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Sick of the Premier League etc ruining English Football I have taken a keen interest in Major League Soccer with Toronto FC being the team I support as I used to live there and my family still do live there. Does anyone else watch MLS or have an interest in it?

The league is growing well however it still lacks promotion/relegation system, which means if you finish last you are just shit as opposed to having something to play for which will build more excitement for the league. As it continues to go strength to strength in some respects in order to be taken seriously a promotion/relegation system is needed in the future.  Groups in the US pay £30M for a franchise so its likely MLS would not want to drop between say MLS and USSF (Divisions below/ Conference level) and risk that money but they could expand the league like the following

Much like we have the Football League in the UK that has 3 divisions (formerly 4) a way around this is to have MLS Division 1 and MLS Division 2. There will soon be 20 teams in the MLS so a 2 tier structure of 10 teams would work.

You could have a structure as follows....

MLS DIVISION 1 – Champions are the grand champions of MLS, 7th and 8th place play a 2 leg playoff to see who gets to stay in MLS Division 1 and who gets relegated. 9th and 10th place are relegated to MLS Division 2.

MLS DIVISION 2 – Champions are promoted to MLS Division 1,  2nd place get automatic Promotion to MLS Division 1, 3rd and 4th place have a 2 leg playoff to see who wins promotion to MLS Division 1,  There is no relegation between MLS Division 2 and the USSF.

MLS DIVISION 1

1 Champions
-------------------------------
2
3
4
5
6
-----------------------------
7 Playoff For Relegation to MLS Division 2
8 Playoff For Relegation to MLS Division 2
------------------------------
9 Relegated to MLS Division 2
10 Relegated to MLS Division 2

MLS DIVISION 2

1 Champions/Promoted
-------------------------------
2 Runners Up/Promoted
------------------------------
3 Playoff For Promotion To MLS Division 1
4 Playoff For Promotion To MLS Division 1
-------------------------------
5
6
7
8
9
10

Relegation may or may not work in the USA however with the standard improving, this would improve the league again, however with failed teams in Tampa and Miami would MLS risk this with attendances sure to drop.

In American sports, none have promotion/relegation, and I cannot see it happening in MLS, even though it would improve the competition.

That’s a decent idea but it wont ever happen, The existing MLS structure is the basically the same structure as all US sports and it has worked well for over 100 years in those sports.

I’m a keen follower of US Sports and have seen that you can get competitive balance without promotion/relegation because of the drafting system.  The team with the worst record having the first pick of the best players coming out of the College sports system.  There has never been a team in US sports who has had a 15 year period of success similar to the one Man Utd are having because generally speaking every team has a few years of success followed by a few down years.

The competitive balance of major US sports puts most top European football leagues to shame.

Hmmmm.... i'm not sure... I guess it depends really if the American supporter is educated that there is a promotion/relegation system in most european competitions or if they are thick enough to think its the Premier League and nothing below for example. MLS is a diferent kettle of fish really where there are so many diverse markets as a team like Toronto FC its fan base is pretty much all europeans to start with, but many Canadians are now embracing it as "the in thing" and are picking up the game, where as San Jose for example is probably all americans without a huge European following. San Jose Earthquakes average attendance is about 10,000 if they were relegated would the Yanks be willing to pay to see division 2 football where as in Toronto (20,000 avg attendance, every game sells out, 3000 season ticket waiting list) as their market is european they would accept the relegation as its part of football they were brought up with and see a marginal decrease in attendances. San Jose however I suppose would go bust.... which then makes a mockery of the relegation concept over there?

Chicago Bulls did alright in the 90's

Franchises pay a substantial entrance fee to join the MLS. How would they attract investors if they could be relegated?

The U.S. game is doing just fine without our traditional system.

They certainly did and that is probably the exception to the rule, they have generally been in the lower reaches since the late 90’s though.

Salary caps are another factor for competitive balance as well, the only sport that doesn’t have one is Baseball and the Yankees have only 1 title in 9 years despite having the biggest payroll by a mile.

The sporting structure in the States works well, the money generated in these sports massively exceeds how much is flowing around the big European football leagues.

You would still be part of MLS. It's not necessarily our traditional system. Most Football fans who have followed football prior to MLS in 1995 are well aware of relegation and if your team is shit a lot of people have said the season becomes stale very quickly, unless your in the top 3 you go through the motions, Its about making games more meaningful and using the typical american playoff system to see who goes down, and up as well as having an all star game. In order to increase attendances you could do a cup competition similar to the FA Cup where division 1 teams can play division 2 teams etc as they do similar. Entrance fees could be reduced if you come in at MLS2 and you dont have to have a soccer specific stadium like you do in MLS currently, but if you got promoted you would need to look to having a Soccer Specific stadium in X number of years of promotion, the new stadium itself increases attendances revenues etc. The CONs are ofcourse, A team like San Jose with 9,000 attendances if they got relegated would be known as "minor league" and attendances drop to maybe 3,000 killing the team all together, San Jose has already died once before...

Promotion and relegateion would not only make the standard better but would improve the US national team as well as encourage people to take up the sport as well as they would ahve a better chance of being pro. I guess MLS though has so many different markets its difficult to know how each would survive to something new. You could try it and revert back to the old format?

san jose's support is about 90% mexican

Not going to happen, they will just expand the number of leagues / conferences playing at the same level the same as they do in all other sports. They do actually have lower quality leagues for most, if not all, sports plus the quality at college (university) level is pretty high.

The big difference is that US sports leagues tend to be created and manufactured rather than just happening over time.

I think FIFA have told them they have to have a promotion/relegation system in place in order to get the World Cup again. Although that said would FIFA really spurn the worlds largest television market where they could make the most money on sponsorships?

 Infact just found an article saying they want to have a promotion/relegation system eventually.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/sports/soc/6971049.html

I've done quite a lot of research on U.S. football, my undergraduate dissertation was an analysis of the game in the U.S. which focused mainly on the pre-NASL years. I suppose my area of expertise within U.S. football is the original American Soccer League (1921-33).

Like most things in football, the U.S. game goes through cycles. The ASL fell due to in-house bickering and general mismanagement which was finished off by the Wall Street Crash.

The NASL was more of fad within 1970's Americana, a bit like disco really. They had a great opportunity to really establish the game at this point but again, mismanagement cost them.

This time around the MLS are keen to learn from the mistakes made by the NASL, especially in regards to keeping FIFA sweet.

Regarding ups and downs. It simply isn't American - not that it's an excuse but it works for them and who are we to argue? They're always going to be serious contenders to host a World Cup regardless of an up and down system. They could host a World Cup in an instant and make the rich richer and FIFA know it.

Europe has smaller countries with professional clubs left, right and centre. A 92 team professional league and a Non-League division that consists of many pro teams is a freak of nature. Something that was established while the game was still evolving into the modern game we have now (the Non-League takes the risks to stay alive).

Promotion and relegation would result in the death of the Play-Off structure to decide who wins the season outright. American sport needs that showcase event - look at the World Series, NBA Play-Offs and Super Bowl, all global money making machines. If football is to be taken seriously in the U.S. it needs to be able to compete alongside rival sports or it will just alienate itself once again as that sport that was invented by (to quote Hank Hill) "European housewives as a way to keep busy while their husbands did the cooking."

If it doesn't compete, it'll die.

I understand as I lived in Canada for years how the North American market works. they need the excitement and as I said FIFA would not shy away from the worlds biggest and most lucractive market. There is a way for making the season exciting for most teams (either going up or down/playoffs) instead of winner take all as per my example below.

You could still have the competitive bit ofcourse if you amended my structure slightly infact it would add to the competition and make it more exciting so both tiers have something to play for. I understand “its not american” to have promotion and relegation however it could work if not only on a trial? Seeing as the teams would change around quite a bit you wouldn’t get bored of the same teams unless you got a yo-yo things happening with several teams in bigger markets able to bounce straight back.

MLS DIVISION 1 – 1st play 3rd in a 2 leg playoff semi-final,  2nd  play 4th in a 2 leg playoff semi-final,  Winner of the 2 playoff finals play at a neutral venue (ala Super Bowl) for the MLS Cup (differente venue every year around the country to get bigger interest in the sport) , 7th and 8th place play a 2 leg playoff to see who gets to stay in MLS Division 1 and who gets relegated. 9th and 10th place are relegated to MLS Division 2.

MLS DIVISION 2 – Champions are promoted to MLS Division 1, 2nd place get automatic Promotion to MLS Division 1, 3rd and 4th place have a 2 leg playoff to see who wins promotion to MLS Division 1, There is no relegation between MLS Division 2 and the USSF.


MLS DIVISION 1

1 Playoffs
2 Playoffs
3 Playoffs
4 Playoffs
-----------------------------
5
6
-----------------------------
7 Playoff For Relegation to MLS Division 2
8 Playoff For Relegation to MLS Division 2
------------------------------
9 Relegated to MLS Division 2
10 Relegated to MLS Division 2

MLS DIVISION 2

1 Champions/Promoted
-------------------------------
2 Runners Up/Promoted
------------------------------
3 Playoff For Promotion To MLS Division 1
4 Playoff For Promotion To MLS Division 1
-------------------------------
5
6
7
8
9
10

Its quite ironic that america of all places has a quite communistic set up to their sports. No promotion/relegation, all teams equal, Poor performing teams getting first pick in the draft etc

I follow Toronto a little bit as I love the city and spoke to some of their supporters whilst I was there. Not a massive fan though.

The idea of promotion and relegation is completely alien to them, it'll never happen. The leagues and the franchises are a lot more 'joined' than they are here.

I am currently in Cleveland, Ohio in the states completing college on a 'soccer' scholarship so I know about the system having been here for four years and playing at various levels.

There is technically no promotion/releagtion but there is a very good structure in place when it comes to developing players. At the top of this is the MLS, there is then the ''USL'' league below which runs two divisions where there is promotion from USL-1 to USL-2, then below this is a summer league called the 'PDL' (professional development league) where college players (U23) compete in a three month season that acts as a shop window for the top college players to showcase their talents in order to enter the draft upon completion of their college career or get picked up by a USL team. College players, like myself usually compete in this during their junior and senior years of college when they have developed physically and adapted to the American style.

Having played at the PDL and NPSL standards I rate the standard as good and feel the system is far better suited to developing players all the way until they are 22nd year rather than the YT system at home that fails so many at 18. Players I play with at college and for summer teams are now playing pro here, in Iceland, Scotland, Belgium. There are MANY English lads like myself who have been at clubs in England, my room mates were at Newcastle, Man Utd, Oldham amongst other clubs and are prospering out here football wise and in getting an education where they may have struggled with the physical nature of non league football at home.  

In terms of support clubs at all levels have seen increases in crowd size especially since the world cup. At the level I have been playing we usually get 1-2000 people per game which is a good amount for the 5th or 6th sport in the country.