Soccer has a much higher rate of coach/manager changes during seasons than the most popular American leagues have. Here's a comparison: MLB five seasons 2012 through 2016: 12 changes in 150 team seasons (12/150 = exactly 0.080) MLS four seasons 2013 through 2016 (I wanted to do five seasons but the Wikipedia page for 2012 doesn't list coach/manager changes): 14 changes in 78 club seasons (14/78 = 0.179) English Premier League five complete seasons 2011-2012 through 2015-2016: 37 changes in 100 club seasons (37/100 = exactly 0.370) La Liga five complete seasons 2011-2012 through 2015-2016: 48 changes in 100 club seasons (48/100 = exactly 0.480) MLS had over double the rate of MLB, and England and Spain both had over double the rate of MLS. Do you think any of these leagues have clubs fire coaches/managers more often or less often than they should?
Relegation plays a big part in it. American leagues can ride out a manager longer. Even if he has a bad season he may get better results the next year. That's too much of risk in soccer.
I'm guessing the other big sports are similar (if anyone has time/can be bothered)? Would be interesting to include GM changes as well, those often get the same kind of press here as managers getting sacked in Europe
I looked at the five Premier League seasons I looked at yesterday, and I found 35 coach/manager changes, not 37 like I said yesterday. 20 of them were by clubs who got relegated or survived by 6 or fewer points. I'm not spending time looking at how close to the relegation zone the clubs were in at the time of the coach/manager changes. The 15 of them that were not by clubs who got relegated or survived by 6 or fewer points is still 87.5 percent higher than the rate for MLB.
My guess is that this is a product of disparity between clubs. Soccer has "big" and "small" clubs, and for big clubs finishing mid-table is underperforming vs. expectations. In US sports, because of parity measures, there are no teams expected to be perennial title contenders. A coach has to either finish at/near bottom or stay in the bottom half for several consecutive years to be said to have underperformed vs. expectations.
LL and EPL coaches/managers don't get 5 years to build a team. That only happens in socialist societies like the former Soviet Union, China under Chairman Mao, and North American major league sports.
I wasn't trying to say that coaches/managers get 5 years to build a club. I wanted to compare coach/managers changes using multiple seasons but not a ton, so I chose 5 as my sample size.
Also the media and fan expectation play a huge role. Look at Bradley's 11 games at Swansea. There was a supporters revolt that owners couldn't ignore. Also lots of media criticism. That doesn't happen in MLB/NFL/NBA. A new manager is always given at least a full season and usually a couple seasons before there is any media criticism. And supporters revolts are rare if non existent.
There's generally been no GM type role in European soccer either to share the blame. This is changing but the manager still gets the blame for bad signings.
The media made a lot of the fact he was American, but based on.the comments from Swansea fans on various message boards and newspaper comments, they weren't concerned about his nationality.
Again, the reason for this is the relative parity between teams. There are no teams in the US that expect to contend for the title every year. Also, with parity measures, the difference between a title contender and a bottom-half team may just be injuries to two or three key players, which means bad seasons are often ascribed to bad luck with injuries.
is there year in and year out parity in the NBA? Bad teams stay bad for years and over a decade at times. I can already tell you who is going to be in this years NBA finals and next years. Some of what you're saying is true. But it's just one factor. The other factors: fans aren't as demanding, media not as demanding, no threat of being booted from the league all play a factor as well.
Oh, please do. Fun Fact: Only two NBA teams have spent the last decade being consistently bad. This will be Minnesota's 12th straight losing season and Sacramento's 11th straight. That's it. That's the list. Every other team in the NBA has made the playoffs at least three times in the last 10 seasons. Even the 76ers, the poster child for poor performance, have had four playoff seasons and three non-losing seasons in that time. Only San Antonio has made the playoffs every year and 19 of the 30 teams have made the playoffs at least half the time in those ten years. Even Milwaukee (8 losing seasons in that stretch) made the playoffs three times and they were over .500 at last report. But please, by all means, tell us who will be in the NBA finals this June and next year. I need to get to Vegas.
Over the last ten complete seasons, the Knicks have been bad: .417 winning percentage 3 playoff appearances (NBA average = 5.3) 2 seasons with at least one playoff game won (I didn't calculate the NBA average) 7 playoff games won (NBA average = 27.9) 1 playoff series won (NBA average = exactly 5) Furthermore, if the NBA relegated 15 percent of the teams like some soccer leagues do, the Knicks might have been relegated after 2007-2008 (depending on if you relegated the bottom 15 percent or the bottom 15 percent of each conference) and would have been relegated after 2014-2015. The Knicks have won one playoff series in the last sixteen seasons.