A relegation proposal for American soccer

The Game Room
1

When it comes to relegation and American professional soccer, we know two things: 1) that the concept of relegation is integral to the way the game is experienced around the world; and 2) that relegation is unthinkable the way American professional sports are structured.

So, in the spirit of Henry Clay, let’s compromise. Here’s my proposal: relegate not the team, but the players. So for example, last year, Toronto FC came in at the bottom of the table – so let’s swap out their players with those of the Seattle Sounders, who won the USL Division 1 Championship!

Naturally, there would need to be a few rules regarding when the relegated players could come back into the top flight. I’d propose that they would have to play in the USL at least one year before they could come back. And similarly, you might have to protect the promoted players from being replaced wholesale. You might also have to protect the contracts of the relegated players for a year.

The only real losers I can see in this proposal – besides the relegatees, I mean – are the fans of the Seattle Sounders, who would get sort of punished by having their players replaced. But it’s a bit like minor-league baseball, isn’t it, where if a player does well, it all but guarantees he’ll disappear.

What say the multitudes?

2

That’s a horrible idea. I can’t think of any reason that anybody would propose this other than they have a hard-on for promotion-relegation.

Promotion-relegation is not going to happen in American soccer, just drop it. We’ll see a single table, dropping the playoffs, and a Fall to Spring schedule before we get a whiff of relegation.

3

That’s far less likely than just normal promotion/relegation just on the business aspects. What kind of marketing would it be where all of the players you’ve been promoting are suddenly gone and you have to start from scratch with a whole new set? Some turnover is expected, but the whole team? The business model for American soccer is tough enough as it is. Not to mention how disruptive it would be to the players/coaches/sport side of the organization.

The only positive side I can see to this is that it sort of technically gets around the contractual obligations MLS has to the owners to allow them to operate a major league team in their city of choice, but no owner would agree that swapping out teams and using the same name is a valid alternative and I’m sure the courts would agree.

And if you want a substantial discussion on American soccer, you should probably post things like this on BigSoccer.com, though the response will likely not be as cordial. :slight_smile:

4

Other than violating several state and federal labor and anti-trust laws, absolutely nothing. :smack:

5

You’re going to have to explain this one to me. How does it violate labor and anti-trust laws? And as to the labor laws, can’t you write the contracts in such a way that they’re in compliance?

6

Pretty much any attempt by an industry to limit the freedom of workers to contract with whomever they please is a violation of anti-trust and labor laws. That’s why MLB has a limited exemption written into those laws, as does the NFL. It’s also why MLS retains the quaint notion that the players contract with MLS itself, and are assigned to teams in the league, precluding them from forcing free-agency among the teams of the league.

7

Good point. Part of the reason MLS can retain its single entity structure is because the players can play in other leagues, like the USL, if they’re unsatisfied. An agreement between MLS and USL on which players could play where and when would have the players union up their ass in a heartbeat.

Also, using the Seattle Sounders isn’t really a good example as they are entering MLS anyway next year, due in no small part to their success as a USL team. Until MLS gets to 20 teams and profitable, I don’t see any need for relegation, but I’m all for promotions like this.

8

Well, okay – ignoring the fact that my proposal is illegal, immoral and possibly fattening, what do y’all think of it? As a by-the-way, it’s interesting that both baseball and football needed to get an antitrust exemption to make the whole thing work. What do you suppose would happen if MLS went to Congress and said, “We need one too”?

9

That’s the exact same thing, just with a change of clothes.

10

Like every other sport besides football and baseball, they wouldn’t get the time of day. Unless they brought truckloads of cash to buy off/lobby politicians.

11

What are the pros to doing this? I can’t think of any. I certainly don’t think “because they do it in Europe” is a bonus. The cons are pretty big though. As it’s not a part of the culture here I think you’d see massive loss of support for teams that were relegated.

There are actual reasons for wanting a single table. It makes every game meaningful. There is nothing about relegation that improves the game. The idea of switching players is even worse than regular relegation in my mind. You destroy all affinity a fan has for a team.

12

I think we’re universal in our dislike for the switching players idea, but p/r in general has some advantage, which is basically to insert some drama for fans beyond the handful of teams at the top of the table of the top league. Mid-table teams worry about staying out of the relegation zone and bottom-table teams try like hell to get out. Some of the best late-season games in the EPL involve teams trying to avoid relegation. And that drama carries down into the lower league tables at the top and bottom. In contrast, losing teams in American sports are pretty much ignored and then, to some extent, rewarded for sucking with draft picks. In short, p/r means even more meaningful games.

Of course, the downside is that some owners lose lots of money when their teams are sent down and that’s why it will probably never happen in American soccer.

13

They would never get it. It’s questionable if Baseball and Football could get one these days… :stuck_out_tongue:

14

Now, ignoring the side issue, I’m going to “ridicule” the main concept as well.

The point to relegation and promotion is to “punish” poor management and “reward” good management. The players themselves aren’t that much in consideration. After all, even a good player, playing to his ultimate potential, won’t manage promotion if on a poor team, and even if all the players on a poor team perform to their best, they cannot guarantee promotion.

Rather, it’s management that is being trained through the mechanism of promotion and relegation. By being promoted, you gain access to gate receipts, television proceeds, merchandising opportunities, etc., that you cannot get at the lower level. Similarly, being relegated means that your poor management dooms you to having fewer resources to work with. Presumably, you’ll do what you can to avoid it like the plague.

And, thus, the concepts work like a huge “Peter Principle” with a twist: teams rise to the level of their incompetence only, then get sent back down if they really don’t belong there. Take Derby County this year. They simply don’t belong in the Premiership, despite having won promotion through their playoff play last year. So they are being sent back down.

Or take Leeds. They engaged in some significant mismanagement; they have gone from being a top-flight championship contender to barely managing to have a shot at promotion to the SECOND division of football (having been relegated to the THIRD division last year). After all this, do you think it likely that any club chairman will attempt the rather stupid, er, risky management decisions of Peter Risdale?

So no, the concept you propose would not accomplish this. Instead, it would do the complete opposite: mismanagement would be rewarded with good players. Good management would be rewarded with poor players. Hardly the point to the system. :wink: