We actually dealt with this recently in another thread; I can’t search it out since I’m on my way out of here and not a member.
The main reason relegation and promotion can’t occur in the United States is that the formation of competitions uses a totally different model from the English club based system. Unlike England (and much of the rest of the football world), where each team is an individual entity which competes in an annual competition organized by the sport’s governing body (the EPL is a recent and only slightly different animal), American teams are franchises of an organization of teams incorporated solely to provide the annual competition in question. Tempting as it might be to relegate the Detroit Tigers to the International League and promote, say, Columbus, it can’t be done because the Detroit Tigers are a franchise holder of the American League and Major League Baseball. They are a piece of the American League; their owner has a vote in how the league is run, serves on its committees, etc.
Indeed, to show how we Americans tend to think we can ignore the way the rest of the world runs things and always have a better solution, our top flight soccer league doesn’t even have franchises; it is a “single entity”, which signs the players and assigns them to teams run by investors in the entity. Currently, one of the investors runs half of the league’s teams; another runs 30% of them. This method of organization has precluded the move from the second division (the “A League”) by the Rochester Raging Rhinos, perennially a top performer, to the MLS, even as a franchise, since there are no franchises in MLS.
To allow for promotion and relegation, we would have to totally re-tool the way professional sports are run in America. Given that the product is doing quite well, it is hard to forsee any need to revamp the American concept that way.
As for Europe’s current domination by certain clubs, the answer is quite simple, and it is one towards which Europe’s clubs are moving slowly. There will eventually be a European Super-League, promotion to which will be earned through top results in lesser European competitions like the UEFA cup and, likely, a re-initiation of the Champions Cup. Members of the Super League will not compete in their home country’s domestic competitions; each year the worst performers in the Super-League will be demoted to their domestic competitions.
I like promotion and relegation; it allows teams to increase their investment and be rewarded for it, it penalizes teams that don’t maintain a competent level of operations (sorry, Wimbledon, but EPL to Second Division in the space of four years says something telling about how the club is run), and it certainly makes for interesting battles at season end, even when the upper end of the table is pretty much set. Who cares about games which include Arsenal now; but I’ll be all ready to watch Foxes invade Elland Road Monday night in a fight for survival in top flight football!