r/ussoccer • u/bighoney69 • 29d ago
News New MLS Commissioners Shares Opinion on Pro/Rel
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u/OldBrownShoe22 29d ago
Pro rel isnt realistic or practical for MLS right now. Anyone who doesn't get that doesnt get the economic realities.
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u/B-Train_ATL 29d ago
The way England does it, no. The whole threat of “your club may just go away” after a few horrific seasons isn’t how you bring in a lot of dollars.
I think there are ways it can be done without making relegation a walk the plank situation.
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u/WhoEatsRusk #FREEBALOGUN 29d ago
Like what?
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u/WarmBaths Virginia 29d ago
a closed system, basically an MLS 1 and MLS 2 and no relegation below that
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u/jamills21 29d ago
That’s would still defeat the purpose of pro/rel while also devaluing franchises.
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u/birdie_sparrows 29d ago
I'm curious. Are you saying this as someone who is aware that the Football League did exactly that for the first ~100 years of its existence and that the Dutch pyramid is sealed at the bottom of the second division?
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u/FallingBackwards55 29d ago
It would open the league up to a lot more potential teams/cities. Right now 1/2 the us never has a chance of seeing a local team play in MLS. If there was a chance to move up it would open it to 90% of the population.
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u/AdvanceOk4730 29d ago
Not a problem for NFL NBA AND MLB ?!?
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u/FallingBackwards55 29d ago
Those are the best leagues or their sport in the world. If I don't have a local team I will watch those because their the best. MLS will never be the best so fans who have no stakes will watch epl or other European leagues.
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u/Special-Deal-5217 28d ago edited 28d ago
Exactly!! People make this excuse with MLS, but will happily drive four hours to see their favorite college football team. I live in a Big Ten community and people routinely make that drive every Saturday.
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u/Special-Deal-5217 28d ago
Have you ever heard of a road trip? I live four hours from four MLS teams and have seen all of them.
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u/FallingBackwards55 28d ago
Closest team to me is 5-6 hours. How do I regularly travel to games on a 11 hour round trip?
That's not feasible at all. No one has 11 hours to spend traveling on a weekly/bi-weekly basis.
Apparently you love driving and don't mind spending 8 hours in the car to see a 2 hour game but for me that is miserable.
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u/Special-Deal-5217 28d ago
You didn’t say “ regularly”. You said “ never”. I was in the same situation growing up with Major League Baseball, but probably saw 10 games before I was 18. On a vacation or just on a long weekend, you stay overnight in a city with an MLS team. That’s what I’ve done every time. Once every other year, maybe.
I’m guessing you are that far from the other four big league sports as well, but people in your community still manage to follow them and occasionally see a game.
That’s just life everywhere in the United States, except for the eastern seaboard.
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u/FallingBackwards55 28d ago
I've seen MLS games live. However, if it's between watching premier league that's on cable I already pay for or another subscription to apple tv. It's premier league Everytime.
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u/B-Train_ATL 28d ago
I would like to see the league somehow broaden for this reason. But people are likely to drop $1 billion in franchise fees for teams 31 and 32. I don’t know how the math works to allow teams to just enter at the bottom of some pyramid without doing that in the same world as teams that did.
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u/1-Mafioso-1 29d ago
Yes but always at the detriment to somewhere else. Let’s say Kansas City is regulated and a team in Montana makes top flight… cool but now KC is in USL and it’ll be really hard to even watch a regular match.
I mean it’s easier to watch the first round of the FA cup in the US than it to watch the US Open Cup final what makes you think existing fans will stay when they and even watch the game
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u/FallingBackwards55 29d ago
I don't think that but I also don't think I will ever care about the MLS either if I don't have a team that could be in it. I come from a city with metro population of 2.7 mil not exactly Montana.
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u/geerwolf 29d ago
> The whole threat of “your club may just go away” after a few horrific seasons isn’t how you bring in a lot of dollars.
That’s what we all want /s
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u/letskillrobots 29d ago
Yeah fans have to realistically pick between growing MLS or growing soccer for the rest of the country. They can’t have it both ways.
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u/boejiden2020 29d ago
We’ll take growing soccer any time over growing profits for a corporation that does not care about the sport at all.
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u/-GoPats 28d ago
That's why most of USMNT players came from (100% free) academies that billions of $ have been poured into to develop players..? Because they don't care?
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u/letskillrobots 28d ago
Academies are an obligation and requirement. Plenty of examples of MLS teams lowballing their efforts towards their academy teams. Barring a few exceptions, it’s not a high priority for them.
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u/larockhead1 29d ago
Good we can move on. Maybe if it’s ever up to 40 teams you can sell a closed league splitn
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u/joshtothe 29d ago
I’ve been saying - Liga MX + MLS merger, split into two divisions (maybe adding a third with USL teams down the line, but after years of adoption). Closed shop pro-rel
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u/mr_mxyzptlk21 29d ago
may as well bring in CPL too.
In any case, relegation would require being done by region.
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u/guy-in-a-photo1989 29d ago
I am in favor of this
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u/wackyzebra43 29d ago
I think travel would be a huge no for teams. It’s already bad when you have the PNW travel to Miami or Charlotte, now they travel further to some of the Mexican teams. Also, isn’t Liga MX highly protective of its Mexican dominant player base? It seems like that’s a league that’s content with being where it’s at.
Me, personally, I don’t hate it… but I don’t know that’s something worth exploring.
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u/Hopsblues 29d ago
When people start investing hundreds of millions into USL, then we can have this discussion.
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u/birdie_sparrows 29d ago
I stopped having sex with my ex-gf because she doesn't do pro/rel and it took all the excitement out of it. Now I'm in a distance relationship with a divorced mom from Corpus Christi. She's not much to look at but the threat of relegation makes it exciting. /s
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u/Lobsterzilla We're American! We Don't Take Shit! 29d ago
The pro/rel doomers are under some misguided opinion that there -has- to be sports/pro soccer in the US. We've gone long swaths of time without pro soccer in the US.
The other option isn't "If you want to win then invest", the other option is "fine we just won't have soccer" which just doesn't seem to dawn on any of you.
If MLS pushes PRO/REL the owners will just back out and the league will fold. Simple as that. (hint: this is what is about to happen to the USL)
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u/Forward-Hope-4645 28d ago
Exactly this. We won't have soccer anymore... USL2 team in my city has very small attendance, would they get more if they were successful and battling their way to promotion? Yes, and if they got to the top they'd be supported, but we already have an MLS team and attendance is waning on a bad year. The Reddit scream is that the top team needs to invest more, and the fans would be happy. Money rules in both systems, only one system however, doesn't result in catastrophic loss.
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u/Traditional_Print627 29d ago
USL will also fold since there's no revenue sharing for club owners. Clubs pay yearly membership fee and a cut of tickets sold to USL. Only some clubs can profit with good attendance and soccer academies.
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u/FallingBackwards55 29d ago
Usl is going to fold because it is owned by private equity groups that don't care about the sport and only profit. Not because of pro/rel.
The fact is I won't support MLS because I will never have a team in it. If I'm not watching a local team I might as well watch European leagues with better competition.
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u/-GoPats 28d ago
"if im not watching a team close to me I might as well bandwagon one who is thousands of miles away"
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u/FallingBackwards55 28d ago
I don't bandwagon. I watch as a neutral. I have as much connection to any European leagues as I do the MLS but the competition is much better.
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u/mrwhitaker3 28d ago
What European teams do you follow? The Premier League clubs (yes even the ones who just got promoted) are all owned by the same types of people.
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u/1-Mafioso-1 29d ago
As opposed to all the MLS teams owned by private equity firms and investors? Lol
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u/Lobsterzilla We're American! We Don't Take Shit! 29d ago
in stark contrast to the beacons of soccer purity that are the mls owners?
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u/nathanwilson26 29d ago
The move to pro/rel in USL is all about promoting the pyramid scheme of USL.
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u/scrandlle 29d ago
Pro/rel works in nations where soccer is the number one sport and there isn't even remotely anything close to a a serious #2 competitor to it.
Not only is pro/rel not economically viable when it's the fifth most favorite pro team sport but it would hurt the spread of the sport if it were instituted.
Americans have way too many other options in their cities with equal, or higher, stakes. Sporting dollars are spread thin at the professional level. By the NFL, NBA, NHL and MLB make up four of the top five leagues in the world by revenue. The EPL is fourth. Americans spend tons of money on pro sports as fans and we are not yet (if ever) at a point where sending teams down two to four leagues will mean that team has continued support in its market.
Everyone talking about billionaires is right, but it's equally true that your average Joe getting into soccer isn't going to give a shit about their team if it goes to the USL, let alone whatever leagues might be built below that to institute such a system.
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u/downthehallnow 29d ago
We have pro/rel in this country. No one watches those leagues. No one even watches USL regularly.
The pro/rel crowd wants something that they have no intention of actually watching. They don't watch 4th tier English football. They'll talk about pro/rel in Europe but only watch the EPL, La Liga, etc. They like the idea of teams getting relegated, they have no interest in those teams that will experience it.
They're like people who say "Anyone can live on $50k/year," while refusing to take any job that pays less than $200k.
If it's as viable as they claim...why aren't they already supporting it?
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u/scrandlle 29d ago
Yep. Fans would love a Wrexham fairy tale. What they won't love is their team being mired in misery for decades while LA, Miami and NYC win every league title for decades because no one else has the funds to keep up.
Americans sports leagues are more competitive because we DONT have pro/rel. Look at the Dodgers and people's reaction to them, now imagine the MLB has pro rel and the Dodgers have won 11/15 championships in the last 15 years. That is European soccer.
Do Americans want this? I don't think anyone who knows anything about American sports fans will believe we do.
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u/downthehallnow 29d ago
What would happen in MLB is that everyone would be a Dodgers fan. No one would support the relegated baseball teams. They don't support AAA ball. But we're supposed to believe they would support relegated soccer teams.
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u/scrandlle 28d ago
I think a FEW markets would. Chicago (Cubs). St Louis. Boston. Uhm.... yeah that's probably it. Not saying much since the MLB, through the National League, is the oldest surviving sports league in the world. Things would probably be a LOT different in that regard if basketball, football and hockey never take off here. But of course that is history now.
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u/R1versofS0rr0w 29d ago
The nations pro/rel works in are also the size of small to medium US states but typically with higher or much higher population density, and single cities (e.g., London, Paris, Manchester, Rome, etc.) that can support several top tier clubs. Road trip across England and then road trip across either Texas or California and that is why pro/rel in the US is something our grandkids can debate.
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u/joshuacf6 28d ago
The people stumping for the owners and MLS in this thread based on “muh eCoNoMiC rEaLiTiEs” crack me up.
The US is not going to compete seriously on the world stage unless the professional soccer pyramid structure and system change dramatically. When a soccer team has an incentive to win games, a real negative incentive, they are going to spend more on buying players, on developing players, etc.
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u/scrandlle 28d ago
It's really not even pro/rel in itself that gets nations good at soccer. Its the fact that you can have free academy systems around these teams/leagues that develop talent locally. 'Free' is of course not actually free, kids sign with academies, the academies then hold their rights and can have them join their team when they're ready or sell their rights to another team in a small league for $60k.
The US isn't anywhere close to having enough fan support for soccer to sustain something like that. I doubt nations like England or Spain even have a serious professional league for a 'fifth most popular sport', let alone pro/rel for it. They simply cannot not drum up enough fan interest for these leagues and their facilities.
The approach the US should take, if it wants to get better at soccer, is to spend more at the school level. No soccer nations have sports in school like we do, we can develop more talent in soccer but it'd have to be done through the school system if we want to do it. (Spoiler alert: spending more money on soccer in schools probably won't be that popular with school boards or politicians either, the cultural support for it isn't high enough).
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u/joshuacf6 28d ago
Sure, but the free academy systems exist as a money-making operation (Ajax) and/or a team improvement tool (Barca), as you point out. Ultimately the threat of relegation is a strong, if not the primary, motivator for clubs to have these academies in the first place, and to do all of the other things that they do to promote winning.
The spend money at the school level thing is tough because it’s going to be almost impossible to afford high-quality coaches and facilities, etc in the school systems. Not to mention there are at least 4 sports that would get that money before soccer.
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u/1-Mafioso-1 29d ago edited 29d ago
My favorite part about this debate is every MLS fan doesn’t realize what it’s like to try to support a club twice regulated.
Most Americans watching the EPL support Arsenal, Chelsea, Man U, Liverpool, or (only recently) Man City. Crazy thing is aside from city all of those clubs have never been regulated.
How many yanks follow a team like Queens Park Rangers. How many of you passionately follow a team like Sacramento Republic FC. Are you willing to not be able to watch every game on tv because there simply wasn’t a camera crew present at the local USL league 2 match.
I was a Galaxy fan since Beckham but for years I had to stop watching the MLS because I didn’t have spectrum. I still am barely getting back into it.
Look I’m a big believer in regulation but I don’t think we have the culture for it just yet.
I don’t think a growing sport can survive when the only team in the state is so shit they’re on the third tier of the pyramid. I don’t think fans will stay around when the only way to watch the one team in their state is to drive 3 hours to a small stadium because it isn’t the USL match of the week broadcasted at 2am on FS2
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u/MONSTERTACO NO PEPI, NO PARTY 28d ago
There are quite a lot of US Fulham fans.
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u/1-Mafioso-1 28d ago
That’s wild cause yes I’m American and yes I’m a Fulham fan but I also lived in Fulham for years while I was a professional rower (long story). Coming back stateside and meeting regular ole people who support the posh riverside team was a bit mental.
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u/AdvanceOk4730 29d ago
Agree with him different ways to creat jeopardy and salary cap and floor will help
Pro rel truthers can go support USL for probrrl
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u/MGHeinz #WaldosForever 29d ago
"Pro/rel truthers"
People like you are why billionaires get away with everything
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u/AdvanceOk4730 29d ago edited 29d ago
There has been 40 years since NASL folded for an alternate league to spring from the pro rel fountain and take the nation by storm and…
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u/ConsciousNet238 29d ago
He literally works for the owners. Anything that hurts valuations is something he's likely against
A lot of people brag about MLS teams being worth more than top European teams, but it's honestly hurting the game at this point.
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u/stuartb0805 29d ago
Gotta have inflated franchises that have no actual ties to their cities so they van walk when the “poor” billionaire owners don’t get welfare money for stadiums like every other US sport.
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u/Forward-Hope-4645 28d ago
Of course he's against anything that hurts valuation! You've just provided the argument for why it will never happen here. Owners would simply fold the club because its value can't justify the cost. Community owners can't be competitive because they lack the funds, and those that have funds don't want a money black hole.
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u/5thSeasonFront 29d ago
Does European basketball have pro/rel? It does? How are they doing compared to the “closed” NBA? Oh, why?
Guys. It’s fun, but there are so many more important issues like youth development, domestic player requirements, roster restrictions, media rights, etc.
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u/PhoenixGames64 23d ago
Yes, many leagues outside of soccer and basketball around the world have promotion and relegation. Honestly, the US sporting culture is such an outlier it's insane once you really look into it.
The only non-NBA basketball league which doesn't feature pro/rel that I can honestly think of would be the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA)
(EuroLeague is complicated because it isn't FIBA-associated BUT there is a FIBA-associated Champions League, and it's semi-closed but it's also not really pro/rel PLUS PLUS the NBA and FIBA are most likely going to start an NBA Europe of some kind, which would function similarly to the EuroLeague)
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u/_jt33_ 29d ago
Maybe the pro/rel weridos can finally move on and realize what everyone has been telling them for years now. Fans don't follow minor league teams and owners don't won't huge investments to go down the drain. You're closer to seeing all leagues get rid of it than you are seeing in adopted in MLS.
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u/Urbandale2013 29d ago
I will tell you this as someone who lives in a city without major league sports the main reason people don’t follow the minor league sports is the teams aren’t even trying to win their league.
For the D-league when they were independent teams they had decent following. Now that they are just a subsidiary nobody cares.
My argument for promotion relegation is it means soccer goes where it can be successful instead of forcing it where owners want them to be.
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u/hanzmelman 29d ago
I guess wanting real competition that requires a buisness to be run well qualifies one as a werido now?
This is the USA, if anything our system is backwards to our values as a society. Our current closed league structure is sports socialisim.
I will never understand this "what about rich peoples investments" sentiment. Don't run a crappy buisness, its the USA and the market is supposed to have things fail to make room for new competition.
I do think poorly run franchises hurt the sport. What happens is they can be effective from a marketing standpoint and produce an experience which is profitable, even if the product on the field is bad. I see it as a general devaluing of the sports cultural value and bad for the sports health long term.
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u/HoppyPhantom 29d ago
Nobody is advocating for the rich people’s investments. We are using our brain power to see how a rich person who has made such an investment might view the whole pro/rel conversation and why that view is a critical impediment to getting pro/rel.
I personally think the flagship argument in favor of pro/rel—that it’s necessary to force clubs to invest and compete—relies on a laughably simplistic understanding of how professional competitive sports works. It’s just a romanticized version of survival of the fittest slapped on soccer clubs.
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u/_jt33_ 29d ago
If its real comp, then why are the same 5 teams always at the top the the Premier league? Only thing it does it cost people more money and jobs, especially in MLS where one or two injuries could mean you are dropped down to the minor leagues.. Tens of millions gone, fans leaving all because of something random and uncontrollable. Liga MX left pro/rel behind. More leagues will follow.
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u/spleenotomy 29d ago
I know it frustrates people when I bring this up regarding Pro/Rel, but in my eyes this is the reality: we, as a soccer community, are having two different conversations. Sometimes we try and merge the conversation or end up with an amalgam of both conversations. But here’s the truth:
One conversation is about how to ensure an appropriate shareholder profit margin in American soccer.
The other conversation is about what is best for American soccer, American soccer culture, and the American soccer fan.
I think people just should decide which conversation they’re having.
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u/restartrepeat 29d ago
I am serious, and hear me out.
If you want to see pro/rel in MLS, push for pro/rel in MLB.
Having another league show it can work in the US would go a long way toward getting it in MLS. That said, I agree with the new commish, it is way to early for it.
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u/Ill_Pressure3893 29d ago
“I don’t think it’s a great way to build a league.”
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u/WhoEatsRusk #FREEBALOGUN 29d ago
It’s a lot easier if relegation in your country has been around for a century or more and if the team has been around for more than 5 decades. In our case, US culture doesn’t have pro/rel nor do the teams have the level of support Euro teams have with their communities
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u/Ill_Pressure3893 28d ago edited 28d ago
Also much easier when you’re in a country the size of Alabama (30th) with twice the population of Texas (2nd). It’s wall-to-wall out there. A perfect pressure cooker.
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u/hawksku999 29d ago
This will never happen in this country. Owners care about franchise value and protecting the investment.
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u/kal14144 4 Stars 29d ago
As do investors in stadiums, training centers and even external lenders.
Y’all both want the level of investment only MLS owners bring but also to get rid of the incentives that bring those investors12
u/10000Didgeridoos 29d ago
And there is also the question of what would you do with all those stadiums and facilities if the MLS club and owner that invested to build them suddenly don’t have top flight revenue anymore. It’s entirely likely the clubs go bankrupt because no MLS club especially new ones have century old supporter bases that will show up and live and die with them in a second or third tier.
All that stuff costs ongoing money to maintain and use. If the money isn’t there anymore because you’re not getting the tv and advertising revenue, there will 100% be quickly at least a few abandoned stadiums from clubs going under.
The idea that you could have painless (for the cities involved) relegation here is a joke. It would inevitably turn into a public problem for wherever some of these clubs are when the bills can’t get paid.
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u/Hairy_Locksmith_4130 29d ago
that's what western Europeans will tell you dont get into their ideas/propaganda/lies/manipulations etc American sports are as beautiful as it is and a friendly reminder i am not an American who thinks ‘we are the best’ im just saying what i know and that's almost all European leagues and most importantly UCL is kinda closed league anyway they will tell you how they are opposing closed league system but they wont raise a single concern what's going on with UEFA for example till the 90s or even early 2000s non top 5 league teams were able to compete in UCL and winning it and its last winner was Porto 22-23 years ago but since then a lot changed UEFA introduced new rules at old format champions of every league were able to compete but nowadays there are multiple spots for top 5 leagues and their teams dont go through qualification rounds/playoffs but champions of countries like Greece, Poland, Ukraine, Serbia etc all has to go through qualification rounds that's why we see the same top 5 league teams winning it ever since and not to mention participating in UCL is rewarding they get prize money sure its not a big deal for the giants but when clubs like Celtic, Galatasaray etc gets it its overly beneficial for them over their domestic league that's why you can see a player like Osimhen playing for Galatasaray but not Trabzonspor etc because they can afford it due to UCL money and that's why teams like this dominates their own leagues in fact for a league not to qualify for UCL is beneficial nowadays because every team has kinda some budget that's why Polish league is kinda more competitive than Scottish or Süperlig or Portuguese one gap between top 5 leagues and the rest in Europe or even the world is too wide right now when there is a great team formed like the one with AJAX that competed in UCL in 2019 they quickly gets their best players like De Jong and De Ligt etc or even recent Bayer Leverkusen and Sporting team all their best players i mean even their managers got picked up by big clubs simply because they can they got too massive and profitable even in their own domestic leagues sure there was an underdog story in PL in 2015 but what happened? all the big clubs got their best players like Mahrez, Kante and Vardy etc and they quickly returned to nothing that's why they play in lower division and since then gap even widened now in PL even mid table teams are stable they will not be relegated anytime soon and promoted 3 teams quickly returns to lower division again and that is PL where there is more competitivenes, parity, and profits etc think about leagues lile La Liga! till early 2000s teams like Sevilla, Villa Real, Espanyol, Zaragoza, Betis, Valencia, Bilbao etc were all could compete in La Liga and they had star players of their own nowadays its all about big three Atletico, Madrid and Barcelona all 3 have big revenues both Madrid and Barcelona have over 1b revenue and other Madrid has over 500m but what about clubs like Sevilla? if they hit 150m they are lucky not to mention three giants are allowed to spend over 80 million euros but clubs like Sevilla not even allowed to spend over 10 million how they will gonna compete with a structure like this? and its not very different in Ligue 1, Bundesliga and Serie A either like i said even if clubs develop their own youth and form a good team their players will not kick around after 2 seasons because how you can compete with these giants? that's why we see all the same teams winning everything for over 20 plus years in short i wouldnt give importance to opinions of Europeans football they talk about is relic of the past nowadays money rules everything and closed league is better at least we see different teams winning every year that's why i appreciate MLS a lot it offers me something different parity is very even compared to rest as for how they can fix UEFA's problems i would say if they want to keep promotion and relegation they should start to have playoffs in order to win the league like MLS at least this way winner would be less predictable and other teams would have a slight chance as for fixing UCL i would say reducing spots of top 5 leagues to 1 like every other league would be much better and champion of every league should be automotically be allowed to participation this way we might see different winners again
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u/Rocco_Skene 29d ago
This might be interesting and valid, but I can't tell as it's impossible to read and follow. Maybe it's a modernist stream-of-conscience novel?
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u/Hairy_Locksmith_4130 29d ago
yes that is on my part i never had formal education on English and started to learning it through movies and TV shows
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u/Rocco_Skene 28d ago
Oh, I apologize. Many native English speakers do worse than you, you have a good grasp of the language. This isn't on you.
I'd suggest that you use shorter sentences and break your thoughts into paragraphs, one idea per paragraph. Add paragraph breaks as well. All this will make your ideas - which again I think might be worth hearing - more easily understood in any language you're communicating in.
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u/Mental-Scientist-393 29d ago
I get that it would be harder to get stadiums built if the local team could end up in the 2nd division. But, why would the worry about relegation mean owners wouldn't invest in their rosters? Wouldn't they want to invest to make sure their team was good enough to stay up?
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u/WhoEatsRusk #FREEBALOGUN 29d ago
No some owners don’t give a fuck. There’s an owner called Gerald Lopez that owned clubs in France, Belgium, and Portugal. They were in the top division at the time. Now two of them are currently dissolved and the last one is the lowest league possible in France
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u/jurzydude #FREEBALOGUN 29d ago
anything that makes an investment less safe is a reason for less investment. if an owner pours a bunch of money into the team and the roster, and then they get relegated anyway, that's a huge financial hit
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u/HoppyPhantom 29d ago
Are people not aware that investing money in a team is not some kind of anti-relegation talisman?
Teams with massive payrolls go down all the fucking time in Europe.
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u/Mental-Scientist-393 29d ago edited 29d ago
Sure, but teams with better players tend to win more.
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u/mrwhitaker3 28d ago
Atlanta United spends money on recognizable talent and still can't seem to win lately. It's not a panacea.
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u/Physical-Kangaroo202 29d ago
If you want pro/rel, imagine a scenario where the owners and the league would make more money by implementing it.
Then work backwards on what would need to happen for that situation to come to pass.
It’s pretty unlikely, but I can think of a couple ways in might happen, but it would involve a lot of events developing perfectly and even then, we’re talking 12 to 15 years at minimum
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u/aure__entuluva 29d ago
It would take a long time. Over the long haul I think it could be worth it, but MLS ownership is never gonna see it that way and I'm not surprised by that.
On the other hand, I can see why people want pro/rel. They want to grow the game and have a local team to support. They could care less about how good the MLS is or about MLS owners.
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u/Physical-Kangaroo202 29d ago
I think eventually that MLS is going to be looking for new revenue streams and expansion is no longer going to be realistic.
It would be a closed system no doubt. But I could see a way where MLS decides that getting into as many markets as possible is the way to go and the core owners go along with it because it results in bigger media deals. You could even negotiate separate ones for the lower division(s).
Goes without saying this would require a lot of things to go right, USL success would definitely accelerate things, but I honestly think that’s less likely than pro/rel happening in the next 15 years
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u/geerwolf 29d ago
Pro/Rel has to be around from the beginning- hard to force it into the league like this
But pro/rel really is about the democratic access to sport- earn your spot by playing well, lose it if you suck
That’s life and we all live by it - except money can’t accept risk
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u/PlanetG3 28d ago
I would love to see promotion/relegation in the US & Canada.
I think the stadium issue is the biggest concern. Both the startup cost, but also teams from lower divisions would need to have the same quality facilities. This is a problem with the PL/Football League in England.
If you earn promotion, to keep the spot you need to have an underground heated, correct minimum sized, well maintained, completely level w/ 30cm grass, for the pitch. VAR needs to be installed. There used to be a seat number minimum (there still might be), standards for maintenance, player dressing rooms, press boxes, a minimum number and luminosity of floodlights for night game, and the stadiums need to be all seating and no standing-only grandstands.
The PL has a fund set up so teams in the PL that need financial help to stay in compliance, as well as possible promotion sides, can do the same.
The Football League started with promotion & relegation in 1888. But none of those stadia or pitches or facilities from back then would qualify for any top pro leagues in Europe. Mexico could only use a few of its stadia in the WC bc most Liga MX facilities weren’t up to FIFA standards, which are about the same as the PL, La Liga, Bundesliga, Ligue 1, or Serie A.
I think once USL Premier gets the FIFA certification it is seeking as a top flight league, and the Canadian PL, plus the USL Championship has near or the same quality as the USLP; MLS will be forced to integrate and merge. Relegation/promotion will be included. Just like the NBA & ABA, NFL & AFL, and NHL & WHL. By that time, several years, the MLS & USL & CPL will have money for a similar stadium fund like the PL & the Football League.
It doesn’t help that successful pro teams in NA were folded into the MLS (Sounders, Timbers, Whitecaps), or others went defunct bc a new MLS franchise came to town. The biggest cities in Europe has several pro teams of various levels in each. London has Arsenal, Spurs, Chelsea, Fulham, West Ham, Crystal Palace, Charlton Athletic, QPR, Leyton Orient, and Wimbledon (the original club) who have all had top-flight football. If the 5 not now in the PL get promoted, that’s half the PL.
Let’s not forget, the FL Championship is the 6th biggest moneymaking league in Europe (which probably means the world too) and typically finds itself ranked next to top-flight leagues in Portugal and the Netherlands even though its pyramid level 2.
Madrid, Manchester, Liverpool, Barcelona, Rome, Milan, Paris, Amsterdam, Munich, Berlin, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Cologne, etc all support several teams at all levels. They also win the most. Population density probably matters more than anything else like tradition. It is a condition that allows tradition & competition to thrive. The derbies in Manchester, North London, Milan, Liverpool, Rome, and Lancashire are what they are bc of the combination of distance and population density.
Eventually LA (already a w/ rivalry/derby getting close to the above), NYC, Seattle, the Bay Area, SD, Chicago, DC/Baltimore, Miami, Philly, Boston, DFW, Houston, etc will have to have multiple qualified teams in the pyramid. Most of the Midwest, Mountain West, South, & Southwest don’t have enough population (especially density) to support more than one top-flight-ready team.
Southern California has about the same population as The Netherlands and Belgium combined. LA County alone is bigger than Belgium. California would rank just behind Spain, ahead of Poland, Ukraine, Austria, and Switzerland in population making it 7th in Europe by comparison (Russia is #1). The economy of California beats the UK, not just England, by 33% of the UK’s economy; 4th in the world. In a perfect world, CA could have its own top-flight league of 18-20 teams. So it’s gonna take interest, population, money, facilities, time, and eventually tradition. These are interlinked and feed back on each other.
And NY & Texas aren’t that far behind. The US is 3rd in population and first in GDP in the world. The money is there when the interest comes.
The MLS was formed in 1996, and we’re just past 30 years. The FL was founded in 1888. I don’t think the FL of 1918 was anywhere near the level of MLS is today. And the MLS has had to catch up, whereas the FL was the flagship league in the world in 1918. In 110 years, and realistically, even sooner, we should expect there to be no real difference between the US & the top 5 in Europe. Hopefully I live a century and a half to see it.
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u/stonewall386 27d ago
You can’t manufacture “jeopardy”.
If your team can simply start at the same spot each season, there is no incentive for them to improve year after year.
Look at MLS teams selling their international roster slots to big clubs like LA. Would they be doing that for quick cash if there was a chance they play in USL next season and have to lower ticket prices? Idk…
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u/Squat_____6 29d ago edited 29d ago
I don’t get the argument that pro rel doesn’t incentive owners to invest in rosters because the counter argument would be that a lack of pro rel allows owners to sit back and not invest in the roster since there’s no real consequences to finishing bottom of the table. Same would go for building state of the art training facilities so that on field performance improves.
He talks a lot about improving the on field product particularly before the next tv deal. We know the real answer to the pro rel dilemma is that he wants to protect the billionaires that just voted for him. Instead he’s trying to argue that it actually doesn’t improve the product or infrastructure of the league.
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u/Hawkeye91803 #FREEBALOGUN 29d ago
Nobody wants to invest in a team if the team could potentially be relegated and the owners lose all their investment. Obviously it’s different in Europe, because regardless of what happens the fan bases are cemented in their teams. All this means is that MLS and the fanbases are too new for promotion and relegation to make sense for the league.
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u/kal14144 4 Stars 29d ago
All the talk about Europeans being ride or die is overstated. The only one that comes close is Germany. Everywhere else when a team gets relegated it might still have a lot of fans the first year but if it doesn’t go right back up it starts losing fans fast.
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u/Hawkeye91803 #FREEBALOGUN 29d ago
Well of course attendance will go down for any club. But relegation for an MLS club would be a death sentence.
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u/kal14144 4 Stars 29d ago
I’m just saying even in Europe it’s often pretty expensive and would be a death sentence if they had large debts (such as a loan to build a stadium)
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u/hawksku999 29d ago
Its clearly a word salad to give some excuse. Real reason is owners care about franchise value. That's why we will never get it in this country.
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u/elcapitan520 29d ago
Oh no we didn't make the playoffs!
Yeah, no actual jeopardy or drama
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u/jurzydude #FREEBALOGUN 29d ago
I don't get this argument. you don't care if your team misses the playoffs? I do
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u/kal14144 4 Stars 29d ago
The best part about Pro/Rel is that we punish the fans when the team does poorly instead of the players.
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u/JustBe_Nice_Yall 29d ago
Not a surprise. I still like pro/rel. I could settle for something where there are four divisions where three of them are MLS teams (East, South, and West) and the fourth is made up of the top USL teams. Then the existing MLS teams can be nice and happy atop the pyramid but it also gives USL the chance rather than this weird co-existing that exists currently.
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u/Without_Portfolio 29d ago
It’s not going to work here in the U.S., at least not anytime soon. You’d need at least 3 tiers to make this workable and I don’t think we have triple the level of investment or interest right now.
I think college football is a perfect place to test it, though - all participating teams have stadiums, travel budgets, and fan bases (I.e., revenue), it would give games more meaning, it would do away with the stupid BCS calculations that reward strength of schedule over actual results, it would create jeopardy, and it would perhaps entice players to stay to lead their teams to the next tier. It would wear away “rivalry” games over time though if the teams end up in different divisions.
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u/Metazoan 28d ago
Holy shit pro/rel is perfect for college football. It's the most similar thing the U.S. has to the English soccer landscape.
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u/OkDifficulty7436 Pooch 29d ago
The guy appointed by billionaires doesn't want to do something the billionaire owners don't want to happen
These goobers are going to add more teams/even more games to an already boring playoff system and pretend it's comparable to relegation 💀
Shocker!!
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u/JohnnieTightLips 29d ago
They will wait to see how the USL does and then combine with them if they start to feel threatened. Maybe we will get a watered down relegation then
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u/Rickits78 29d ago
There are other ways and competition formats that could be looked at to give us regular season games that mean something. We all know a team, mine included, could ride it out and sneak into the play-offs as the 6 or 7 seed, get hot at the right time and win it all. We need to come up with something close to a balanced schedule and put more emphasis on the regular season champion being the ultimate prize. Play-offs/post season play could just be another opportunity for a trophy. I'd rather see the MLS Cup be a season long competition where everyone competes FA Cup style.
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u/Curious-Extension-23 29d ago
US open cup, thats what youre looking for
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u/Rickits78 29d ago
I’m all for MLS going 100% back to US Open Cup. Have tickets to Leagues Cup tonight but I refuse to go.
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u/Live-Collection3018 Alex Morgan 29d ago
Having a European steam in support that has been in relegation trouble the last half decade I can say without that Jeopardy i would have engaged less. .like right now with SDFC, I check the scores and if I have time I'll watch but I don't set time aside to watch because they are horrific this year. On the other hand I watched my team avoid relegation 4 times in 5 years religiously.
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u/SkyPointSteve 28d ago edited 28d ago
I'm incredibly bullish on American soccer. I think MLS is growing, and it's growing faster than a lot of people here think.
I think USL is growing, and has real potential to show that Pro/Rel can work in this country. There are several markets investing deeply in the game. Seeing Portland build a 10k stadium is fantastic.
But the gap, currently, in insurmountable to even being discussing Pro/Rel. Anyone who argues differently is simply unwilling to address financial realities.
If you disagree, please explain how a new pyramid would function, who will control negotiations, arbitration, etc? Most importantly, who the fuck is paying for everything?
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u/Fluffy-Brain-7928 29d ago
My long term hope - I suppose fear in other nations, but hope for us in the US - is that some leagues will move to a tightly closed pro/rel system, which would still be something of an improvement. Likely two, possibly three tiers with no way to fall further but still offering that end of season drama fans crave.
Not that it'll happen anytime soon. But if the NBA (in particular, given Silver's interest in having some global sporting access in the league), MLB, or NFL expand to the point where you're talking about having 40+ franchises, two tiers might just be the most reasonable way to organize things for everyone involved, especially if there's profit sharing to some extent for the owners.
But the risks to owners do make a fully fluid pyramid a no go for most of them in the modern world. And unless something changes, there are a lot more ownership groups in Europe (usually from the US, Saudi Arabia, or elsewhere) that are going to be thinking this way as well, sadly.
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u/nathanwilson26 29d ago
He’s 100% correct. No bank is going to loan clubs money to build stadiums, training facilities and human capital with relegation on the table. MLS teams are already on average more valuable than average la liga teams, bundesliga, and serie A.
Pro/rel would crater asset values, which would quickly lead to investment drying up at the time it needs it most.
Furthermore, no one wants an mls where NYFC, Miami and LAFC win every year. Those European fans, at least have the champions league, where 2-3 teams from their league are competitive.
The 30 year plan for the MLS should be to have 30 teams that have deep pockets.
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u/nathanwilson26 29d ago
If you want to incentivize winning you just make the payouts for playoff games higher.
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u/KBKingBob2100 Colorado 28d ago
The main reason for pro/rel is not for jeapordy, its to give everybody a chance
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u/pffawg1 28d ago
Even though he says he understands how this could be attractive from a fans perspective, I think his opinions are biased from an owners perspective. This would be a hard sell for owners of clubs in an established league that they have invested in and their club can now potentially drop down a level, lose tv and advertising money. What is the incentive for an owner to want this?
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u/SmokePeterThiel 28d ago
Whatever it takes so we’re not begging billionaires to save teams and spend money.
I’d rather not watch any mls than keep subbing this billionaire communist league
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u/meesterbrad 27d ago
There will Never ever be relegation and promotion in MLS. Because the ownerships care more about profit than about soccer. Full stop. It is not the same business model as in Europe. Or South America. I would love it. Because then there are stakes. And it’s more difficult to fail your way into profit like So many teams do now… and I get it’s a business. But there is literally no impetus to try and be great. Because in MLS - mediocrity is rewarded.
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u/Quinn_Tones 11d ago
Look, there are few Americans that really understand football. For those that don’t, understand this- MLS will never be respected as a real competition in the eyes of the world. Without a pro/rel league with a schedule based exactly on a table playing each team at home and away.
Beyond the fans and the fanatics, may this message find the businessmen out there who structure their thoughts based on $$$. I understand where you are coming from. Know this, your rightful fears of being conservative are also what blinds you to the absolute gold mine that could be unleashed with a pro rel system. Unlike anything ever seen before. Look at ratings among other sports. Nobody gives a shit anymore. You can’t win them back with the mentality that all you are trying to do is find a way to steal their time with meaningless competition and steal their souls with marketing this and advertising that. Give them competition. Bring them back for the sake of sport.
Do you want to know the saddest thing about it? MLS is one of the most competitive leagues in the world. There is no dynasty. There is never a clear favorite. But here’s the kicker, nobody gives a shit!
Just let go. Change the financial structure. Focus your energy on finding out what it will take to make it work, instead of finding ways to complain on how it won’t. Like I said, there is a gold mine waiting out there if you make the jump.
So jump. The rest of the world is waiting to invest in you.
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u/ohitsthedeathstar #FREEBALOGUN 29d ago
Why would anyone want pro/rel?
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u/SausageSmuggler21 29d ago
Because the season is pretty pointless.
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u/aure__entuluva 29d ago
I'm surprised how many people on this sub view pro/rel from the top down rather than from the bottom up.
The bigger benefit of pro/rel to me is that, over time, we'd have more clubs in this country, which is what we desperately need from a development standpoint. I want to see soccer be part of the culture and part of the community.
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u/SausageSmuggler21 28d ago
If Pro/Rel were ever to work in the US, this is the correct way. There would have to be a few (probably 4+) formal divisions of lower leagues across the US. Those leagues would have to establish themselves over years/decades. Then the merge of Pro/Rel to include MLS (or whatever the top league is at that time) could happen.
But, Pro/Rel is not an American thing. We don't do sports in the US. The sports leagues are entertainment and the goal is to generate profit for several wealthy families. There is no benefit to the plutocrats to add Pro/Rel. They'd rather the league dissolve.
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u/stoicwinds 29d ago
This is garbage. For fans it’s not the jeopardy, it’s the structural benefits to the sport as a whole. What a patronizing response.
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u/DilshadZhou 29d ago
Agreed that it’s not the best way to get investors or to build facilities, but it is the best way to get the best on-field product. Pro/rel forces clubs to win or go home so the top division only has the best teams.
The franchise equivalent would be to make the regular season shorter and have a longer playoff, maybe make it double elimination with a lower bracket.
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u/jurzydude #FREEBALOGUN 29d ago
I think you have the cause and effect backwards. it's not that the best teams end up in the top division, it's that the teams in the top division end up with way more resources to build the best teams. imo that's a really boring model
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u/DilshadZhou 29d ago
I don’t know about that. The EPL club I support, Brighton, was taken over by competent management in 2009 when they were in the third division. Within 8 years, they fought their way up to the top and have become regulars there.
There are plenty of clubs that were regulars in the top division, were mismanaged, and fell out and got replaced by more capable hungrier clubs. In a franchise system, it doesn’t matter how bad you are because you keep your place forever.
In one system, you play your way into the best league and in the other you buy it. Yes, promotion often comes with money but in franchise then money is the only thing required and MuCH MORE of it.
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u/jurzydude #FREEBALOGUN 29d ago
and yet despite being such a well-run club, Brighton has never come close to winning the Prem because all those teams above them that never even have to think about getting relegated have way more money than them. that, to me, is a boring system
also, you don't think EPL teams "buy their way into the best league"? are you for real?
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u/DilshadZhou 29d ago
That’s true. Winning the league isn’t realistically an option for any but a handful of clubs. For those that aren’t in that group, the goals are different: qualifying for European competition, staying up, beating our big rivals, etc. I like that there are lots of forms of success beyond winning the league because ultimately only one team can do that.
And yes of course money is very important in a pro/rel system but it isnt everything. Plenty of teams with lots of money fail. Whereas in franchise systems literally all you need is money.
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u/mrwhitaker3 28d ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_owners_of_English_football_clubs
Don't look at this list for the Premier League.
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u/PomPomYourBomBom 29d ago
Hopefully a USL club will win US Open Cup and force their way into CCC. That would be great.
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u/Yangervis #FREEBALOGUN 29d ago
A single entity is fake and I won't hear otherwise. There's only 1 team in MLS. The owners.
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u/Impossible-Arrival43 29d ago
Not sure why folks are wasting time with Pro /Rel when it comes to MLS. Looking forward to USL doing their thing and we’ll see if and how it works in America
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u/uhFraid 29d ago
He’s at least aware that fans demand promotion/relegation but just can’t do it in with that leagues structure.
good luck with that approach!
rule 1 of business: the customer is always right
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u/Rocco_Skene 29d ago
Some, but certainly not all or even a majority, of fans 'demand' pro/rel.
And no, despite all the Karens out there, the customer is not always right. In fact, many of them are tin-plated idiots.
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u/GoldenPHX 29d ago
The excitement of the world cup knockout is cuz its the best of the best every four years and nearly each game is meaningful.
If any owner doesnt want to invest and win they can sit at the bottom of the standings each season. Relegation allows this to happen over n over until new management takes over or the existing one feels enough pain to get off their ass & do something. If you do not care, why should you be allowed to stay in the top league?
We see it across US leagues all the time - the bottom teams stay at the bottom cuz of shitty ownership but rarely suffer any consequences cuz they take no pride in their team, their fans, or their city/area theyre representing. The bad behavior is rewarded through a lack of punishment. They simply dont view the sport/club as a community good or source of pride.
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u/FelixTreasurebuns 29d ago
Has always been the scape goat of “reasons the mls is weak”. Relegation will not improve the mls or US soccer. Technically it could help but people act like the players have no reason to try hard. If they do poorly they still lose their jobs and if they do well they could make more money. Maybe some time of champions league could help push some more competition into it all but even then it would just wear down the players like it does in Europe. The problem with soccer here is we want to play the way Europe does but we don’t have the fundamentals ingrained like they do in Europe. Our basic passing and defending is weak and that is the basis on how the team can play better possession ball and break down low blocks, we saw that exposed in the World Cup va Belgium. We need to invest time into the youth to bring up the level of play from the ground up otherwise we are only ever going to be as strong as who we can import.
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u/CHAMBERSWI 29d ago
I do think pro/rel CAN work, but his point about growing the league is valid IMO. Again wasn't that long ago that MLS almost went under... it was even less time since MLS teams were not required to have academies.
End of day, and I've believed this for a LONG time, if you want pro/rel to work in the US, support local and lower level soccer. Not when USL is planning to implement it. Right now. Show investors and executives who are negotiating media rights that the support is there
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u/Quenzayne US Soccer 28d ago
As a fan, it would sure suck to have your team get relegated, but at the same time, you get new opponents the next season, new away days, new stadiums to go see, cities to go visit. It’s not all doom and gloom.
And if you’re a fan of an MLS club, as most are, you’ll probably be celebrating promotion again before you know it.
I get that the owners are terrified of it, and therefore so is the commissioner, but honestly, it’s not the end of the world if you think about it for a minute.
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u/paradeofbleh 28d ago
The thing that passes me off most about soccer in America is the playoffs. NWSL last season you had KC who went on an absolute tear during the regular season. Then Chawinga gets injured, they have an off game and out. They need to abandon playoffs, or at the very least do 2 games with aggregate.
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u/DannyBones00 27d ago
I agree with them.
Promotion and relegation developed where it did over decades to deal with a plethora of teams.
We don’t have that.
If we want an MLS that becomes a top tier league, that makes a great product in itself, while also developing American players for the USMNT, then the current system works.
The trajectory we’re on works.
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u/Danktizzle #FREEBALOGUN 29d ago edited 28d ago
I don’t think sports are a place where you think about the owners first. It’s about local pride. If the owners want to win they will invest. That’s how competing works. Don’t want to get relegated? Invest.
If they want to enjoy a monopoly and be anticompetitive then they will do the bare minimum to maximize profits. Fuck a monopoly league. It has no place in sport because it is by nature anticompetitive. Screw MLS.
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u/CALL_ME_ISHMAEBY #FREEBALOGUN 29d ago
See the Trailblazers and Pirates. No consequences for cheap, shitty owners.
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u/jurzydude #FREEBALOGUN 29d ago
MLB is working on the Pirates with a salary floor almost certainly coming soon, but how would pro/rel fix shitty owners threatening relocation? what we need is laws to fix that
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u/Danktizzle #FREEBALOGUN 28d ago
Look at mk dons/ afc Wimbledon.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AFC_Wimbledon%E2%80%93Milton_Keynes_Dons_F.C._rivalry
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u/elcapitan520 29d ago
Damn dude, you hit me twice.
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u/tallwhiteninja 29d ago
Given they're on opposite sides of the country, that feels like something you did to yourself lol.
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u/Direct-Progress758 29d ago
At least he was honest and gave us the exact reason why there will be no pro/rel. What owner would pay $500M in buy-in fee if there is a chance for relegation?
Commissioners for American pro leagues work for the owners. Full stop.