The answer, quite simply is NONE... at least not in the culture of North American professional sports management. Which is why I feel confident saying that we will never see promotion/relegation take hold in pro sports in this country. At least not in any of our lifetimes. So, that said, could we please rig the Big Soccer boards to administer a painful electrical shock to any person broaching the subject from this day forward? Thanks.
Brian the question was asked of me about it,because my friends back in England think that the MLS is aJoke. One of the members asked me why they think it is, so I told them only one of the reasons. Promotion N Relegation. Then another member asked how a Nation 40 times Bigger then my Beloved England could do this. So I told them how, the same way nations such as China and India who are bigger then the USA Can. have the willingness to do so. And there is none here, but Brian this is how the topic came up in the first place . Some one asked me how it could be done and i told them. It was not to restart the topic. Sorry if you felt it was.
Look, I know you are new here (assuming you are as represented) so you don't know this, but most of the ideas you have floated have been beaten to death over and over on these boards. But to deal with your initial question (as opposed to your answers) Why in God's green earth would MLS want to spend a red cent promoting in a market where it not only doesn't exist but doesn't have any near term intention of ever existing? To make you happy? I strongly suspect that the Nashville papers have it exactly right: burying MLS news in the small print at the back of the sports section is likely to be proportional to the interest in soccer among the paper's readers. There is a reason 9 pages get devoted to the NFL team - people in Nashville care about the football club; they don't care about MLS. MLS has limited resources. Its obviously better off using those to generate interest in areas where people might actually go out, buy tickets and support their team. In the mean time, I suggest you visit Ryman Auditorium and find out what your adopted city is actually good at.
If this is the game you mean, it drew 11,000 people. Not bad. This was a independent promoter, not MLS, I think, though. So, promotion was up to him, not the league. LA Galaxy vs Tecos de UAG in Nashville (yes, Nashville) MLS does have some promotion-type games in non-MLS cities, but they can only do so much, of course. This Spring there were games in Mississippi, near Memphis; in San Antonio, and in Oklahoma City. Maybe there were some others. Also, some teams played in a preseason tournament in (Spain? The thing the MetroStars won, whatever it was). Some played preseason games in Mexico, too. And this Winter DC and LA are playing in Hawaii. As for comparing the EPL with MLS, forget it. We are certainly way behind. I think the difference is shown by the difference in salaries. Our 1.7 Million salary cap wouldn't get many EPL players. Another way to compare is the attendence figures. MLS gets about as many fans as the English 1st division (one below the EPL), and more than about 15 or so leagues around the world. So, maybe that is our place about the 15th best Soccer league in the world. Not bad considering it is only 9 years old. BTW, almost every league is shown up by the EPL, so there is no shame in that. But given the money in the US, I would expect us to challenge the top ten pretty soon, maybe by 2006 even.
Look i am not argueing the limited income the MLS has . it was asked to me how it could be done . I said this Take the current 12 cities as the top division. take the next 12 who wanted to join and make a new division. The A-League i said that teams could join if they had a 3 yr plan to upgrade their stadiums. Thats all. I never said they should or would do this , it was my idea on how it could be done . As far as my city I have lived here 36 yrs so i know what it is famed for very well, and i also know that more kids play soccer in my state then Football . There was other reasons , that my friends have their dislikes and i understood them very well. I choose that topic as an example . The entire subject was an example of what they could do if they wanted to do, not what they should or need to do . My main question was how i could get more games so i could become a fan of the league and the players so i could tell my friends hey its a better league then they feel it is and they should check it out more. And some of you have been kind enough to tell me some ways to get more games, while others have spent more time bashing me and my friends just because they may have a different opinion then yours or heritage. I never said that I felt the league was a joke, only that i did not know it well enough to defend it against those feelings of my friends or as you like to call them Idiots . Instead of helping someone who wants to become a new fan of the league, the lot of you have spent more time insulting me and my friends for their heritage and opinions. If this small example of the type of fans or friendships that i can expect from MLS Fans in general towards someone wanting to become a new fan of your league , it really makes me want to have second thoughts about wanting to be apart of the fans of the MLS if the lot of you can`t respect the opinions of someone trying to learn about your league and had honest questions and unsure opinions about the league.
If you reject a sports league because some of its fans are rude on the internet, you will need to give up on sports.
No i am not rejecting it, just wanting to get past the rudeness and on to something else like learning about the league and stuff thats all. So going Digital or with the Dish is the best way to go to get more games on tv ?
I think the issue most people fail to realise with PRO/REL is not that it is suppsedly anathema to American sport, nor because Phil Anschutz will have a hernia if the Metros or Galaxy get relegated. It's because there are not owners or interest for more than 12 teams right now at a 10 million dollar entry fee. When we reach a point where we have a 16-18 team league or more, all the teams with their own owners and league-quality stadiums, and high-quality owners busting down the door of the MLS office to fork over 10-15 million in fees to join, then we can talk about a second division and PRO/REL. Maybe. Right now it's pointless. You can't promote A-League teams, least of all due to their stadiums and business structure.
Sure you could. And the next year you'd have the attendance boost of 6-10 Europoser/Traditionalists/Soccer Snobs getting their butts up off their couches and showing up at a few games. And the year after that BigSoccer would be full of arguments about whether the death of MLS was due to pro/rel or due to not signing Beckham, Ronaldo, and Keane.
The A-League idea is quite excellent. We have an A-League team in Atlanta so I would love to see a merger. The thought of competiing in MLS if they finished well enough seems like a dream. The paper does give the Silverbacks decent coverage for a second-tier league. Problem is they play in a 15,000 seat high school stadium and it's not in the best location for a soccer club. However beggars can't be choosers! I'm not sure how many A-League teams there are but I think two leagues of 16 would work better. That's how many teams are in the Premiership, right? Either way you go, I like this idea a lot. You should e-mail this stuff to Don Garber!
For those of you who don't get the "rolleyes", this is sarcasm. If you want to watch an EPL game on TV in England you pretty much have to pay for it, or go to a pub.
Beggars can't get promoted either. Pro/rel can only work when the supply (of slots in MLS) exceeds demand (of new owners wanting to buy in). And even then, it would be a better business choice to let in new owners only where the market for soccer merits it, not based on past performance of their lower-division clubs. Pro/rel is a relic of the 19th century, and we'll probably never see it in MLS.
And eventually we'll see it die off - or greatly diminish - in the big leagues around the world. Take this one season of no promotion in Mexico, for instance. It's all about economics and power. G-14 type power. When most clubs were "clubs" owned by the local sporting community, and most of the power was wielded by the national FAs and FIFA, and the economic differences between divisions were relatively small, then promotion/relegation made sense. Today, most top teams are more akin to American professional teams. Fewer and fewer of them are "clubs', but instead are the property, or in the control of, very wealthy owners. They've become the toys of rich boys. Rich boys don't like relegation. They like certainty. Because of the money involved in TV rights and ticket prices and player salaries, the power base in European football is slowly shifting from FIFA/UEFA/FAs to the powerful clubs. We're already seeing a massive economic divide between first and second division clubs in the top leagues, with a group of "relegation-proof" clubs followed by a group of clubs that bounce between divisions. Eventually the "haves" will squeeze promotion/relegation down to a single slot, then that slot will be a playoff, and eventually there'll be no promotion/relegation, and the big clubs in the top division will be able to own clubs in the lower divisions - as a means of allowing those financially failing clubs to survive. Maybe we won't completely see an American baseball style minor league system, but big time European football is headed slowly in that direction. We'll see promotion/relegation go away in one of the European leagues before we see it introduced in MLS.
Holy crap, people. You want to know the A1, big-time, #1 reason why PRO/REL won't work between MLS and the A-League? A-LEAGUE OWNERS ARE SMALL TIME. Seriously. It would be an exercise in hilarity. I imagine in a world where the A-League champ (say Charleston, last year) earns a place in MLS a conversation between said team and the MLS commissioner looking like this, ----- "Dear Nigel Cooper; President of the Charleston Battery Soccer Club, Congratulations on your promotion to Major League Soccer! We are most happy to have you join our league for next season and look forward to visiting your fine city. Please, at your earliest convenience, remit to the above address the following to reserve your place in MLS for the 2004 season: - Check for $10,000,000 USD made to 'Major League Soccer, LLC' to cover your league entry fees - Check for $4,000,000 USD as a deposit against your 1/12th share of overall league losses this coming season - Detailed copies of specific expansion and upgrade plans/blueprints for Blackbaud Stadium to MLS league standards - Reciepts of sponsor contract buyouts for all local sponsors that conflict with MLS exclusive league sponsors (i.e. Saab, Coca-Cola) and letters to that effect - A memorandum of understanding that MLS, LLC wil absorb 51% of your soccer club as of 1 January 2004 - Record of termination of all player contracts or transfer of those contracts to MLS, LLC Please note none of this is refundable should you be demoted next season. Thanks, and welcome to Major League Soccer! Don Garber Commissioner" ----- "Dear Don Garber, Fuck you. Sincerely, Nigel Cooper"
Or, in the case of the Milwaukee franchise that won the A-league title a couple of years back: Dear Don, Er... not quite sure how to break it to you but WE'VE FOLDED. So sorry.
Ya know. This type of post should be framed and set in stone like a commandment. Whenever a PRO/REL suckah talks about WHEN MLS is gonna introduce PRO/REL BLAM! LIKE RAID! It's gone. El Chapulin Colorado
Andy. Are you referring to having to pay the "tv license" or that EPL games can only be watched by a satellite/cable program? In Mexico, they tried to move forward with making a good # of FMF games more PPV.....it didn't get far. El Chapulin Colorado
No man, think about that in this country. If the Dallas Burn were relegated to the A-League next year, they would absolutely fail as a franchise next year because no one would care about them because they're not even in the best American soccer league. Most American sports fans only want to watch the best, for example, baseball, hockey, basketball, and football, have the very best professional leagues in the States. MLS is not the best soccer league on this planet, so lots of people don't think it's worth watching. How many people are going to stick with their team if it's not even in the best AMERICAN soccer league? It's a shame, I know. It just wouldn't work though, at all. We don't have the talent pool either to maintain a high level of play for teams that get promoted and relegated.
I think posters fail to differentiate between "spectacle/one-time performance" and "on-going regular games." In McAllen, Texas, we had a friendly game between Tigres vs. Pumas. About 12,000 showed up. For a region with 300,000 pop., not bad. But. Would those 12,000 show up for a US soccer league team? For A-League? For MLS? El Chapulin Colorado