World Soccer XXVII: The REAL Football

[Jimjamesak]

The why comes down to US association football will remain be a joke globally until they adopt the pro/rel model. That's the theory -- I'm not saying it's true.

The problem is the zealots can't even remotely prove it's true.

Pro/Rel talk always boils down to "it's what they do in Europe!" and never any actual reason why it'll really work.

[Kepler]

Re: World Soccer XXVII: The REAL Football

The problem is the zealots can't even remotely prove it's true.

Pro/Rel talk always boils down to "it's what they do in Europe!" and never any actual reason why it'll really work.

There are zealots on both sides. And it isn't just Europe, right? It's everywhere but here?

[ExileOnDaytonStreet]

There are zealots on both sides. And it isn't just Europe, right? It's everywhere but here?

To be fair, that still doesn't exactly answer the question as to if/why/how it would improve American soccer. For that matter, it does nothing to clarify the hyperbolic nonsense that MLS is a "joke" for not having it.

Anyone who sees the rejected TV offer as anything more than a way for Miami's ownership to skirt franchise fees is fooling themselves.

[mookie1995]

Re: World Soccer XXVII: The REAL Football

Hearing UAE and KSA are ending the scrambling of bein sports (out of Qatar) due to that channel holding premiership broadcast rights across the ME and the 2 countries not wanting a revolt on their hands

[Shirtless Guy]

Re: World Soccer XXVII: The REAL Football

I have never understood our obsession with pro/rep. It's kinda cool but it's never been a part of American sports and that's ok with me. To be a successful league, MLS doesn't have to operate like the rest of the world, not to mention having pro/rep with the financial restraints the league currently has would just be crazy and to open up the budgets could mean the demise of MLS.

[Kepler]

Re: World Soccer XXVII: The REAL Football

To be fair, that still doesn't exactly answer the question as to if/why/how it would improve American soccer.

Oh, I entirely agree. I was just saying that argument is not so much "let's copy Europe" as "let's organize as association football is everywhere else on Earth." You could for example, have an English baseball league where all the teams were owned by the league and players were doled out to maximize revenue. And it would be "baseball," but I think we would tend to look down on it. IINM that's how USSR hockey was run, and as I recall we didn't have a very high opinion of it.

[Kepler]

Re: World Soccer XXVII: The REAL Football

I have never understood our obsession with pro/rep. It's kinda cool

Then you do understand it. It's cool because it's different. I like the idea of punishing teams that f-ck up and rewarding Cinderellas with promotion.

It's quite strange that significantly smaller European countries have the league depth to do it, while we with all our money and population are stuck with one permanent top league.

Let's say, for example, that we adopted pro/rel for baseball. MLB / AAA / AA / A levels, with all ownership groups having to be separate and the minor leagues as independent franchises and not feeder teams -- much the way baseball was organized decades ago when the leagues went all the way down to C or maybe even D.

One thing that would enable us to do is cut back on games and make a shorter RS, since there would still be dozens (hundreds?) more teams in the mix for titles. It would become much more like D-1 football, which seems to do quite well financially. Each season would start with say 20 teams at each level playing say a 114 game season (3 home, 3 away against each). There would also be all sorts of cross-promotions, "derbys" etc, but they wouldn't f-ck with the standings.

We are big enough that we could even support two entirely separate "trees" with the AL and NL at the pinnacle respectively, with the WS being a best of 7 pitting the two league champions with the best records -- the two actual best teams, every year, like it was in the old days. National broadcasters would have contracts concentrating on the top leagues, but the teams would still have their own local affiliate networks. If the Yankees got relegated they would spend the next year playing AAA opponents in the AL tree and tons of cities would get to see them which would otherwise never get to. And every city could afford a team at some level, and dream of having a miracle run where they were promoted and then got to play in a "bigger" league.

Now, would this really work for baseball? Perhaps but why change baseball's traditions so radically? But soccer is still nascent in the US and we can create any structure we want, so why not something like that instead of just another boring MLB, NBA, NHL style league?

[JF_Gophers]

Re: World Soccer XXVII: The REAL Football

I'm confused as to why these ideas have to do something for American soccer to be valid.

Can't it be just improve competitive play in a sports league?

[Kepler]

Re: World Soccer XXVII: The REAL Football

Not sure if this has been mentioned but it's an OK piece with much more interesting Comments. Also, I swear to God I am not Le Comte de Brûleur, who appears to be my lost twin.

Anyway, it's the same argument we're having here though people seem to be putting a little more into it. There are also linked pieces which purport to argue for why pro-rel would benefit American soccer but I have not read them yet.

[Jimjamesak]

Not sure if this has been mentioned but it's an OK piece with much more interesting Comments. Also, I swear to God I am not Le Comte de Brûleur, who appears to be my lost twin.

Anyway, it's the same argument we're having here though people seem to be putting a little more into it. There are also linked pieces which purport to argue for why pro-rel would benefit American soccer but I have not read them yet.

You lost all credibility linking to a Haisley article. Dude is a hack with an agenda.

[joecct]

Re: World Soccer XXVII: The REAL Football

IIRC some PL stars have contracts that make them free agents if their PL team gets relegated.

[Jimjamesak]

IIRC some PL stars have contracts that make them free agents if their PL team gets relegated.

The vast majority of PL players have that in their contracts. It's actually a benefit to the team, if they get relegated and lose revenue they suddenly don't have a huge wage anchor hanging on them.

[Kepler]

Re: World Soccer XXVII: The REAL Football

You lost all credibility linking to a Haisley article. Dude is a hack with an agenda.

I don't know the players, I just know that the arguments that are coming up here and also replayed there. The only thing about soccer personalities I know for sure is Alexi Lalas was cute but seems like a self-promoting idiot and that woman who used to be on Men in Blazers and now does bits on the one the majors (NBCSN?) is wonderful and twenty times smarter than anyone else in the booth.

[Kepler]

Re: World Soccer XXVII: The REAL Football

The vast majority of PL players have that in their contracts. It's actually a benefit to the team, if they get relegated and lose revenue they suddenly don't have a huge wage anchor hanging on them.

Call it EPL. Anything to pis-s off the vampire squids.

[Jimjamesak]

Then you do understand it. It's cool because it's different. I like the idea of punishing teams that f-ck up and rewarding Cinderellas with promotion.

Here's the problem, like you, a lot of people are caught in the romanticism of pro/rel without looking at the reality of it. The reality of pro/rel is that doesn't punish teams that **** up and promote Cinderellas, it makes rich teams richer, the poor teams bankrupt, and the middle irrelevant. Everyone loves to wax poetic about Leicester but no one talks about Leeds or Portsmouth or the countless clubs across Europe that can't even pay their players all because they're struggling to keep up with the larger clubs. Look at the leagues around the world and in the vast majority of them it's the same 3-4 clubs usually winning. That's what happens in pro/rel, a few haves, a few teams in the middle, and a ton struggling to keep up.

It's quite strange that significantly smaller European countries have the league depth to do it, while we with all our money and population are stuck with one permanent top league.

Because most of them have 100+ years of history.