Also, imagine the players that are in the lower leagues of US soccer like the USL that aren’t see as much because they aren’t in mls. Promotion and Relegation could bring those other teams in with other players that are being overlooked. Which could mean that other players can get to other leagues.
We just picked up a striker from USL. Those players are being looked at. But with the owners initial investment on "placement" into the MLS. By paying over 200 million for the spot, they will not ever do a pro/rel structure. Either FIFA or the USA FA will have to make drastic changes. Which won't happen because a lot of MLS people are in there too. You see where I'm going with this? You guys keep asking us why there's no pro rel we keep telling you it's not that easy.
Plus who really knows if it will work here in the states. Sport culture is different here then in Europe. We are use to a single league structure with no pro rel in any of the major sports. So if MLS just changes to that system could actually damage viewership and no one will follow a team that's a div 2 or 3 side here. It's just not like it is in Europe where you follow your team to death because it's connected to you. Here it's just a team from your city your from or moved to. Do not mistake that as Americans don't care for their clubs because if you look at my club we REALLY care. But in other areas it's just not there yet like an Atlanta or Seattle or Portland
@@Emmany97 Exactly, but we would have never had this problem if FIFA made the USA Federation make a pro rel system for American soccer back in 1994. No they just told them to make a Professional League for the country to host the 1994 World Cup, that's it. And that's where the problems now would have never existed.
King Wes11 damage viewership? I mean it’s already bad lol. It would be a success and one step closer to stop being looked at as a retirement league amongst big leagues
Mohamed Adan in a decade there’s new teams that haven’t even entered the league. And USL teams are building stadiums to now. 2026-2030 might give pro/rel a chance
@@mohamedadan6678 pro/rel does make teams fight for their spots but so does an American style playoff system. Anybody who disagrees doesn't watch any American sports leagues
Michael T. Mathews yeah but in most american league sports, the worst teams in the league often accept their fate a little over halfway into the season leading many players to stop really trying and the play on the field becomes much worse. A relegation style system would add incentive for lower ranking teams not to give up, and to actually play well late into the season
@@__nm10 but Nicolas you run into the same issues with pro/rel. Those mid table teams in a pro/rel system have absolutely no incentive to try their hardest. Those teams that have no chance of winning the league but are far clear from relegation. & it's often evident to see on the pitch from mid table teams. That's why primetime matches are always either top of the table teams or relegation battles. At least in a playoff structure those mid table teams would have to fight for a playoff spot. Both systems have their pro & cons. Idk why you guys turn a blind eye to issues when it comes to promotion/relegation. I would hope that in either system PROFESSIONAL ATHLETES would play their hardest regardless of the incentive. That's what they get paid millions of dollars to do
@@frostleafsilver1051 One of the lasting rules of business is never try to appeal to people who aren't your customers. Invariably, it just means you lose your existing customers and those customers that complained about your product don't materialize when they change it.
@@JD-hx7yd The NFL doesn't have relegation. Yet it is the biggest best attended most valuable league in the world. So clearly someone wants to see those teams just playing for some reason. MLB is the second biggest sports league on the planet. It also doesn't have relegation. So clearly someone wants to see those teams just playing for some reason. The NBA is the third biggest sports league on the planet. It also doesn't have relegation. So clearly someone wants to see those teams just playing for some reason. The NHL is the fifth biggest sports league on the planet. It's much smaller than the NBA (only about half the size in terms of revenue and attendance) and the NFL (only about a third the size). Yet, it also doesn't have relegation and so clearly someone wants to see those teams just playing for some reason. In between the NBA and the NHL is a smallish league called "The English Premiere League". People tune in and watch the games from around the world, but mostly from places the TV rights aren't particularly valuable so it can't really capitalize on that (yet). It happens to have relegation. But it would be a mistake to think that anyone watches it because they love watching bottom of the league teams fight for survival. Relegation is obviously not the reason people watch the league, and people would continue to keep watching it even without relegation. Sooner or later, the big teams are going to agree to form their own league which won't have relegation (the way they decided they'd had enough of the league structure when they formed the Premier League 28 years ago in the first place).
National 1 because those sports are widely watched fans love those sports. MLS is not very watched in American. Americans who watch soccer always watch the prem bundesliaga or la liga. If mls got relegation then it would make the sport unique which would draw people to watch it.
Right now there’s way less stress in the MLS, and losing doesn’t really matter. In fact, one could say it actually helps clubs because it gets them a higher draft pick for the next season. Relegation/promotion is a must if the league wants to become more competitive both domestically and internationally.
ToxicPickle I’m well aware. I watch all American sports and I live in the US, but since many who watch this channel are European I didn’t think they’d understand what I meant if I just said “teams are tanking”
Relegation does not make a league more competitive. American leagues aren't less competitive because of structure. Is Germany really competitive league when one team is bigger/richer than all others together? Also, making the league competitive internationally isn't as important as making it successful at home. The only thing they need to worry about is making the game entertaining and sell tickets, too many games you see highlights of sparsely attended games (but supposedly attendance isn't a problem). Besides, no one is paying the idiotic overinflated MLS fees (the increase over last 5-6yr is insane) to then go down to D2 for a few years. I'd be more worried that the increase in teams means that there will be more teams in the next few yrs ago will be on verge of moving/bankruptcy, because I know this sounds weird to some, but you can't lose money forever in sports Unless you're the WNBA. And this was BEFORE the Corona situation.
No point in football if there's no end goal for everyone nor any threat for poor performance. The corporate greed set up is really ruining some of the truly amazing football moments for Americans.
Yes there is, it's not winning. People don't understand the American sports culture. We want to win everything it's not a clubs fault if they have owners that don't put out.
Corporations should be able to do anything they like, even kill indiscriminately. That's how we like it in America, if you don't like it you can get out.
The system is set up for the rich owners by the rich owners, football isn't their concern, money is. Sucks that the world in general seems to work that way, i wish the owners of the teams cared about football first and foremost but they're mostly just robotic business men.
Because the people at the top make enough money as is. Why change from their point of view? MLS needs more than Pro/Rel to correct the frailties with the league.
Unfortunately that’s not true unless you had proper financial backing teams who have won their leagues in non league have been relegated because of their stadium not having enough capacity etc whilst it’s technically true it’s almost impossible as even some professional clubs can’t find financial backing for e.g Bury who were in league 1 or 2 who are now bust
@@justsomeguy2743 the point is that there's no rule that forbids it. yeah, there's the economical factor, but say a billionaire decides to invest in creating a football team (soccer) in a small town starting in the lowest, non-professional division, nothing forbids that team from climbing the ranks to become premier league champions eventually
Bournemouth came from league one to become premier league mainstays in like 4/5 years it’s more probable than you think Plus AFC Wimbledon’s as an example of a local club created that’s now professional
@@celebrim1 In Italy we have had loads of teams that came up from the 3rd or even 4th tier to Serie A, like Sassuolo, ChievoVerona, Carpi, Spezia and many others. Some had little to no success in Serie A and were promptly relegated like Carpi, others like Chievo or Sassuolo went on to play decades at the top level. The important thing is that even the "unsuccesful" ones like Carpi gave their supporters something to believe in and brought money and jobs to their towns.
I've said this a thousand times in years gone by.. MLS NEEDS relegation and promotion...it will make for more competitive football all around..and they definitely need to join the east and west conference into one full league table..
It doesn't. It doesn't exist in any other US major sports league. It doesn't need to exist in this circumstance. It's the most tired argument ridden with fallacies.
@@jonathanwilliams3713 Very hard to have half american sports rules and half actual football rules though. You don't want a proper league table or relegation but you want to make transfers with overseas clubs and you want to loan our players. I wouldn't loan my players out to an MLS club because they aren't learning the true values of football, I am sure many director of football staffs have thought the exact same thing. MLS is seen as a joke around Europe, they need to do something.
Jonathan Williams the reason it doesn’t exist in other sports leagues in the US is because the NBA, MLB, NFL, literally all hold monopolies in that sport in the world. Football is different. Leagues compete with one another around the world and the MLS is trying to model after American leagues but this isn’t the NBA. Football is football. While clubs in Europe are competing for high end revenues and high levels. The mls is busy protecting the investors rather than allowing competition to actually take place. So, if the MLS would like to actually be a respected league, they need promotion and regulation. And it would actually work well with the way USL is structured.
Second div teams pay a lower franchise fee, next 4 years, no relegation, one team promoted div 2 each year gets the big league they want and in 4 years time no one can argue the franchise fee, as there should be 4 worse teams than the the existing mls teams, if a current mls team cant beat a team promoted from a lower league they deserve to be relegated.
@@jhayemdoubleyou if he understood business he'd know no company would invest 200+ million with a chance they go down in 4yrs. Investing and giving money is two different things.
I'd like to see pro/rel Step 1. start MLS2(The second tier) keep the requirements light to enter like stadium capacities of 5-10K Step 2. Work to make this a good development league with adequate number of teams. Step 3. Introduce the pro/rel system with stipulations that are tough to meet for most teams, like stadium cap of 30K plus and have an elimination game too. Basically make it hard to get relegated. This would take years to get too so the fat cats that own teams now will make money for at least 7-10 more years and 80% will still be the top tier 20 years from now
Adam Schreiber the main issue is that the USSF should be handling Pro Rel. They would have to say “MLS is the top and USL Championship and below are the lower tiers. Because the US is so big, there would have to be a system where the bottom team in each conference are relegated to USL championship. Top team in each conference are automatically promoted to MLS. Then the next bottom team in the division plays the next top team in the conference to battle for the last two spots in a two-leg game.
dumb asf, no need for any restrictions, if ur a better team ur a better team becuase ur stadium is small doesnt mean u shouldnt be allowed to progress.
@@nickevans5589 I agree, besides many current MLS and USL teams still play in "nfl "college football" or "baseball" stadiums and no one is complaining. smaller clubs can always rent or move to larger stadiums within their city/area limits. mls has like 27 teams and usl has 36? this is madness! bring the pro/rel already.
This NEEDS to happen. I don’t watch or support MLS at all for this exact reason even though I live very close to LAFC’s glorious stadium. This isn’t any other American sport where the owners and sponsors can just collect their money no matter what soccer is special and until we treat it with the same respect as they do in the rest of the world I won’t be watching at all. Totally disagree with their final takes that because it’s smarter business other leagues should be getting rid of pro/rel to be more like us. That typical American business over integrity attitude is why I’ll never support American soccer.
1). Almost every fan calling for relegation supports a foreign team that is not threatened by relegation. 2). I have experienced relegation twice as a fan (Southampton FC). Do you think that media coverage is minimal now? Just wait until your team is in the second tier of MLS. Will ESPN FC, Extra Time Radio, State of the Union, or the Total Soccer Show talk about them? NO. 3). England is slightly smaller than Louisiana. They struggle to charter flights now. Imagine the logistical challenges for the second tier. 4). Just because the European Leagues are more established does not mean that their systems are perfect. Competitive balance and stadium environment are far more important to me than international prestige. Minnesota United fan.
No relegation actually reinforces poor performance, while having relegation would punish poor performance. It only makes sense, it's too bad relegation won't happen.
@@national1866 Most of those sports are exclusive to North America minus basketball and baseball. Baseball is still primary dominated by North America and a few asian countries. While basketball is completely dominated by Americans with a growing number of international players doing well, NOT international teams. My previous argument was not about whether MLS should do relegation from an American league perspective, but stating the fact that relegation results in bottom feeder teams fighting for staying in the league whereas American style leagues reward bad performance with better draft picks.
You can tell you've never actually questioned your own assumptions. Do you know what industry a professional sports league is in? So why would you want to punish poor performance? Hint: if you say competiveness, how competitive internally is say the leagues in Sweden, Austria, Portugal, or Holland? For that matter, how really competitive is the league in Germany or France? Dynasties where a single team dominates for a decade or more are typical in Europe. European sport leagues are rather the opposite of competitive. Mostly they are foreordained conclusions, and at best they have 2-4 teams that are competitive with each other and the rest exist to sell tickets so those 2-4 teams can make money. Pro/rel without league profit sharing is a pyramid scheme. And it's not clear to me that in the long run pro/rel can survive along side profit sharing.
@@celebrim1 But it has nothing to do with pro/rel, in England there is both pro/rel and profit sharing. You can't compare USA with one European country. You need to compare USA with entire Europe and one US state with one European country. Compare Ohio with Belgium, they have same population. Ohio has two teams, Cincinnati and Columbus Crew. There is no chance that FC Cleveland or any other team from Ohio can be US champion, because they don't have theoretical chance of promotion and competing. But every Belgium club can be champion of Europe theoretically, from big teams like Anderlecht, Club Brugge, Genk or Standard Liege to any small team. So how can you say that European leagues are not competitive, if there is only two Ohio teams that can be champions and thousand of Belgium teams with same chance. European Champions League is very competitive. And you have to be qualified to compete there by your national league first. But I like what you said about profit sharing.
@@goranmilic442 First of all, "theoretically". In practice, small town teams have no chance to earn promotion much less win in top flight leagues or become a "Champion's League" team. Your comparison - while a really important one - doesn't work out the way you think it does. There is a lot to break down here, probably more than I can manage in one post. First, while it's true that Ohio has two top flight soccer teams, it's instructive to note that they aren't remotely the big sport teams in the state. Ohio also has the Cleveland Browns, Cleveland Indians/Guardians, Cincinatti Reds, Cincinatti Bengals, and Columbus Blue Jackets - all of which are bigger than the two soccer clubs. Heck, the amateur team Ohio State Buckeyes, is bigger than any of the soccer clubs. So if Ohio was Belgium, the reason that the soccer in Ohio is smaller than Belgium is that most of the sports entertainment money is in other sports. If in fact the Ohio was a basically single sport state like Belgium, and all those clubs played soccer, then they'd be much bigger than Belgium clubs like Brugge or Genk. So if you do compare Belgium to Ohio, you find they aren't so similar. A Cinncinatti team just competed in the National Championship, just in a different sport. And it's that multisport culture that is a big part of the reason that first there aren't as many professional clubs as in Belgium, but that those clubs are bigger. They're bigger because they have to be more competitive because they have to compete for fans and viewers not just with other clubs in the same sport, but clubs in different sports as well. Additionally, we have a ton of amateur scholastic athletics in High School and college that fills up the niche that small community professional teams do in Europe. So, it really is instructive to compare US sports to the European market, because things are so much more competitive on this side of the pond. Pro/Rel is a system that whatever it does in theory, in practice it transfers money from small clubs to big clubs. Small clubs take out loans to try to compete. The winner of that investment isn't the small club, but the big club that gets the lion's share of the revenue out of that competition. Eventually the smaller club is relegated, finds itself in debt, and on average goes into bankruptcy every 20 to 25 years. The situation has gotten worse and worse since the 1970s. Prior to TV, pro/rel mostly worked because most of the revenue was gated ticket sells and the smaller clubs had 1/2 to 1/3rd the revenue of the bigger clubs. But since then, the bigger clubs have been stealing the fans of the smaller clubs as well as profiting more from merchandise and TV rights. Now, it's not unusual in Europe for smaller clubs in Europe's open leagues to have 1/30th of the revenue of a larger team in the same league. And that's totally the result of pro/rel because those smaller teams are terrible investments because of the chance that they get relegated. Bankruptsy is a normal part of small clubs. It happens way more often than they compete at the top level in some theoretical Cinderella story. Since my post, the situation in European sports has become even more stark. The English football pyramid is in danger of falling apart. To stop the bleeding, League 2 and League 1 are introducing salary caps. But these salary caps gaurantee the two leagues will be much smaller than the MLS, and unable to really compete in Championship if promoted, which means that haves will get richer and the have nots poorer - losing fans and money to teams that actually have a chance to compete. In the long run, starving the bottom half of the Championship is going to kill it as a competitive league. It's going to start looking more and more like the other domestic leagues in Europe, and if it does it's TV rights will get less valuable. Which means the teams in it will be even more dependent on parachute payments from the EPL. Back to Belgium, Belgium is in talks with FIFA to try to get FIFA to approve a merger of the Juliper and Eredivisie, forming a multi-national 'domestic' league similar to the MLS in USA/Canada. The reason they HAVE to do this if they don't want to go bankrupt is that super teams like Brugge and Ajax don't make any money playing in their own domestic league. The Champion's League is itself already almost as big as the EPL, and it's where all the money is. Consolidating the Belgium and Dutch domestic leagues will hopefully make the TV rights to that new league big enough to fund real competition in the Champion's Leauge. And if you don't see how this is inevitably leading to a closed European Super League, you don't have enough background in economics.
Exactly teams are too safe and complacency. If MLS wants to be a bigger league there needs to be more competition. I live in the US and wish to see MLS rise to the level of European leagues
As a Parma Calcio fan, i watched every game, even when they got relegated from the highest league into the 4th tier. I'm too busy to watch more than 2 games a week, so i only watch my local sounders or seahawks game if i have time. If i missed a Parma vs Juventus game, they might not play them again next season or more, but Sounders vs Whitecaps guaranteed to be played every year, so nothing is really at stake. Even if my sounders have 0 win this season, they would still play in the same league anyway next season, while get rewarded with first draft pick. Love my local teams, but the "competition" is a total joke. It just don't feel the same as watching the likes of Eibar, a team with 5000 supporters got promoted to the top flight and play against Lionel Messi, because they fought hard and earned the promotion and the chance to face the big teams and world class players in the top league.
Are people completely oblivious to the fact that there is no where near enough money in US soccer for ProRel. Parachute payments, interest for TV deals for USL for public viewing, and the amount of small market teams makes it impossible for now. Maybe in a decade it’s possible.
There are poorer leagues with pro/rel so that doesn't really stack up. Plus MLS waste money on aging foreign talent to try and drum up interest - in a system where they might stand to lose a lot for a dip in performance you'd get your money more wisely invested.
someoneinoffensive exactly at the moment the mls is seen as a retirement home for footballers which the mls don’t mind as their name will sell a few shirts, but if you add relegation and promotion it may incentivise clubs to use youth players and local players rather than buying a 38 year old who was once world class who doesn’t care about the club just the pay check, it also gives smaller clubs the chance to grow and it could make the sport more desirable in the us in general
Not in the next 25 years even. Those poorer leagues with pro/rel are farmers leagues with one team that is worth more than Atlanta United, and the bottom teams in the same league are worth only as much as USL teams. Is that really the structure that you call "more competitive"?
Do you really think people will pay to watch a lower division league? Relegation works in theory, but it won’t work in America because you need the lower league to be successful as well.
I would watch a lower division team if it was what was available. I often went to Atlanta Silverbacks games. I've seen many minor league hockey and baseball games. If you live in a small town, it's the minor leagues if you love sports.
They forgot to mention that the MLS would attract far more TV viewers with promotion/relegation- which means more a lot more money for owners in general over time. The level of football would also increase greatly because players would be hungrier. Scouting and youth academies would become crucial.
@@oyaml1211 Deloitte did a study on US football (soccer) fans desire for promotion/relegation a few years ago. There are other studies on this online as well.
@@BabsW Was that the same study funded by the owner of Miami's NASL team? I bet it was. The NASL should have tried to put a better product on the field and deal with financial stability rather than try to sue their way into relevance. Pro/rel will not attract more viewers. That is ridiculous, magical thinking. The MLS haters would find another excuse to dismiss the league. With pro/rel, academies would wither as they cost a lot of money. Rather than take the time to invest in long term development, a bottom dwelling team would buy talent at an inflated price just to keep above the line.
Mitch Walker kraft is loaded yet the only real dp brought in this far that has been a big hit was Jermaine Jones and they only got him from a blind draw. Only recently has he decided to invest now that the patriots are in transition and Bruce Arena has been on him for it
People complaining about US not having pro/rel system have no real knowledge about Geography. USA is a massive country with an area of *9 million sq. km* which is significantly larger than England (130 thousand sq.km), Germany (357 thousand sq.km), Spain (500 thousand sq.km), France (543 thousand sq.km), Italy (301 thousand sq.km), and many other european nations *combined* . Let's say USA does have a pro/rel system and teams from small local clubs of _Oregon, North Dakota, Arizona,Texas, kansas, Florida, Wisconsin, Maine, West Virginia_ end up on the 3rd division.. (for Europeans perspective, it is like having teams from small towns of _Ireland, Denmark, Latvia, Portugal, Serbia, Libya, Egypt, Iraq, Russia, Kazhakhstan,_ all in a 3rd division battling for pro/rel) Imagine the travel cost and travel exhaustion the team have to undergo every week, and for what..? to get promoted or demoted to a new tier which may not be as prestigious as the first tier.
@@celebrim1 it would add more interest to the league from fans, increasing overall revenue, because clubs actually have to fight to stay up. it makes the beautiful game exciting, otherwise teams don't really mind if they lose or not, because there isn't the threat of being relegated.
@@celebrim1 European leagues are massively richer than MLS clubs. Even Watford in the 2nd tier of England are worth more than New England Revs and Chicago Fire.
@@wthwasthat8884 Well, I mean, of course they are. They are like 120 year old clubs with international fan bases playing in a nation where soccer is the premier sport in their nation as opposed to being the fifth most popular sport in the nation that holds a negative opinion with most American sporting fans. Where you are going wrong is that the value of the European leagues is irrelevant to pro/rel because pro/rel didn't create those teams value. Pro/rel isn't the cause of European leagues having high value. And one really good example of that is Leichester City. After Leichester City went bankrupt in 2002, it was purchased by an investment group strongly associated with the Thai monarchy for less than what it would take you to buy an MLS team these days. The value Leichester City has comes from all the money that investment group dumped into the team, which in turn is motivated less by business concerns than it is by billionaire playboys wanting a fancy soccer toy. If it's a matter of value, the NFL, MLB, and NBA are more valuable than the EPL. MLS is a 25 year old league operating in a country that already has 4 of the 5 largest sporting leagues in the world. Of course it's not yet more valuable than teams in England. It wouldn't be under any circumstance.
@@marcoroberts9462 While I'm at this, it doesn't actually increase overall revenue or overall investment. That's unsound economics. What pro/rel does is create additional risk. And additional risk doesn't encourage investors to invest more in their investment in order to avoid "punishment". Investors tend to be risk adverse. The more risk you give them, the more unwilling they are to invest. What pro/rel does is drive money away from the down market teams, many of which can't even borrow money from the banks to invest with because the investment is considered to risky. Look it up if you don't believe me. The result is a system where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. It doesn't create dynamic leagues. It creates leagues were the only stability is at the top, and leagues where in England only 48 teams have gone bankrupt in the last 20 years. That drives away investment. On paper there is no reason the EPL shouldn't more valuable than the NFL. The EPL as an entertainment product reaches a far larger audience. But it's worth far less than the NFL because of the pernicious effects of pro/rel on its economics.
I was surprised when I discovered mls didn’t have regulation. It makes the league so much more competitive and adds another layer of drama to the game.
Having a Lottery Style Draft like the NBA mixed with Relegation/Promotion could be very effective in making things competitive. Because it doesn’t give incentives for tanking and teams will want to be competitive. And the draft will allow them to get some of the good prospects without making the top teams monopolies that hoard the best players. Fans will have actual star players they can grow with and support.
Also, dump the draft, and do what the rest of the world does, sign and develop at a youth level and buy at the professional level. Our American style of player acquisition doesn't work for this sport.
@@mersihahadzic2365 it's impossible until FIFA or our FA does something about it. Owners spent millions on a place in MLS they are not just going to give it up.
Is there any evidence at all this happens in Europe? I mean, what do you mean by "competitive"? The EPL is the most competitive it has ever been (but not the most dominate it has ever been) and it's came about as a result of league profit sharing. League profit sharing is moving closer to the American model, and not further from it.
@@celebrim1 pro/rel makes it far more competitive. fighting to stay up incentivises teams to do whatever it takes to perform well, and this breeds competition, and added intensity. trust me, I'm a West Ham fan, I know what a relegation battle feels like.
As an MLS fan I really, really don’t want Pro/Rel. I’m an SKC fan and we could have one bad year and get dropped, then we’d have to wait two years before we could be contenders for MLS cup.
$200 MILLION is the cost of a new MLS franchise. Promotion and regulation would be Great. It will NEVER happen. USL teams are worth $5 Million. The league would never allow its investors to lose that kind of money. No one would invest in a new franchise if there was the possibility their investment could 98% of its value from one year to the next. They just didn’t sign up for that. Can you imagine the years of lawsuits the first team would file that lost $195 million off the value of its franchise??? Be great. Not going to happen.
@@abnrgrtr No thats an educated statement. Coming from an actually educated country. Money.and retirees. China and the U.S have this strongly in common. 2-3 names in tens of thousands is not a credible reason to give the wealthiest nation on earth with a 350 mill talent pool any credibility at all.its all an absolute joke.🤣 100s of millions of dollars. 300 million people. 2-3 talents. The issue with americans is post bush era they shockingly think they are taken seriously anymore in any way.
@@bakedandhectic2096 Ah. Got it. You've made it clear your ignorance is not simply limited to matters of football. Thanks for clarifying. Hope you can find some happiness in your life.
Teams like LAFC with 30 plus investors wouldn't exist if you have pro/rel in MLS. You would see more teams fold because of debt and selling their best players to teams with ownership groups with money. MLS may not have pro/rel but any team can win every year. In Europe you have top 4 - 5 teams and every other team is happy about not been relegated lol as successful yr.
As long as the promotion and relegation isn't like in Mexico where you can buy to keep your spot in the 1st Division, I can see it improving the league and attracting more players from around the world
The problem with pro/reg is the vast majority of clubs can't stay afloat going up or down. My local team is in the npsl (4th tier) doesn't have the money to compete in a pro league (tier 3 and up) they would go bankrupt so fast. And they finished near the top of the league 4 straight years. In a pro/reg they would have gone up and been done for. And so many clubs are like that. Part of that most ckubs haven't been in business to gain enough capital. Nearly all clubs in America are 30 years or younger and of those more than half of them are less than 10 years. What was it the average semi pro soccer club lives 2 years and dies? Teams need to be financially stable first before we can have a pro/reg convo
no las teams get promoted or do well the board invests more into the club they wouldnt go bankrupt, cos some teams would struggle if the board didnt but its in their best interests to
Here in Europe, you can always decline being promoted if you think it would be too expensive for your club. But being promoted to higher league usually means more money from attendance, sponsors and TV rights. You can't assume that your club would have same budget in 4th and 3rd league. When my club got promoted from 2nd to 1st tier, it raised his budget to bring better players, that is more expensive, but also there is more money to be made.
MLS keeps expanding and more than half the teams make the playoffs, the regular season is being diluted, it will be pulling teeth to get the owners to agree but it will happen out of financial necessity
Honestly, I don’t think having promotion/relegation would improve things much sure it would effect how players, clubs/ owners think about the game. If we want to improve the quality of MLS we need to rework what the biggest trophy is. Here we prioritize the MLS Cup trophy over the supporters shield which kills the desire to have the best record at the end of the season. Instead of fighting for the best record in the league we are OK with a club taking 4th or 5th in a conference and they can easily eliminate the supporters shield winner win the MLS cup trophy and be called the champs of the entire league. Broadcasters are then surprised when the team with the best record throughout the season gets beat in the playoffs is it really that surprising? I’m a sounders supporter and we’ve won two MLS Cup trophies and a supporters shield. If I had to chose between winning a Supporters shield or winning MLS cup I would prefer to win the Supporters Shield.
My honest opinion is that not having pro/rel is good for MLS. In England when you talk about who is winning the league it's always about the top 6. In MLS last year they said LAFC or Atlanta. Well not 1 of those 2 where in the MLS finals. Like Torronto Won MLS in 2017 then they came 9th 3 to last in the east the next year, and if the bottom 3 teams in each cof going down they whould never been in the finals in 2019.
MLS is already in the top 10 leagues in revenues and top 8 in average attendance to stadiums. I would say MLS in 25 years has done pretty good with its model. And it will only get better.
@@oyaml1211 I simply cannot wrap my brain around the fact that people don't understand that owners who've paid north of 300 million dollars for franchises are not going to just accept this concept. It will not happen. At least not for many decades.
MLS should be in the top 15 revenue as it's located on the top economy on the world. if MLS wants to be mentioned with Serie A, La Liga or Premier League, you need relegation. Otherwise MLS will only attract 35 year old past their prime foreign players
@@joeygarcia6810 lol. Another ridiculous comment. First of all, MLS is only 25 yrs old in a country with other very well-established sports. And no, it does NOT need that to rival those leagues. Only in the minds of Eurosnobs who think everything has to be done EXACTLY like they do is that the case. How did they get close to the top 10 of the world without it then? Explain that. As far as the 35 yr olds comment, just proves you have no clue what you're talking about.
This is an important part of the future of this sport in the US, it's just not time for it yet. We need to grow the USL alongside MLS. Give it another decade at least. Go Rowdies.
"It shouldn't be about money! It should be about the game!" say those with absolutely no investment at stake. It's easy to be brave with someone else's money. Talk all you want about Pro/Rel. The MLS isn't listening. The USSF only pretends to listen. If you want it, you will have to start another league. Good luck finding the money.
@@BabsW You'd have fewer viewers. I don't know what kind of numbers USL teams pull but they wouldn't replace what you lose. Worst MLS team last year had the third highest attendance in the country.
@@jhayemdoubleyou If a top USL team got promoted, they would gain an even bigger following at their matches. I was more referring to TV viewers though.
As MLS continues to expand, why not have pro-rel within the MLS. Currently we have 26 teams, why not split into 2 divisions of 12 and 14 teams with pro-rel among the divisions. As expansion continues, teams in each division will increase. Further, then you can think of adding a 3rd division too maybe with USL or NASL teams. This way, the league is effectively closed but there is promotion relegation. Second division teams will face loses but they will be minimized as they are still part of the MLS. As well as there will be more incentive to stay up as profits for top division teams will increase as only less than half of MLS teams will have a chance for high profile games and the playoffs.
This. I've been thinking this for some time. MLS "regular seasons" seems almost pointless at times. As long as you make the playoffs, you're okay. There is *very* little of that "win-or-die" vibe during the regular season.
It's the truth literally every time an mls fan asks a European hater what they don't like about mls they always say it's because we call it soccer and the way we structure the league
@@rlubin9356 I don't care If the league structure is different now, I never cared about MLS and I couldn't care less now. And no offence but like 70% of europeans don't like the mls because of the americans, the people.
@@danio6704 we average just as many fans as ligue 1 and almost as much as serie a. Theres only a few bad fanbases in MLS that average 15k but their stadium location is partly to blame for the lack of attendances.
A farmer's league is typically defined as a league where only one or two teams are well funded, and the remainder of teams in the league are made up of (by a slight exaggeration) local farmer's who have just come in from the fields. A good example of an actual Farmer's League is Portugal's Primeira Liga, which has two teams (Porto and Benefica) better funded than the MLS's most valuable team Atlanta FC, but which at the bottom of the table features teams with less funds than some teams in the USL (America's second division). As a result, you often have to go back decades to find the last time many of the teams earned a win against Porto or Benefica, and Benefica actually holds the record for the most consecutive wins by a pro team. Quite arguably, by this definition, Ligue 1 and the Bundesliga are also Farmer's Leagues, as they are overwhelmingly dominated by teams like Bayern and PSV and the bottom ranks of the table are teams with like a 30th of the funds of their larger "peers". The MLS is rather much the opposite of a "Farmer's League". With profit sharing agreements between the teams, salary caps, and tight rules on player acquisition all the MLS teams are pretty close to peers and capable of winning on (as they say in the USA) "any given Sunday". Moreover, with increasing profitability is increasing quality. While there are probably like 17 leagues where the best team is better than the worst team in the MLS, there are probably only like 6 where the best MLS teams couldn't compete precisely because most pro/rel based leagues are so lope-sided in favor of the largest teams. Pro/rel is a winner take all format where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. It leads to stagnation and predictability. It will never work in the USA where most sport fans are used to a far more entertaining sports product.
The USSF needs to implement called 'the trio response': 1) Mass youth development on local, district, state and nationwide levels 2) Invest in grassroot football - mass grassroot football equals mass youth production 3) Promotion/Relegation - with the MLS being the US premier league: - MLS - NASL - USL Championship - USL League One - Then go to a Belgium league style of a West and East Amateur/Semi-Pro division - Then it does to state/provincial Amateur divisions
I think a better solution (considering US's size, would be to have MLS (20 teams), then split the next division into 2x15 (or 20) with winners of each group being promoted, and a playoff between the 2nd ranked teams. It would cut travel costs and be more efficient.
It will be great... in 20 years. USL clubs are not financially or structurally ready to be in MLS. Many play in minor league baseball and/or very low capacity stadiums. It won’t work until the infrastructure of the lower leagues meets the standard of the MLS
The USL owners need the opportunity to be promoted into the MLS to have real reasons to invest. Promotion/relegation could start out with 1 MLS team relegated, and 1 USL promoted. If the MLS announce that they would implement this system in 3-5 years, there would be a ton of investment into USL teams and competition between them to get promotion. So the players, stadiums and infrastructure would improve dramatically to secure promotion.
I love the idea of promotion/relegation, but unfortunately it will probably never happen because of the financial impact of it. That's the reason the New York Cosmos never made a return to the MLS. They couldn't afford it. In order for it to work you need a stadium capable of holding an MLS match, as well as the market for TV deals and licensing rights. Alot of the USL teams simply don't have/can't afford to do things like that
It’s funny how everyone in Europe wants MLS to introduce promotion/relegation except for all the big clubs in Europe are jealous of MLS for not having to use promotion/relegation
Do you actually believe that clubs like Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern, Liverpool, etc, or us, the fans, are jealous of anything that happens in the MLS?? Espn is a US channel, watch European ones, and I guarantee no one talks about the MLS... The world doesn't revolve around you guys.
Why would they be jealous? the big clubs aren't affected by it since they usually finish at the top half every season. Promotion/relegation adds more competition in the league for the smaller teams since your spot isn't guaranteed
Liverpool has more fans in the us than any mls team as does Barcelona, Real Madrid, Manchester United and even Celtic, they all finish top half of the table every year and only united and Celtic are currently in debt (more because of terrible owners) theirs a reason players rarely ever go from the us to a top team it’s always the other way round with the exception being that the player joining the mls sees this as his retirement plan and joins for hefty wages for a couple years whilst living the la life style then retires. the only generally class American in Europe at this time is Pulisic and he isn’t even fully American! The mls needs pro/rel to give teams motivation
This is exactly why it is hard now for me to follow american sports leagues even my beloved NHL. What motivation should fans of terrible on ice performance teams have to buy tickets or merchandise?
Love of the game. What motivation do the fans in Germany outside of Bayern have in buying tickets or merchandise? The real answer is that they love the sport and are loyal to their municipality. And, because most Europeans only are single sport fans, it's not like they'll move their money into another sport if their team is terrible. It's not like the situation in an American city where if the football team sucks, but the baseball team is succeeding, that the citizens are going to start buying baseball merchandise. Look at a team like Everton. It's been comfortably at about 8th place on the EPL table for like 20 years now. It's got enough money that no promoted team is ever going to knock it off. But it's not got a big enough fan base to ever have the money to go after the top 4 places on the table, because in Europe with no salary caps and pro-rel then money talks and management is secondary. In some senses, the big European teams have never before now ever had to manage their teams well. And the smaller European teams, before now, couldn't manage their team well enough to do anything about it. Profit sharing of the TV revenues is changing that, and as it does, it will end pro/rel in Europe.
Promotion and relegation is a must in football. At the beginning, during and especially end of the season, every team is fighting its own battle. Top teams are fighting for titles, mid table team are fighting to push for the top and lower teams are fighting for survival. The last games between lower teams bring some of the best drama and entertainment.
And it is pretty much the same teams in each of the three categories every time. And, TV viewership proves pretty much that it doesn't bring fan interest, which is exactly why first the EPL and later La Liga adopted some form of league wide profit sharing to increase the parity between the teams in the league and with it the chances for upsets. And, you can see by Leicester's cinderella run up the table what the consequences of that will be. But what is good for the league as a whole is potentially devastating to the economic model of the larger clubs, who are used to taking out massive loans to pay for top players in order to ensure future revenue. Look at what is happening in Barca and Man U. If those teams fold on their loans, then there will be a continent wide investor scare.
I think there is no point in discussing this issue..... If the USFA want their league to be more watchable, more exciting, clubs to be more accountable, they have to implement relegation/promotion. This allows more heated competition, makes sure clubs and players have something to lose if they don't perform. Clubs have something to lose if they don't invest and scout better players and find good coaches. I understand why the corporate run clubs of US are afraid of this, that think they will lose money and stadium revenue etc. But if football/soccer is to progress in MLS and US as whole, something like this must happen.....
I would love to see MLS broken into an Eastern Conference and a Western Conference, each with twenty teams that operated on a points system for a championship. The conferences could play each other in a tournament-style format that included clubs from Canada, Mexico, and potentially Central American countries for a North American Cup. Expanding MLS from 26 to 40 teams would offer owners protection and incentive for staying in the top flight. Just an idea
It bankrupts teams in Europe as well, but with no other sports to invest money in, the money has to come back somewhere. In the USA, investors would just turn to more reliable investments.
There is a marketing problem with second divisions. Instead of following one league, promotion relegation has the potential to have fans follow two leagues at once.
The MLS needs to be a respected league worldwide before this is a possibility. Solidify itself as a league who doesn’t let Liga MX beat them every year in the CONCACAF champions cup and a league who spends more money on developing homegrown players.
This is true. The Championship, while competitive, is an economic basket case. Incidentally, the German federation - noting that the Bundesliga because it lacks competitiveness is a less interesting entertainment product than the EPL - is in talks to institute salary caps. But salary caps, even more so than profit sharing, are incompatible with the traditional pro/rel model. If introduced, it would just push teams like Bayern back into talks with other big European teams to form a European super-league - one that would lack pro/rel.
Parity and salary cap won’t allow for promotion relegation. When every team is at same level of how much they can spend. Get rid of the Salary Cap! And let teams run themselves.
A way to actually do pro/rel in mls could be to still use eastern and western conferences, but the usl leagues below are split the same way. The bottom 3 or 4 in a conference are relegated, and the teams fight for a conference title. Then do a post-season tournament for the top 4 teams in both conferences play for a mls title
I would love to see relegation and promotion personally. I just think the financial gap between the MLS and USL are too far apart for relegated teams to survive financially and promoted teams to compete.
Beatiful thing with pro/rel is that every team eventually plays in league that suits him best. You got promoted or relegated to the league you should be. There is no reason to believe that top clubs in USL wouldn't be better than bad teams in MSL.
Without watching the video a pro/rel would never work in the MLS. Going to a system that is popular among people halfway across the world rather than sticking with a system that is popular among people in its own continant isn’f a strong business strategy...MLS is growing and the reason is because Americans are starting to watch it and enjoy it due to its simplicity in correlating with other american sports leagues (with a playoffs and set teams and whatnot). In europe the pro/rel might work but it would never work in America
Create new pro clubs connected to Universities but keep College football separate. This allows for a career of D1 players who are talented to develop. Keep these new clubs at MLS division 2 for the first season then work in promotion/relegation.
@@subifyouhatetiktokandreddit234 Eh. All the Rusian teams are in that small part of Russia west of the Ural Mountains. And China's teams are all in eastern China. They're not spread throughtout like the MLS.
NFFC fan here. I wonder if MLS fans are ready for the stress levels that relegation brings. It's worse than you think, even if people have already told you that. Relegation is savage. Not just for the clubs, which are instantly in financial trouble, but for the individual fans as well, there's levels of shame, loss of self-respect, all manner of psychological blows that come with it. I dunno if that would truly start to make it's mark until a decade or more after a pro/rel system is implemented. Also people make valid points about owners paying for a team only to see it relegated. Even though the system in England is brutal, I don't know how MLS teams could survive the financial hit given the lower financial power of the league. I'd definitely take more interest in the MLS if they did implement it. It's just not as simple as a lot of people think.
I mean, how else can you hold clubs accountable? how many years go by and the same clubs are at the bottom of the table? I guess they suffer in terms of attendance but, it doesn’t improve the game or the league. Then again, if there is relegation, clubs that get kicked will just fail. Not enough folks will care to support a team thats not in the mls.
If a team doesn't offer an entertaining and competitive product, they lose fans or the fans decide to spend their money elsewhere that year. As a result, all teams are motivated to provide some sort of entertainment product to the community. The same clubs are on the bottom of the table every year in Europe as well. The bottom two or three switch out year to year, but the rest mostly trade spots 6 through 16. In most in pro/rel leagues the same clubs fill up spots 1-4 year after year with migration out of that club measured in decades. The EPL is the most dynamic it has ever been, but it's occurred as the result of profit sharing and parachute payments by the bigger clubs to try to soften the financial impact of relegation and try to produce a less boring product where the winners are less predictable. In other words, the EPL is trying to become more like an American sports league.
@@oyaml1211 what, maybe in money terms, But without relagation /promotion what's the point same old teams year in year out nothing to fight for, just look at your mens international team never won world Cup but your ladies International team has multiple times so perhaps that's a sign of a stale league were players don't have to fight with all they've got plus more,
@@iancreedy5636 The same old teams you say? You mean the same 3 teams winning the title every year because of promotion/relegation? Like the Scottish premier league? Like Serie A? No competition whatsoever. You said same teams. Like the same newly promoted teams getting relegated after their first year in just about every European league. The promotion/relegation structure is not some perfect system dropped down from heaven. It has its flaws as well. It's funny that you mention the women when our women's league doesn't have promotion/relegation either. They have a playoff system just like every other American sports league. That goes to show that Pro/rel has nothing to do with the World cup. You ever heard "There's more than one way to skin a cat"? The American sports structure works well for Americans. Promotion/relegation works well for European football leagues. Just agree to disagree. You guys act like complete snobs coming on MLS videos trying to tell the MLS what they should do when you aren't fans in the first place. Let the fans tell the MLS what the MLS should do to entertain them. The MLS structure is good, like Mario said, as long as they continue to follow the blueprint of the NFL/NBA/MLB and other American sports leagues. We don't have to do it your way to be competitive or entertaining. Just deal with it
An idea of left field: How about a PER/REL system based upon an accumulation of points over a 3 season span? This will provide some protection from a "poor season" and allow some clubs to establish themselves
The hope for soccer in Canada and the United States in 20 years down the road is that USL & the Canadian Premier League are the lower divisions and will be included under the MLS umbrella to add the promotion/relegation
It's also far and away the best managed second league financially, with rules on player spending and investment that ensure teams turn profits and don't go bankrupt every 10 years like teams in the European Championship do.
So if football actually takes off in the US and every teams in the 1st division you will end up with 50 teams or more in the MLS so eventually you will have to have a 2nd league and promotion and relegation its just a matter of time, its why everywhere has it.
No, that's not how it would work on America. At most, the MLS will have 32 teams like the NFL. No one is saying the NFL needs relegation because there's "too many teams". The MLS would be fine without it too
I'm all for it but the problem is that people struggle to even watch/attend uneventful regular season games so expecting people to watch division 2 games becomes much less likely
The problem is that Alot of MLS teams are owned by People who are Americans Sports owners that dont have Pro/Rel. You cant compare Mls ro other American sports because those other Sports dont have no competition where as Mls has leagues all over the world to compete with.....so if MLS becomes more popular and they compare with europe...mls will always fall short and will be less exciting because there is no Pro/Rel.......however the Key is the USL is that league can get more stable teams and and more money and popularity in the future they us soccer can force this issue but thats a long way off
Without relegation, there are a few things that can be done in order to instill a sense of urgency, especially financial incentives. Instead of the current system of equal distribution from the league, a system parallel to auto racing may be adopted, where the final relative position of the team determines their level of bonus or financial distribution. The higher the team finishes, the more money they receive from the league. Other incentives may be drafting picks... Bravo to Gomez for correctly mentioning how foreign leagues are looking at the efficiency of the US league system. Relegation only has that one positive with instilling a sense of urgency with bottom teams, but it’s not very good since most clubs in every country of the world receive some form of government subsidy when there’s trouble. Seems like there’s a glorious lack of understanding how the worldwide federations with a relegation system in place operate, because ESPN forgets to mention that club teams are structured as “social clubs” with a primary revenue stream where members pay a monthly fee to remain as a member, irrespective of club status. Sure, the top tier series also receive more money with the American model of TV money which was injected in the 80s. Like all US leagues, the MLS has no parallel revenue stream from memberships.
Honestly, I don't think pro/rel helps with better soccer either. Low table teams don't get magically better with pro/rel, they just get more desperate. Mid table teams play boring, conservative soccer because they don't want to lose their spot. And the top teams are the only ones really worth watching. I think a playoff race is more exciting as the teams are playing for a playoff spot, not desperately fighting for their lives.
You guys care too much what Europeans think about the league. And it's never gonna happen. Owners will NEVER risk their investment plus they've paid to be parts of MLS not a relegation league.
No, no, no. The only one that makes sense, and which the "relegated" team wouldnt feel too demoted is having the season broken into two- MLS play season & the other half involving play with Liga MX. The team w/worst record in MLS would play not Liga MX but the Liga Ascenso. The following MLS play season they would come back to the fold. Demoting a MLS team to USL will never, and should never, happen. Those owners have committed too much money, unless MLS pays them.
Promotion and relegation would not work in America because it results in a single team winning most of the championships and it makes it harder for smaller teams to succeed. That’s why Bayern Munich has won the Bundesliga championship seven times in a row and why most of the Premier League championships have been won by Manchester United.
The mls will never reach European level if they don’t add promotion and relegation. It will improve the level of the players and the investment direction (young players with a future, instead of old marketing players).
Liga MX had promotion relegation did it ever reach the Euro leagues? How about the Central American leagues and even South American leagues, did they reach that level? How about other leagues in Europe like the Scottish league, Wales, Belgium, Poland, Croatia did they ever reach the level of the Premier league?
@@oyaml1211 the difference is unlike the countries you mentioned usa actually have the resources to be one of the best leagues in the world. Not sure about some of the European countries but in America countries like Mexico Argentina and Brazil are at there max because they have invested all the money they possibly can in the sport but mls has a higher ceiling. Mls is different there are many things they are doing wrong but at the end of the day if mls fixes their problems and improve they 100 percent can be one of the biggest leagues in the world. They have the infrastructure revenue and better recognition In Europe. There are many other factors that come to mind but for sure promotion and relegation will take the league to the next level
@@rlubin9356 So in other words you want what is working for MLS to get rid of it so it can enter into debt like those leagues and many of the teams in those leagues just so MLS can be like everyone else? MLS is already amongst the top 10 leagues in the world when it comes to revenues and it has only been around for 25 years, not 100 like other leagues. In 25 years the NFL and NBA were still not even a shadow of what they are today. If MLS continues the same path it will become one of the best leagues in the world, it just needs time. Rome wasn't build in a day. Why change what's working?
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Just an idea: - 25 teams on the West Coast (one per state). - 25 teams on the East Coast (one per state). - Another league for each state. - A local league. Just like in Europe. And, if you want, the top 4 or 5 teams of each coast play a "superleague".
Qualifying for the playoffs *is* the promotion... otherwise your season is over and you don't get to participate with the others who did better during the season.
They need to. As an american who is just getting into the sport i would love to have a MLS team to root for but Louisiana doesn't have one. The closest i know is New Orleans Jesters and i would love for them to at least have a chance at MLS.
Also, imagine the players that are in the lower leagues of US soccer like the USL that aren’t see as much because they aren’t in mls. Promotion and Relegation could bring those other teams in with other players that are being overlooked. Which could mean that other players can get to other leagues.
We just picked up a striker from USL. Those players are being looked at. But with the owners initial investment on "placement" into the MLS. By paying over 200 million for the spot, they will not ever do a pro/rel structure. Either FIFA or the USA FA will have to make drastic changes. Which won't happen because a lot of MLS people are in there too. You see where I'm going with this? You guys keep asking us why there's no pro rel we keep telling you it's not that easy.
Plus who really knows if it will work here in the states. Sport culture is different here then in Europe. We are use to a single league structure with no pro rel in any of the major sports. So if MLS just changes to that system could actually damage viewership and no one will follow a team that's a div 2 or 3 side here. It's just not like it is in Europe where you follow your team to death because it's connected to you. Here it's just a team from your city your from or moved to. Do not mistake that as Americans don't care for their clubs because if you look at my club we REALLY care. But in other areas it's just not there yet like an Atlanta or Seattle or Portland
@@westheking12 yeah the cultural difference makes it difficult.
@@Emmany97 Exactly, but we would have never had this problem if FIFA made the USA Federation make a pro rel system for American soccer back in 1994. No they just told them to make a Professional League for the country to host the 1994 World Cup, that's it. And that's where the problems now would have never existed.
King Wes11 damage viewership? I mean it’s already bad lol. It would be a success and one step closer to stop being looked at as a retirement league amongst big leagues
It will make everyone actually try and fight for their spots.
Absolutely it would and anyone who disagrees seriously doesn't watch any sport outside of american leagues.
Mohamed Adan in a decade there’s new teams that haven’t even entered the league. And USL teams are building stadiums to now. 2026-2030 might give pro/rel a chance
@@mohamedadan6678 pro/rel does make teams fight for their spots but so does an American style playoff system. Anybody who disagrees doesn't watch any American sports leagues
Michael T. Mathews yeah but in most american league sports, the worst teams in the league often accept their fate a little over halfway into the season leading many players to stop really trying and the play on the field becomes much worse. A relegation style system would add incentive for lower ranking teams not to give up, and to actually play well late into the season
@@__nm10 but Nicolas you run into the same issues with pro/rel. Those mid table teams in a pro/rel system have absolutely no incentive to try their hardest. Those teams that have no chance of winning the league but are far clear from relegation. & it's often evident to see on the pitch from mid table teams. That's why primetime matches are always either top of the table teams or relegation battles. At least in a playoff structure those mid table teams would have to fight for a playoff spot.
Both systems have their pro & cons. Idk why you guys turn a blind eye to issues when it comes to promotion/relegation.
I would hope that in either system PROFESSIONAL ATHLETES would play their hardest regardless of the incentive. That's what they get paid millions of dollars to do
Watford whacked Liverpool 3-0 while fighting for points to avoid relegation.
Fernando Alvarez 😂
Hahahhaha
lol we must not forget
Love the Liverpool obsession with you lot!
Just Some Guy it’s not an attack on Liverpool it’s too show that when there are stakes on the line lower tier teams play well
Personally I am a kid that lives and plays soccer in America, and I think this would make MLS 10x better
It would make me actually watch a match tbh
Yeah 10x better watching the boise hawks with 500 fans than say atl with 50k.
@@frostleafsilver1051 One of the lasting rules of business is never try to appeal to people who aren't your customers. Invariably, it just means you lose your existing customers and those customers that complained about your product don't materialize when they change it.
@@celebrim1
Pro/Rel would improve the MLS, no one wants to see teams just playing for.... some reason.
@@JD-hx7yd The NFL doesn't have relegation. Yet it is the biggest best attended most valuable league in the world. So clearly someone wants to see those teams just playing for some reason.
MLB is the second biggest sports league on the planet. It also doesn't have relegation. So clearly someone wants to see those teams just playing for some reason.
The NBA is the third biggest sports league on the planet. It also doesn't have relegation. So clearly someone wants to see those teams just playing for some reason.
The NHL is the fifth biggest sports league on the planet. It's much smaller than the NBA (only about half the size in terms of revenue and attendance) and the NFL (only about a third the size). Yet, it also doesn't have relegation and so clearly someone wants to see those teams just playing for some reason.
In between the NBA and the NHL is a smallish league called "The English Premiere League". People tune in and watch the games from around the world, but mostly from places the TV rights aren't particularly valuable so it can't really capitalize on that (yet). It happens to have relegation. But it would be a mistake to think that anyone watches it because they love watching bottom of the league teams fight for survival. Relegation is obviously not the reason people watch the league, and people would continue to keep watching it even without relegation. Sooner or later, the big teams are going to agree to form their own league which won't have relegation (the way they decided they'd had enough of the league structure when they formed the Premier League 28 years ago in the first place).
Relegation pls that would make the league so much better
It would impassion the fans on a whole new level like it is in Europe and South America.
@@cephusakeem7141 Americans? Hahaha, good joke. They are so far behind.
National 1 because those sports are widely watched fans love those sports. MLS is not very watched in American. Americans who watch soccer always watch the prem bundesliaga or la liga. If mls got relegation then it would make the sport unique which would draw people to watch it.
Rel = dead league. Even the cosmos league which promised relpro never went relpro.
No
Right now there’s way less stress in the MLS, and losing doesn’t really matter. In fact, one could say it actually helps clubs because it gets them a higher draft pick for the next season. Relegation/promotion is a must if the league wants to become more competitive both domestically and internationally.
Meme it’s called tanking
ToxicPickle I’m well aware. I watch all American sports and I live in the US, but since many who watch this channel are European I didn’t think they’d understand what I meant if I just said “teams are tanking”
@@SixDrums I think MLS is thankfully getting rid of the draft next year.
Evan Escher do you have a source please
Relegation does not make a league more competitive. American leagues aren't less competitive because of structure. Is Germany really competitive league when one team is bigger/richer than all others together? Also, making the league competitive internationally isn't as important as making it successful at home. The only thing they need to worry about is making the game entertaining and sell tickets, too many games you see highlights of sparsely attended games (but supposedly attendance isn't a problem).
Besides, no one is paying the idiotic overinflated MLS fees (the increase over last 5-6yr is insane) to then go down to D2 for a few years. I'd be more worried that the increase in teams means that there will be more teams in the next few yrs ago will be on verge of moving/bankruptcy, because I know this sounds weird to some, but you can't lose money forever in sports Unless you're the WNBA. And this was BEFORE the Corona situation.
No point in football if there's no end goal for everyone nor any threat for poor performance. The corporate greed set up is really ruining some of the truly amazing football moments for Americans.
Yes there is, it's not winning. People don't understand the American sports culture. We want to win everything it's not a clubs fault if they have owners that don't put out.
Mr Lebowski well said, facts
Corporations should be able to do anything they like, even kill indiscriminately. That's how we like it in America, if you don't like it you can get out.
The system is set up for the rich owners by the rich owners, football isn't their concern, money is. Sucks that the world in general seems to work that way, i wish the owners of the teams cared about football first and foremost but they're mostly just robotic business men.
You are delusional if you believe winning is the end goal for 85-90% of football clubs worldwide.
Never understood why the MLS doesn't do this, would add far more excitement and more people would watch
The owners want to protect their investment. That’s the only reason.
$$$$$$$$$ :_(
Because the people at the top make enough money as is. Why change from their point of view? MLS needs more than Pro/Rel to correct the frailties with the league.
*MONEY MONEY MONEY- IS QUITE FUNNY- IN A RICH MAN'S WORLD*
It's not up to MLS, it's up to USSF. However, MLS is basically USSF's baby, so if pro/rel ever happens in the US, it will most likely not include MLS.
You also limit grass roots football, like in England a club could technically be started by locals and within 10 years be in the premier league.
Unfortunately that’s not true unless you had proper financial backing teams who have won their leagues in non league have been relegated because of their stadium not having enough capacity etc whilst it’s technically true it’s almost impossible as even some professional clubs can’t find financial backing for e.g Bury who were in league 1 or 2 who are now bust
@@justsomeguy2743 the point is that there's no rule that forbids it. yeah, there's the economical factor, but say a billionaire decides to invest in creating a football team (soccer) in a small town starting in the lowest, non-professional division, nothing forbids that team from climbing the ranks to become premier league champions eventually
Bournemouth came from league one to become premier league mainstays in like 4/5 years it’s more probable than you think
Plus AFC Wimbledon’s as an example of a local club created that’s now professional
How often does that happen?
@@celebrim1 In Italy we have had loads of teams that came up from the 3rd or even 4th tier to Serie A, like Sassuolo, ChievoVerona, Carpi, Spezia and many others. Some had little to no success in Serie A and were promptly relegated like Carpi, others like Chievo or Sassuolo went on to play decades at the top level. The important thing is that even the "unsuccesful" ones like Carpi gave their supporters something to believe in and brought money and jobs to their towns.
I've said this a thousand times in years gone by.. MLS NEEDS relegation and promotion...it will make for more competitive football all around..and they definitely need to join the east and west conference into one full league table..
It doesn't. It doesn't exist in any other US major sports league. It doesn't need to exist in this circumstance. It's the most tired argument ridden with fallacies.
@@jonathanwilliams3713 Very hard to have half american sports rules and half actual football rules though. You don't want a proper league table or relegation but you want to make transfers with overseas clubs and you want to loan our players. I wouldn't loan my players out to an MLS club because they aren't learning the true values of football, I am sure many director of football staffs have thought the exact same thing. MLS is seen as a joke around Europe, they need to do something.
a full league table is not logistically possible. the east coast and west coast are too far apart to make that kind of travel fesable
Jonathan Williams the reason it doesn’t exist in other sports leagues in the US is because the NBA, MLB, NFL, literally all hold monopolies in that sport in the world. Football is different. Leagues compete with one another around the world and the MLS is trying to model after American leagues but this isn’t the NBA. Football is football. While clubs in Europe are competing for high end revenues and high levels. The mls is busy protecting the investors rather than allowing competition to actually take place. So, if the MLS would like to actually be a respected league, they need promotion and regulation. And it would actually work well with the way USL is structured.
Ofcourse its logistically possible what kind dumb comment is that
If MLS is to introduce relegation, the head office first needs to refund the 200mil franchise fee.
Second div teams pay a lower franchise fee, next 4 years, no relegation, one team promoted div 2 each year gets the big league they want and in 4 years time no one can argue the franchise fee, as there should be 4 worse teams than the the existing mls teams, if a current mls team cant beat a team promoted from a lower league they deserve to be relegated.
@@FFCFulham94 If you knew how MLS was structured you would know why this would never happen.
@@jhayemdoubleyou if he understood business he'd know no company would invest 200+ million with a chance they go down in 4yrs. Investing and giving money is two different things.
I'd like to see pro/rel
Step 1. start MLS2(The second tier) keep the requirements light to enter like stadium capacities of 5-10K
Step 2. Work to make this a good development league with adequate number of teams.
Step 3. Introduce the pro/rel system with stipulations that are tough to meet for most teams, like stadium cap of 30K plus and have an elimination game too. Basically make it hard to get relegated.
This would take years to get too so the fat cats that own teams now will make money for at least 7-10 more years and 80% will still be the top tier 20 years from now
Adam Schreiber the main issue is that the USSF should be handling Pro Rel. They would have to say “MLS is the top and USL Championship and below are the lower tiers. Because the US is so big, there would have to be a system where the bottom team in each conference are relegated to USL championship. Top team in each conference are automatically promoted to MLS. Then the next bottom team in the division plays the next top team in the conference to battle for the last two spots in a two-leg game.
Tier 2 need 15k+
dumb asf, no need for any restrictions, if ur a better team ur a better team becuase ur stadium is small doesnt mean u shouldnt be allowed to progress.
@@nickevans5589 I agree, besides many current MLS and USL teams still play in "nfl "college football" or "baseball" stadiums and no one is complaining. smaller clubs can always rent or move to larger stadiums within their city/area limits. mls has like 27 teams and usl has 36? this is madness! bring the pro/rel already.
This NEEDS to happen. I don’t watch or support MLS at all for this exact reason even though I live very close to LAFC’s glorious stadium. This isn’t any other American sport where the owners and sponsors can just collect their money no matter what soccer is special and until we treat it with the same respect as they do in the rest of the world I won’t be watching at all. Totally disagree with their final takes that because it’s smarter business other leagues should be getting rid of pro/rel to be more like us. That typical American business over integrity attitude is why I’ll never support American soccer.
Yeah, it seems unfair that one closed league has monopoly advantage over the rest of country.
1). Almost every fan calling for relegation supports a foreign team that is not threatened by relegation.
2). I have experienced relegation twice as a fan (Southampton FC). Do you think that media coverage is minimal now? Just wait until your team is in the second tier of MLS. Will ESPN FC, Extra Time Radio, State of the Union, or the Total Soccer Show talk about them? NO.
3). England is slightly smaller than Louisiana. They struggle to charter flights now. Imagine the logistical challenges for the second tier.
4). Just because the European Leagues are more established does not mean that their systems are perfect. Competitive balance and stadium environment are far more important to me than international prestige.
Minnesota United fan.
Re Up Hi, may I please ask which team/teams you support?
@@alanradtke6048 he supported my fav team
honestly a college football type system with 100+ first division teams spread out in different regional conferences is more likely than pro/rel
Gods please no, college football might be the worst structured league in the world
No relegation actually reinforces poor performance, while having relegation would punish poor performance. It only makes sense, it's too bad relegation won't happen.
National 1 nah.
@@national1866 Most of those sports are exclusive to North America minus basketball and baseball. Baseball is still primary dominated by North America and a few asian countries. While basketball is completely dominated by Americans with a growing number of international players doing well, NOT international teams. My previous argument was not about whether MLS should do relegation from an American league perspective, but stating the fact that relegation results in bottom feeder teams fighting for staying in the league whereas American style leagues reward bad performance with better draft picks.
You can tell you've never actually questioned your own assumptions.
Do you know what industry a professional sports league is in?
So why would you want to punish poor performance?
Hint: if you say competiveness, how competitive internally is say the leagues in Sweden, Austria, Portugal, or Holland? For that matter, how really competitive is the league in Germany or France? Dynasties where a single team dominates for a decade or more are typical in Europe. European sport leagues are rather the opposite of competitive. Mostly they are foreordained conclusions, and at best they have 2-4 teams that are competitive with each other and the rest exist to sell tickets so those 2-4 teams can make money. Pro/rel without league profit sharing is a pyramid scheme. And it's not clear to me that in the long run pro/rel can survive along side profit sharing.
@@celebrim1 But it has nothing to do with pro/rel, in England there is both pro/rel and profit sharing. You can't compare USA with one European country. You need to compare USA with entire Europe and one US state with one European country. Compare Ohio with Belgium, they have same population. Ohio has two teams, Cincinnati and Columbus Crew. There is no chance that FC Cleveland or any other team from Ohio can be US champion, because they don't have theoretical chance of promotion and competing. But every Belgium club can be champion of Europe theoretically, from big teams like Anderlecht, Club Brugge, Genk or Standard Liege to any small team. So how can you say that European leagues are not competitive, if there is only two Ohio teams that can be champions and thousand of Belgium teams with same chance. European Champions League is very competitive. And you have to be qualified to compete there by your national league first. But I like what you said about profit sharing.
@@goranmilic442 First of all, "theoretically". In practice, small town teams have no chance to earn promotion much less win in top flight leagues or become a "Champion's League" team.
Your comparison - while a really important one - doesn't work out the way you think it does. There is a lot to break down here, probably more than I can manage in one post.
First, while it's true that Ohio has two top flight soccer teams, it's instructive to note that they aren't remotely the big sport teams in the state. Ohio also has the Cleveland Browns, Cleveland Indians/Guardians, Cincinatti Reds, Cincinatti Bengals, and Columbus Blue Jackets - all of which are bigger than the two soccer clubs. Heck, the amateur team Ohio State Buckeyes, is bigger than any of the soccer clubs. So if Ohio was Belgium, the reason that the soccer in Ohio is smaller than Belgium is that most of the sports entertainment money is in other sports. If in fact the Ohio was a basically single sport state like Belgium, and all those clubs played soccer, then they'd be much bigger than Belgium clubs like Brugge or Genk.
So if you do compare Belgium to Ohio, you find they aren't so similar. A Cinncinatti team just competed in the National Championship, just in a different sport. And it's that multisport culture that is a big part of the reason that first there aren't as many professional clubs as in Belgium, but that those clubs are bigger. They're bigger because they have to be more competitive because they have to compete for fans and viewers not just with other clubs in the same sport, but clubs in different sports as well. Additionally, we have a ton of amateur scholastic athletics in High School and college that fills up the niche that small community professional teams do in Europe. So, it really is instructive to compare US sports to the European market, because things are so much more competitive on this side of the pond.
Pro/Rel is a system that whatever it does in theory, in practice it transfers money from small clubs to big clubs. Small clubs take out loans to try to compete. The winner of that investment isn't the small club, but the big club that gets the lion's share of the revenue out of that competition. Eventually the smaller club is relegated, finds itself in debt, and on average goes into bankruptcy every 20 to 25 years. The situation has gotten worse and worse since the 1970s. Prior to TV, pro/rel mostly worked because most of the revenue was gated ticket sells and the smaller clubs had 1/2 to 1/3rd the revenue of the bigger clubs. But since then, the bigger clubs have been stealing the fans of the smaller clubs as well as profiting more from merchandise and TV rights. Now, it's not unusual in Europe for smaller clubs in Europe's open leagues to have 1/30th of the revenue of a larger team in the same league. And that's totally the result of pro/rel because those smaller teams are terrible investments because of the chance that they get relegated. Bankruptsy is a normal part of small clubs. It happens way more often than they compete at the top level in some theoretical Cinderella story.
Since my post, the situation in European sports has become even more stark. The English football pyramid is in danger of falling apart. To stop the bleeding, League 2 and League 1 are introducing salary caps. But these salary caps gaurantee the two leagues will be much smaller than the MLS, and unable to really compete in Championship if promoted, which means that haves will get richer and the have nots poorer - losing fans and money to teams that actually have a chance to compete. In the long run, starving the bottom half of the Championship is going to kill it as a competitive league. It's going to start looking more and more like the other domestic leagues in Europe, and if it does it's TV rights will get less valuable. Which means the teams in it will be even more dependent on parachute payments from the EPL.
Back to Belgium, Belgium is in talks with FIFA to try to get FIFA to approve a merger of the Juliper and Eredivisie, forming a multi-national 'domestic' league similar to the MLS in USA/Canada. The reason they HAVE to do this if they don't want to go bankrupt is that super teams like Brugge and Ajax don't make any money playing in their own domestic league. The Champion's League is itself already almost as big as the EPL, and it's where all the money is. Consolidating the Belgium and Dutch domestic leagues will hopefully make the TV rights to that new league big enough to fund real competition in the Champion's Leauge.
And if you don't see how this is inevitably leading to a closed European Super League, you don't have enough background in economics.
I’m in favor of it. Makes things more exciting
Does it? Have you seen that 3 division battle of the romanian league its epic!!!!
Merge league MX and MLS . That would allow North America to begin to earn parity with Europe. Long live Sounders!
Exactly teams are too safe and complacency. If MLS wants to be a bigger league there needs to be more competition. I live in the US and wish to see MLS rise to the level of European leagues
As a Parma Calcio fan, i watched every game, even when they got relegated from the highest league into the 4th tier. I'm too busy to watch more than 2 games a week, so i only watch my local sounders or seahawks game if i have time. If i missed a Parma vs Juventus game, they might not play them again next season or more, but Sounders vs Whitecaps guaranteed to be played every year, so nothing is really at stake. Even if my sounders have 0 win this season, they would still play in the same league anyway next season, while get rewarded with first draft pick.
Love my local teams, but the "competition" is a total joke. It just don't feel the same as watching the likes of Eibar, a team with 5000 supporters got promoted to the top flight and play against Lionel Messi, because they fought hard and earned the promotion and the chance to face the big teams and world class players in the top league.
well said, bravo!
Are people completely oblivious to the fact that there is no where near enough money in US soccer for ProRel. Parachute payments, interest for TV deals for USL for public viewing, and the amount of small market teams makes it impossible for now. Maybe in a decade it’s possible.
There are poorer leagues with pro/rel so that doesn't really stack up. Plus MLS waste money on aging foreign talent to try and drum up interest - in a system where they might stand to lose a lot for a dip in performance you'd get your money more wisely invested.
someoneinoffensive exactly at the moment the mls is seen as a retirement home for footballers which the mls don’t mind as their name will sell a few shirts, but if you add relegation and promotion it may incentivise clubs to use youth players and local players rather than buying a 38 year old who was once world class who doesn’t care about the club just the pay check, it also gives smaller clubs the chance to grow and it could make the sport more desirable in the us in general
Centuries but i am sure the relpro league woild become closed system by that time.
Not in the next 25 years even.
Those poorer leagues with pro/rel are farmers leagues with one team that is worth more than Atlanta United, and the bottom teams in the same league are worth only as much as USL teams. Is that really the structure that you call "more competitive"?
but that's the point; pro/rel makes it more exciting and hence more engagement, so more overall revenue.
Make it happen to bring Promotion/Relegation
This should be implemented in all American sports
No
This will not give small market teams a chance. This whole 'promotion and relegation' system would only benefit the big market teams only imo
Do you really think people will pay to watch a lower division league? Relegation works in theory, but it won’t work in America because you need the lower league to be successful as well.
I would watch a lower division team if it was what was available. I often went to Atlanta Silverbacks games. I've seen many minor league hockey and baseball games. If you live in a small town, it's the minor leagues if you love sports.
They forgot to mention that the MLS would attract far more TV viewers with promotion/relegation- which means more a lot more money for owners in general over time. The level of football would also increase greatly because players would be hungrier. Scouting and youth academies would become crucial.
And you know this how?
@@oyaml1211 This is the internet. You just make up facts. Trust me, my IQ is over 9 billion.
@@oyaml1211 Deloitte did a study on US football (soccer) fans desire for promotion/relegation a few years ago. There are other studies on this online as well.
@@BabsW Was that the same study funded by the owner of Miami's NASL team? I bet it was. The NASL should have tried to put a better product on the field and deal with financial stability rather than try to sue their way into relevance.
Pro/rel will not attract more viewers. That is ridiculous, magical thinking. The MLS haters would find another excuse to dismiss the league.
With pro/rel, academies would wither as they cost a lot of money. Rather than take the time to invest in long term development, a bottom dwelling team would buy talent at an inflated price just to keep above the line.
Teams that don’t invest cough cough New England, Colorado, Salt Lake
New England and Salt Lake shouldn't even be in the league at this point.
I apologize, what do you mean they don't invest? Could you maybe expound on that? Thank you.
And Houston :(
Cough* Houston
Mitch Walker kraft is loaded yet the only real dp brought in this far that has been a big hit was Jermaine Jones and they only got him from a blind draw. Only recently has he decided to invest now that the patriots are in transition and Bruce Arena has been on him for it
People complaining about US not having pro/rel system have no real knowledge about Geography. USA is a massive country with an area of *9 million sq. km* which is significantly larger than England (130 thousand sq.km), Germany (357 thousand sq.km), Spain (500 thousand sq.km), France (543 thousand sq.km), Italy (301 thousand sq.km), and many other european nations *combined* .
Let's say USA does have a pro/rel system and teams from small local clubs of _Oregon, North Dakota, Arizona,Texas, kansas, Florida, Wisconsin, Maine, West Virginia_ end up on the 3rd division.. (for Europeans perspective, it is like having teams from small towns of _Ireland, Denmark, Latvia, Portugal, Serbia, Libya, Egypt, Iraq, Russia, Kazhakhstan,_ all in a 3rd division battling for pro/rel) Imagine the travel cost and travel exhaustion the team have to undergo every week, and for what..? to get promoted or demoted to a new tier which may not be as prestigious as the first tier.
have you heard of airplanes
@@cptspeedy6358 Do you know how much they cost?
@@davepazzaglia8294 not much nowadays
@@cptspeedy6358 Even MLS teams don't have chartered flights...
@@davepazzaglia8294 they need to get their money up then
Adding pro/rel between MLS and USL would add a spice and freshness that would invigorate US club soccer intensity. Avoiding losing money gets results.
Because European clubs are so good at avoiding losing money?
@@celebrim1 it would add more interest to the league from fans, increasing overall revenue, because clubs actually have to fight to stay up. it makes the beautiful game exciting, otherwise teams don't really mind if they lose or not, because there isn't the threat of being relegated.
@@celebrim1 European leagues are massively richer than MLS clubs. Even Watford in the 2nd tier of England are worth more than New England Revs and Chicago Fire.
@@wthwasthat8884 Well, I mean, of course they are. They are like 120 year old clubs with international fan bases playing in a nation where soccer is the premier sport in their nation as opposed to being the fifth most popular sport in the nation that holds a negative opinion with most American sporting fans.
Where you are going wrong is that the value of the European leagues is irrelevant to pro/rel because pro/rel didn't create those teams value. Pro/rel isn't the cause of European leagues having high value.
And one really good example of that is Leichester City. After Leichester City went bankrupt in 2002, it was purchased by an investment group strongly associated with the Thai monarchy for less than what it would take you to buy an MLS team these days. The value Leichester City has comes from all the money that investment group dumped into the team, which in turn is motivated less by business concerns than it is by billionaire playboys wanting a fancy soccer toy.
If it's a matter of value, the NFL, MLB, and NBA are more valuable than the EPL. MLS is a 25 year old league operating in a country that already has 4 of the 5 largest sporting leagues in the world. Of course it's not yet more valuable than teams in England. It wouldn't be under any circumstance.
@@marcoroberts9462 While I'm at this, it doesn't actually increase overall revenue or overall investment. That's unsound economics.
What pro/rel does is create additional risk. And additional risk doesn't encourage investors to invest more in their investment in order to avoid "punishment". Investors tend to be risk adverse. The more risk you give them, the more unwilling they are to invest. What pro/rel does is drive money away from the down market teams, many of which can't even borrow money from the banks to invest with because the investment is considered to risky. Look it up if you don't believe me.
The result is a system where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. It doesn't create dynamic leagues. It creates leagues were the only stability is at the top, and leagues where in England only 48 teams have gone bankrupt in the last 20 years. That drives away investment. On paper there is no reason the EPL shouldn't more valuable than the NFL. The EPL as an entertainment product reaches a far larger audience. But it's worth far less than the NFL because of the pernicious effects of pro/rel on its economics.
I was surprised when I discovered mls didn’t have regulation. It makes the league so much more competitive and adds another layer of drama to the game.
Having a Lottery Style Draft like the NBA mixed with Relegation/Promotion could be very effective in making things competitive. Because it doesn’t give incentives for tanking and teams will want to be competitive. And the draft will allow them to get some of the good prospects without making the top teams monopolies that hoard the best players. Fans will have actual star players they can grow with and support.
Cormel that wouldn’t work. The last placed team gets relegated and what if they get first pick, wow now they get to go play in second div.
Also, dump the draft, and do what the rest of the world does, sign and develop at a youth level and buy at the professional level. Our American style of player acquisition doesn't work for this sport.
It should be like in Europe
@@DavidBrielmaier that's so true
@@mersihahadzic2365 it's impossible until FIFA or our FA does something about it. Owners spent millions on a place in MLS they are not just going to give it up.
I feel like promotion and relegation would make the league overall better and more competitive and give other teams a chance to fight for the title
Is there any evidence at all this happens in Europe? I mean, what do you mean by "competitive"? The EPL is the most competitive it has ever been (but not the most dominate it has ever been) and it's came about as a result of league profit sharing. League profit sharing is moving closer to the American model, and not further from it.
@@celebrim1 pro/rel makes it far more competitive. fighting to stay up incentivises teams to do whatever it takes to perform well, and this breeds competition, and added intensity. trust me, I'm a West Ham fan, I know what a relegation battle feels like.
As an MLS fan I really, really don’t want Pro/Rel. I’m an SKC fan and we could have one bad year and get dropped, then we’d have to wait two years before we could be contenders for MLS cup.
$200 MILLION is the cost of a new MLS franchise. Promotion and regulation would be Great. It will NEVER happen. USL teams are worth $5 Million. The league would never allow its investors to lose that kind of money. No one would invest in a new franchise if there was the possibility their investment could 98% of its value from one year to the next. They just didn’t sign up for that. Can you imagine the years of lawsuits the first team would file that lost $195 million off the value of its franchise??? Be great. Not going to happen.
Yup. The recent add-on from my city, Sac Republic FC, I think paid upwards of $250 Mil. to be in MLS come 2022/2023 (something like that).
Yes football in America is just money and retirees. Just no.
@@bakedandhectic2096 that's a blindly ignorant statement
@@abnrgrtr No thats an educated statement.
Coming from an actually educated country.
Money.and retirees. China and the U.S have this strongly in common.
2-3 names in tens of thousands is not a credible reason to give the wealthiest nation on earth with a 350 mill talent pool any credibility at all.its all an absolute joke.🤣
100s of millions of dollars.
300 million people.
2-3 talents.
The issue with americans is post bush era they shockingly think they are taken seriously anymore in any way.
@@bakedandhectic2096 Ah. Got it. You've made it clear your ignorance is not simply limited to matters of football. Thanks for clarifying. Hope you can find some happiness in your life.
Teams like LAFC with 30 plus investors wouldn't exist if you have pro/rel in MLS. You would see more teams fold because of debt and selling their best players to teams with ownership groups with money. MLS may not have pro/rel but any team can win every year. In Europe you have top 4 - 5 teams and every other team is happy about not been relegated lol as successful yr.
Exactly! On top of that, there is no such thing as a salary cap in a lot of these European leagues.
As long as the promotion and relegation isn't like in Mexico where you can buy to keep your spot in the 1st Division, I can see it improving the league and attracting more players from around the world
The problem with pro/reg is the vast majority of clubs can't stay afloat going up or down.
My local team is in the npsl (4th tier) doesn't have the money to compete in a pro league (tier 3 and up) they would go bankrupt so fast. And they finished near the top of the league 4 straight years. In a pro/reg they would have gone up and been done for.
And so many clubs are like that.
Part of that most ckubs haven't been in business to gain enough capital. Nearly all clubs in America are 30 years or younger and of those more than half of them are less than 10 years.
What was it the average semi pro soccer club lives 2 years and dies?
Teams need to be financially stable first before we can have a pro/reg convo
Wow, an actual logical point on promotion/relegation in the MLS. Thank you.
no las teams get promoted or do well the board invests more into the club they wouldnt go bankrupt, cos some teams would struggle if the board didnt but its in their best interests to
Here in Europe, you can always decline being promoted if you think it would be too expensive for your club. But being promoted to higher league usually means more money from attendance, sponsors and TV rights. You can't assume that your club would have same budget in 4th and 3rd league. When my club got promoted from 2nd to 1st tier, it raised his budget to bring better players, that is more expensive, but also there is more money to be made.
MLS keeps expanding and more than half the teams make the playoffs, the regular season is being diluted, it will be pulling teeth to get the owners to agree but it will happen out of financial necessity
Honestly, I don’t think having promotion/relegation would improve things much sure it would effect how players, clubs/ owners think about the game. If we want to improve the quality of MLS we need to rework what the biggest trophy is. Here we prioritize the MLS Cup trophy over the supporters shield which kills the desire to have the best record at the end of the season. Instead of fighting for the best record in the league we are OK with a club taking 4th or 5th in a conference and they can easily eliminate the supporters shield winner win the MLS cup trophy and be called the champs of the entire league. Broadcasters are then surprised when the team with the best record throughout the season gets beat in the playoffs is it really that surprising? I’m a sounders supporter and we’ve won two MLS Cup trophies and a supporters shield. If I had to chose between winning a Supporters shield or winning MLS cup I would prefer to win the Supporters Shield.
Exactly, there are other things that the MLS should fix before they even think about Promotion/Relegation. I honestly don't think MLS needs it
Your right, i feel that the MLS cup and supporters shield should switch roles
My honest opinion is that not having pro/rel is good for MLS. In England when you talk about who is winning the league it's always about the top 6. In MLS last year they said LAFC or Atlanta. Well not 1 of those 2 where in the MLS finals. Like Torronto Won MLS in 2017 then they came 9th 3 to last in the east the next year, and if the bottom 3 teams in each cof going down they whould never been in the finals in 2019.
if MLS wants to be held in the same regard as other leagues, the stakes must be the same
Ridiculous. MLS is already closing in on the top 10 leagues and continually improving, exponentially so in the last 5 or so years
MLS is already in the top 10 leagues in revenues and top 8 in average attendance to stadiums. I would say MLS in 25 years has done pretty good with its model. And it will only get better.
@@oyaml1211 I simply cannot wrap my brain around the fact that people don't understand that owners who've paid north of 300 million dollars for franchises are not going to just accept this concept. It will not happen. At least not for many decades.
MLS should be in the top 15 revenue as it's located on the top economy on the world.
if MLS wants to be mentioned with Serie A, La Liga or Premier League, you need relegation.
Otherwise MLS will only attract 35 year old past their prime foreign players
@@joeygarcia6810 lol. Another ridiculous comment. First of all, MLS is only 25 yrs old in a country with other very well-established sports. And no, it does NOT need that to rival those leagues. Only in the minds of Eurosnobs who think everything has to be done EXACTLY like they do is that the case. How did they get close to the top 10 of the world without it then? Explain that. As far as the 35 yr olds comment, just proves you have no clue what you're talking about.
The fans benefit from promotion and regulation. And it would build the lower tiers of soccer. For better overall product.
Won't happen because it's in the contract of MLS teams. If they do than the MLS has to pay the owners of the clubs.
This is an important part of the future of this sport in the US, it's just not time for it yet. We need to grow the USL alongside MLS. Give it another decade at least. Go Rowdies.
It never will be time for it since that's not how the league was originally set up...
"It shouldn't be about money! It should be about the game!" say those with absolutely no investment at stake. It's easy to be brave with someone else's money.
Talk all you want about Pro/Rel. The MLS isn't listening. The USSF only pretends to listen. If you want it, you will have to start another league. Good luck finding the money.
The MLS would make more money with promotion/relegation due to having more TV viewers and interest.
@@BabsW You'd have fewer viewers. I don't know what kind of numbers USL teams pull but they wouldn't replace what you lose. Worst MLS team last year had the third highest attendance in the country.
@@jhayemdoubleyou If a top USL team got promoted, they would gain an even bigger following at their matches. I was more referring to TV viewers though.
As MLS continues to expand, why not have pro-rel within the MLS. Currently we have 26 teams, why not split into 2 divisions of 12 and 14 teams with pro-rel among the divisions. As expansion continues, teams in each division will increase. Further, then you can think of adding a 3rd division too maybe with USL or NASL teams. This way, the league is effectively closed but there is promotion relegation. Second division teams will face loses but they will be minimized as they are still part of the MLS. As well as there will be more incentive to stay up as profits for top division teams will increase as only less than half of MLS teams will have a chance for high profile games and the playoffs.
This. I've been thinking this for some time. MLS "regular seasons" seems almost pointless at times. As long as you make the playoffs, you're okay. There is *very* little of that "win-or-die" vibe during the regular season.
I would like to take this time to thank seb for not screaming and for allowing Gomez and Burley to finish their responses.
Yeah it's like us Europeans didn't like mls BECAUSE of the league structure 😂😂
It's the truth literally every time an mls fan asks a European hater what they don't like about mls they always say it's because we call it soccer and the way we structure the league
@@rlubin9356 I don't care If the league structure is different now, I never cared about MLS and I couldn't care less now. And no offence but like 70% of europeans don't like the mls because of the americans, the people.
@@danio6704 True
@@danio6704 we average just as many fans as ligue 1 and almost as much as serie a. Theres only a few bad fanbases in MLS that average 15k but their stadium location is partly to blame for the lack of attendances.
@@savagecabbage138 you also happen to have 300 million people in your country
MlS having relegation 🤔 now I'm interested
You can’t have promotion/relegation in MLS, the owners of the clubs have bought a MLS club, not just a soccer club.
Please promotion relegation!! Let’s make this the best league in the world !!
Let's settle for the sixth best league in the world and no pro/rel. Literally, there is nothing at all to be gained by pro/rel.
I don’t think Europe really cares about the American Farmer’s League
Who is farming
A farmer's league is typically defined as a league where only one or two teams are well funded, and the remainder of teams in the league are made up of (by a slight exaggeration) local farmer's who have just come in from the fields. A good example of an actual Farmer's League is Portugal's Primeira Liga, which has two teams (Porto and Benefica) better funded than the MLS's most valuable team Atlanta FC, but which at the bottom of the table features teams with less funds than some teams in the USL (America's second division). As a result, you often have to go back decades to find the last time many of the teams earned a win against Porto or Benefica, and Benefica actually holds the record for the most consecutive wins by a pro team.
Quite arguably, by this definition, Ligue 1 and the Bundesliga are also Farmer's Leagues, as they are overwhelmingly dominated by teams like Bayern and PSV and the bottom ranks of the table are teams with like a 30th of the funds of their larger "peers".
The MLS is rather much the opposite of a "Farmer's League". With profit sharing agreements between the teams, salary caps, and tight rules on player acquisition all the MLS teams are pretty close to peers and capable of winning on (as they say in the USA) "any given Sunday".
Moreover, with increasing profitability is increasing quality. While there are probably like 17 leagues where the best team is better than the worst team in the MLS, there are probably only like 6 where the best MLS teams couldn't compete precisely because most pro/rel based leagues are so lope-sided in favor of the largest teams. Pro/rel is a winner take all format where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. It leads to stagnation and predictability. It will never work in the USA where most sport fans are used to a far more entertaining sports product.
The USSF needs to implement called 'the trio response':
1) Mass youth development on local, district, state and nationwide levels
2) Invest in grassroot football - mass grassroot football equals mass youth production
3) Promotion/Relegation - with the MLS being the US premier league:
- MLS
- NASL
- USL Championship
- USL League One
- Then go to a Belgium league style of a West and East Amateur/Semi-Pro division
- Then it does to state/provincial Amateur divisions
I think a better solution (considering US's size, would be to have MLS (20 teams), then split the next division into 2x15 (or 20) with winners of each group being promoted, and a playoff between the 2nd ranked teams. It would cut travel costs and be more efficient.
This should definitely be introduced. The teams would actually try their hardest and it would cause it to be more interesting
I agree...that sense of urgency is necessary
It will be great... in 20 years. USL clubs are not financially or structurally ready to be in MLS. Many play in minor league baseball and/or very low capacity stadiums. It won’t work until the infrastructure of the lower leagues meets the standard of the MLS
The USL owners need the opportunity to be promoted into the MLS to have real reasons to invest. Promotion/relegation could start out with 1 MLS team relegated, and 1 USL promoted. If the MLS announce that they would implement this system in 3-5 years, there would be a ton of investment into USL teams and competition between them to get promotion. So the players, stadiums and infrastructure would improve dramatically to secure promotion.
I love the idea of promotion/relegation, but unfortunately it will probably never happen because of the financial impact of it. That's the reason the New York Cosmos never made a return to the MLS. They couldn't afford it. In order for it to work you need a stadium capable of holding an MLS match, as well as the market for TV deals and licensing rights. Alot of the USL teams simply don't have/can't afford to do things like that
It’s funny how everyone in Europe wants MLS to introduce promotion/relegation except for all the big clubs in Europe are jealous of MLS for not having to use promotion/relegation
Do you actually believe that clubs like Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern, Liverpool, etc, or us, the fans, are jealous of anything that happens in the MLS?? Espn is a US channel, watch European ones, and I guarantee no one talks about the MLS... The world doesn't revolve around you guys.
Why would they be jealous? the big clubs aren't affected by it since they usually finish at the top half every season. Promotion/relegation adds more competition in the league for the smaller teams since your spot isn't guaranteed
They really aren't jealous the big clubs can gain so many good players and save money from relegation.
Liverpool has more fans in the us than any mls team as does Barcelona, Real Madrid, Manchester United and even Celtic, they all finish top half of the table every year and only united and Celtic are currently in debt (more because of terrible owners) theirs a reason players rarely ever go from the us to a top team it’s always the other way round with the exception being that the player joining the mls sees this as his retirement plan and joins for hefty wages for a couple years whilst living the la life style then retires. the only generally class American in Europe at this time is Pulisic and he isn’t even fully American! The mls needs pro/rel to give teams motivation
This is exactly why it is hard now for me to follow american sports leagues even my beloved NHL. What motivation should fans of terrible on ice performance teams have to buy tickets or merchandise?
Love of the game. What motivation do the fans in Germany outside of Bayern have in buying tickets or merchandise? The real answer is that they love the sport and are loyal to their municipality. And, because most Europeans only are single sport fans, it's not like they'll move their money into another sport if their team is terrible. It's not like the situation in an American city where if the football team sucks, but the baseball team is succeeding, that the citizens are going to start buying baseball merchandise.
Look at a team like Everton. It's been comfortably at about 8th place on the EPL table for like 20 years now. It's got enough money that no promoted team is ever going to knock it off. But it's not got a big enough fan base to ever have the money to go after the top 4 places on the table, because in Europe with no salary caps and pro-rel then money talks and management is secondary. In some senses, the big European teams have never before now ever had to manage their teams well. And the smaller European teams, before now, couldn't manage their team well enough to do anything about it.
Profit sharing of the TV revenues is changing that, and as it does, it will end pro/rel in Europe.
Promotion and relegation is a must in football. At the beginning, during and especially end of the season, every team is fighting its own battle. Top teams are fighting for titles, mid table team are fighting to push for the top and lower teams are fighting for survival. The last games between lower teams bring some of the best drama and entertainment.
And it is pretty much the same teams in each of the three categories every time. And, TV viewership proves pretty much that it doesn't bring fan interest, which is exactly why first the EPL and later La Liga adopted some form of league wide profit sharing to increase the parity between the teams in the league and with it the chances for upsets. And, you can see by Leicester's cinderella run up the table what the consequences of that will be.
But what is good for the league as a whole is potentially devastating to the economic model of the larger clubs, who are used to taking out massive loans to pay for top players in order to ensure future revenue. Look at what is happening in Barca and Man U. If those teams fold on their loans, then there will be a continent wide investor scare.
I think there is no point in discussing this issue..... If the USFA want their league to be more watchable, more exciting, clubs to be more accountable, they have to implement relegation/promotion. This allows more heated competition, makes sure clubs and players have something to lose if they don't perform. Clubs have something to lose if they don't invest and scout better players and find good coaches.
I understand why the corporate run clubs of US are afraid of this, that think they will lose money and stadium revenue etc. But if football/soccer is to progress in MLS and US as whole, something like this must happen.....
I would love to see MLS broken into an Eastern Conference and a Western Conference, each with twenty teams that operated on a points system for a championship. The conferences could play each other in a tournament-style format that included clubs from Canada, Mexico, and potentially Central American countries for a North American Cup. Expanding MLS from 26 to 40 teams would offer owners protection and incentive for staying in the top flight. Just an idea
Was it not used to be like that in the early days of league?
Promotion/Relegation won't work in the U.S. ... it will bankrupt teams.
Only the big market teams will survive. Then people will only see four teams compete for a 'championship'
It bankrupts teams in Europe as well, but with no other sports to invest money in, the money has to come back somewhere. In the USA, investors would just turn to more reliable investments.
Crew fan here. Please add pro/rel. We finish too low all the time because 7-11th has no difference.
There is a marketing problem with second divisions. Instead of following one league, promotion relegation has the potential to have fans follow two leagues at once.
4:00 man is spitting fire
Hot fire he rips and rhyme's
The MLS needs to be a respected league worldwide before this is a possibility. Solidify itself as a league who doesn’t let Liga MX beat them every year in the CONCACAF champions cup and a league who spends more money on developing homegrown players.
7:33 everyone vested in the world of this sport knows that bundesliga 2 is the most profitable 2nd division and its not even close
This is true. The Championship, while competitive, is an economic basket case.
Incidentally, the German federation - noting that the Bundesliga because it lacks competitiveness is a less interesting entertainment product than the EPL - is in talks to institute salary caps.
But salary caps, even more so than profit sharing, are incompatible with the traditional pro/rel model. If introduced, it would just push teams like Bayern back into talks with other big European teams to form a European super-league - one that would lack pro/rel.
Parity and salary cap won’t allow for promotion relegation. When every team is at same level of how much they can spend. Get rid of the Salary Cap! And let teams run themselves.
A way to actually do pro/rel in mls could be to still use eastern and western conferences, but the usl leagues below are split the same way. The bottom 3 or 4 in a conference are relegated, and the teams fight for a conference title. Then do a post-season tournament for the top 4 teams in both conferences play for a mls title
I would love to see relegation and promotion personally. I just think the financial gap between the MLS and USL are too far apart for relegated teams to survive financially and promoted teams to compete.
Beatiful thing with pro/rel is that every team eventually plays in league that suits him best. You got promoted or relegated to the league you should be. There is no reason to believe that top clubs in USL wouldn't be better than bad teams in MSL.
Without watching the video a pro/rel would never work in the MLS. Going to a system that is popular among people halfway across the world rather than sticking with a system that is popular among people in its own continant isn’f a strong business strategy...MLS is growing and the reason is because Americans are starting to watch it and enjoy it due to its simplicity in correlating with other american sports leagues (with a playoffs and set teams and whatnot). In europe the pro/rel might work but it would never work in America
Here is what a lack of pro rel has done for the USMNT, it has given us a team that can't qualify for world cup.
Create new pro clubs connected to Universities but keep College football separate. This allows for a career of D1 players who are talented to develop. Keep these new clubs at MLS division 2 for the first season then work in promotion/relegation.
Would be a hard sell with the owners when mls is charging all these teams outrageous expansion fees
Country is extremely huge to do that i think
Russia and China do it why can't we?
@@subifyouhatetiktokandreddit234 Eh. All the Rusian teams are in that small part of Russia west of the Ural Mountains. And China's teams are all in eastern China. They're not spread throughtout like the MLS.
@@godkongsnake4092 thats not true
@@mersihahadzic2365 What part's not true.
@@godkongsnake4092 they have team all around country Russia
NFFC fan here. I wonder if MLS fans are ready for the stress levels that relegation brings. It's worse than you think, even if people have already told you that. Relegation is savage. Not just for the clubs, which are instantly in financial trouble, but for the individual fans as well, there's levels of shame, loss of self-respect, all manner of psychological blows that come with it. I dunno if that would truly start to make it's mark until a decade or more after a pro/rel system is implemented. Also people make valid points about owners paying for a team only to see it relegated. Even though the system in England is brutal, I don't know how MLS teams could survive the financial hit given the lower financial power of the league.
I'd definitely take more interest in the MLS if they did implement it. It's just not as simple as a lot of people think.
Colorado Rapids are finally gonna win the league!!!! Well, United Soccer League (USL) that is....
I mean, how else can you hold clubs accountable? how many years go by and the same clubs are at the bottom of the table? I guess they suffer in terms of attendance but, it doesn’t improve the game or the league. Then again, if there is relegation, clubs that get kicked will just fail. Not enough folks will care to support a team thats not in the mls.
If a team doesn't offer an entertaining and competitive product, they lose fans or the fans decide to spend their money elsewhere that year. As a result, all teams are motivated to provide some sort of entertainment product to the community.
The same clubs are on the bottom of the table every year in Europe as well. The bottom two or three switch out year to year, but the rest mostly trade spots 6 through 16. In most in pro/rel leagues the same clubs fill up spots 1-4 year after year with migration out of that club measured in decades. The EPL is the most dynamic it has ever been, but it's occurred as the result of profit sharing and parachute payments by the bigger clubs to try to soften the financial impact of relegation and try to produce a less boring product where the winners are less predictable. In other words, the EPL is trying to become more like an American sports league.
@@celebrim1 Awesome point but, I think comparing EPL to MLS is like comparing apples to oranges.
Why would Europeans care about what MLS does? MLS is not a lifestyle or religion it's a pick up league.
Seriously? Joke of a post
Because if MLS became a properly structured football league, there's a lot of money to be made in the US and Canada.
@@BabsW MLS structure is already very good. It is already amongst the top 10 leagues in revenue. And it only has 25 years not 100 years like others.
@@oyaml1211 what, maybe in money terms, But without relagation /promotion what's the point same old teams year in year out nothing to fight for, just look at your mens international team never won world Cup but your ladies International team has multiple times so perhaps that's a sign of a stale league were players don't have to fight with all they've got plus more,
@@iancreedy5636 The same old teams you say? You mean the same 3 teams winning the title every year because of promotion/relegation? Like the Scottish premier league? Like Serie A? No competition whatsoever. You said same teams. Like the same newly promoted teams getting relegated after their first year in just about every European league. The promotion/relegation structure is not some perfect system dropped down from heaven. It has its flaws as well.
It's funny that you mention the women when our women's league doesn't have promotion/relegation either. They have a playoff system just like every other American sports league. That goes to show that Pro/rel has nothing to do with the World cup.
You ever heard "There's more than one way to skin a cat"? The American sports structure works well for Americans. Promotion/relegation works well for European football leagues. Just agree to disagree. You guys act like complete snobs coming on MLS videos trying to tell the MLS what they should do when you aren't fans in the first place. Let the fans tell the MLS what the MLS should do to entertain them. The MLS structure is good, like Mario said, as long as they continue to follow the blueprint of the NFL/NBA/MLB and other American sports leagues. We don't have to do it your way to be competitive or entertaining. Just deal with it
An idea of left field: How about a PER/REL system based upon an accumulation of points over a 3 season span? This will provide some protection from a "poor season" and allow some clubs to establish themselves
The hope for soccer in Canada and the United States in 20 years down the road is that USL & the Canadian Premier League are the lower divisions and will be included under the MLS umbrella to add the promotion/relegation
Actually, the second Bundesliga is the strongest second Tier. Many teams have much higher viewership than most other country's first-tier league.
It's also far and away the best managed second league financially, with rules on player spending and investment that ensure teams turn profits and don't go bankrupt every 10 years like teams in the European Championship do.
So if football actually takes off in the US and every teams in the 1st division you will end up with 50 teams or more in the MLS so eventually you will have to have a 2nd league and promotion and relegation its just a matter of time, its why everywhere has it.
No, that's not how it would work on America. At most, the MLS will have 32 teams like the NFL. No one is saying the NFL needs relegation because there's "too many teams". The MLS would be fine without it too
I'm all for it but the problem is that people struggle to even watch/attend uneventful regular season games so expecting people to watch division 2 games becomes much less likely
It makes it more likely. The games will actually mean something
The pressure to win and more money for your club is greater with promotion and relegation
"Please, somebody watch me despite the nonsense I'm saying"-- ESPNFC
Exactly, the people that want this are the billionaire groups that want to control another league with hoarding titles.
The problem is that Alot of MLS teams are owned by People who are Americans Sports owners that dont have Pro/Rel. You cant compare Mls ro other American sports because those other Sports dont have no competition where as Mls has leagues all over the world to compete with.....so if MLS becomes more popular and they compare with europe...mls will always fall short and will be less exciting because there is no Pro/Rel.......however the Key is the USL is that league can get more stable teams and and more money and popularity in the future they us soccer can force this issue but thats a long way off
Pro/Rel works if 3 or 4 teams from the West & Eastern Conference get Relegated to USL Championship and the owners aren’t Money Hungry animals lol
So you think any investor will join the league, spend millions of dls on a new stadium, players, facilities etc just for the love of the sport?
Mario L it might take a while but yess first things first, gotta get rid of the money hungry owners lol
I would love to see the Indy Eleven or the Las Vegas Lights FC go from USL Champions to being promoted to the MLS
@@LilSmitty41 nah i mean can mls team really afford that probably but a slim chance i mean try to get best players in the world
Without relegation, there are a few things that can be done in order to instill a sense of urgency, especially financial incentives.
Instead of the current system of equal distribution from the league, a system parallel to auto racing may be adopted, where the final relative position of the team determines their level of bonus or financial distribution. The higher the team finishes, the more money they receive from the league. Other incentives may be drafting picks...
Bravo to Gomez for correctly mentioning how foreign leagues are looking at the efficiency of the US league system. Relegation only has that one positive with instilling a sense of urgency with bottom teams, but it’s not very good since most clubs in every country of the world receive some form of government subsidy when there’s trouble.
Seems like there’s a glorious lack of understanding how the worldwide federations with a relegation system in place operate, because ESPN forgets to mention that club teams are structured as “social clubs” with a primary revenue stream where members pay a monthly fee to remain as a member, irrespective of club status. Sure, the top tier series also receive more money with the American model of TV money which was injected in the 80s.
Like all US leagues, the MLS has no parallel revenue stream from memberships.
Honestly, I don't think pro/rel helps with better soccer either. Low table teams don't get magically better with pro/rel, they just get more desperate. Mid table teams play boring, conservative soccer because they don't want to lose their spot. And the top teams are the only ones really worth watching. I think a playoff race is more exciting as the teams are playing for a playoff spot, not desperately fighting for their lives.
Who cares what Europe thinks of MLS?
Amen.
I guess the reason they don’t have promotion/relegation is because of the franchise model to keep the finances stable like the NBA/NFL
And nhl and mlb
You guys care too much what Europeans think about the league. And it's never gonna happen. Owners will NEVER risk their investment plus they've paid to be parts of MLS not a relegation league.
No, no, no. The only one that makes sense, and which the "relegated" team wouldnt feel too demoted is having the season broken into two- MLS play season & the other half involving play with Liga MX. The team w/worst record in MLS would play not Liga MX but the Liga Ascenso. The following MLS play season they would come back to the fold. Demoting a MLS team to USL will never, and should never, happen. Those owners have committed too much money, unless MLS pays them.
Yes yes yes. This would make the league world class
No. No, it wouldn't. You don't have millions of fans wanting to watch MLS but don't because there is no Phoenix or Louisville.
No, it would kill it.
Promotion and relegation would not work in America because it results in a single team winning most of the championships and it makes it harder for smaller teams to succeed. That’s why Bayern Munich has won the Bundesliga championship seven times in a row and why most of the Premier League championships have been won by Manchester United.
The mls will never reach European level if they don’t add promotion and relegation. It will improve the level of the players and the investment direction (young players with a future, instead of old marketing players).
Liga MX had promotion relegation did it ever reach the Euro leagues? How about the Central American leagues and even South American leagues, did they reach that level? How about other leagues in Europe like the Scottish league, Wales, Belgium, Poland, Croatia did they ever reach the level of the Premier league?
@@oyaml1211 the difference is unlike the countries you mentioned usa actually have the resources to be one of the best leagues in the world. Not sure about some of the European countries but in America countries like Mexico Argentina and Brazil are at there max because they have invested all the money they possibly can in the sport but mls has a higher ceiling. Mls is different there are many things they are doing wrong but at the end of the day if mls fixes their problems and improve they 100 percent can be one of the biggest leagues in the world. They have the infrastructure revenue and better recognition In Europe. There are many other factors that come to mind but for sure promotion and relegation will take the league to the next level
@@rlubin9356 So in other words you want what is working for MLS to get rid of it so it can enter into debt like those leagues and many of the teams in those leagues just so MLS can be like everyone else? MLS is already amongst the top 10 leagues in the world when it comes to revenues and it has only been around for 25 years, not 100 like other leagues. In 25 years the NFL and NBA were still not even a shadow of what they are today. If MLS continues the same path it will become one of the best leagues in the world, it just needs time. Rome wasn't build in a day. Why change what's working?
Just an idea:
- 25 teams on the West Coast (one per state).
- 25 teams on the East Coast (one per state).
- Another league for each state.
- A local league.
Just like in Europe.
And, if you want, the top 4 or 5 teams of each coast play a "superleague".
Conferences and playoffs pretty much takes care of all of this...
@@davepazz580 except for promotions
Qualifying for the playoffs *is* the promotion... otherwise your season is over and you don't get to participate with the others who did better during the season.
It’s never gonna here in America, as long as owners view profits over talent growth, the concept of pro/rel will always be just a topic
The MLS spending with some clubs is to gain the most from the smallest investment. others spend spend spend.
They need to. As an american who is just getting into the sport i would love to have a MLS team to root for but Louisiana doesn't have one. The closest i know is New Orleans Jesters and i would love for them to at least have a chance at MLS.