2023 General TFC/MLS Banter (no transfer/roster discussion)

[OgtheDim]

London can support 17 teams of the sport it loves

It supports 1 rugby league team - at the second division level.

Point is for a team to survive, there needs to support for the sport at that league level that can provide the revenue to maintain a team - and it needs to be accessible. If you drive or are on the #1 line on that side, York U is accessible - but the league level isn't seen to be worth attending. That might also be because the lack of tactical rigidity (see the recent discussion by jloome about that) reduces the quality at the CPL level to something people just do not find interesting.

[jloome]

London can support 17 teams of the sport it loves

It supports 1 rugby league team - at the second division level.

Point is for a team to survive, there needs to support for the sport at that league level that can provide the revenue to maintain a team - and it needs to be accessible. If you drive or are on the #1 line on that side, York U is accessible - but the league level isn't seen to be worth attending. That might also be because the lack of tactical rigidity (see the recent discussion by jloome about that) reduces the quality at the CPL level to something people just do not find interesting.

Again, the CSL just isn't good enough for most people to invest themselves in it.

(Also, London has so many Rugby Union clubs, including three in the top division, with so many decades of history that the fact that Rugby League hasn't made it there isn't really surprising. Fans in Southern England generally favour union, in the north they favour League. EDIT: By some margin. A Rugby Union Premiership match between Harlequins (my dad grew up on Twickenham Road, right around the corner in Teddington) and Saracens in January drew 82,000 fans.

https://www.foxsports.com.au/rugby/w...aab4f262a864b1

[Mr. Inbetween]

FWIW. Interesting as 'an issue' comparative set against MLS/TFC. From the perspective 'we'- proverbially, may not be alone...

Check out this tweet at https://twitter.com/JustinRuderman_/status/1636446515085598720

[Richard]

FWIW. Interesting as 'an issue' comparative set against MLS/TFC. From the perspective 'we'- proverbially, may not be alone...

Check out this tweet at https://twitter.com/JustinRuderman_/status/1636446515085598720

A lot also has to do with playing style. Is it any surprise Liverpool have the worst record considering Klopp runs his players into the ground?

[Fort York Redcoat]

Again, the CSL just isn't good enough for most people to invest themselves in it.

(Also, London has so many Rugby Union clubs, including three in the top division, with so many decades of history that the fact that Rugby League hasn't made it there isn't really surprising. Fans in Southern England generally favour union, in the north they favour League.)

Well Hamilton Halifax Langford and somewhat Calgary are ok and thats near half the league. All of them have something different and community based that looks past big $. There are plenty of places they could move to build those right sized stadia we like. It just makes the destination less appealing if the team town is a suburb.

All of the above mentioned would be a fun destination for a TFC cup game.

[jloome]

Well Hamilton Halifax Langford and somewhat Calgary are ok and thats near half the league. All of them have something different and community based that looks past big $. There are plenty of places they could move to build those right sized stadia we like. It just makes the destination less appealing if the team town is a suburb.

All of the above mentioned would be a fun destination for a TFC cup game.

I don't think any of the CSL clubs are particularly fun to watch, and most of the time as a result I don't. I generally only watch their highlight packages looking for prospects. It's just a really poor level of football, like the English National league but with half as much tactical discipline.

I'm not talking about the locations or attempts at club culture, really. Those are certainly essential. But without the quality on the field dramatically improving we're selling the sport short and most people just won't go.

North Americans have been conditioned to support the pursuit of excellence, not just to go because it's "the home team." That doesn't mean they won't support it at all -- I've seen pro lacrosse games in this country get 5,000 fans out regularly. But they won't support it to its potential unless given a best-of-class product.

If the average CPL roster value rose to the $5-6M range and was coupled with the promise -- including fed/prov buy in -- of new stadiums, crowds would swell very quicky. The fact is, Canadian National Team games in Canada have received walkup of 35,000 to 50,000 here in Edmonton alone... but only when we play Brazil, or Colombia.

When we play Honduras, we get 11,000.

People are programmed to be impressed by "sheen". If the CPL took an international approach and increased spending to be competitive with, say, the Scandinavian and Australian leagues in terms of pay, it would grow very quickly.

I believe -- because it certainly applied to me -- that most fans want the same thing they see elsewhere. They want good goalscoring -- finishing being the general bane of every lower league. They want players who have been in bigger leagues or could move to them.

The CPL isn't that. It only pays enough to be a lowest rung, and most of its players are not good enough to be professional athletes, not really. It's why so many of them have already HAD a shot with an MLS club, or in USL. They've wound up in the CPL; they're not starting there. They're starting at private academies and larger clubs, then failing, and rather than giving up, trying to develop further in the CPL.

So it's a pure sellers league, not a real development league. It exists, right now, to give a half-dozen guys a year a second shot overseas or in MLSNEXT/MLS. Pointing to the the literally five (?) guys who've left in five years and stuck in MLS is not proof it's working, it's proof most aren't good enough.

That may seem harsh, but I'm purely talking in market terms. The Toronto Lynx didn't fail because Toronto won't support football. The moment a club had a proper stadium underway and a team that included internationals (it's part of why Danny D was so important), it was legitimized in many fans' eyes.

It literally would only take that -- proper environs and better play -- for the CPL to take off in similar fashion. But the people backing it aren't visionary, they're opportunist. It's why they're only undertaking ANY of this with underwriting from the marketing deal with the Nats.

[jloome]

I'd be interested in what people think of this idea. I've mentioned this before but not expounded upon:

Premise: I think MLS wants to become a major world league. I also think it underestimates how important traditions like promotion and relegation -- which adds massive season value to poorer clubs -- are to football's popularity. When citing why they support Wrexham after seeing the reynolds/mcelhenny documentary, for example, nearly all of those interviewed that I've seen have cited the ability of a small club in a poor town to get promoted to a bigger league. They also often say they have no interest in MLS. They are there for the underdog, not just to win.

The argument against pro-relegation in North America seems to principally be that owners would not accept it. Often, the "risk" of lost income is cited, although sometimes people also wisely point out that they don't have to accept relegation, so why should they? Either argument probably carries some serious weight. In terms of surveying fans, typically more than half say they would like it... but just as commonly half say they don't believe it will ever happen.

My argument is that it is possible to have both pro/relegation AND protect franchise value AND respect NA playoff traditions. It's also possible to do it while increasing the value of the entire league schedule. And all it would take is tweaking what's already there.

1. Raise the number of teams in MLS to 36.
2. Instead of having an east-west division system, move to a tiered division system and award each tier a title.
3. Buy out the USL C and turn it into a third division.
4. Allow some teams from each of the top two tiers into the MLS Cup playoffs, and award a separate playoff title to the winner.
5. Include a guarantee promo/relegation between Premier Division and Division One of, say, three teams.
6. Include a difficult-but-possible promo of ONE team from Division One to div Two, making it extremely difficult to achieve, so that relegation from One to Two in effect is only a penalty for exceptional incompetence. Similar to the Mexican lower-league promotion chance, the teams would have substantially lower salary caps in div two, and would have to win a multi-leg playoff against the potentially relegated team. (And put in financial protections, similar to the Premier league, that give the relegated team an advantage to return immediately).


So it's rare, if ever, that a team is actually relegated from what we currently know as "MLS". But the DREAM exists. It's a tangible possibility that a club in a smaller city, like Reno or Charleston, might end up winning a national title. It's probably never going to happen.... but they said that about Leicester, I suppose.

So you'd have an 18 team MLS Premier Division, with the top team getting a renamed Supporter's Shield as Premier Division Champions. The bottom three teams get relegated to the First Division. 15 clubs make the cup playoff.

You'd have an 18 team MLS Division One, with the top team getting the Division One title. The top three teams (abitrary, but it works elsewhere) get promoted to the Premier Division. The top nine clubs make the cup playoffs, with the ninth going up against the Div 3 winner in a playoff to make the Cup bracket.

You'd have a 24-team MLS Division Two, with the top team getting the Division Two title and a chance to play the bottom team in Division One for promotion, assuming they can meet financial conditions. The top team would also play the ninth placed div two team for a chance to make the MLS Cup bracket.

Division Two would be salary capped WELL BELOW MLS, further hampering any possibility an existing MLS club might lose franchise value. Frankly, if after this much advantage it still isn't enough, they're probably a financial drag on the league already. There could even be a lost value mechanism in which the promoted club pays a percentage of perceived lost value to guarantee their MLS spot and compensate the relegated.

The consequences of this:
* All season games now mean something, as does the final league standing.
* The schedule is division only, so completely balanced.
* All the playoff games mean something. Playoff tradition is respected and existing franchise value is well-protected.
* And MLS becomes, in many respects, in accordance with football elsewhere, increasing foreign fan and owner buy-in.
* Lower-level football in America would be massively more meaningful due to growth and promotion potential. Whether this sticks after a decade without anyone achieving it, I don't know. But by then, people might be supporting their club to the fullest due to supporter culture growth, not just the perception of being a top league.

(I could be wrong, but I understand this system is similar to how Belgium handles its league, with both a division and playoff title, the latter generally counting as the overall league title.)

In fact, because of the added six cup teams, they would actually get longer, more meaningful playoffs out of it as well.

I've possibly overcomplicated this all in presentation but basically, the way to have promo/rel AND playoffs is to just eliminate it being a LEAGUE relegation, and make it a division relegation. As long as the owners and playoffs fans know they can still play for MLS Cup against the best teams, everyone is happy.

Beyond which, should some third division club fluke promotion in the first five or 10 years, the stories it would generate in American news coverage would be seismic.

Thoughts?

[Mr. Inbetween]

We Are Clan. We Give Hope. We Believe. We Are Bradley...

Check out this tweet at https://twitter.com/JBradley08736/status/1637469720789000192

[jloome]

I'd be interested in what people think of this idea. I've mentioned this before but not expounded upon:

Premise: I think MLS wants to become a major world league. I also think it underestimates how important traditions like promotion and relegation -- which adds massive season value to poorer clubs -- are to football's popularity. When citing why they support Wrexham after seeing the reynolds/mcelhenny documentary, for example, nearly all of those interviewed that I've seen have cited the ability of a small club in a poor town to get promoted to a bigger league. They also often say they have no interest in MLS. They are there for the underdog, not just to win.

The argument against pro-relegation in North America seems to principally be that owners would not accept it. Often, the "risk" of lost income is cited, although sometimes people also wisely point out that they don't have to accept relegation, so why should they? Either argument probably carries some serious weight. In terms of surveying fans, typically more than half say they would like it... but just as commonly half say they don't believe it will ever happen.

My argument is that it is possible to have both pro/relegation AND protect franchise value AND respect NA playoff traditions. It's also possible to do it while increasing the value of the entire league schedule. And all it would take is tweaking what's already there.

1. Raise the number of teams in MLS to 36.
2. Instead of having an east-west division system, move to a tiered division system and award each tier a title.
3. Buy out the USL C and turn it into a third division.
4. Allow some teams from each of the top two tiers into the MLS Cup playoffs, and award a separate playoff title to the winner.
5. Include a guarantee promo/relegation between Premier Division and Division One of, say, three teams.
6. Include a difficult-but-possible promo of ONE team from Division One to div Two, making it extremely difficult to achieve, so that relegation from One to Two in effect is only a penalty for exceptional incompetence. Similar to the Mexican lower-league promotion chance, the teams would have substantially lower salary caps in div two, and would have to win a multi-leg playoff against the potentially relegated team. (And put in financial protections, similar to the Premier league, that give the relegated team an advantage to return immediately).


So it's rare, if ever, that a team is actually relegated from what we currently know as "MLS". But the DREAM exists. It's a tangible possibility that a club in a smaller city, like Reno or Charleston, might end up winning a national title. It's probably never going to happen.... but they said that about Leicester, I suppose.

So you'd have an 18 team MLS Premier Division, with the top team getting a renamed Supporter's Shield as Premier Division Champions. The bottom three teams get relegated to the First Division. 15 clubs make the cup playoff.

You'd have an 18 team MLS Division One, with the top team getting the Division One title. The top three teams (abitrary, but it works elsewhere) get promoted to the Premier Division. The top nine clubs make the cup playoffs, with the ninth going up against the Div 3 winner in a playoff to make the Cup bracket.

You'd have a 24-team MLS Division Two, with the top team getting the Division Two title and a chance to play the bottom team in Division One for promotion, assuming they can meet financial conditions. The top team would also play the ninth placed div two team for a chance to make the MLS Cup bracket.

Division Two would be salary capped WELL BELOW MLS, further hampering any possibility an existing MLS club might lose franchise value. Frankly, if after this much advantage it still isn't enough, they're probably a financial drag on the league already. There could even be a lost value mechanism in which the promoted club pays a percentage of perceived lost value to guarantee their MLS spot and compensate the relegated.

The consequences of this:
* All season games now mean something, as does the final league standing.
* The schedule is division only, so completely balanced.
* All the playoff games mean something. Playoff tradition is respected and existing franchise value is well-protected.
* And MLS becomes, in many respects, in accordance with football elsewhere, increasing foreign fan and owner buy-in.
* Lower-level football in America would be massively more meaningful due to growth and promotion potential. Whether this sticks after a decade without anyone achieving it, I don't know. But by then, people might be supporting their club to the fullest due to supporter culture growth, not just the perception of being a top league.

(I could be wrong, but I understand this system is similar to how Belgium handles its league, with both a division and playoff title, the latter generally counting as the overall league title.)

In fact, because of the added six cup teams, they would actually get longer, more meaningful playoffs out of it as well.

I've possibly overcomplicated this all in presentation but basically, the way to have promo/rel AND playoffs is to just eliminate it being a LEAGUE relegation, and make it a division relegation. As long as the owners and playoffs fans know they can still play for MLS Cup against the best teams, everyone is happy.

Beyond which, should some third division club fluke promotion in the first five or 10 years, the stories it would generate in American news coverage would be seismic.

Thoughts?

I'm just bumping this so it doesn't disappear, as it took a few minutes of thought.

[ensco]

^jloome… Will contribute re this tomorrow. Need some time for this one.

[OgtheDim]

I have stated this many times & will do so again to anybody discussing relegation.

For every Wrexham fairy tale, there are at least 2 Hereford Uniteds.

It is VERY easy to accept teams that go up.

Until you watch a team/passion be destroyed by the sugar daddy world of the English pyramid system, and are willing to accept that there are passions destroyed in that system, do not come to me with this nonsense about pro-rel.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...l_League_clubs

The team from my parent's small town in England - Barrow - was almost killed numerous times due to that pyramid system - once by a criminal gang leader who used the ground as collateral to support his own money laundering (we see this sort of thing every few years in the English system).


Can we talk about Rochester? 15 years ago, an MLS town - now, can't support 3rd division level.

Can we talk about Mike Piazza's mid life crisis destroying a small town team in Italy?

No, don't chase that pro-rel - it is a system that creates haves & have nots, using periodic hopes of "glory" to enshrine the haves where they are & provides way more pain then gain & is subject to abuse - all at the expense of the passion of the fans.

This is NOT necessary for a proper football system to survive.



************

And now that I'm thinking about this

a) Anybody care to ask what the fans of Rochdale think of going down right now - what its like to support a team probably to be relegated? Or how about Maidstone, down the bottom of the league Wrexham is in? Nah, they don't make streaming series about that pain - nobody is taking a camera around that dressing room, around that ground.

b) I am NOT interested in accepting death & pain in order to be a football supporter. I deal with losing - but in our league, right now, we have the "hope of the next day", the "hope of the next year". I am not interested in potentially watching my team go down just so somebody else can have the joy of their team going up - that is a CRUEL way to run anything. Things change in football - I get that. The old heroes wither & then grow old. But, the teams, the game, MY team.....it remains around. I am not interested in being around a team that could potentially die because for one year it had a bad run or bad management or bad luck or whatever. There is already too much of that in actual life. No thank you.

[OgtheDim]

On another note, looks like Apple & MLS is the trial run for something bigger

Check out this tweet at https://twitter.com/GraceOnFootball/status/1638854174732615680

The article itself is pay walled.

[ensco]

So, I have some stream of consciousness thoughts, that I thought might be a unified theory, but isn’t….

1) MLS team owners paid team fees based on perpetual “top flight” league access. Plus a system where a “Sassuolo” stays up for years, and a “Strasbourg”, the only team in the third largest city in France, can stay down for decades, doesn’t make business sense. So I think true “pro/rel” is not in the cards (and that's before getting to Og's well articulated view of the problem fans often have with pro/rel)

2) But I like the idea of how games matter in the late season for teams at the bottom. Could you try a system where the bottom 2 MLS clubs have to go down to USL for a year, and the top 2 USL clubs get to go up for a year, on a rotating basis? (I mean, honestly, TFC could have spent 2022 in USL, given how we handled things last year in terms of roster decisions)

3) Next - what about the apertura/clausura system, or the Scottish/Swiss variations? These are interesting attempts to have more meaningful games, later in the season. Jloome proposes kind of a version of those, but I like the Scottish system better- just have the best X (12?) teams go into a playoff league in September. The rest play to avoid going on holiday in USL next year.

4) Finally, what about merging League Cup, US Open, and CCL into one big tournament? The current mish mash is confusing, let's just have “The North American FA Cup”

[OgtheDim]

I think there is a way to have competitions that mean something for teams in 9-14 in a conference without causing those teams to drop to play the RGV Toro's of this world.

[Canary10]

I have stated this many times & will do so again to anybody discussing relegation.

For every Wrexham fairy tale, there are at least 2 Hereford Uniteds.

It is VERY easy to accept teams that go up.

Until you watch a team/passion be destroyed by the sugar daddy world of the English pyramid system, and are willing to accept that there are passions destroyed in that system, do not come to me with this nonsense about pro-rel.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...l_League_clubs

The team from my parent's small town in England - Barrow - was almost killed numerous times due to that pyramid system - once by a criminal gang leader who used the ground as collateral to support his own money laundering (we see this sort of thing every few years in the English system).


Can we talk about Rochester? 15 years ago, an MLS town - now, can't support 3rd division level.

Can we talk about Mike Piazza's mid life crisis destroying a small town team in Italy?

No, don't chase that pro-rel - it is a system that creates haves & have nots, using periodic hopes of "glory" to enshrine the haves where they are & provides way more pain then gain & is subject to abuse - all at the expense of the passion of the fans.

This is NOT necessary for a proper football system to survive.



************

And now that I'm thinking about this

a) Anybody care to ask what the fans of Rochdale think of going down right now - what its like to support a team probably to be relegated? Or how about Maidstone, down the bottom of the league Wrexham is in? Nah, they don't make streaming series about that pain - nobody is taking a camera around that dressing room, around that ground.

b) I am NOT interested in accepting death & pain in order to be a football supporter. I deal with losing - but in our league, right now, we have the "hope of the next day", the "hope of the next year". I am not interested in potentially watching my team go down just so somebody else can have the joy of their team going up - that is a CRUEL way to run anything. Things change in football - I get that. The old heroes wither & then grow old. But, the teams, the game, MY team.....it remains around. I am not interested in being around a team that could potentially die because for one year it had a bad run or bad management or bad luck or whatever. There is already too much of that in actual life. No thank you.

It's a bit hard for me to buy this argument when 9 teams in the Premier League are at risk of relegation, including some heavy weights, and every game is a fight. Versus MLS that has pretty much thrown out any urgency to half the season with practically everyone making the playoffs.

Aren't the problems you cite more related to unstable ownership than relegation/promotion itself? There are lots of teams in the North American context that suffer similar fates at the lower levels without relegation.

[jloome]

I have stated this many times & will do so again to anybody discussing relegation.

For every Wrexham fairy tale, there are at least 2 Hereford Uniteds.

I get this sentimentally.

But what I proposed is absolutely nothing like the English system; that's the whole point. It's not the same type of "promotion/relegation".

Past "many times" statements aren't really relevant here; I'm proposing something very different from the system you hate.

You don't even "go down," really, you just play for a less consequential "supporters shield" than the top half of what is the current table.

to whit:

1) It's impossible for a team to actually be relegated out of MLS in this model. It's still MLS if we assume they've bought out USL C to make it happen. It's just a lower division. You're not going from one rich league -- the premier league -- to a poorer league -- the EFL -- To an even poorer league -- the nationwide. Your'e staying in cities with comparable size and revenue, and with revenue sharing models staying the same.

AS they are all fairly large population centers already, they're not going to face a massive income retraction due to most revenue only being ticket sales. They're still in MLS , getting MLS level coverage, because all the divisions still get to play for MLS Cup.

2) Teams that are relegated from MLS 1 to MLS 2 are still playing the same teams as before the divisions split, they're just playing for a slightly less-notable league title.

3) All teams are still playing for the MLS cup that would have been under our existing system.

All this really does is make league game consequential and gives teams in the second division impetus to improve the next year.

The things you've described -- basically becoming non-entities in professional football -- are impossible under this model.

It's consequentially entirely different from what you're describing. It's like I described lighting a barbecue, and your reaction was "hell NO, I will not brook fire, I burned myself cooking dinner once."

I'm not big fan of any religion, but equally some are more civil than others. Same with promotion/relegation.

[jloome]

So, I have some stream of consciousness thoughts, that I thought might be a unified theory, but isn’t….

1) MLS team owners paid team fees based on perpetual “top flight” league access. Plus a system where a “Sassuolo” stays up for years, and a “Strasbourg”, the only team in the third largest city in France, can stay down for decades, doesn’t make business sense. So I think true “pro/rel” is not in the cards (and that's before getting to Og's well articulated view of the problem fans often have with pro/rel)

Again, you can't really "go down" in what I'm proposing. Even if you're in MLS Div 2, you're playing in the same Cup for the same title as Div 1. It just means more prestige for the season games. Under what they're proposing now, nine teams from each side in the playoffs, the league is becoming increasingly meaningless. So give the "supporter's shield" real weight.

2) But I like the idea of how games matter in the late season for teams at the bottom. Could you try a system where the bottom 2 MLS clubs have to go down to USL for a year, and the top 2 USL clubs get to go up for a year, on a rotating basis? (I mean, honestly, TFC could have spent 2022 in USL, given how we handled things last year in terms of roster decisions)

This would be far more damaging financially than what I'm proposing. Did I articulate this really badly ? Under my system, it's almost impossible for an MLS team to be relegated to what is currently USL C. That would be financial devastating. You'd still be playing top cities against top cities, which is what MLS largely amounts to, you'd just have one group that gets a shot at a better league title based on prior performance. 24 teams still end up in MLS Cup.

So very little practically changes. It's mostly creating bragging rights for the season games and the perception of small clubs being able to get promoted, although again, if the controls are stringent enough, the MLS club going down would probably have to be failing already for it to happen.

3) Next - what about the apertura/clausura system, or the Scottish/Swiss variations? These are interesting attempts to have more meaningful games, later in the season. Jloome proposes kind of a version of those, but I like the Scottish system better- just have the best X (12?) teams go into a playoff league in September. The rest play to avoid going on holiday in USL next year.

Right now, we don't even have a league title; we just have the supporter's shield, a trophy. Bringing in TWO titles would be even more than I'm proposing.

I'm just proposing one title, but two divisions. 15 of the second div clubs still make the playoffs! To me, that protects the owners far more than having dual tables and dual league titles. They don't even want one, as thing stand. If they go to the split, AND playoffs, which is the title holder? At least with MLS Cup still intact, you can have a healthy debate over division title versus cup, as the divisions are weighted.

But if you split it three ways, start over in the middle of the season, then have a playoff that only includes twelve teams, you just have three groups, potentially, of fans claiming bragging rights. Not sure that will feel as meaningful.

4) Finally, what about merging League Cup, US Open, and CCL into one big tournament? The current mish mash is confusing, let's just have “The North American FA Cup”

Yeah, I wouldn't be opposed, particularly if MLS Cup was already expanded, in an expanded league.

[Kamp Berg]

I’m admittedly pretty ambivalent about pro/rel, but I really dislike the meaningless end of year games and the playoff structure. Seems like an easy way to address the problem would be to have all the teams in the playofffs, but in two tiers. Have the bottom teams compete first for spots in the upper playoffs against the better teams. You could even invite the top couple teams from USL C, if the seasons were synced, to compete in the bottom tier playoffs, with a chance to advance to the top tier playoffs.

[jloome]

It's a bit hard for me to buy this argument when 9 teams in the Premier League are at risk of relegation, including some heavy weights, and every game is a fight. Versus MLS that has pretty much thrown out any urgency to half the season with practically everyone making the playoffs.

Aren't the problems you cite more related to unstable ownership than relegation/promotion itself? There are lots of teams in the North American context that suffer similar fates at the lower levels without relegation.

Absolutely. And the crooked stuff may RESULT in relegation, but a badly run team is a badly run team, whether it was because they accepted crooked owners or not. It's sort of suggesting the worst consequence is actually the worst cause.

Crooked owners aren't the fault of relegation, relegation just makes crooked ownership feel consequentially much worse.

I spend quite a lot of time talking to English football fans. Most are not gnashing their teeth the season after being relegated. They'll invariably piss and moan abotu it, but the general consensus is that "as long as the football is good" they'll bide their time to get back up. It's not uncommon to run into fans who LIKE their team being in the Championship, because Premiership football is unsustainable and too imbalanced competitively.

Equally, if you simply took the East and West off current MLS divisiions, renamed them 'two' and 'one' and afforded them different titles... that's basically what my model does. Three teams change places to get a better shot at the div 1 title each year. There is no crashing into amateur football, or crushed small-town dreams.

They don't even lose their shot at the overall league title, because 15 div two clubs (remember, this supposes SEVEN more MLS teams overall) make the playoffs.

All it does is add consequential weight to the season.

[jloome]

I’m admittedly pretty ambivalent about pro/rel, but I really dislike the meaningless end of year games and the playoff structure. Seems like an easy way to address the problem would be to have all the teams in the playofffs, but in two tiers. Have the bottom teams compete first for spots in the upper playoffs against the better teams. You could even invite the top couple teams from USL C, if the seasons were synced, to compete in the bottom tier playoffs, with a chance to advance to the top tier playoffs.

That's a really interesting suggestion. Now, take that exact same model, and split the 36 teams into two groups of eighteen, two halves of the table. Award the top half one div title instead of the supporters shield, award the other half another.

Flip three teams, based on finish, between the two halves.

That's what I'm proposing, exactly.

It's just the terminology "promotion/relegation" that is difficult for people to get around, because of the traditional methodology. But it doesn't have to actually mean threatening a club's "top tier" status.

[Yuushalinsky]

That's a really interesting suggestion. Now, take that exact same model, and split the 36 teams into two groups of eighteen, two halves of the table. Award the top half one div title instead of the supporters shield, award the other half another.

Flip three teams, based on finish, between the two halves.

That's what I'm proposing, exactly.

It's just the terminology "promotion/relegation" that is difficult for people to get around, because of the traditional methodology. But it doesn't have to actually mean threatening a club's "top tier" status.

The problem is that you're creating a distinction without a difference - tell someone in the second half of the table, no, no, you're actually still in MLS, you're just playing exclusively bottom-half teams while never playing top-half ones isn't pulling the wool over anyone's eyes - that's the definition of relegation.

[jloome]

The problem is that you're creating a distinction without a difference - tell someone in the second half of the table, no, no, you're actually still in MLS, you're just playing exclusively bottom-half teams while never playing top-half ones isn't pulling the wool over anyone's eyes - that's the definition of relegation.

... within league play.

The same 9 teams that would've made it from that half of the table still make the MLS Cup playoffs.

So a Div 2 team can still win the overall league title. But it has to play for a lesser division title.

In traditional pro/rel, the team goes to a different LEAGUE, not a different division, in multiple instances, meaning massive financial swings. That's where the danger lies. And a relegated Premiership team can't win the top prize.

Right now, the division titles have no weight. They're just a seeding matter for the playoffs. So ... give them weight. Make one more important than the other.

By doing it this way, we make league play meaningful for more than just playoff seeding; yes, that requires some teams being a lower division. But they're not in a lower LEAGUE, which is what causes the financial problems.

MLS owners aren't opposed to promo/relegation. We know this because most of our clubs have at least part-owners that already own teams in pro/rel nations. The owner of the Colorado Rapids also owns Arsenal. The owner of Montreal owns Bologna. NYRB and NYFC are owned by massive conglomerates; Orlando's owner owns a club in Brazil.

So they'll accept it when it's the popular practise.

What none of them want is LOSSES. They don't want to lose franchise value.

This model, I think, accounts for that.

The only thing they technically lose is bragging rights for season games. Instead of being meaningless, they are a title unto themselves. And instead of an unbalanced schedule, the best play the best, and everyone plays 17 teams twice.

Also... and I perhaps haven't stated this enough ... most people I talk to overseas like promotion relegation. That fight is often what gives their season any meaning at all. MLS wants to become a world power but it will NEVER happen using an egalitarian system, where league games are largely meaningless.

It's boring. I've already had three different fairly knowledgeable MLS fans say to me in the last week that "none of these early games matter."

Every game should matter. That happens by making them lead to something that counts for something more than just seeding.

[Fort York Redcoat]

I'm pretty over pro/rel happening here now. The pyramid and support size doesn't work as it is now. Lotsa money would help but alot of money has been spent to get us where we are as a league.

There are plenty of gimmicks around the world. SPFL split. MX ap/cl. CPL new playoffs. I don't think support ever asks for it but the powers that be gotta SPICE IT UP A LITTLE. You know, a lil razzamatazz!

Wever

[OgtheDim]

It's a bit hard for me to buy this argument when 9 teams in the Premier League..... .

I'm not thinking of the EPL & the Championship.

Its a VERY different world when 1 league is everything & the other one is near oblivion

[ensco]

This would be far more damaging financially than what I'm proposing. Did I articulate this really badly ? Under my system, it's almost impossible for an MLS team to be relegated to what is currently USL C. That would be financial devastating. You'd still be playing top cities against top cities, which is what MLS largely amounts to, you'd just have one group that gets a shot at a better league title based on prior performance. 24 teams still end up in MLS Cup.

So very little practically changes. It's mostly creating bragging rights for the season games and the perception of small clubs being able to get promoted, although again, if the controls are stringent enough, the MLS club going down would probably have to be failing already for it to happen.

It's a perception issue.

If I understand your setup correctly, I think being in your Division One would cause issues for team owners that paid full freight for a top level team. Especially given that so many of them would wind up there.

Good conversation btw. Complicated as hell.

[jloome]

It's a perception issue.

If I understand your setup correctly, I think being in your Division One would cause issues for team owners that paid full freight for a top level team. Especially given that so many of them would wind up there.

Good conversation btw. Complicated as hell.

VERY much a perception issue. I think the only way to get a compromise system like this is for owners to realize that the perception of being down does not prevent fans from coming. It's the quality or lackthereof that does that, or bleeding a team for money, or not even having a chance to compete.

It might be easier to sell as a "split table"; but I think the key is that any team can still win the title. It restructures the other honors in the league, adds some bragging rights, and gives teams doing poorly incentive to do better.

Part of the sales pitch is that a team CAN be in Div 2, not competing for the "Premier Division" title and STILL beat the Premier Div teams to win the Cup. It takes the excitment of the FA cup, and applies it to the U.S. league and playoff structure.

The immediate resistance, if they understood it, I think would come from having a real demotion to what is now USL C and to paying to bring them into the fold. That might not work.

But if they knew there was no bottom line hit AND that bragging rights would be broadened (this adds weight both to division titles and to finishing position), they might see the value in it.

Practically, it makes total sense. Salary caps mean that any team in DIV 2 is as likely to be in DIV 1 in the next season as anyone else.

Fans will still cheer for promotion and want to avoid relegation, but there are none of the consequences of being punted out of a league proper.

AND... not to undersell it, but a lot of non-North American fans simply won't support a structure that is alien to what they love.

Giving them something that has underdog and late season position races and even though it doesn't lead to the disastrous consequences or financial stakes they're accustomed to, I think it'll be easier to accept MLS. With Apple's deal somewhat dependent on finding new eyes -- as Season ticket holders already get the service for free -- it makes sense to have a product that is a much easier sell to Europe and Asia.

[Canary10]

I'm not thinking of the EPL & the Championship.

Its a VERY different world when 1 league is everything & the other one is near oblivion

Ah I see. I'm lucky to support a yo-yo team I guess!

[Canary10]

VERY much a perception issue. I think the only way to get a compromise system like this is for owners to realize that the perception of being down does not prevent fans from coming. It's the quality or lackthereof that does that, or bleeding a team for money, or not even having a chance to compete.

It might be easier to sell as a "split table"; but I think the key is that any team can still win the title. It restructures the other honors in the league, adds some bragging rights, and gives teams doing poorly incentive to do better.

Part of the sales pitch is that a team CAN be in Div 2, not competing for the "Premier Division" title and STILL beat the Premier Div teams to win the Cup. It takes the excitment of the FA cup, and applies it to the U.S. league and playoff structure.

The immediate resistance, if they understood it, I think would come from having a real demotion to what is now USL C and to paying to bring them into the fold. That might not work.

But if they knew there was no bottom line hit AND that bragging rights would be broadened (this adds weight both to division titles and to finishing position), they might see the value in it.

Practically, it makes total sense. Salary caps mean that any team in DIV 2 is as likely to be in DIV 1 in the next season as anyone else.

Fans will still cheer for promotion and want to avoid relegation, but there are none of the consequences of being punted out of a league proper.

AND... not to undersell it, but a lot of non-North American fans simply won't support a structure that is alien to what they love.

Giving them something that has underdog and late season position races and even though it doesn't lead to the disastrous consequences or financial stakes they're accustomed to, I think it'll be easier to accept MLS. With Apple's deal somewhat dependent on finding new eyes -- as Season ticket holders already get the service for free -- it makes sense to have a product that is a much easier sell to Europe and Asia.

Something like this is needed. With the current playoff structure league games have almost no meaning or consequence. And with the amount of expansion over the past few years, we have way more teams than a proper balanced schedule can handle. The whole structure needs a rethink for when we get to the "end" of this expansion phase we're still in.

[rydermike]

Since we saw the reaction to our new home kit,

here's TFC2's new home kit. I'd take that

[Fort York Redcoat]

Since we saw the reaction to our new home kit,

here's TFC2's new home kit. I'd take that

Don't hate it but I like this as a warmup. I'm really warming up to our kit. I just don't think about HOW we got it and it's fine.