this has probably been talked about many times on here but please enlighten me, why wont the mls use relegation, i was reading an article by eric van steenburg in the sports page- a dallas paper, where he puts forth the pros and cons of mls using relegation with the biggest reason being it would make the non-die hard soccer/footy people feel a sense of attachment to the teams like everywhere else in the world. why not
damn eurosnobs... (lol...i just like saying that) strop trying to turn soccer too much into a euro style of playing!!! some is good i agree... but where do you draw the line!? =-o... i dunno how american fans would be to supporting lower level division soccer... hell, its hard enough to get them to watch 1st division soccer!
I would guess it would be thought of as a possibility in twenty years down the line. I say that only because there is really no established soccer tradition. The league is trying to get butts in the seats, let alone keep fans around after relegation. Ask again in twenty years (besides, the A-League would need to vastly improve as well...)
okay... let's call your bluff. 2 teams didn't make last year's playoffs-- DC and NY/NJ. Do you really think it would be a good idea to "promote" the 2002 A-League champ Milwaukee Rampage team that only averages a couple of thousand fans per game and play at a truly inferior facility??? and have MLS without a team in the largest market in the country (NYC) or lose a traditionally successful team like DC??? sorry... the idea of pro/rel is still very much in the "dream on" catagory...
Especially, since the 2002 A-League champion Milwaukee Rampage no longer exists...as in the big "el foldo." <sarcasm mode on> Yep, professioncal soccer in America is in such great financial shape that it could support a promotion/relegation scheme. <sarcasm mode off> Ain't gonna happen.
Well, from what I understand, one of the more interesting things they have in Europe is the idea of teams fulfilling licensing requrements...or not...so that if a team advances to the First Division, it must have a specific sized stadium, have a certain rate of financial solvency,. etc. N.B.--Fiorentina, which not only got relegated but also decapitated. There concepts need to be developed here, but this will take time. First, we have to have a decent league with "x" number of popular teams. So, the concept is clearly not relevant in the immediate future, but may come into the forefront, provided the sport grows on a professional level. I will say this, though with regard to the positive aspects of relegation: the idea of staving it off does seem to captivate the fans' interest during the 'dog days'. Note the packed house for Bolton Wanderers last week...secondly, it compels management to try to field strong teams (or at least stronger teams than they would have otherwise put together). Converesely, remember the crap Jerry Krause pulled in '98-99? Can you imagine a top notch, solvent sporting club doing that elsewhere?? What prevents them from doing such a thing? Relegation. Nonetheless, it is highly unlikely we will see relagation here for some time now--principally for economic reasons. However, as the sport grows and develops, why should shouldn't something like relegation and PROMOTION be part of the equation.
Bayer Leverkusen might get relegated this season. If anything teams in Europe might consider a more American system with occaisonal relegation due to financial troubles and poor play.
1. Most soccer leagues in the world are under one umbrela, to have promotion relegation here in USA it would have to go under the USSF or MLS and USSL to merge as one. 2. Professional soccer here in this coutry is very complicated matter. The simple way is to throw all teams in a bucket hopefuly 50 - 80 teams and let them sort it out on a playing field who is the best, not neccessarely who is in a big market. I personaly know of first division european soccer teams who average less then 1000 fans per game , but still make it. 3. Promotion/relegation is very very interesting and would be a great idea and beneficial to soccer in this country. Just ask any A-league fan if he would like to see his home town team have a shot at MLS, he would still support his team when they go back to second division. Why would he support a second division team ? because it's his team, it's his home town team. I am originaly from Europe and my home town team never in its 100 years history participated in the first division, but i still support them . Right now they are in the 3 rd division. 4. In todays game certainly a team must live by the FIFA rules and also their Federations rules. Field size, sitting, capacity could be a problem. But it is something to deal with at that time and be written in the law of this promo/relag and not deny anyone a chance to be part of first division if they are good enough and able to meet all criteria. For examle the "promoted team" doesn't meet all criteria a certain fee would be paid by the "relegated team " to the " promoted team" for its place. This gives a financial reward to the promoted team and definetly a " fine " if you will to the relegated team should they choose to pay up instead of being relegated. 5. Right now MLS is set up as a 'club" within and the USSF has given it First Div status. No one can come in unless the "club" accepts it, on its on demands. 6. If a second div team is promoted the financial benefits are tremendous in most leagues, just ask anyone familiar with english soccer for example. Once promoted they can improve facilities, get TV deals, and sign better players. 7. To those of you who are against promotion/relagation I only have to say one thing, YOU have no idea what you missing or talking about, period. 8. In the end the fact remains that this will not happen anytime soon the way things are set up here, and with the set mind in this country, sad as that is, that is the fact. cheers
Um, uh Soccerfan.... Have you been reading any of what the others are posting? You may originally be from Europe but you got to open your eyes and look around at the country you're in now. Hint--it's not Europe and there's no hundred years of soccer tradition. A similar thread ended when one chap commented that relegation would be nice and he'd like to have the sun come up in the West a few times every month. Just about as bloody likely.
In England, teams who move up into the Premiership get insane amounts of money from new endorsements and television agreements. Even when they get relegated, they still get this money for one season and the difference financially and performance-wise between newly relegated teams and first division regulars is just about dizzying at times. For those of you who are against regular season overtime and the like and are all for humbling conformity, financial incentive for promotion is called a gimmick. In American soccer, there's no such thing. Unless the USSF provides gimmicks of some sort, promotion by itself presents zero benefits to newly promoted teams. Relegation fights in Europe are HUGELY overrated. No excitement, no drama, no tension that normally complements a top-table battle for Europe or a league title. Was it a headline day when Sunderland avoided the drop last season? Does anyone really think Portsmouth will make waves in the Premiership next season? Also, the culture is different. Every club in England - every one - has local supporters, from the Conference on up to the Premiership, that are vital to the club's survival. This is also true for MLS but not as great a degree. A lot of New Yorkers I know are Columbus fans. My old buddies in Chicago love the Metros. The point is that there are just so many more bandwagoners in American sport than there are in European soccer. There is just not enough local support for A-League teams should they move up into MLS, that they would survive financially. In addition, MLS is a ten-team league. If promotion/relegation is ever to be a real concept in America (which will be, like, never), MLS has to be a twenty-team league with at least forty other teams of comparable quality on the outside looking in. It has to be a device out of necessity, not just because it looks cool and it makes us look like Europe. Again, I suspect if European leagues didn't do promotion/relegation, there wouldn't be so much of a cry of support for it here (and I'm not ready to concede that the rallying cry is huge). Proponents of promotion/relegation are fighting a pointless battle in the name of tradition. I would think it's time to look forwards instead of backwards.
Now hold the phone, let's think about this. One day, MLS reach the FIFA limit of 20 teams in a nations First Division. However, the USA is larger and richer than any other nation and can support well more than 20 teams (just look at the NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB, each with 30+ teams,) so how does MLS get around this? Why Pro/rel or course. In order for pro/rel to work in MLS/USA it must do a few things. 1. Maintain SEM of MLS 2. Protect certain markets and teams from being relegated. 3. Must make soccer people, like us, happy and still fit in the larger American sports landscape. 4. MUST NOT allow for Second Division teams from feeling "minor league" that will scare off sponcers and fans. With these requierments in mind, how about this. In a few year MLS will start to turn a profit. NFL owners and othe buisnessmen will see that they can add a new sports fanchise to their stable and, thanks to SEM, not worry about the problems that face the other leagues. MLS should expaind up to 16 or 18 teams and stop. Then after a few years, start a second division of about 10 new teams. However, dont call it a second division or MLS2, but call it MLS-American Division, and the first division, MLS-National Division (Ameican League and National League are already taken.) The first year, MLS could shift (ie relegate) two teams from MLS National to the new MLS American (just like the shift of some old NFL teams moven to the AFL after the merger.) Now we have two division, one with 16 teams, another with 12 teams. Over the years, MLS American can expaind to match the 16 teams in MLS National over the next 10 years are so. Both MLS National and MLS American teams are in SEM. All proffit/looses are League wide. An owner would not care (from a buisness point of view) if his team was relegated, his financial stake in the league has not changes. MLS American teams should have a smaller salary cap, but that is the only real diffrence. The A-League (or some other league) could be a 3rd division. But one team can be promoted each year, and only if they meet the requirements of the other I/O in MLS (pay a fee, have a SSS, making a profit, and buy into SEM and have their players sign MLS contracts.) My guess is that very few teams will be willing to do this, thus there is a wall between MLS and the a-league. But promotion between the two is possible (like joining the Football League in England, very difficult, but possible.) Below the 3rd division, the four regions of the USSF could serve as a framework for regionlized Fourth Division. It's a plan. I have more on why this is a great idea. But I'll stop here before I get into more trouble
And while we're at it... Who's better, Pele or Maradona? Why do Americans call it "soccer"? What is more important, club or country? What is the best league in Europe? and... How far will Freddy take the US? (ok, I admit I am actually interested in hearing opinions on the last one...)
I like the relegation idea for the following reason: over time, it keeps the leagues honest. If a lower team thinks they can compete with the big boys, they'll get their chance and vice-versa. That's exciting. Plus you don't get the same teams hanging around sucking year after year (Bengals, Clippers). It won't work in America because the structure to keep leagues even already exists. Since most of our professional athletes are developed numerous places that are NOT part of the club, there has to be a fair system of allocation (a draft). This system ensures that a set number of teams have a chance to compete for the top talent, rather than an infinite number of teams.
Re: Re: relegation and you forgot such classics as ... "Frank Deford is a (*&()&)*" "Did you guys hear what Jim Rome said today?" "ESPN kept showing that darn regional bingo championship and we missed 34 seconds of the Columbus game" "E-mail your local sports editor and tell them about this anti-soccer injustice!!" Ed
Soccer in the Untied States is very fragile. A team getting relegated could very well make the team's casual followers, which sadly in the U.S. make up most of a team's fan base, lose interest. This would have a desvatating effect on any team. The reason the relagation/promotion system works in Europe is because soccer has tradation there. If a team gets relagated, their fans will still be loyal because, unlike the U.S., most of there fans are 'hard-cores' and will stick with their team through thick and thin. I think a lot of times we get caught up in tring to do things the way they are done in Europe and in other parts of the world. We have to remember that while we do play the worlds game, we are still American. We tend to do thing differently than the rest of the world. And sometimes, like with the relagation issue, our way seems to work out to our best interest.
sorry, but I don't think you know what you are talking about as that's complete crap. The drama of avoiding relegation and the scenes that accompany it are always far more dramatic than a championship win. And I mean always (unless they achieve it with 4 or 5 games to go). no drama? no excitement? no tension? You couldn't be more wrong if you'd tried. A battle for a european spot barely registers. Stoke play Reading on sunday knowing a point will keep them up. They'll pull in double their average gate and it will certainly be their most tense game of the season. It'll almost certainly be the most exciting in a nailbiting kind of way and because so much depends on the outcome, it'll certainly be their most dramatic as well. The same will be played out in relegation battles all over the country. It becomes very important. A match from the bottom of Div 3 was covered live on national radio by the BBC last night. Yes, Sunderland's survivial last season would have been headline news, just as the battle at the bottom this year between West Ham & Bolton (+ a potential supporting cast of Leeds etc) is headline news, and of far more interest than the battle for a champions league spot is. Saying that though, I'm not in the bring pro/rel to the US camp as it just isn't viable at the moment. Any more discussion beyond that is pointless.
And we have, sadly, many teams in this country who draw poor crowds and don't make it. And "who is the best" doesn't really enter into it in this country since it's not just winning that determines if you "make it". And yet they don't support their home town team now, when they're in Division II to start with (most of them don't, anyway). What makes you think the hometown allegiance is enough to count on? Good for you! In this country, you'd be called a Cub fan. The problem is that most Division II and below teams in this country can't meet the most important criteria - they're usually owned by two guys named Moe who struggle to make payroll. Good luck with that. Doesn't that defeat the purpose? Won't the big club always pay off the small club? And this is a problem because...... Most leagues. Not this one here. Therein lies the rub. There's no pot of gold in promotion, that's why it won't happen. Not against it. I think it would be cool. But it won't happen.... ...as you've pointed out.
Ah... why even waste the time responding .... For those of you who think thast pro/rel NOW would be a good thing for the US, just do one simple thing: go back over the past several years and actually imagine what would have happened had the US had such a system. Like another poster has already mentioned, last year gives us a glowing example: the A-league champion Milwaukee Rampage folded after the season. How many A-League teams play in appropriate stadiums? Why would anyone, even Phil Anschutz, sink money into MLS (or certainly spend cash building a stadium) if that investment could get damaged by relegation to the A-League? Remember the 2001 Quakes and the 2000 Wizards, both MLS champions? Both would have been relegated the previous season. Pro/Rel is a wonderful thing in a situation where there are long-standing, secure and, moreover, seamless leagues representing different levels of play in a country. But Pro/Rel in the US would be like having, in England, the Premiership and the 3rd Division, but nothing in between. A lot of people whine about MLS's lack of growth. But MLS is a pillar of strength compared to the US's lower divisions. Losing key franchises in, say New York or DC to relegation would be a disaster for MLS. But replacing them with truly minor league, and sometimes downright unstable franchises would just compound the disaster. I love Pro/Rel battles in Euro leagues. But until and unless US soccer becomes viable from top to bottom, it would be suicide for such a system to be implemented here. Check back in a generation.
Unless of course the A-League champ or runner-up folded. Remember that, in addition to Milwaukee last year, Hersey lost to Rochester in the title game a couple seasons back, and by the next Monday had folded. Of course, it didn't hurt Hersey goalkeeper John Busch all that much, but for the rest of the team, and for the town... well, it sucked.
I would say that this statement succinctly summarizes the majority view on this question from most people on these boards.
Minnman, I am glad you are responding, after all this is an open forum for exchange of ideas and oppinions. As i pointed out my point number 8. rel/pro will not happen anytime soon,could be never or a long time. Why? to give a simple answer : Things are not set-up that way. You can't realy take todays situation to think of it if they used this system today then this is what would happen, you can't do that. Changes would have to be made for this to work. Last thing here, about the Quakes and Wizards being relegated , you see if you follow one of my other points, this teams would not have to be relegated if they paid a certain fee to the " Rampage" for example, and stay in first div. THis fee might have saved the Rampage, not only that but the teams could use the money to develop better players themselves that could benefit MLS eventualy. I know it must be very hard to think this way. Can it be done ? yes. Will it be done, No.