the "problem" isn't relegation, but the fact that there is a big cap in revenue potential between teams. There's just no way Norwich can afford to field a title winning team, and because the bigger clubs also pretty ruthlessly swep up all the promising young players, it's hard for them to build one either. Take away relegation and it wouldn't make Norwich any stronger or any more able to compete. A salary cap, one that would allow Norwich to compete, would just result in a very mediocre league. You don't notice it in American sports because the salary cap is still far higher than any other leagues pay, so the best players still all play there. If the premiership had a salary cap that allowed Norwich to compete financially, then the premiership's best would be far worse than now. Over there, you can have 20 teams and have all of them in relatively big margets, in urban areas with populations in the millions. you can't do that here. We just don't have the populations. I just isn't possible to have 20 teams with roughly equal potential. Even in England, one of europe's more populous countries, the equivalent would be trying to have a 20 team league in California. It would be almost impossible to set a cap that would seem right for the big city teams as well as the rest, and totally impossible to have 20 teams of roughly equal size. that's the thing though - no club here has to pay a franchise fee, and there is no emphasis on the value of a club. Club owners don't buy clubs with the object of making money out of them, or see them as investments to be sold at a profit later on. Saying that though, when Sam Hamann sold Wimbledon (up the river as it turns out) he got £20 million for them. I don't know what he paid for them when he bought them in their non-league days, but I'd bet everything it wasn't anywhere near £20 million. It's not a huge amount, but the point is it's possible to increase the value of a club, if that's what floats your boat, by getting them promoted. The trend over there is for people to only ever look at the negative side of relegation and not even look at the positive side of the system. To say it's a bad system because one club will have a loss in revenue, and completely ignore the fact that another club will see a huge rise, is like saying sport would be better if there was a way of elimating defeats, because losing is a bad thing and drives fans away.
Thanks for the edification and your perspective. Also, I guess I didn't mean relegation is bad for EPL, I feel it's bad for MLS.
Good first point, then I came to this. With the best will in the world, the thing that most annoys most non-American are declarations that the US will dominate the game in the future. I don't doubt that the US is improving, but no country since the first World War has truly dominated the game. Even Brazil have only won 5 World Cups out of a possible 17, and 2 out of the last 8. That is certainly not domination. Also it still looks unlikely that the top players will want to play in the US. At the moment the salary cap makes it impossible to attract any top class players (the average Premiership wage is about 4 times the MLS salary cap). Added to that there is all the prestige and history of Europe. I'm not saying it can never happen, just that timescales like that are highly speculative.
I guess it is the American "can do" and optimistic attitudes we are imbued with which allows us to to acheive a lot of firsts. First to the Moon, Mars, air, etc. That is why I suggested we have the potential to dominate. I guess it must annoy people in other countries and come across as arrogant. I hope it doesn't come across that way. I'm not trying to be arrogant. I'm proud of my country but I don't wish to wear it on my sleeve. I just always feel confident about the potential for Americans to achieve at just about everything. Cheers
15 years?!?!? kinda short IMO but I do think that USA will have a lot of talent playing in the MLS. I do believe, though, that most of that talent will be AMERICAN players not players from SOUTH AMERICA or EUROPE because im sorry no matter how much money MLS starts paying BARCELONA will still be BARCELONA and the same with all the european teams. I think that it will mostly AMERICANS because all that talent will be generated here at home. I mean look at AMERICAN kids they have all the advantages over anybody in the world $$$$$ and parents willing to spend it on them look at the great fascilities they play in and the mentality of "you can be whatever you want!" those are what WILL bring up soccer stars from the USA. For example look at the MEX team SANCHEZ was a poor as hell played soccer inthe DIRT as a child but look at him he is a top notch goalkeeper just imagine how much better he could have been witht the opportunity here.A lot of the world's players were like this at some point especially all those 3rd world countries that still generate awsome players.Here the only thing that is missing is the support of more people here in the USA. But non the less I do believe that talent will be here in the USA and that MLS will be great but like it is now with AMERICAN players. YA see what im saying??
Each day that goes by Soccer is more and more part of America and be considered more and more "American". The evidence is simply in the fact that kids in America experience and play soccer now at the age of 5 . Do you think that when they hit the age of 15 they will think of soccer as foreign? I dont think so, because soccer will be in their childhood memories.... Soccer is more and more American as the days pass....
I'm sure you're being facetious, but quite a lot of sports invented in the US are quite popular around the world, especially basketball and volleyball.
You know, I used to find NASCAR completely boring until I started playing Papyrus' (now defunct) NASCAR Racing simulation for my PC. It's rather frustratingly realistic. While it seems boring to watch on TV, I can tell you that doing a 200 lap race around Daytona is nothing less than four hours of continuous panic. I still haven't managed to finish on the lead lap.
I think auto racing can much more easily be appreciated if a person understands the nature of what the driving is like. I started playing those Papyrus sims as a kid and I became a huge fan of sim racing as well as watching real motorsport. If only it was like that with soccer. Maybe a bit drawback of the USA playing as kids is they get an idea that that is and will be soccer, while not witnessing the matches of thousands of singing spectators.