Not to get on a soap box, but I will any way.

The fact that MLS is not a promotion/relegation format is a tragedy. I believe the sport would grow exponentially now if they announced in 4-5 years time that they were transitioning to a promotion relegation system.

I understand back in the 90s at the start of MLS that it wasn't feasible, but the groundswell of support for small market teams would be amazing if a Fort Worth FC or a SC Louisville would get promoted into the top tier. Soccer is such a intimate and location driven sport that you'll never get the entire metroplex into FC Dallas. The Metroplex honestly needs 5-6 teams of varying degrees to grow the sport to be a huge player.

Even if it's something as simple as a top tier league (MLS) and 4 geographically minded 2nd tier leagues whose champions play in a 4 team playoff. That limits expenses (travel) and keeps it uniquely American. Even if it's just one team going down and up, the drama would be electric.

I've heard and read it all before, but dammit I feel like this is the easiest decision in the world that would grow the sport and build excitement. We need some billionaire to come in and promise a certain revenue level for the current MLS teams for 10 years regardless of if they are relegated to make it happen.

What happens when the dynamo go down, and you've just alienated any casual fan in the 3rd largest US metro? I personally would love pro/rel, but I highly doubt we ever see it in MLS.

Not to hijack too bad, but could the best MLS team, whomever they are, beat the best Mexican league team? Not in a one off kinda fluke match, but a match where each team performs as they should. Which team would vegas say will win, and how steep of odds?

Pro/rel would be a disaster here.

jeffk said:

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Pro/rel would be a disaster here.

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Nah, it would be great.

Just curious… by what metric is Houston the 3rd largest metro?

They're 5th according to official census metropolitan statistical areas.

But the answer to the question is that they ought to be able to move back up, which is exciting because they'd win games.

And the more I think about the single entity model, it could totally work. And I'd make a reverse playoffs… bottom 8 MLS vs Top 8 USL (or whatever… I'm kinda dumb here), with top USL facing the worst MLS. Winner gets promoted/stays in. That offers some measure of protection for MLS teams to fight to stay up rather than just get automatically relegated.

Then… for the promoted teams, they get an invitation to join MLS single entity ownership (MLS expands). If they decline, they don't get promoted. The relegated team stays in the single entity model, thereby ensuring they have access to funds to make a strong promotion bid the next year.

I think it could work. But it would require folks to get along and be happy spreading the wealth, so it'll never happen.

In weak markets, the fans of a relegated team would disappear and be hard to bring back even with a promotion.

To join MLS with a new team, that ownership pays a massive franchise fee to the league (aka the other owners). There is -836% chance they do pro/rel in that system. And there is even less chance the league (aka the owners) give up franchise fees.

deadbq03 said:

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Are you aware of CONCACAF Champions League? I don't understand why you need a hypothetical.

Or why you're even bringing it up on this thread.

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Was not aware that was a thing. Perhaps you should go watch it and come back and answer my question. I brought it up because I figured there would be some knowledgeable MLS folks on this thread. I am guessing it is a bunch of fanboys and my question isn't going their way.

Got a kick out of this. 18 of the top 50 richest clubs in the world are MLS teams. More than any other league

Out in Left Field said:

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In weak markets, the fans of a relegated team would disappear and be hard to bring back even with a promotion.

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I don't believe that to be so. There was a strong following of many teams before they joined MLS.

It was an honest question. I still am curious. I really don't have a dog in the fight. I don't watch mls and I don't watch the mexican league and I don't really care. Just mild curiosity.

I love the promotion/relegation structure of most foreign leagues, but no way MLS owners with franchises worth several hundred million agree to implement it.

The lack of promotion/relegation in MLS likely did a lot to promote growth and investment in the early years, but I think it hinders the product now. Regular season games have little consequence. Over half the league makes the playoffs. Playoff rounds consist of single games in a sport where there is a decent amount of randomness.

MLS teams ranking high doesn't surprise me. Good markets, a growing sport, and a salary cap to keep costs down. Mediocre product unfortunately.

Pretty much every other league in the world, the team is a money pit. If you run it well and grow the brand, maybe there is a bit of capital appreciation on the sale.

I dont get the obsession with trying to force promotion/relegation into the MLS

Milwaukees Best Light said:

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It was an honest question. I still am curious. I really don't have a dog in the fight. I don't watch mls and I don't watch the mexican league and I don't really care. Just mild curiosity.

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bad troll

PatAg said:

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I dont get the obsession with trying to force promotion/relegation into the MLS

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It's incredibly dramatic and makes for good stories, but from a fan and business perspective it pretty much sucks.

I am a fan of the Pro/Rel model in foreign leagues. It means every game counts. You can't take games off *cough*NBA*cough*NFL*cough*. The storylines at the bottom o the table are just as (in some case more) interesting than who is going to win the title. I, personally, would love to see it. Not sure how the logistics of it all would work (I am interested in the "geographically minded 2nd tier leagues" playing in a promotion playoff as this would keep costs down. Initially. Eventually move away from this model and just have the best teams play).

To the point that "What if the Dynamo get relegated?". I say good. As a native Houstonian, I am a Dynamo fan, but ownership doesn't like to invest in the team. I think this would force the Rapids, Fire, Dynamo of the world to invest instead of just sitting on their team. It's like the owners of the Pacers or the Lions. Just content with owning the team, don't care about results on the court/field.

But there is no way this happens. For two reasons:
1. Like everyone has mentioned before, the current owners would never agree to it. Like any good business owner, they will do whatever they can to protect their investment. They have zero incentive to add risk, which is what pro/rel would do. I mean, just look at what the European club owners tried to do with the Super League. Guarantee themselves a cut of the pie. If fans hadn't caused the uproar that they did, who knows what the CL would look like.
2. MLS Draft. The MLS insists on having a draft to mirror the other major American sports leagues. Which rewards the teams at the bottom of the table. So unless they do away with that or implement some major, radical change, this is not going anywhere and will prevent any pro/rel system.

A third reason I just thought about is the clubs themselves. In the US, the teams are franchises and can be moved anytime. [See Columbus Crew trying to move to Austin]. This just does not happen in Europe. Clubs are so ingrained with the fabric and culture of where they are, it is pretty much impossible to move them (the exception I can think of England is MK Dons). If an MLS team were to get relegated, what is to stop the owner from saying "Screw this, it's bc the city doesn't support this team, I am moving them to Las Vegas."?

There is one scenario in which I'd watch MLS:

If MLS teams were qualifying by their league position or playoff result into a Superleague or World Champions League that European clubs took seriously.

The American TV market can save the cash strapped debt ridden giants of Europe in the short term. In the long term, this really would be a "waking the giant" moment in which MLS clubs would probably eventually replace the top clubs in Europe. It might take two decades. However long it takes, I'm in for that ride as long as there is upward mobility. Ideally there would be a FIFA level world coefficient that determined number of places for each country.

Outside of that, even if everything goes perfect MLS caps out as probably the 7th best league in the world. No reason I would ever watch that. Even if they introduce relegation/promotion.

If the aim is to make "every game mean something", while we don't have promotion and relegation, we do have playoffs which gives nearly every mid to bottom table teams something to play for until the last few weeks.

Mathguy64 said:

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To join MLS with a new team, that ownership pays a massive franchise fee to the league (aka the other owners). There is -836% chance they do pro/rel in that system. And there is even less chance the league (aka the owners) give up franchise fees.

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I think this is solvable.

Franchise fees right now are because capital needs to be infused in the system to start a whole new club from scratch. An existing club will come up with some resources. You could value it, and then work out a payment model to make up the rest. Perhaps less share of TV money for 5 years. That might end up sending most promoted teams right back down, but IMO thats a small price to pay to get this to work. And quite frankly, that's how it typically works elsewhere.

If they get sent back down, you could then call that franchise bid off, and send them their TV moneys that were withheld. That makes it likely that they could go back up, and if they're smart with their money, after a few of these yo-yos, they can just buy in and MLS expands.

But overall you are correct - no one is going to want to play nice, so doing something creative with the books to make it work will never happen.

jeffk said:

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PatAg said:

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I dont get the obsession with trying to force promotion/relegation into the MLS

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It's incredibly dramatic and makes for good stories, but from a fan and business perspective it pretty much sucks.

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Because I'm not watching MLS regularly until San Antonio gets promoted.

Oops, I meant to reply just to Pat.

In 2021 Charlotte ownership paid MLS $325 MM to join the club. That's on top of any fees they incurred building a stadium and fees to actually sign players.

They aren't spending $325MM to get sent to eat at the kids table. And the other owners who split that little Christmas bonus aren't giving it up for the next guy who wants to join.

It's a non starter.

Mathguy64 said:

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In 2021 Charlotte ownership paid MLS $325 MM to join the club. That's on top of any fees they incurred building a stadium and fees to actually sign players.

They aren't spending $325MM to get sent to eat at the kids table. And the other owners who split that little Christmas bonus aren't giving it up for the next guy who wants to join.

It's a non starter.

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I am curious if MLS is going to get to the point where they are capped at expansion.

I wonder if they're going to try and expand to 40 teams and split it into a two tier system themselves. They can claim it's pro/rel but it technically still be a closed system. Until they want to expand and just stick the new expansions in MLS II, until MLS II is big enough to make a 3rd league.

Then when MLS III is established they open it up to the USL as the 4th division. This way MLS controls growth the entire way.

I can see that being a compromise because I believe they're already the largest top league in existence with 29 current teams (with another on the way). But damn, that would be like a 30 year plan.

I think they will "fill out" the highest tier in the pyramid first. Whether that stops a typical North American 30-32 level or whether it branches out into dual top tiers of 18-20 each or something, I don't know. Until they reach that limit, they arent going to really change much, and can continue adding new teams for hundreds of millions in expansion fees.

Next, for pro/rel fans, you need to hope that once the top level is "full" that then they eliminate the salary caps. Eliminating the salary restrictions on the clubs will instantly vault several clubs into being legitimately among the biggest clubs in the world in line with those valuations shown in previously in the thread. MLS would also become roughly somewhere in the realm of the 4th or 5th best overall league in the world, and progress toward being 2nd only limited by how the media rights deal grows up to true "Major League" level from that point.

At that point you're gonna have a lot of teams that struggle to compete, and many teams will have to probably do things a totally different way from the elite clubs (in short it will become a lot like the competitive structures of other leagues). After some stabilizing in that zone, I can see further rounds of cheaper expansion that build out a full system of two or three tiers with pro/rel.