Relegation: I'm Envious
Just watched Everton battle to remain in the Premier League - what an intense, amazing game, all for the team struggling to be in last place! And poor Leicester City - relegated, despite winning in the other match going on that mattered.
What I'm wishing for: relegation in some US sport. How can we get there? It would be awesome to have, in say, the NFL or NBA.
Your thoughts? Is it just me that's enthralled with this structure, or would you all like it, too?
Well, if you're a Michigander, why would you follow MLS, when they won't give us a team?
But it seems to have established a functioning business model. The fact that it's expanding is presumably a positive sign for its finances. $500M for a franchise fee seems nutty, but the Phoenix Suns just sold for $3 billion - franchises are insanely valuable these days.
Most soccer owners are trying to get to the structure of the NFL with its near guaranteed income, salary caps, and near total monopoly on the sport.
We as fans and sports purists love the competition and drama, but I can't think of any owner who is willing to throw their own money behind a club only to have their revenue stream slashed in half.
I'm an Everton fan only because it was the team I picked in FIFA to play vs my teenage son at the time... when they had Lukaku, Stones, Barkley, etc....
Don't forget Tim Howard. Yeah, I became an Evertonian in those days as well. Little did we know that represented the peak before a fall. Hopefully the new Merseyside stadium will generate scads of cash to bring in (healthy--yes, we're looking at you, Yerry Mina and DCL!) talent.
Big Ten - MAC
Last place in B10 falls down to the MAC, 1st place MAC promoted to Big10.
Bye bye Rutger. B1G-MAC, SEC-Sun Belt, B12-CUSA, ACC-AAC, P12-WAC/MTWest. 12 team upper and lower conferences - regionally based. You could have a relegation/ promotion game and send 1 or 2 teams up or down each season. As for the top of the "premier" conference, an 8-team CFP for the National Championship (5 conference champs +3 at large).
CFB is not going back to the old rivalry-based conferences. And now we're really not going to get away from B1G/SEC hegemony. It would be nice to see Boise, Cinci, UCF, etc. get the opportunity to build their programs and compete at the top level.
It's easy to speak of this in the abstract ... but what if Michigan had gotten relegated in the RR years or worse, after 2020?
I think a program like Michigan would bounce back and be in the top division very soon. Programs that don't care or focus on football would be in lower divisions... and maybe they should be there until there is interest from the school and its fanbase to build a good program.
even a year or two of the football program being relegated would wreak havoc on the athletic department and all the programs that depend on that revenue.
Would we still have fired Rodriguez if his 2010 team had won the MAC?
Would we have won the MAC? We were essentially (by record and head-to-head both) equal to Illinois and they couldn't beat Northern.
I love relegation.
How about Luton Town beating Coventry City in the promotion playoff from Championship to Premier league via penalty kicks.
Luton Town has never played in Premier and was 5th Tier as recently as 2013.
True enough, though of course that's primarily because the Premier League's history isn't all that long. In fact, they were frequently in the top division of English soccer, including for the ten years leading up to the creation of the Premier League ... and were relegated right before it started.
But ... yeah. It's been a long time in the desert for them.
Yes of course, but a technicality that doesn’t need to change a great story
I like the concept of relegation but think it would only work with MLB or NBA if you have a couple wild card or playoff spots for the lower tier league. Otherwise, I don't see owners going for a relegation system.
I've mentioned this in other threads involving this topic, so please move on if you've seen this movie before. My apologies.
I like relegation and I think the Big 10 should go to this model. Expand the league to 20 teams and have an upper and lower division. Each team in a division plays every other team in its division. All 20 teams have one protected rivalry game regardless of division and two (or three if your protected game is within your division in a given year) non-conference games of their choosing. At the end of every season, the bottom two of the top division plays the best two of the lower division. The winner of each gets to play in the top tier the following year, losers get relegated. Get rid of the conference championship game since the CFP is expanding to 12 teams, which means the top 2 or 3 teams in the upper division likely will be going to the playoffs. The rest of the teams (if not playing in relegation games) go to whatever bowl they can snag.
I think this is the fairest model if the revenue is split equally between all league teams regardless of division. In that way relegation is just about scheduling preferences which is exactly what a league that stretches from coast to coast becomes anyway. It would ensure parity by not requiring Rutgers to compete with Michigan, OSU, and Penn State every year. They'd likely only have to beat the Northwestern's and MSU's to have success. The TV partners would get a blockbuster matchup every single week and the league would get even richer as a result.
Also, the above model still works if the league ever expanded above 20 teams. Let's say Notre Dame eventually joins. The top division would still be the 10 best teams--The BIG Ten--the lower tier would have 11. Add any number of teams to the conference but keep the top division limited to ten teams. The only real issue is the number of non-conference games needed to fill out a schedule, but when has that ever been a problem; or, if the lower tier gets too big, eliminate non-conference games.
Well, it'll never happen in college sports so that's out. The NBA and NFL are too corporate, so they are out.
It would never work in MLB.
MLS is by far the best option, and there have been discussions about a second league (buying/merging the USL or something along those lines).
You need regional fanbases and community.
College Football is what brings that in the US, it's the closest thing to European soccer.
The MLS is doing a solid job of growing, small stadiums, keeping it localized, etc. Over time, it could definitely work, but it will always be "little brother" to the other leagues around the world. Just not enough history or tradition.
...the only other sport that could possibly build something in the US is hockey. But it would take a century and I just don't think you'll ever get that many people to care. But hockey is definitely more regional and "community" than people give it credit for (it ain't college football or European soccer though - at least not the NHL in the US).
College football is it. Only in college football can a team in Starkville, MS or Lubbock, TX mean EVERYTHING. That sums up everything. Luton Town ain't nothing but Boise St. or Cincinnati, lol.
And that's European soccer. It's not just London gets 1-2 teams, that play Paris, Berlin, Barcelona, etc. (I know they have Champions League, which is fine). It's those Gainesville's and Knoxville's and Ann Arbor's.
Pro sports in the US doesn't have that. Pro sports in the US are in major cities...and the few teams that aren't, they are a heck of a lot like college football, now aren't they? Green Bay, Buffalo...that's the hyper local/community feel that makes up their entire league.
We could only do that with soccer, it would take forever and it's still never going to be bigger than football, meaning it'll never compare to what you see over in Europe. But I think over time it could work.
I bet we could come up with 15 cities right now with 0 or 1 pro teams in the 4 major sports that would be perfect for a 10,000 seat soccer stadium.
Add that to 15 more cities like Detroit who don't have an MLS team and could play in this second tier for a chance to move up.
That El Paso FC vs. Albuquerque Antelopes matchup is gonna be 🔥 in 2086.
I heard a somewhat tongue in cheek proposal to improve every single sport. Have the threat of relegation to prevent tanking for draft picks, and allow fighting in every sport to keep players from bottling up steam all game. I'd be willing to explore both.
CFB is the most logical league for relegation. There are already clear tiers and fans bases that support each team. Also, with TV money, NIL, and the transfer portal, there's enough on the line to make a UCF, or Boise State, to spend big to try to make it to the top tier.
Baseball needs relegation
Relegation is the single greatest thing in British sports.
College basketball and football, especially football, are the most prime places for a relegation system in American sports. Two 12/13-team conferences with an 8 team championship playoff with the top four teams from each conference would provide superior viewership every week for 14/15 weeks. The bottom 2 teams from each conference get relegated out every year.
Relegation in college football would be sweet
The US regular season in all sports is inferior. The franchise model makes relegation almost impossible. There should at least be a tournament to decide draft position in the NBA if not the other sports.
Hello teams of a supposed pro league. Here is our idea. Half of you would receive a death sentence. What say you?
I think it would be great for college sports
I support Everton. I’m still recovering from yesterday. What an excruciating experience. UTFT!
Give me a mid-season regulation/promotion in baseball.
How many teams a year are basically playing for nothing by the All-star break? Or how about a division like the AL East where the worst team is as good as the best team in another?
Have a cut at the break that puts all the contenders in their own league to play for the Crown and put the leftovers in two or three leagues ordered by record competitiveness. Yeah, maybe people won’t watch the losers play, but I wasn’t going to anyway. I’d much rather see the also-rans playing for something in August and September even if it is a third-tier title.
Breaking into an upper and lower division (either before the season, or breaking mid-season) could work if you gave that upper division most playoff spots, but the lower division(s) each got one or two,
Otherwise, a split season could accomplish much the same thing without completely throwing the schedule into disarray. Winner of the first half is tie-breaker or gets home-field in playoffs. Win both seasons and get a bye.
predict that as Europe's football teams get swallowed up by more and more billionaires relegation will become a thing of the past. They've already attempted to separate the best teams from their countries leagues and form a super league and they'll be back.
Personally I think its great, but the Premier League's big issue is the steep drop in revenue from Premier League to Championship and the top clubs just want more and more and more. I've watched for about 25 years now and there is a club in the 4th tier that was once in the Prem and 6 in the 3rd tier, it can be that devastating financially. Coventry was a mainstay in Englands top tier for 30+ years, relegated early 2000's and are just now competing for promotion again.
Except for Leicester's wonderful run a few years ago, every championship has been Man Utd, Arsenal, Chelsea, ManCity after getting billionaire owners and Liverpool's one title. Its fun but boring most years.
Love the idea of relegation for essentially any sport.
I think this is possibly where CFB could go when the Top schools break off and form there own league. I could see schools in the Indiana, Illinois, Minnesota, Nebraska range having a league that can move between the top and secondary leagues. Very doubtful that will happen but I think it would be good.
Relegation will never happen. The idea of "worst to first" and hope springs eternal, is pervasive in sports. And, of course, the team / league structure would prevent this.
Could you see a AAA baseball team being elevated to MLB?
In soccer / "rest of the world" football - the clubs that move up or down - represent a community or city. It's the level of depth and number of teams that varies. Obviously, the media agreements have a direct impact on club / team financial health.
The total number of teams in English soccer - divisions 1 through 4 - is 92. Relegation happens between each division - "up and down". In total - 11 divisions - over 1800 teams are involved in English Soccer's structure. Yes, over 1800.
The PGA tour is a professional sport with relegation. Top 125 stay, others go to Korn Ferry. It works pretty well in golf.