# Could a European style "soccer" league survive in the US **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [December 19, 2015, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-european-style-soccer-league-survive-in-the-us/740821 "2015-12-19T01:11:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![the\_diego](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@the\_diego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_diego)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2015, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-european-style-soccer-league-survive-in-the-us/740821/81 "2015-12-23T05:53:20Z")
Yes. They’ll just be crossing both borders often. A Pan-American soccer league is better. Why has there not been any, I wonder. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2015, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-european-style-soccer-league-survive-in-the-us/740821/82 "2015-12-23T14:22:49Z")
> [@Quercus](#): > > Anecdote Four of them, yes. All of which refute the claim I was responding to, which is that “it can’t happen.” ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2015, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-european-style-soccer-league-survive-in-the-us/740821/83 "2015-12-23T14:32:12Z")
> [@bump](#): > > In the US, it’s pretty much one city = one team, and the level of the competition and the size of the venue pretty much reflect the size of the city (and corresponding fan base). Promotion and relegation would mean absurdities like Philadelphia’s and Cincinnati’s teams in AAA, and Fresno, CA and Columbus, OH in the major leagues. That can’t be as lucrative, or even as interesting for the fans Yes, that’s kind of my point. ---
**Author:** ![Quercus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/7ab992/32.png) [@Quercus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2015, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-european-style-soccer-league-survive-in-the-us/740821/84 "2015-12-23T14:46:14Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Four of them, yes. All of which refute the claim I was responding to, which is that “it can’t happen.” “It can’t happen” was mild hyperbole. The actual claim is “It happens extremely rarely (and because of that the League Championship is nearly always uninteresting for fans of the vast majority of teams)”. A couple exceptions do not refute the claim that there is extremely little competitive balance among teams in the top European football leagues. Again, it’s not necessarily directly due to promotion/relegation; if the Bundesliga really wanted more competitive balance, there are things they could do (e.g. aggressive revenue sharing), but a lot of the things (e.g. salary cap) are much harder to implement in a promotion/relegation scheme. Completely aside from promotion/relegation, there’s also probably a lot less motivation at the Bundesliga to be more internally competitive, given that the league as a whole is to some degree competing with La Liga, EPL, etc… Making other Bundesliga teams competitive with Bayern Munich would require making Bayern Muncih less competitive with Barcelona FC, Man U. etc. I imagine a lot of mid-tier Bundeliga owners prefer the current status. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2015, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-european-style-soccer-league-survive-in-the-us/740821/85 "2015-12-23T14:59:29Z")
This was the claim. And while it’s certainly rare for such things to happen in European leagues, it’s also extremely rare for bottom-dwelling teams to win the World Series. The fact that they do slightly more often is a function of the ultra-shallow divisions in North American sports as much as anything. > [@RickJay](#): > > This year the Kansas City Royals won the World Series. Under a European system, that simply doesn’t happen. I agree that a salary cap would be tough to implement. Though maybe not that tough; it would simply have to be done by UEFA instead of the domestic leagues. ---
**Author:** ![amanset](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8dc957/32.png) [@amanset](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amanset)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2015, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-european-style-soccer-league-survive-in-the-us/740821/86 "2015-12-24T01:12:06Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > This was the claim. And while it’s certainly rare for such things to happen in European leagues, it’s also extremely rare for bottom-dwelling teams to win the World Series. The fact that they do slightly more often is a function of the ultra-shallow divisions in North American sports as much as anything. > > I agree that a salary cap would be tough to implement. Though maybe not that tough; it would simply have to be done by UEFA instead of the domestic leagues. As MLB is a weird amalgam of a league and knockout system, it is worth comparing to other knockout tournaments. Like England’s FA Cup, which is competed by 700-odd teams from grass roots all the way of to the Premier League. Three years ago it was won by those footballing giants Wigan Athletic. ---
**Author:** ![brickbacon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@brickbacon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brickbacon)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2015, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-european-style-soccer-league-survive-in-the-us/740821/87 "2015-12-25T05:32:14Z")
> [@Quercus](#): > > Anecdote > > Data. > > And note that if you start in 1970 (dropping the first six years), that reduces the number of winning clubs to 9, with Bayern Munich winning half of all championships and the top three teams winning two-thirds of them. > > In this century alone, Bayern Munich won 2/3 of the time. No, that’s not a slam-dunk – unlike say, La Liga, where the top 2 teams have won 13 out of 15 this century-- but it’s not exactly comparable to the NFL, NBA, MLB or NHL. Let’s be fair here. The reason there is such dominance in international soccer is less because of relegation and more because there are generally no playoffs or player draft. The playoffs, particularly in baseball and hockey, is where you get outliers and variance, and the draft all but requires potentially great players to go to bad teams. There is no way the Lebron James of international soccer goes to play for the equivalent of the Cleveland Cavaliers. I don’t think relegation is a great idea for US sports for a ton of other reasons, but the dominance angle is a bit misleading. ---
**Author:** ![installLSC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/54ee81/32.png) [@installLSC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/installLSC)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2015, 7:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-european-style-soccer-league-survive-in-the-us/740821/88 "2015-12-25T07:22:21Z")
The odd thing is that whenever I read online about why American soccer fans prefer Premier League or La Liga to the MLS, it’s almost never about relegation. It’s much more that MLS talent is nowhere near the level of the top Euro leagues. Relegation will never change that. Plus, the overwhelming majority of American fans of Euro league teams migrate to the usual powerhouses. If they don’t support teams near the relegation cutoff in high talent leagues, why would they support those kind of teams in a lesser MLS? ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2015, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-european-style-soccer-league-survive-in-the-us/740821/89 "2015-12-30T13:23:50Z")
> [@Oredigger77](#): > > On the other end of the spectrum how do you recruit players? If you look at the NFL there are roughly 60 players each year who develop into top level talent. If we had 200 professional teams (roughly three levels) How would the low level clubs get one of those top level talents? In European soccer, star players don’t just play in first league. They play in the _best_ first league teams whose risk of being actually relegated is essentially nil (unless they go bankrupt or something, in which case they can’t afford the best players anymore anyway). I find the promotion/relegation system interesting in theory, but in practical terms, only a fraction of the teams can go up or down in the hierarchy. Some teams aren’t going to ever leave the first league, others aren’t ever going to raise up from the second league. I suspect this system is more suited for the lowest level of the competition by providing a big incentive for amateur teams (going up from 7th to 6th league or something). And as far as I can tell, most soccer fans support one of the star teams (maybe along their hometown team if it happens to be significant enough) anyway, whether or not they’re from this particular city. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2015, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-european-style-soccer-league-survive-in-the-us/740821/90 "2015-12-30T14:45:25Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > This has nothing to do with the system of promotion and relegation and everything to do with the fact that there is no salary cap outside North American sports. It’s worth mentioning that for some lower division clubs in Euro soccer, player development and the subsequent selling of their contracts to higher division teams is a large source of revenue. Kind of like being an at-large farm team, where you’re paid. Also, I imagine that it’s probably something of a shock when a team goes from being a lucrative say… Championship team, to being a Premier League team, and their revenue system changes, as they’re not really in the business of player development anymore. (maybe this is a Championship / League One phenomenon… I’m not sure). ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2015, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-european-style-soccer-league-survive-in-the-us/740821/91 "2015-12-30T14:56:22Z")
There are benefits and drawbacks to both systems. But as a basic matter, I don’t think you can assume that having a team in your small town that theoretically could someday make it to the top rank through a series of improbable events is presumptively beneficial compared to bring a fan of the big city team an hour away that is always in the top rank. ---
**Author:** ![ISiddiqui](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/97f17d/32.png) [@ISiddiqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ISiddiqui)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2015, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-european-style-soccer-league-survive-in-the-us/740821/92 "2015-12-30T16:07:36Z")
> [@brickbacon](#): > > Let’s be fair here. The reason there is such dominance in international soccer is less because of relegation and more because there are generally no playoffs or player draft. The playoffs, particularly in baseball and hockey, is where you get outliers and variance, and the draft all but requires potentially great players to go to bad teams. There is no way the Lebron James of international soccer goes to play for the equivalent of the Cleveland Cavaliers. > > I don’t think relegation is a great idea for US sports for a ton of other reasons, but the dominance angle is a bit misleading. However, you can’t really have a draft in a league with promotion/relegation. If you left it to the top division, it would be considered unfair to the teams trying to get promoted, if you expanded the draft all the way through, good players would blanch at being put in the 3rd division with its much lower revenues and salary, when they could easily play in the top division. A draft would be very unfeasible in a pro/rel league. There is the additional thing that European soccer has easy transfers “trades” involving exchanging players for money, which especially happens when a team gets relegated. I don’t think that would fly all that well in the US. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Scud](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f08c70/32.png) [@Tom\_Scud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Scud)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2015, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-european-style-soccer-league-survive-in-the-us/740821/93 "2015-12-30T16:48:54Z")
Players are sometimes traded for cash considerations in MLB, but generally only the most marginal talents. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2015, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-european-style-soccer-league-survive-in-the-us/740821/94 "2015-12-30T21:09:34Z")
> [@ISiddiqui](#): > > However, you can’t really have a draft in a league with promotion/relegation. That’s something I never really considered, and I wonder how much the player genesis institutions’ differences between Europe and the US play into the team system (or vice-versa). From what I gather, the Euro teams tend toward youth development from a very early age, while the US sports tend to get them after college (football, basketball, baseball, hockey), or high school (soccer, baseball, hockey), at which point they’re already somewhere between 17-22. How would the player acquisition look in the US if not for the various drafts? Would it be the NFL essentially bidding for each player’s services out of college separately, with the deepest pockets winning? ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2015, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-european-style-soccer-league-survive-in-the-us/740821/95 "2015-12-30T21:17:15Z")
The reason we have drafts is that the NFL teams were tired of outbidding each other in the 1930s and agreed that a draft would save everyone money. It’s a trust/labor violation,\* and the NFL was forced to recognize the players’ union in the 1950s in order to keep it and some other rules (since they can collectively bargain for things which are otherwise anticompetitive). If we didn’t have a draft, we probably wouldn’t have had a players’ union so it’s hard to say what the signing landscape would look like. \*Baseball is exempt, essentially because SCOTUS fucked up, but other sports are not because SCOTUS had figured it out by the time other sports’ cases were heard. ---
**Author:** ![Cognoscant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Cognoscant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cognoscant)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2015, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-european-style-soccer-league-survive-in-the-us/740821/96 "2015-12-30T23:16:03Z")
> [@brickbacon](#): > > Let’s be fair here. The reason there is such dominance in international soccer is less because of relegation and more because there are generally no playoffs or player draft. The playoffs, particularly in baseball and hockey, is where you get outliers and variance Case in point: the New York Yankees’ near total dominance of the American League during the '20s and later the '50s. Without playoffs or salary caps to level the playing field, baseball was as dominated by one team as promotion/relegation leagues ever were. But we don’t have to just look at American sports to see what can happen when playoffs, salary caps, and drafts don’t level the field. In Indian cricket Mumbai won something like 31 out of 34 Ranji Trophy championships. Guess what ended their dominance? Yes, it was the introduction of playoffs. ---
**Author:** ![An\_Arky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/87869e/32.png) [@An\_Arky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Arky)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2015, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-european-style-soccer-league-survive-in-the-us/740821/97 "2015-12-31T02:13:35Z")
This whole debate is pointless. The majority of the American sports watching public has absolutely no interest in soccer. That’s the bottom line, and however you package it makes no difference. ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2015, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-european-style-soccer-league-survive-in-the-us/740821/98 "2015-12-31T02:28:34Z")
> [@An\_Arky](#): > > This whole debate is pointless. The majority of the American sports watching public has absolutely no interest in soccer. That’s the bottom line, and however you package it makes no difference. As is pointed out on this board time and again, that’s just not true. Soccer isn’t as popular as baseball or football or basketball, but it absolutely can compete with hockey and is still enjoyed by millions of people every year. ---
**Author:** ![Go\_Arachnid\_Laser\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b2d939/32.png) [@Go\_Arachnid\_Laser\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Go_Arachnid_Laser_1)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2015, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-european-style-soccer-league-survive-in-the-us/740821/99 "2015-12-31T02:57:17Z")
Still, it’s always amusing to note how European leagues embraced wild capitalism, while American sports chose a sort of communistic system. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2015, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-european-style-soccer-league-survive-in-the-us/740821/100 "2015-12-31T02:59:45Z")
Fashion changes. There’s no reason to believe that American tastes or spending habits will always be the same. > [@Go\_Arachnid\_Laser](#): > > Still, it’s always amusing to note how European leagues embraced wild capitalism, while American sports chose a sort of communistic system. A monopoly or a cartel is very capitalistic. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-european-style-soccer-league-survive-in-the-us/740821.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-european-style-soccer-league-survive-in-the-us/740821.md?page=6)