No Pro/Rel for the Foreseeable Future

The sound you hear is the sobbing of some European soccer fans in the US who have grown up watching games from Europe on TV and see promotion and relegation battles as the greatest thing ever. Because today in an interview with the Associated Press Sports Editor, MLS president Mark Abbott said in no uncertain terms that promotion and relegation isn't happen, at least for the foreseeable future.

I personally couldn't be happier. While this won't kill the conversations that I have with some fans about the potential for it, it certainly makes the plausibility of those conversations a lot more straight forward. I'd already thought that any talk of pro/rel was pure fantasy and these comments finally confirm my thinking. Things can change in the future, but I share Abbott's view, pro/rel isn't going to happen for the foreseeable future at least for a number of reasons.

First while soccer is immensely popular here in the US from youth to the professional level, MLS is not. Now this is where pro/rel supporters will say "that's because the league doesn't have pro/rel." The problem with that line of thinking is that those fans that aren't coming now because of pro/rel are the same fans that were not coming because MLS had the count down clock, or the shootout, or the silly names, etc. The excuses go on and on, if MLS was to institute pro/rel the people that don't come because there's no pro/rel would find another excuse not to come to games. Too many of the soccer fans in this country are either interested in the teams from their country of origin, or are interested in the leagues they see on TV because they're better. And that's certainly true, most of the leagues you see on TV here in the US are better than MLS is currently, but there's something different in being able to go out to the stadium and see live professional soccer.

Secondly, the reason why pro/rel isn't going to happen in the foreseeable future is because of the question of "where are the teams going to promote from, relegate to?" And don't say the NASL. The NASL barely got sanctioning to play this season and are losing another one of their teams after this season when Montreal moves up to become the 19th team in MLS. The NASL does not exactly look like a stable league, it looks a lot like other minor league sports leagues in this country that struggle. I will say there is one thing that does bring a resemblance to MLS, and this could be good, or could be bad, and that's the fact that one of the owners, Traffic Sports USA owns three or four of the teams, in a similar situation to MLS after Miami and Tampa folded. Unlike MLS at that time though, the NASL doesn't have the extremely deep pocketed owners like MLS had at the time to carry the league through those lean years.

Third, the salary cap, single entity, and all the other things that keep parity in the league are not going away any time soon. In a league with as much parity promotion and relegation could be potentially disastrous. For example a few years ago in back to back years LA and New York would have been relegated. How much would that hurt MLS' bargaining when TV contracts were up and the number 1 and 2 market in the US aren't in the top division? That's certainly going to hurt the league's negotiating tactics in those situations.

Finally, pro/rel isn't going to happen in the US because sports here are not seen the same way that sports are in the rest of the world. While the rest of the world considers teams to be clubs, the term used more often than not in the US is that teams are franchises. Owners buy into the league and as such get a cut of league revenue, market sharing, and other things. While owners are certainly looking to see their team win games, it's also a business in many aspects for them as well. As mentioned above, owners have already paid into the single entity structure, they've made that investment in this current climate where they're not going to be relegated, they're certainly not going to vote for something that will force them to potentially lose a lot of money if they relegate to the second division and instead of playing New York and LA are playing in Tampa or Edmonton.

Now that I've said that, let me say that promotion and relegation is a great concept when there are enough teams that there is a need for it. Currently there is no need for it, in the 3 professional leagues that play in the US, Canada, and the Caribbean, there are only 41 professional teams, while in England for example there are well over 100 professional teams. In England the market dictates that there needs to be promotion and relegation because of the number of teams there. With only 41 teams, and some of those struggling to even draw 100, let alone 1,000, there is not the market for promotion and relegation in the US.

The other thing that fans of promotion and relegation like to throw out is that it creates drama for more teams and cuts down on the number of meaningless games. The problem with that is that MLS has a similar set up, only it's in a different place in the table. Instead of their being relegation battles, there are battles for the final playoff spots. For proof of this, check out this post from Climbing the Ladder, showing that since 2002 there have only been 19 games that have been "meaningless" for both teams playing in the game. The playoff battle creates a different type of excitement than a relegation battle does, but it certainly creates drama and excitement and cuts down on meaningless games. Each league has meaningless games as the season draws to a close. For example, there's not going to be a whole lot riding on the Fulham-Bolton game coming up soon as both teams look to be in a decent position at this point to survive in the EPL for another season.

Two more blows were struck to "European" soccer fans in the same interview, as Abbott said that MLS would not be switching to a single table, which shouldn't surprise anyone as the league continues to expand. The league will also not be switching from their March-November schedule to the "international calender." I put that in quotes because there is no "international calender". Plenty of other leagues play in the summer months like MLS does. Most of those leagues, like many MLS cities have winters that would preclude them from hosting home games for many months at a time. It'd be pointless to move to a August-May/June schedule if it means creating a winter break longer than the offseason itself.

Now I do believe that MLS does need to align itself with the true international calender, which means stopping league play on FIFA international windows so that teams are not punished for having national team players, like KC could be for this summer's Gold Cup.

Bunbury Injury Update, Schedule Changes, and More

Along with the announcement of Kevin Ellis signing with the Wizards today, there was plenty of other news in the Sporting Kansas City world today.

The first is a bit of bad news, originally the speculation was that Teal Bunbury might not miss any of the regular season. Now that doesn't look likely at all. Word from the team today is that Bunbury will now miss four to six weeks for KC. This comes after Bunbury met with team doctors in Kansas City after returning from Arizona. This means that Bunbury is now more likely to miss the Chivas USA game and Chicago Fire game to start the season. There's also a potential that he could miss the team's first trip to Canada to take on Vancouver. This is a blow for KC and for Bunbury as it's certainly a blow in his hopes to fight for a Gold Cup spot with the US.

Sporting KC has also announced two schedule changes and three television changes as the league and FSC announced their new deal and FSC's 31 game schedule. KC will appear 3 times on FSC, all of which at Sporting Park. Two of those 3 games see KC moving the day of the game. KC's game against San Jose on Saturday, June 18th to Friday June 17th at 7:30. The team's second game on FSC is August 13th against the LA Galaxy. The team's final game on September 23rd was moved up a day from Saturday the 24th when KC will take on the Philadelphia Union. Those three combined with the home opener against Chicago give KC 4 national televised games.

In trialist news, Sheldon Bateau was released to head back to Trinidad. Bateau was one of three players along with Daneil Cyrus and Omar Colley from the team's Trinidad camp earlier this offseason. Bateau had captained the TnT U-20 team recently but has not done enough to impress. Bateau played mainly in the midfield it seemed during his time with KC and unfortunately doesn't look like he did enough to impress. In more trialist news, according to Gooch at The Full 90, Scott Lorenz is not going to joining the team for the second phase in Arizona, but according to Gooch Lorenz has not been released by the team. Lorenz had been playing left back for much of the preseason and had impressed enough that KC released second round draft pick, JT Murray early on in preseason. It's odd that the team has chosen to not officially waive him but yet he'll not be back for the second part of preseason.

Finally, check out the photos and video from James at Sporting Times from the stadium today. The stadium opening is getting closer and closer.

NBC Action News Broadcast

For those that missed tonight's NBC Action News broadcast at 10pm tonight, I was interviewed for what ended up being the lead story for the broadcast tonight, the Wizards-United game on Sunday and it's potential impact on KC and it's bid for the 2018 or 2022 World Cup.

Wizards News

Here's some information that likely isn't really needing it's own thread, but some things that I want to touch on real quick.

First, the Wizards Juniors were in North Carolina this past weekend for the group phase of the US Soccer Developmental Academy playoffs. The Juniors started the weekend on Friday night when they took on the Baltimore Bays. After taking the lead early, the Juniors missed a PK, then conceded 2 goals to lose to the top seeded Bays 2-1. Saturday night the Juniors took on the Dallas Texans in their second group game. Jordy Rideout scored the lone goal, his second of the weekend as they defeated the Texans 1-0. Today the Juniors defeated Chivas USA's team 2-0 on goals by Lucas Throckmorton and Derek Schrick. Unfortunately the Bays took care of the Texans to advance as the group winner. You can see the final group standings here. Congrats to the Juniors on a strong season and finishing second in their group even though they were the "32nd and final" team in.

In more news from the senior team, word from Thad at The Back Post in a post on Bigsoccer, Thad posted that Stephane Auvray is now no longer an international player. Auvray apparently now has his green card. This along with the Igor Kostrov/Jamar Beasley moves early this season currently gives the Wizards two international spots that they can use on players including a DP and the other non-DP that Thad has mentioned previously. Whether the Wizards now use these two spots is still up in the air.

Finally, for those that missed it last Saturday I made a post about the Wizards being turned down by Montenegrin defender, Milan Jovanovic who currently plays for Rapid Vienna. Later that same day, Robb Heineman tweeted back to me that he had never heard of the guy. Can't say I'm extremely disappointed about that. While Jovanovic is an international defender, and the Wizards could definitely use some help on the back line, the Wizards should be able to pick up someone else.

Kamara World Wide

Most Wizards' players and fans would rather forget the above incident from Saturday's game against LA. Kei Kamara highest among them, but the rest of the world will not let them forget it. Not only has it been dubbed one of the misses of the century by The Sun in the UK, but today it was also covered in the US by both PTI and Around the Horn. It's also been on the front page of Yahoo and covered by Dead Spin.

I certainly think it is one of the worst misses I've ever seen, but I don't know if I'd consider it the worst miss ever. The ball wasn't going into the net unlike some other big misses I've seen. Still all Kamara had to do was run through the ball and it'd go in, but at least it wasn't like either of the one's below. Which of the 3 do you think is the worse? Vote in the poll to the right.

Podcasting

For those that missed it, Thad from The Back Post and myself did a podcast and published it today. We'd talked about doing this last year and we're now going to try to do this regularly. Anyways, let us know what you think of it, like it, hate it, indifferent. Also if you have any ideas for names of the podcast, feel free to post them. Here again are the two parts of the podcast.

Part 1 - We discuss the upcoming draft, needs and potential picks...



There's more news to add to the comments I made regarding the draft. Today in his Q&A about the draft, Ives Galarcep mentioned that the trade talk right now is that the Wizards are looking to trade up with New York to get the number two pick and grab Tony Tchani from Virginia. While I still think grabbing Teal Bunbury would be one of the better picks, trading up to get a player like Tchani who appears to be the real deal could be big for the Wizards as well

Part 2 - Kansas City made the 18 for the US bid to host the World Cup...




In other news today, the Yellow Pages released their cover for the new phone books. The Wizards are on the cover with a picture of Jimmy Conrad's first goal against the Colorado Rapids in KC's 3-2 win during the second game of the 2008 season. Here is the photo.