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Anonymous
Would a relegation system work in American sports?

Most European football leagues have a system of promotion and relegation. Rather than have one top league farming players from lower tiers (sup baseball), why not have a system that promotes the best teams in lower tiers to play in the top tier league and have the worst top tier leagues play in a lower tier?

Picture related.
>> Anonymous
Because salaries for promoted and demoted teams get all out of wack. If you'd paid attention to EPL, you'd note that the TV contract and large fanbases of few clubs who historically have stuck in the upper division outstrip all the clubs and give them a severe competitive advantage.

Clubs that jump from lower leagues can't add high-salary players fast enough to compete with the big boys and end up getting sent back down in a year or two.

Clubs that have been sent down either jump back up the next year if they remain solvent enough to pay their players salaries, or they end up having to dump players, after which the top clubs pick up the choicest tidbits.

In (gridiron) football, where you need talent at so many positions to compete, and in depth, the problems would only be exacerbated over soccer/futbol.

It might work for basketball; but theres a dearth of quality big men as it is already.
>> Anonymous
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what
>> Anonymous
it might work for baseball or hockey since the minor league divisions are so large, but with how much the top tier spends on their new stadiums it would have to transfer teams to those soon-to-be-empty venues or it would fuck up the sport
>> Anonymous
If this is so, the Maple Leafs will win the Cup...THE CALDER CUP!!!!

haha
>> Anonymous
>>69930
Likewise, there's a huge inconsistency in terms of the sorts of facilities teams play in. Many of the lower-tier pro hockey teams in North America, for example, play in arenas that have seating capacities in the 10000 range, sometimes even lower. NHL arenas have capacities of about 17000-22000, if a lower-tier team were to be promoted, chances are that the arena they play in wouldn't be anything close to what would be considered an acceptable facility for NHL-level play. On the flip side, if an NHL team were to be demoted, interest in the franchise would likely plummet since they've suddenly gone from playing the cream of the crop to teams of has-beens or inexperienced draft picks, making a 22000-seat arena absurd.
>> Anonymous
>>69944
The NHL makes use of lower-tier teams as franchise farm teams, though. So if Grand Rapids were to be promoted into the NHL, that would mean that the Red Wings would frequently be playing against their own draft picks and scratches.
>> Anonymous
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>>69930
This is also true for American sports that DON'T have a relegation system. Consider, if you will, the fan bases, advertising dollars and player salaries of the Red Sox and Yankees vs. the otherm 28 teams. In any league (NBA, NFL included) you have your 2-4 premier teams, your expansive middle class, then 2-3 teams that suck balls consistently, because the owner is making money regardless of whether team wins games or not.

If any American sports league WERE to institute a relegation system (or even consider it), it would be more to sweep aside the shitty teams than benefit the big ones, and since those owners are billionaires as well, they'd never go for it.

Then again, if each league continues growing like it has over the past 10-15 years, it will become inevitable at some point. All we need is a billionaire who is denied entry and sues. Or, something like the AAFL actually gets off the ground.
>> Anonymous
>>69962


They do it in the Russian Super League, or whatever name they have for it, now.
>> Anonymous
>>71737
How the fuck does that work? The top-tier team would automatically be able to play the matchups to their advantage by altering the roster of the opposing team as they see fit.
>> Anonymous
NBA has one
MLB has one
NFL dont need one cause the season is just too short.
>> Anonymous
>>71783
Clearly you do not understand what this thread is about.
>> Anonymous
>>71653
>In any league (NBA, NFL included) you have your 2-4 premier teams, your expansive middle class, then 2-3 teams that suck balls consistently, because the owner is making money regardless of whether team wins games or not.

>If any American sports league WERE to institute a relegation system (or even consider it), it would be more to sweep aside the shitty teams than benefit the big ones, and since those owners are billionaires as well, they'd never go for it.

This is mostly wrong. In baseball it is somewhat true that big market teams like the Yankees and Mets can outspend smaller clubs due to having virtually no cap or revenue sharing, but Boston is not a Top 5 market, nor are the Dodgers and Angels perennial powerhouses out west. In almost all cases, the strata of teams you indicate is always fluctuating from season to season, or at any rate fluctuates at much greater degree than EPL or other regulation-based leagues.

The reason is that regulation, as you put it, "sweeps aside the shitty teams," and replaces them with shittier teams... then the next year, replaces those teams again with the old shitty teams, or other shitty teams, except after a year of losing/not adding good new players due to not being in the upper league.

You'd have more free agents out there for the best teams like the Yankees to snap up, and so all regulation would do for the MLB - and we're ignoring the fact MLB is run on a farm system - is weaken the ass-end of the field and strengthen the top tier. So instead of the Yankees splitting series with the Minnesota Twins, or losing to hot mid-markets in the playoffs, it would be Manchester U style domination. Imagine the Yanks with Johan Santana and Carl Crawford etc. for the past four years or something like that. Probably would have put them over the hump.
>> Anonymous
>>71855
reLEGation
not
reGULation
>> Anonymous
>>71868
Sorry, typing too fast, and of course the spellchecker wouldn't catch it.
>> Anonymous
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NFL has a lower tier league
>> Anonymous
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>>71868
The simple misspelling is just a tiny example of how>>71855is just babbling.

I never claimed jack or shit about west coast teams; simply that the Yankees/Red Sox are the premier rivalry/cash cows of the league. Most of the other teams come and go (hence the "Vast middle class" I referred to), but with a ReLEGation system, I imagine the teams in LA, Chicago and possibly Houston would get their shit together pretty quick.

When I said premier teams, I didn't say Top Markets, I said *premier* as in, these are the marquee franchises of their sport. As in, regardless of market-size, the Red Sox fans would commit murders before that team got relegated, and the ownership would take care of them out of sheer terror.

Meanwhile, nobody gives a fuck about the Royals. Or the Angels. Or the Rangers. And those are some pretty big markets.
>> Anonymous
>>71989
Babbling, huh?

Take a look at the EPL. Top markets = premier teams. Manchester/Liverpool is the 2nd biggest media market in England. London/Chelsea is the 1st. Guess where the top 4 teams are? And Blackburn, the only other team to win the EPL, is also from the Manchester area.

Obviously not all the teams in the biggest markets are successful, but the teams that are the most successful have to be in the big markets.

You introduce reLEgation to MLB, Boston falls off the map, like many good mid-market English teams did after the EPL formed in 1992 and negotiated their big TV contract. LA, NY, and Chicago teams would jump up the standings, Boston would suffer, and it would just get worse going forward as the nothing teams like Milwaukee, Kansas City and Cincinnati hemorrhaged players as they got yanked up and down between leagues and they got snapped up by some of the bigger boys. Boston would eventually be priced out of this game by weight of numbers, and become a kind of American Aston Villa or Newcastle United.

Who won the last championship before the EPL was formed? Leeds United, till then a pretty successful and storied franchise. Now they're in League One, two divisions down, because cash flow problems from being in a smaller media market, coupled with a few bad seasons that got them relegated destroyed their roster and their financial solvency. You could choose any number of examples like this.

Cutting out the bottom always benefits the top markets/premier teams because it reduces the competition from the field, and gives them a larger pool of free agents to sign and (over)pay.

So again, you're half right and mostly wrong. Though you did get me on reLEgation. Feel free to use any spelling errors I make in this post against my general point.
>> Anonymous
>>72548
I disagree. In the MLB, the most rabid fans in the nation are in NY, Boston, and Chicago. They would demand their team excel, or they'd burn the building down. Meanwhile a team like Houston, which is the 4th largest media market, but often has more Cubs jerseys in the stands than Astros jerseys... they'd be the ones falling.

That does have a little something to do with it.
>> Anonymous
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>>72584
>> Anonymous
>>72584
I agree with you. The reason all the other English futbol teams besides the Big 4 aren't as successful is because their fans are pussies who haven't vandalized enough shit.