Sure, but you’re ignoring something that many Americans believe… they like having fixed leagues at different levels. Look at baseball, you’ve got…
Major League
AAA Division
AA Division
A Division (which include A-Advanced, A, and A-Short Season)
Rookie Division
That’s five different levels of play representing hundreds of teams and thousands of players. But it works because people can root for their favorite Major League team while also supporting a local team that plays at a lower level. Would I like a Major League team close by? Sure. But there aren’t enough concentrated in enough spots in the country for that to work. So I’m happy with seeing AAA ball a few times a year.
Isn’t this kind of ironic given that Chicago has supported what has been essentially a second division baseball club that hasn’t won anything for 100+ years and New York City has supported the Jets who haven’t even won their Conference in 45+ years?
Why not split the existing MLS into two divisions, upper and lower, and relegate/promote the teams back and forth? Do it now while nobody’s looking and there’s not yet long and proud traditions behind any team.
Except that fans have adopted teams in other cities as their own, usually the nearest team. The sport and the league system loses its marketability and concentration of interest if instead of two teams in Ohio at the top level, there are now eight, each with a theoretical chance to make it to the top level.
I don’t know where the irony is here. Yes, they have a tradition of being the lovable losers of the major leagues. Take away the major leagues part and there’s nothing to love. They don’t play against the other major league teams any more. Their identity is gone. They just sink to the bottom of the league system and are never seen again.
I’m very familiar with the American baseball structure, and I think fans in minor league towns can properly follow their local team and its parent organization, and feel a genuine stake in the parent’s success. For that matter, fans in the major league towns ought to pay attention to their affiliates. The American system essentially distributes ownership, in the fan sense, amog several towns, and that can be fun.
I still don’t think it compares to each town having its own team, beholden to no other, as was the standard in the first several decades of American professional baseball.
Well then, American fans are a fairly fragile lot. And of course an overriding concern for the self esteem of the big city fans tends to ignore the plight of the people in smaller markets, forever denied the chance to improve their status.
Fan base in America is regional, not municipal. 90 percent of serious fans of a sport has already given their to a existing major league teams, so there’s no need to “improve their status.”
The chance for smaller cities to “improve their status” won’t make up for the atomizing of the loyalty of the fanbase.
Yes, it’s a monopoly system, and intentionally so. There’s no benefit to the industry to destroy the monopoly, nor any incentive, and, really, there’s no mechanism for doing so. Plus, current sports fans won’t like it anyway.
So what? You’ve destroyed the economic value of the Chicago Cubs. That doesn’t benefit the Chicago Cubs, their fans, or the league. It benefits only some theoretical club and fanbase whose economic value will be far less than that of the Chicago Cubs.
Average 2015 TV viewers for ESPN2’s Sunday MLS games: 283,000. That compares to an average of 532,000 viewers for NHL games, and 1.8 million for NBA games.
I suppose you could create a bunch of minor-league soccer teams in the U.S. and hope people show up and/or watch on TV. But I wouldn’t bet my shirt on it. Stoppage time and flopping still haven’t fully caught on here.
Who in these towns will support these teams? The folks making this argument keep ignoring the fact that most major cities already have a Major League team. And no matter how much relegation or promotion you do, no team from East Bumblefuck Montana is ever going to be able to field a Major League team.
Also, the Major-Minor separation was codified in 1883. No one alive has any attachment to the time before. The current is the system that everyone knows, and (for the most part) likes.
Again, there already are minor league soccer leagues and they’re thriving. You can’t just stick your fingers in your ear and pretend that’s untrue.
The economic value of the Cubs is of no value to anyone except Cubs owners and fans. I’m not willing to accept that as a reason to preclude a more equitable and inclusive system.
How are players handled in the promotion relegations system?
In baseball decent players make a minor league club through the draft and as they continue to out preform their peers they get promoted through the system until they make the majors. But if say you’re Clayton Kershaw in 2010 and your team just finished last in the division and you get relegated now you are no longer a top level talent even though you are still the best player on earth. Doesn’t this limit the talent at the highest level?
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? Once they advanced to the next level how would they compete when none of their players were good enough to be on the best teams.
Honestly I like the punishment reward concept but it’s so forgotten to me I don’t know anything about how they work and it seems unworkable even though it obviously works well.
It’s regional in nature because the US is massive and the leagues want a top division presence in as many corners of the country as possible. It’s not like the Premier League where six of the 20 teams are located in London.
It doesn’t seem to be working all that well. Seven teams have never been relegated in the Premier League and another ten have a pretty tight stranglehold on their spot. Basically, a small handful of teams keep getting relegated and then promoted and then relegated again.
Sorry, but it is ridiculous to say 10 teams have a pretty tight stranglehold over their spot. The pattern of the Prem has been, if you’re not among the elite of 7-8 teams hoping for a CL place, then relegation is a realistic prospect every season.
23 seasons of the Premiership 47 clubs have competed in it, obviously this is much larger than the 20 teams (or 22 for the first 3 seasons) that compete in it. To put it another way 17 out of 24 teams, 8 out of 24 in the third tier and 2 out of 24 teams in the 4th tier have played in Premiership
If relegation was random the rounded expectation value for clubs never to be relegated would 1. Of course relegation isn’t random, but 7 isn’t that that big.
The truth is that only 7 teams currently have a stranglehold over their spot in the Premier League, those are Arsenal, Man Utd, Man City, Tottenham, Liverpool, Everton and Chelsea. Ans even the elite can suffer sudden changes in fortune: Chelsea this season are only 4 points from the relegation zone (though I don’t think they are in real peril), Villa who have been in the 1st tier since 1975 look dead certs to go down this year and Man City have been relegated down to the 3rd tier since the start of the Premiership.
It’s of value to the league. Devaluing historically valuable brands is not something that a league is going to choose to do.
And if it’s an issue with the Cubs, then it’s an issue for all 30 teams in the top league. So you’re creating a system that routinely devalues the brands—the property—of its members. Who is going to opt for that system?
That’s not entirely true. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, there were local teams everywhere.
It’s a bad thing for the league and its members to have a system that continually puts at risk of being massively devalued their most valuable property (brands).