The elitists that they are, they just wanted to beat each other. Wait a minute... That didn't come out right at all.
ANother thing I've noticed is that Americans who've lived in Europe for a time generally seem to think pro/rel is a great in comparison to the US cartel approach. Not sure what that means either...
I only have two words for anyone who thinks an NFL, cartel-style setup is a panacae: CINCINNATI BENGALS
I strongly disagree that the premeirship had anything to do with. It's how the games been changing. There has always been a large gap in terms of finances available. Clubs like Arse have had the financial ability to buy players. It's just that buying someone for 100,000 pounds used to be a huge deal. But when it was a large transaction, you weren't seeing clubs in the 1st division buying players for that amount; their transfers were that much smaller, also. Being in the premeirship doesn't guarantee success or that you'll keep bringing in big revenues. Just ask Oldham, Barnsely or QPR about that.
Ya, but you're comparing 18 teams versus what? 24 teams in each the 1st division, 2nd, and 3rd? I'd hope that the total of 72 teams would be more than 18. Then again, I doubt that's the case if you include TV viewership, especially overseas. Who the heck in China is watching Brighton play versus watching Everton? How many people in Thailand or Canada are watchign ManU or Newcastle play versus watching Stoke City or Cardiff?
No kidding. The only FANS against pro-rel are ones that haven't been exposed to it. The US system may make better business sense (I'm not convinced), but it is definitely not as much fun.
yep, it's 20 v 72, which at face value is not a worthwhile comparison, but the point is that support is not focussed primarily on the premier league clubs. Overall the average crowd in the football league is about a third of the average premiership crowd. All of these fans support their football league side exclusively. They don't have a favourite premiership club as well as their local side. That is one distinction that is important when I hear people comparing football outside the premier league with US College football. I bet every college football fan supports an NFL team as well (and possibly vice-versa). Also, all of the leagues sides would obviously be far better supported the higher up the league they go, and all of the premiership sides would get lower crowds if they were outside it. The premiership may contain the richest clubs, but it doesn't necessarily contain the biggest clubs. You're right about TV. The average couch potato doesn't really care about football outside the premiership. Bad scheduling (the goals highlights package is shown at something like 2am on a Monday morning) and a consistently poor and uninspiring choice of matches has hardly helped football league TV viewing figures either. Currently SKY are contracted to show every league club live once a year. I think they deliberately select games between two of the less popular teams playing one another to get poor viewing figures, so they can make more of a case for cherry-picking which clubs they want to show live in the future. ITV did this in the 80s when there were justified complaints that live matches almost exclusively featured matches between the (then) 'big five' of Liverpool, Man Utd, Arsenal, Spurs & Everton'. They reacted to this complaint by showing a meaningless mid-table match (Villa v Middlesbrough?) which got the worst viewing figures of the year, and used this to prove that they should only show matches between the big clubs. Essentially TV is not for fans, it's for glory-hunters. What foreign audiences would make of football outside the premiership is a mystery. Many might like it, but I doubt they get the chance.
Actually I'd assume an end to prom/rel would result in something more akin to baseball, where the Top League clubs have "farm systems" which basically consists of a team at each of the lower levels where it stores its prospects who aren't quite ready for the big time yet. The reason would be that without the opportunities to compete with "big league" teams, it becomes far too easy for "minor league" teams to come to agreements with major league teams, with the major league teams providing the cash and the talent, and the minor league teams providing them somewhere to play. IOW, Man U's reserve team wouldn't be "Man U's Reserve Team" but rather Wigan or somebody. I'm not saying I advocate this by any stretch. Baseball's minor leagues were much more vibrant back when they were free and occassionally you'd have a Baltimore Orioles or Pacific Coast League get uppity and challenge the big boys. Salary caps are, however, almost always a bad idea (I say almost as a weak qualifier), and are usually proposed in rather short-sighted and unfortunate ways. So too is massive amounts of shared revenue. It seems to me a lot of this is a solution in search of a problem. If Ipswich's relegation out of the premiership cost them a lot of money in revenues, well then that possibility should have been accounted for. If it wasn't, shame on the Manager and Chairman for not doing so and any financial hardships received are well deserved. I realize that sucks for Ipswich football fans to watch their team plummet through divisions due to the incompetence of those in charge, but the worst thing for Ipswich football fans might be the best thing for the sport as a whole. Sometimes the way people talk in the USA, it seems as if the league where every team in the league finishes with the same record is the "perfect" league. Having the Yankees and Man U is good for their respective leagues, and yet everyone assumes that it is somehow a bad thing. Protectionist policies like salary caps go a long way to subsidizing mediocrity and incompetence since the penalties for these vices are substantially reduced. European football fans shouldn't want them and neither should NFL football fans. There's a difference between what's good for the team owners and what's good for the team fans and what's good for the team franchises themselves.
Well I think you've reversed the order of occurrence in America of how the sports developed. Except for Baseball (which not-coincidentally has relatively little fan interest at the College level), the collegiate athletics predate the big time professional leagues (In fact collegiate athletics are why we Americans have a history of pointy-ball instead of your football). So the comparison isn't quite the same. The tradition is on the side of college athletics (excpet for baseball). In baseball, like English football, players often sign with teams when they're young 16 (for kids in other countries) 17 and 18 for USA kids. The amateur draft essentially ends the need for going after 14 and 15 year old kids, since as a team you have to have wait your turn for an opportunity to get them, and 14 year olds have no shot at helping the team immediately. (IE, what's the difference whether you draft them at 14 or 17?) Increasingly, more teams are looking at College Baseball players as a source of talent for the big leagues, since the colleges do a lot of the hard work of separating the wheat from the chaff, and the draft limits how much chaff you can take on. Really, the American equivalent to English Football is baseball in structure and tradition, it just isn't anything like it as an actual sport. In particular, Baseball is also the one whose financial model is most similar to English Football (no salary caps, large discrepancies between clubs in revenues, etc.)