Not that this hasn't been answered 10 zillion times, but here it is in a nutshell: Pro soccer in the US is fragile. You can't have promotion/relegation because the individual franchises aren't strong enough to handle being relegated. The promotion/relegation thing is probably at least a decade or two away.
you cant have regulation in US sports because how the whole system is set up. no one is going to spend 25 million just for the rights to a team and then lose it all becuase of a dodgy goalkeeper. our teams arent clubs they are franchises. since there is no historical base of support, you cant be in the big leagues one year and in the minors the next and garner any type of support. it takes time to build a fan base, which is hard enough as it is.
Yes, and furthermore... ...if you really want to go broke quick, then set up your American league to satisfy the Euro-snobs with things like unlimited salaries, playing in the winter, and relegation. You'll lose so much much money you'll make the XFL look like a major success. Trouble is--even if you try to satisfy those people, they'll still find a reason not to buy tickets--like maybe the seats are close enough together or the singing isn't good enough. Truth of the matter is that Europe will give up relegation many years before the US even thinks about adopting it.
Re: Yes, and furthermore... True the MLS is a fragile league. True can’t get enough of the paying public to leave their TV couches or sports they’ve been raised with. True they have to have salary caps to survive, for the same reason. True they only have enough teams to support one division. So you can’t get relegated, OR promoted for that matter. It has nothing to do with whether a person is an inferiority complexed American who has to call anyone a Eurosnob. It’s just the financial truth. Truth is it is hard to sing during a game when they’ve just given away 10,000 noisemakers they bought to try and entice people into the game...and drives them away. Truth of the matter is football is a winter sport. But very untrue is the wish or thought that with the depth of the game not just in Europe but the outside world (Outside USA) That relegation will go away. They have to have several divisions and standards of play that make relegation and promotion necessary. It’s my hope that this great country will one day have enough city teams, or franchises if you will, to be able to support 3 or more divisions. If countries the size of Holland, Uruguay, England and Chile can support 3 or more, why can’t we.?
Answers ?!? Thanks for the reactions, Firstly I find the qualification ‘eurosnobs’ not very relevant if you are talking about me. 1. I am no snob, not socially (i’m from the middle class) and not culturally (because I prefer a football match above ballet) 2. I think you wanted to say – that Europeans want to claim the game (as historicly the first football continent – although there were football forms in Greenland long before the English founded Accrington Stanley). And because Europe is the football continent other countries should have the same competition set-ups. This is not something I like, because ‘as my name says’ I’m pro european league and this is against much of the ‘what you call’ Eurosnobs. I will try to answer the rest of the questions and statements: Usscouse Where would relegatin teams from the MLS go? To some form of second division, preferable two, three or four second divisions. And a team in Seattle isn’t a problem if they reach the highest league on sportive prestation. Law5guy Why is it a problem if there isn’t relegation? For me there are different problems, that will take some time. But important is that promotion/relegation gives leagues the garantee of renewal of the league every year. The soccer market is dynamic and open – everyone can reach the top with sportive ways. Nicodemus You say individual franchises are to fragile to relegate? Also in European countries where football is fragile, clubs relegate – Finland, Greece, Ireland – I don’t see that problem – this is not so much a economic problem (if you exclude the travelling costs). You also say in about a decade it will come to the USA, this is at least a hope. Accion You say no one in US Sports will want to lose 25 million because of a bad goalkeeper. But losing is part of sports. You can’t always win. Although this is something that’s implemented in the US culture – also in the US people loose. And for much people the sportive element is still superior to the economic argument. Although one can’t go without the other in professional sports. I think this is more an American cultural problem. But you are right, this problem is difficult to tackle, if even people want to tackle it. You call 2nd Division minors – this is a negative conotation. 2nd Division in England is still high level and high support. All the divisions from the first to the third in England have Nationwide as sponsor and get almost equal attention in papers and media. But you are right, there is no professional soccer support base in the USA. But there was a historical base of amateur soccer in some parts of the US. Why didn’t MLS build on those clubs? Denver_mugwamp I thought MLS was also thinking about salary caps? I like salary caps personally, but not everybody in Europe is pro salary cap. For me playing in winter isn’t something European. The Scandinavian and Eastern European clubs play in summer, just like since one year the Irish Eircom League. I don’t have a negatiev opinion of MLS playing in summer. But if you dislike al European things , why do you like soccer anyway? Greatings Hans
Hey, Hans, lighten up... The MLS is an American league and we Norte Americanos are the ones trying to make it a success. For you to sit over in the Netherlands and snipe at our league does nobody any good, although it does seem to make you feel somehow superior, in judging from your posts. Euro-snobs are people who live in the US, who are soccer fans, but who won't attend MLS games because somehow they don't measure up to their conception of how the game is played in Europe. For our league to be a success, we obviously need to achieve some sort of "Critical Mass" where things really take off and soccer becomes a major sport in our country. And the only way we are going to achieve that is to cater to American tastes. I don't hate Europeans, hell, I'm probably closer to them politically than our government. Just one thing I don't understand about the your post, Hans, the MLS is thinking about salary caps? It's got the toughest one I've ever seen. All contracts are with the league so there's no cheating. All teams share profits and losses. Thast's hardly thinking about it! How do you fit a salary cap with relegation? Does the 2nd division have a lower cap? If, in 20 years, the MLS wants to think about relegation, then they'll think about it and probably decide against it. But for now, who even cares about it?
Re: Answers ?!? If those leagues are fragile, ours is made out of tissue paper. The fact that we can't get 30,000 people out to matches in cities with populations in the millions shows how fragile it is. Greek teams usually have a respectable showing in champions league for instance. I've never been to Greece, but friends of mine that lived there said games were usually well attended. There's just too much sports competition here, which adds to MLS' fragility.
Re: Re: Answers ?!? Well said. To back it with some statistics: Greece - population 10.6 million Finland - population 5.2 million Ireland - population 3.8 million The New York metropolitan area alone has a greater population than all three countries combined (NYC metro area population 21.2 million)... yet look at the attendances for New York area teams: Metrostars (MLS) 18,155 Long Island Rough Riders (D3) 776 New Jersey Stallions (D3) 381 Westchester Flames (D3) 234 New York Freedoms (D3) 203 Brooklyn Knights (PDL) 132 The average attendance for the entire Eircom League is similar to this (approximately 19,800 supporters attend Irish first division matches in any given 2-week period) and I'm not even counting the Irish lower divisions. And obviously Greece has some big clubs that easily outdraw any MLS team. The best attendance-to-population ratio anywhere in the United States is in Columbus, where average attendance is 17,429 in a city of 1.6 million. The next best is Rochester, where the local A-League team draws 10,008 per game from a population of 1.1 million. But those are unusual cases - most MLS cities are in the 5-10 million range, and no one in MLS draws more than 21,000 per game. At the moment, New York is the only MLS city that supports any clubs above the PDL. Several A-League and D3 clubs have existed in MLS cities in the past, but they all folded - several clubs have failed in the Los Angeles area since the Galaxy's been around, and the LA area has a population of about 16.7 million. It should be quite clear that no MLS city except possibly New York is capable of supporting a second professional soccer team. As for the economics of promotion/relegation: the most recent A-League champions, the Milwaukee Rampage, averaged only 2,058 per game in 2002; the team they defeated in the final, the Richmond Kickers, averaged 2,431. Rochester averaged 10,008, but the next-best A-League attendance average was Portland at 6,261. Only 3 A-League teams averaged better than 5,000. The difference in average attendance between MLS and the A-League is astronomical: the worst average in MLS was over 11,000, and more than 3 times the average A-League attendance. These numbers may still look high compared to Finland and Ireland, but then travel expenses are higher because the US is a much bigger country, etc, etc. Also, consider that all of the cities (including A-League cities) I've named so far have populations over a million. Talk about fragile.
Re: Yes, and furthermore... Utter, utter bullshit. Whether the US adopts promotion or relegation, I really couldn't give a toss about, but saying that the well founded and consistently successful system of the established leagues, will change to the franchise system is beyond any kind of belief.
Re: Re: Yes, and furthermore... I didn't read that he said that the franchise system will become the status quo in Europe, just that Pro/Rel would be dropped. I don't see it either, although IMHO you are going to see more and more movement towards socialism to help support the lower divisions in certain countries.
Re: Re: Re: Yes, and furthermore... You just don't get it do you? Why in the hell would getting rid of pro/rel help a lower div team. It's the goal of promotion or fear of relegation that motivates the teams on. Without that it's just MLS...! "Why would I care about losing, I cant go down"
Re: Re: Re: Answers ?!? These numbers are essentially meaningless because we don't know what would happen to relative attendances _if_ there was pro/rel. Lower league soccer becomes a heck of a lot less interesting if there's no possibility to move upwards.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Yes, and furthermore... I'd say you are the one who doesn't get the American sports scene landscape......there will never be promotion/relegation in this country. Perhaps you need some kind of reading comprehension course, I said that there would be more movement towards socialism to support the lower divisions.....not that pro/rel would be dropped like the message two posts before. You also might try switching to decaf.
There are no meaningless games in a promotion/relegation set up, is that what the claim is? What about the mid table teams who no longer have a mathematical chance of winning the championship or being relegated? No one ever talks about that either...
Saying the MLS has a problem because it has no promotion/relegation is like saying that Europe has a problem because there is no established baseball league.
But there is a good chance that on any given week they will be playing against a team that is in the championship race (or race for a Euro Cup position) or in the relegation race. Those games still do have some meaning. - Paul
There are places in the European cups at stake for the mid-table clubs. That's the big difference. There are always things to aim for. Your season is not over just because you are out of the championship winning race. If you are 10th you have a good shot at finishing 6th and win a UEFA Cup spot and valuable extra income next season against foreign teams.