20-30 years? Doubtful. They could probably drop it in a few years if all this rumored new investors come to pass. I say it's done in 10 if not fewer. I think a lot of people look to England and see the huge gap between the PL and D1 and assume MLS would be the same way. No reason that has to happen. You could equalize TV and sponsorship money, that would eliminate most of the discrepency between the two divisions. Maybe some sort of attendance/revenue sharing could close the gap even more. And I think a team challenging for promotion would be fine attendance wise. As stated many times already in this thread, travel in a single-table format would be basically the same as now. LA and New Jersey play three times this season anyway, the exact same amount as they would under an 11 team single-table balanced schedule.
Again, it ain't gonna happen, but this particular problem could easily be handled by promoting and relegating within conferences. Align A-league conferences w/ MLS conferences. Your performance in your conference, not your performance in the league, is what determines whether you are promoted or relegated. This allows the lower leagues to maintain a regional schedule while the upper league can have a national schedule.
There's too much conflation of whether it should happen and whether it [/b] will happen. I don't think you're ever going to persuade owners to do it. But I think it could be viable. For example, in MLB, there are quite a few locations that could field better attendances than Montreal (or a few others teams). And in MLS, I think you could take advantage of markets that are relatively unexploited by "mainstream" sports. Regardless of size, you can get better turnout in such locations. I like promotion/relegation, and really don't understand the animosity to it. Doing everything just like the rest of the world, for no other reason than imitation, is a mistake. But promotion/relegation rewards good management, and penalizes bad. That's a pretty good reason for it, imo. And even if you don't like it, why so much hostility?
I think you have it backward. Single-entity and promotion/relegation fit together BETTER than the European model of ownership does with pro/rel, because all of the profits of the top league go to the same group. HOWEVER, the single-entity also has to own the second division. Pro/rel with the current A-league and a single entity MLS are incompatible, but pro/rel with a second division owned and operated by MLS-SUM-AEG-Hunt Sports-Kroenke Sports-the Krafts would work quite well economically. The concern would only be whether or not fans will adopt it as exciting and interesting and support their clubs during second division years, or whether they'll be alienated. To get there, MLS would have to come up with about fifteen new franchises, or buy / merge lots of A-league teams into MLS-SUM. Which would mean a) a lot of new investors, or b) a lot of A-league owners willing to become junior partners in the combined entity. Ultimately, I'm not sure it's a good idea, because I think only the hardcore fans who are familiar with the concept will think it's as fun as I do.
I think one way to do it would be to take most of the A-League franchises. While those owners could be partners in MLS, perhaps they wouldn't be part of SUM. That way, even if say LA somehow get relegated, Uncle Phil still has his SUM money, while current A-League teams that make the top flight get the rewards of being there but not profits from SUM. Or am I misunderstanding how MLS/SUM works?
I think people are putting the cart before the horse when advocating why promotion would work. It wasn't put in place to make European divisions more interesting, it was a necessity due the the number of other profssional clubs outside the top divisions. As it stands currently there is only 1 non-MLS team that is a remotely serious candidate for being a viable MLS team. It would make far more sense to just put them into MLS. Same would be true if there were 10, or even 20, Rochester size clubs. Of course if you had 30 or 40 clubs of that size (in addition to the current 10 MLS teams) then you couldn't viably expand to make a 40 or 50 team league. Only then would you be presented with a situation where promotion would be feasible, and perhaps even desirable. Of course before that you'd need to scrap franchise fees and raise the salary cap to a level where better supported sides are able to gain at least some advantage - not a lot, but just enough to make it more likely that the strong survive. That would most likely mean the poorer supported sides making the drop down, but in theory (providing you had those other 20-30 other reasonable clubs outside MLS itching to take their place, they wouldn't be missed). No, I don't think it will ever happen either.
Good point. It always helps to get the perspective of an outside observer. Strangely enough, I've always noticed that Europeans tend to have the least trouble with our changes. Well, aside from the shootout and the 35 yard line.