Liverpool FC Forum

by **JoeTerp** » Wed Aug 08, 2007 8:32 pm

I was on a USA football forum reading about what American players have been snatched up to Germany and such, when I started reading about where people thought the MLS would be in 30 years and I posted that we need to switch to a single table with 18 or 20 teams and combine with the USL (smaller market semi-pro league at the moment, on par with league 2 or Nationwide conference if I had to guess and if you assume MLS is on par with the Championship) and have promotion/relegation. Well everyone called me crazy saying that promotion would never work in America and that it only exists in Europe because its tradition.

What are you views on promotion/relegation? Which country has the best system for it? If the FA were to start all over with the English football system would it include promotion? Can the US ever adopt a system despite the lack of its existence in our professional sports culture?

by **dawson99** » Wed Aug 08, 2007 9:20 pm

we're a small enough country to have one league systems so the travelling is not so bad. usa is pretty big so maybe the conferences or however they do it there works for them?

by **The Manhattan Project** » Wed Aug 08, 2007 10:26 pm

Not sure relegation and promotion would work in the US.

The distance between cities and the size of the country makes the "conference" system the more realistic model for the league.

by **Sabre** » Wed Aug 08, 2007 10:27 pm

It's a tough one.

I don't know in England but I have the hunch that they also like the promotion/relegation system. In Spain we like it aswell, that must be one of the few things in which you can get unanimity in the Spanish fans. It's more fun, and it's more decent than just buying a place with money.

This season precisely, there has been a businessman that has bought a place in the segunda division (also a professional league), he could do that by buying the place to a team that cannot pay the debts. That team Granada74 is despised by all the Spanish fans.

Promotion and relegation are not only tradition but it gives you sensations of happyness and sadness respectively, and without those sentiments, club football would be pointless. As most of the fans are supporters of teams who won't win titles like Liverpool do. Without relegation and promotion most of the fans wouldn't have a goal throught out the season and that would drop a lot the attendance.

For a healthy national football, IMHO it's a must to have a wide network of teams in low categories, it's not only about to have a decent professional league. It won't be a great league as long as it's about to bring old glories to that football. You need a network of lower yet competitive categories. You need teams, and lots of lads playing for those teams seriously, not just as a university hobby.

England and Spain have that. And the size of America can be a problem for that. The only way out is the one that Dawson proposes, to divide in conferences the country.

by **JoeTerp** » Wed Aug 08, 2007 10:43 pm

I would think we could have one nationwide top flight and then 3 separate 2nd divisions that are all equal status but split the contry into east, west, and central, and the champion of each lower division gets promoted, and eventually each of those 2nd divisions should have 1 division below it, but the culture in our country would have to change A LOT before that could happen. Not only is football not in our top 4 sports nationally, but the culture of having lots of local professional independent clubs (with the possibility of one day becoming a top flight team) is not there either. One of the big problems in American sports is that bad teams can become complacent because they are going to get the BIG tv money regardless of how many games they win, all of the talent is developed for you by the colleges, AND you get rewarded by performing poorly with an early draft pick to help improve your team, AND the bigger clubs are capped at how much money they can spend so there is a limit to how bad your team can actually become. And because the field is supposed to be so equal, 80% of the fans think they can and expect to and are dissapointed if they don't WIN the Super Bowl (which I guess has some positives), but mostly leaves people with unrealistic goals.

by **JoeTerp** » Thu Aug 09, 2007 8:21 pm

what is you view on the names of clubs in America? At the start the league used the American sporting tradition of "The (city name) nickname" Like The LA Glaxaxy or The Kansas City Wizards, but have since tried to copy Euro style name like Real Salt Lake

Houston Dynamo

by **Fowler_E7** » Thu Aug 09, 2007 10:28 pm

JoeTerp wrote:what is you view on the names of clubs in America? At the start the league used the American sporting tradition of "The (city name) nickname" Like The LA Glaxaxy or The Kansas City Wizards, but have since tried to copy Euro style name like Real Salt Lake Houston Dynamo

its alright for u lot over there, as its your tradition.

I dont want it to be introduced over here like they have been doing in Rugby and Cricket. The thought of Liverpool ever being called "The Liverpool Reds" or something would make me wanna be sick.

by **The Manhattan Project** » Thu Aug 09, 2007 10:38 pm

what is you view on the names of clubs in America? At the start the league used the American sporting tradition of "The (city name) nickname" Like The LA Glaxaxy or The Kansas City Wizards, but have since tried to copy Euro style name like Real Salt Lake Houston Dynamo

I don't mind the nicknames. Americans have multiple teams in a single city, because of the NFL, NBA, NHL etc...so nicknames help a team stand out.

by **Sabre** » Thu Aug 09, 2007 11:16 pm

JoeTerp wrote:what is you view on the names of clubs in America? At the start the league used the American sporting tradition of "The (city name) nickname" Like The LA Glaxaxy or The Kansas City Wizards, but have since tried to copy Euro style name like Real Salt Lake Houston Dynamo

Not a big fan of American team names. But at least it was genuine. To copy the euro names has no point because most euro names have a reason to be.

Real stands for Royal in Spain, and the 'title' was given by the King of Spain. That's why teams that are Royal have a crown in their badge. Current Spanish monarch hasn't given anyone, the last one did at the early XX century.

Behind Partizan, Spartak, and Dynamo eastern names, there's a background of the communist times aswell. I don't know exactly how it used to be but if IIRC the Spartaks were the team of the army, etc.

by **woof woof !** » Fri Aug 10, 2007 7:42 am

JoeTerp wrote:what is you view on the names of clubs in America? At the start the league used the American sporting tradition of "The (city name) nickname" Like The LA Glaxaxy or The Kansas City Wizards, but have since tried to copy Euro style name like Real Salt Lake Houston Dynamo

Don't have a problem with the use of a "nickname" being tagged onto a place name , although I do find most american ones a bit "iffy" Chicago Fire , Columbus Crew and LA Galaxy being prime examples. Having said that , I'm sure some Americans find some of the club "nicknames" in the UK equally "iffy" eg Wanderers (Wolves), Wednesday (Sheffield), Rovers (Blackburn), Rangers (Queens Park).

I spent some years in South Africa and the clubs there had a mix of "tags" some British style, Utd, City etc and some American, Chiefs,Pirates etc . The worst name (imo) was a club founded by an energy company and simply called "Powerlines"

As for a national league in the USA, I go along with the view of some other posters. A country the size of the USA would need to break down into 2-3 conferences . I can't really see teams traveling such vast distances week in week out eg Miami to Seattle or Miami to San Diego throughout an entire season. Perhaps the top couple of teams in each conference could then go into a Champions League style competition to establish who's the National champion.

by **Bad Bob** » Fri Aug 10, 2007 12:34 pm

I agree with a few others in this thread: I don't think "soccer" will get very far in North America if it deviates too far from the established North American sports template. This means:

1) Using a geographically-organized conference system to keep travel distances reasonable

2) Not having promotion and relegation. This is one of my favourite aspects of European footy but I don't think it would work in North America, where the fanbase is small and there's little tradition of supporting your local team through thick and thin.

3) Keeping the nicknames but I agree with Sabre: the nicknames should be in a North American tradition and not just an empty copying of European patterns. "Toronto FC" is fine but "Real Salt Lake" is a joke of a name. What next, the Tulsa Toffees or the Raleigh Rossineri?

by **RUSHIE#9** » Fri Aug 10, 2007 1:15 pm

I agree that cos of the size of the US the league would need to be broken down into different conferences. As the Americans like having play-offs in their sports then they could have themselves a 'WORLD-SERIES'

at the end of the season to decide the champions of the USofA.

The nicknames are their way of naming the teams just like we have teams named wanderers, city, united, rovers etc as woof said. However I think they have at least one team that has it's major sponsor's name in theirs (NEW YORK REDBULL ??) that is too far for my liking and for one I hope that isn't the next step over here after these stadium naming rights have been exhausted. I think that there'd just be too much opposition to this over here.

TBH I really can't ever see 'soccer' taking off over there to the extent of what it is elsewhere in the world as the americans are much more interested in their own sports like baseball, basketball and American Rugby Football sorry

.

by **Bad Bob** » Fri Aug 10, 2007 1:24 pm

RUSHIE#9 wrote:that is too far for my liking and for one I hope that isn't the next step over here after these stadium naming rights have been exhausted.

Hasn't it already happened? Total Network Solutions?

(BTW, the nadir of North American sports nicknames has to be the Toronto Raptors in the NBA. Thank fook they got the franchise when Jurassic Park was the big thing, though, rather than when, say, the new batch of Star Wars movies hit the screens. I can just see it now: the Toronto Darth Maul or, worse, the Toronto Jar Jars!

)

by **woof woof !** » Fri Aug 10, 2007 3:15 pm

Bad Bob wrote:
RUSHIE#9 wrote:that is too far for my liking and for one I hope that isn't the next step over here after these stadium naming rights have been exhausted.

Hasn't it already happened? Total Network Solutions?

(BTW, the nadir of North American sports nicknames has to be the Toronto Raptors in the NBA. Thank fook they got the franchise when Jurassic Park was the big thing, though, rather than when, say, the new batch of Star Wars movies hit the screens. I can just see it now: the Toronto Darth Maul or, worse, the Toronto Jar Jars! )

Dunno though "Toronto Death Star " sounds kinda cool . In fact I think I'm gonna use part of it as my fantasy footy team name , thanks for the inspiration Bob .

by **JoeTerp** » Fri Aug 10, 2007 4:09 pm

RUSHIE#9 wrote:TBH I really can't ever see 'soccer' taking off over there to the extent of what it is elsewhere in the world as the americans are much more interested in their own sports like baseball, basketball and American Rugby Football sorry .

History certianly points to that, but I think that there is a change that has occured within the younger generation that is MUCH more "globally aware." "soccer" is the most participated in sport in this country, and within 20 or so odd years I think there will be a much higher demand for the quality of proffesional play in the country to improve drastically.

I think soccer has a chance at breaking the mold of the traditional American sports system of no promotion and only thrity teams divided into conferences, with playoffs, salary caps, player drafts, and doing everything to see that the the odds before the season starts for each team are exactly the same. None of the leagues want to expand past 30 or go to any city that is not in a huge tv market, and as such there are many people who simply cannot go to games (without it being a HUGE hassel) because they do not live close enough to one of the big cities. This is great place to capitalize on a niche market. Small cities like Birmingham, Tulsa, Boise, and Richmond all do not have professional teams, but would be easily capable of supporting a League one or even championship level team once soccer's popularity blossomes.

In the current system, even with conferences each team has to travel to every other city, they just play more games against the "local" sides. It is my dream that when the league does expand it evolves into a single table with multiple 2nd divisions and some day 3rd divisions. The other posibility is to split the country up into leagues of 10-12 (much like our college sports system) and play a fall "local" league, and then in the spring the top teams play in the national premiership league (which would be a new 12 team, 24 game season, and the mid table teams play in the "championship" league.

But there are two MAJOR problems that need to be solved first. One is getting the football fans that follow European teams to come out to the MLS games after watching their team on the tele, and to convince the general american SPORTS fan that football deserves their attention. The answers is a better marketing approach, more BIG NAMES at the end of their days, and better quality throughout the league (improving the standard of the average American footballer AND trying to assert itself as THE place for young talented South, and Central Americans (maybe we can even try for the Asian market too), to put themsleves in the shop window, play 1st team football, develop into a better player and use the MLS as a stepping stone to Europe.

This might be outlandish expectations but given 30 years and enough will power and MONEY, and we can do pretty much anything.

Liverpool FC Forum

Football in america - The distant future

Who is online