The All-Encompassing Pro/Rel Thread on Soccer in the USA

And originally you had to be from a city large enough to host a trade fair. Fortunately “conurbation size” nonsense is now restricted to leagues like MLS.

 

And the strange thing is that the smallest conurbation in the Premier League is Bournemouth-Poole, which is the 15th biggest conurbation in England and Wales.

 

It's not a real restriction on any league in the US. Every professional lower league in the US currently satisfies the market size requirements for the division above it.

 

Why does it exist then?

 

Bournmouth/Poole conurbation has a population of 400k. Burnley conurbation a population of … 150k. And anyway does the Premier League mandate a minimum conurbation size for promoted teams?

 

I get my romance from the US Open Cup.

 

Where does"it" exist?

Salt Lake is the 46th biggest conurbation in the US and was one of the founding teams.

USSF Professional League standards require 75% of D1 teams to play in MSAs of one million, meaning 7 current teams could play in hamlets with a population of one.

 

Er…

 

So...

 

Perhaps you could let me know exactly what I said that makes you laugh? I've just posted some facts will 3 clubs get promoted from tier 2 into tier 1 yes or no? Will 3 clubs get relegated from tier 1 to tier 2 yes or no? In 1978 did clubs earn much more money being in tier 1 than they did in tier 2 yes or no?

I remember the outrage when Trevor Francis became the worlds first £1 million pound player! Oh how they told us that it was 'stupid money' and football was ruined!! They said the same when players started earning £10'000 pounds a week! Scandalous they said! I remember them claiming that football was 'ruined' by Blackburn when they 'bought' the title in the early 90's and I can bet you they said the same in the 1930's when Arsenal 'bought' their titles - People were outraged, they were derided as 'The Bank of England club' at the time!

English football is doing rather nicely, it is the worlds most popular sports league, the fact that a country smaller than California can support so many 'big' storied clubs has a lot to do with pro/rel and the access to riches to all clubs that pro/rel gives, as has been pointed out Notts County have access to those riches and the only reason that 10'000 fans go through the gates is the 'dream' of Premier League football, if they were stuck forever as a minor club the attendances would reflect that.

 

Well the claim was that those clubs couldn't exist because of "rights" by US closed leagues. Clearly they do. Hell, there's THREE USL2 teams in Houston (and there's other "market overlap" in the league).

This is the problem with ignorantly (not you) blanketing one thing that exists in US Soccer on top of all of US Soccer.

Blatantly ignoring key details of the discussion, as usual with this certain poster.

"as it's ever been" ... except it isn't. My last post literally illustrates that.

But, 6 of 50 have never been relegated so it's only been 44 slots that have changed over. Of those 44, 3 were before the year 2000 and never played in a year that started with a 2. Of the remaining 41, 11 were more than 20yrs ago.

That's 30 clubs that have been in the Prem over the last 20 yrs. 6 of which have always been there and another 3 that have been there for a decade or more. That's 21 slots that have changed over in the last decade. Of those 21 slots, 12 clubs have yo-yo'd in that decade. So, for the last decade we've essentially had a combination of the same 22-23 clubs with a few rando newbies tossed in.

... far from "fluid as its ever been"

See: Cleveland Stars, San Francisco Deltas ....

Is this anything that is being debated, at all, in this discussion? Yes or NO, NO IT ISN'T

And now there's tons of red tape drowning most clubs that aren't global brands. Debt is ridiculous, clubs are reliant and beholden to Billionaire/Hundred Millionaire owners/consortiums if they want to be anything more than just existing, and the top ends of pyramids everywhere continually slowly choke the life out of their lower ends.

The "player market" is stupid money ... it has ruined a portion of the game (a big part of the purity of it actually).

The Premier League is, yes.

A far bigger and more important factor is the fact that clubs are 90-125+yrs old. It has crap all to do with pro/rel and certainly not the "access to riches" as the vast majority of clubs suffer from being squeezed out of truly trying to be competitive because they can't afford to.

Well this is a blatant lie. Notts County (and every other club) doesn't have massive support because they "dream" of the Premier League.

JFC that's as dishonest and blatantly false of a claim as has been put in this thread ...

 

I'm laughing because you're in complete denial that there's a problem when one team gets 10x more in parachute payments than another spends on is entire squad.

Also 10,000 Notts fans don't show up because they dream of being in the Premier League. If those fans wanted to watch Premier League football they could keep walking for a quarter of a mile

If anything grass roots fans are sick and tired of the marketing and the foreign money and the foreign players and are actively rebelling by switching to more honest, robust, lower division football.

 

Yes they do! As history proves attendances are ALWAYS bigger in the higher tiers and clubs themselves get bigger attendances the higher in the pyramid they play! If people didn't care what level they played at then that would simply NOT be the case!

What do you have that proves otherwise?

 

I'm not in denial!! The first division clubs have ALWAYS been richer than clubs in lower tiers! The top tier simply generates more money (for obvious reasons!). If you want to gain access to Premier League riches then you must win enough football matches to get there - THATS THE WHOLE IDEA OF THE COMPETITION! Luckily enough 3 clubs WILL get promoted at the end of the season and 3 clubs WILL get relegated which is why more than FIFTY! clubs have had the pleasure of picking up top tier riches!

Oh and Notts County would NOT get 10'000 fans if they did not have access to promotion, see my previous post for proof of this..........unless you can prove otherwise of course!

 

No-one at Notts gives a crap about the Premier League other than a few kids with rose-tinted glasses. Competing against the Sheffield's and Derby's in the Championship would be just fine.

 

If the fans didn't care about what tier they're playing in then there wouldn't be the celebrations seen when they gained promotion? There would just be indifference.

 

LOL, wow ...

Their largest att ever were recorded decades before the PL ever existed and during a time they were fighting for 2nd division status, not top division status.

They drew more in 1893 than in 2022 ... but sure, the dream of the Premier League is why they show up

 

We can go through EVERY club in English football if you like? See if they get bigger attendances the higher in the pyramid they go? Shall we? Arsenal...Aston Villa etc?

First of all though we can check to see if the top tier has ALWAYS had more supporters than the 2nd tier, that the 2nd tier has ALWAYS had more supporters than the 3rd tier etc? Shall we?

That way we can PROVE that 'fans' want their clubs to play in the Premier League!!

What do you say? Shall we?

 

You really need to put the down the cucumber sandwich in your £300 seat and realize that it's not the 1950s any more.

We celebrate promotion because it's the prize for winning (or coming second and squeezing through the playoffs).

Do you acknowledge the hypocrisy in claiming that $200k in allowances and first draft pick is "reward for failure" while £60 million is not, and that MLS restricts membership to the biggest markets when the 46th biggest market in the US has been a member since day one, while the smallest market in the Premier League is the 15th biggest MSA in England and Wales?

Meanwhile let's also criticize those anti-competitive, non-existent, territorial rights.

 

A prize for winning! lol The ONLY prize is playing a tier higher the following year!!! Unless of course you can tell me why else fans storm the pitches in celebration?

 

So why does the EPL winner celebrate? The CL winner? The World Cup winner? None of them are playing in a higher league the following year. Almost like winning the competition for the sake of winning the competition is motivation enough?

(Note, I have no expectation you will respond in any rational way based on your posting history. This post is to make the point to the rest of the people reading the thread)

 

Your history of MLS is as inaccurate as many of your “facts” on this thread.

 

The Premier League winner celebrates being champions of England, the Champions League winner celebrates being the European Champions, the World Cup winner celebrates being World Champions...........so I ask you what were Notts County fans running on to the pitch celebrating exactly?

There is no way you are going to persuade people that English football fans are indifferent about promotion lol!

 

Winning. That's the point. You celebrate winning for the sake of winning regardless of what else is attached to it.

 

So why didn't they celebrate that way every time they won a game?? lol