As long as it's a subpar league In terms of quality, players and clubs ratings will continue to be low. But the increase of Americans watching the EPL, UCL and supporting European clubs is a good sign
Why does MLS own all the clubs that is stupid, why the insistence on parity. Let deep pocketed individual owners come in and splurge on talent.
We'd have a six-team league. American fans won't follow a team if they have no hope of winning the title ever.
For a long time I thought the next level of development for US soccer/football would come when you guys managed to go South - and by that I mean getting MLS clubs into Libertadores While I still think that would be a great move for your game I think now that the best thing you could ever do to raise your game is simply host another Cup! The good news is that Brazil just made it more likely to happen. Fifa was afraid very afraid of Brazil and I believe they won't award another Cup to an undeveloped country for a while. So there is only Europe, Asia and North America (ex-Mexico) that could host for a long time. I say 2022 is a possibility but you should really push for 2026! (If 2022 doesn't happen) '94 managed to improve your game maybe another Cup (and the aftermath) is what is missing for you to break the top 10.
The Browns are a matter of incompetence. If competently managed, they could be competitive. European-style soccer in the US would have teams with no hope of winning, no matter how well managed. That would be a disaster waiting to happen.
The same is true of 3/4 of all American sports teams at the start of the season they have no chance to win a title. You need in all sports the big boys, the mid tier and the minnows/creme puffs that's is how life is structured hence why sports is that way too.
I think that is a complete myth about the American sports fan. If your club connects with your community, it will draw. Soccer clubs are capable of connecting on a much richer and deeper level than a franchise. And if a team is not supported, then it can't afford good players, it plays badly and it falls off to 'find its level,' meanwhile the clubs that are supported can afford good players and they move up to find their level. The problem lies in breaking the cabal. MLS will not fundamentally change its structure for no reason. Pressure has to come from somewhere to force the change, and sadly, its extremely unlikely to see how this scenario could come about.
It's funny how y'all think league structure makes it popular. Also, on the Libertadores entry. A flight from the Pacific NW to even Northern Brazil is equivalent to flying to Tokyo. Not going to happen.
Mexican teams seems to not only do that but actually thrive, while it is a long flight indeed there isn't much jet lag due to similar time zones (going south/North instead of West/East)
But with the possible exception of the NBA, the categories are far more fluid in American sports than in European soccer. Therein lies the key difference.
- American sports teams, including soccer, will always be franchises. That is basically a written in stone truth. - No matter how well supported, market size becomes an insurmountable factor due to the city-based nature of American team sports. Therefore, there will be teams with no hope of winning anything ever if the European model is applied here.
Sort of like how atletico have no hope of ever winning la liga? And sort of like how the Yankees win every year. Also the biggest markets get multiple teams, splitting up the market.
The Yankees win a lot, but not every year or anything even close to it. Number of different champions since 1990 MLB - 13 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_World_Series_champions NFL - 14 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Super_Bowl_champions NBA - 8 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NBA_Finals_champions NHL - 14 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Stanley_Cup_champions EPL/First Division - 7 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_football_champions La Liga - 5 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Spanish_football_champions Serie A - 6 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Italian_football_champions Bundesliga - 6 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_German_football_champions In other words, the big 4 European soccer leagues are all more disparate than all four Big 4 US sports leagues, even the notoriously disparate NBA.
exactly, the Yankess don't win anything close to it, that was my point. there is no salary cap in baseball, yet they have parity, teams with low payrolls out perform big payroll teams all the time. And the season lasts forever, bad teams no they are out with 50+ games to go, how could they possibly get anybody to go to the games? Also, in a pro/rel system, there is always something to play for, you always want your team to win every game. Just because it is very unlikely that we will see a breakaway from the franchise system in soccer, doesn't mean we have to like it. That doesn't make it the best way or the ideal way to run things, its just is what it is.
Baseball has revenue sharing, an entry draft, and a post-season tournament to crown the champion, all aspects of "parity" that some of the "it's wrong if it's not what England does" crowd would bemoan. Well, given that 74,026,895 people attended MLB games last season - over 30,000 per game, even factoring in dumpster fire markets like Tampa, Miami and Cleveland - they must be doing something right. First of all, "you always want your team to win every game" is sort of the reason why "sports as lucrative entertainment" exists as an industry. This remains constant across all sports and all leagues. Secondly, turning back to baseball: How many teams do you think enter September with something to play for? How do you think this compares to how many teams enter the last month of the EPL season with something to play for? 5/15 teams in each league make the postseason, and beyond that, winning the division is a key goal. I'd say that in an average year, about 15-16 teams are playing meaningful games at some point in the final month of the season. If it weren't for the Champions League spots (aka, "European playoffs," with a different name) only 8 or 9 EPL teams would have entered the final 5 or 6 weeks of the season with meaningful games remaining - the 3 in title contention and the 6ish who were in a legitimate race to stay up. Please tell me what you think the term "franchise system" means.
Premier league has revenue sharing. And the way that talent is developed in baseball is much closer to soccer. Its not like the NBA where winning the lottery can seem literal. There are a million rounds and you develop players through your youth and reserve leagues, not too unlike the European system. Again, nobody gets my sarcasm, that was point, people DO go to baseball games, even when they know their team sucks. MLSinCleveland says that no American would ever attend a sporting event in which he doesn't think his team could win a championship, and I say BS. Why do you get to say "if it weren't for the CL/EL?" Then I can say 'if it weren't for the wild card.' Either way, point stands that teams are engaged throughout in a pro/rel system, and even team in 'mid table obscurity' still draw. A franchise system is a closed system. Its a cartel designed to protect the business interests of the owners in order to keep costs down and prices high. Franchises are awarded on the basis of whether or not it will enrich the current owners to have an extra team in the league.
I didn't say that fans wouldn't come if their team is out of the running for that season. I said fans won't care about a team if they know that no matter how well they draft/trade/scout free agents. no matter how lucky they get, they can never win the title, ever. There's a big difference between the two. Oh, and staying in the major league is not "something to play for" in the American sports fan mindset.
But that same rule applies to plenty of baseball teams. And you can't comment on how Americans would support their team in a relegation battle because its just not something they are exposed to. You have no idea. Most human beings seem to think its a good reason to rally behind the team, but I guess we wont know for sure unless its tried.
Plenty of baseball teams? 23 of 30 teams have made the World Series since 1990. There's no team in MLB I can think of whose fans know that winning a World Series is something their team couldn't pull off at some point (okay, the Cubs, but that's more psychological than reality). Also, relegation would be a team-killer in the US because the major/minor league distinction is such a big thing here. Relegated teams would be lucky to make it through the next season. There's only one thing worth playing for in American sports: the championship. Even when a small market team is in a rough stretch, their fans expect them to use the lean years to retool and develop players for another championship run.