Play-off matches are good.

Good Post... You would be hard pressed to find someone logical to disagree with most of your post. You seem to make 2 points.

One, that cruising through the season rarley pans out cause the higher seeded teams usually winds up winning. On your other thread you back this up with statistics. I am sure this is true. My point was simply that a team such as the Revs shouldn't have the chance to play in the playoffs in the first place. I understand the higher seeded team is rewarded true homefield advantage in the second round and less then true homfield in the first round. I get that. My retort is that there are much more interesting formats, that reward winning much more so, more intriging to follow and provide more incentive for the players and coaches to go harder game in and game out. ​

You second point is that expansion will help solve this problem. Will it make it better? YES. But will it reward winning the best way possible, abosolutely not. Not even close.​

That was my origional point. Its more than just how many teams are in the playoffs, its how structure the format so each win is worth as much as possible.

 

Continued: The idea is to create some story and drama that will grab peoples attention. Make them want to watch it. Give fans something to sink their teeth into. Develop story lines. Thats what will earn this league fans. $5 dollar tickets and these other gimmicy promotions will get people in the door; but there has to be something exciting there to make them want to stay. Playing 30 games to determine homefield advantage is not making enough people want to stay. There is some meaning there, sure. But is this the format thats really going to get people interested in following this league. Nah..

 

Cuz we know Sigi counts for like at least 1000 people himself.

 

I agree that something needs to be done to liven up the MLS regular season but personally I don't think relegation is the answer. The way I would like to see it done is as follows.

The format suggested in other threads about a play-off system where 6/12 qualify seems ideal to me. The league champion progressing straight to the conference final where they face the winners between a play-off of 2nd and 3rd best placed teams. Teams 4,5 and 6 in each conference are eliminated.

This gives the league standings some meaning and should keep teams playing hard until the end of the season.

The problem with relegation as I see it is the teams going up and down get progressively weaker over time due to large fluctuations in income. After many years of this you end up with a system like EPL where only 2 or 3 at most teams (the same ones every year) from 20 can be expected to challenge for the title. This makes the final spectacle worse IMO.

The "relegation" employed in MLS to give the regular season meaning would be missing out on the play-offs combined with achieving a first round play-off bye for the top placed team to keep the league title race honest.

The teams missing out on the play-offs would remain in MLS and have a chance to strengthen again for the next season helping with the long term parity of the league and making for an overall more exciting spectacle than other leagues around the world where only a few select clubs dominate.

MLS really has a great opportunity to develop a unique league that will take the best from American Sports and combine it with soccer traditions from elsewhere to produce a final product that is superior structure and not a forgone conclusion before the season starts like so many leagues around the world. I just hope the poweres that be can make the right decisions to bring this to fruition.

 

There's a 400 post thread at the top of N&A board about the playoff format and the regular season so there's no need to start it up again. There's also no reason to point out all the technical and financial reasons why MLS can't suddenly introduce relegation (and why it probably never will),

So, instead, I'd just like to say that even if MLS could support relegation I'd be against it. I think relegation is bad for Europe and someday years from now they might have to consider doing away with it because there will be just too much of a financial difference between the first division and second division. In baseball there are already serious problems with having small market and big market teams try to compete. Imagine if we took the already huge financial advantage the Yankees have and then periodically ruined the small market teams financially by kicking them down to the minor leagues for a couple of years while simultaneously promoting some AAA team to try to beat the Yankees. Instead, the small market teams can focus on bringing together several good young players so that they can make the occassional playoff run. Yes, there would be something to play for in September for these small market teams, but I can live without that sort excitement. I've never lived through the "thrills" of surviving a relegation battle but when I see those fans in Europe celebrating their 16th place finish it just strikes me as sad and artificial excitement. Not having relegation means struggling teams can focus on developing youth players for the future; it means one season of bad injuries or bad luck does not put your team in danger of financial ruin.

 

I completely agree with Artists above post, with one exception. A team barely escaping relegation can foster tons of real excitment, not artifical. An example, if Crystal Palace were to finish 16th, it could be the most exciting season in the clubs history. On the other hand, a team tied for the worst record in the league making it into the playoffs; now that's what I call artificial excitment.

 

I agree with those who say that expansion of teams will help fix this problem. The less amount of teams that make the playoffs, the more exciting the level of play through the regular season. No promotion or relegation is necessary.


With that said, I do support a single table. Once MLS becomes profitable, we have more clubs in the league, and all of the clubs as well are financially stable, I'd like to see us go to a balanced schedule single table where the top 8 teams in the table advance to the playoffs. That way, only the best teams in the LEAGUE make the playoffs, not the best teams in a geographical area (conferences).

 

I know it wouldn't work over there, and it just isn't needed at all over there, but...

...err... and who exactly would benefit from scrapping relegation?
Do you think the 72 other pro clubs in England for example, would receive a huge boost from it?

The problem in England aren't because of relegation, they are because of the premierships greed over its TV deal. If it was a problem inherent to relegation itself then you'd see the same problems being played out at every step of the league structure.

this is possibly the fundamental problem in why people over there don't understand the benefits of pro/rel. Make me a list of minor league teams that are bigger than existing major league franchises in the same sport. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think that list would get beyond 0 teams. It'd make no sense bringing those minor league teams in as they'd be so much weaker.

Compare that to the premiership. Say the smallest team is Fulham. They don't stand out as being outstandingly small, but in the football league there are 30-40 teams who are either bigger than Fulham, or roughly as big. That is what you don't have - a strong set of clubs outside your top division capable of playing there - which is why it seems so barmy. If biggest club outside of the premiership was Cheltenham Town then 'think about scrapping relegation' might actually have some credibility.

There is nothing contrived about it. A relegation battle is just as tense, sometimes more tense, than a promotion battle. The stakes are so high. It's not about "winning" 16th place, it's about avoiding the drop.

 

RichardL,

Whilst I understand your point about teams battling against the drop creating excitement for the fans this can't hide the fact that the EPL is sick.

The battle against relegation is just a sub-plot in the season. The main script is the championship battle. However the problem is everyone knows it is over before it has started apart from 2 maybe 3 clubs who are capable of challenging for the title.

This can not be good for the long term health of the league IMO. The financial disparity between these teams and the rest mean there is little chance of this ever changing. The last 10 years of the EPL are proof of this.

Compare this situation to the NFL where the worst teams one year get the best opportunity to strengthen for the next. Over the same period many more teams have challenged for the superbowl and in the end you have pretty much all franchises competing for the title at some point over a 25year spell whereas in the EPL there would be fewer than 10 half of which were freak one-offs that won't happen again.

 

Absolutely nothing to do with relegation, more to do with the extra champions league cash and the huge financial advantage the bigger clubs have in both fan numbers and merchandising. I mean, some of the clubs have been in the top division for decades and aren't rich enough to match the spending of Man Utd, Arsenal, Chelsea. That isn't because of relegation, just simple economics. They just don't have as many fans. Other clubs, such as Liverpool, Newcastle, Aston Villa etc are all big clubs who could be title challengers, but aren't, because of poor management. The fact that they aren't challengers has absolutely nothing to do with relegation. Having relegation in the division hasn't weakened them in any way, and scrapping relegation wouldn't make them more likely to win the title. I mean, if relegation was scrapped this year and the current 20 clubs allowed to stay, do you really think it'd make any difference at all to the title race? Do you really think the likes of Norwich City would suddenly become competitive?

The NFL works the way it does because it can. You could bring in salary caps so that a team like Middlesbrough could challenge for the title, but all that'd mean is that you'd get a very mediocre league and all the better players would move abroad because clubs here would be able to afford them (and stay under a salary cap). It's only because there aren't rival gridiron leagues that you can't see that you've got imposed mediocrity. If there was a second, equally rich NFL in another country, and that didn't have the salary caps, profit sharing, drafts etc, then it wouldn't be as competitive top to bottom as the American NFL, but its top teams would not only be much better than its American counterpart, but it'd almost certainly be able to pay more and get all the best players.

It's as if you think if you brought in some kind or parity restrictions there'd be half of the EPL on the same level as Arsenal are at now. You wouldn't, you'd just have the top 10 being no better than Tottenham.

Also, to say the relegation battle is a sub plot is kind of missing the point that having an extra sub plot to any competition is still better than not having one, but you also seem to be approaching it from the idea that relegation was introduced to make the league more interesting. It wasn't - it was brought in to make the league stronger - to allow better supported and/or better run clubs to replace those not so good.
Also, the entire league competition here is viewed as a whole. The title might be the big prize, but it's certainly not viewed as the be-all and end-all of the competition.

Also, the fact that crowds have risen year on year for the last 20 years or so hardly hints at people getting bored with the product.