re: San Diego awarded 30th MLS team

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The owners use it as a tax right off

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Why do you care? You think shite like this doesn’t happen elsewhere? Is this actively hurting the league?

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Why have a league that big if you don’t have enough quality players to play in it and don’t produce enough domestic talent to fill a squad with quality

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For a guy who barely watches MLS you care quite a lot about the supposed dilution of the player pool. As if one MLS club is going to dilute the global pool from which MLS gets players. Domestically sure you can make an argument but it’s a weak one. Local academies are churning out talent at this point and expanding the reach of the best academies (those affiliated with MLS teams) is a net positive.

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Why do you care? You think shite like this doesn’t happen elsewhere? Is this actively hurting the league?

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Of course it’s actively hurting the league when owners don’t have to be competitive and face no consequences

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For a guy who barely watches MLS you care quite a lot about the supposed dilution of the player pool. As if one MLS club is going to dilute the global pool from which MLS gets players. Domestically sure you can make an argument but it’s a weak one. Local academies are churning out talent at this point and expanding the reach of the best academies (those affiliated with MLS teams) is a net positive.

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Dude wtf are you talking about

I’ve been watching MLS since it’s first season, I went to MLS cup at RFK
in 97. I still watch but the new tv deal is stupid so I just use IPTV


And yes the pool is diluted, to think otherwise is nonsense. What massive pool can we pull from with salary cap restrictions and foreign player restrictions

The academy system is working but it’s all going abroad once they reach of age. There is zero incentive for them to stay in MLS. At most the top youngsters play a year or two then leave. Or they leave right at 16.

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The academy system is working but it’s all going abroad once they reach of age. There is zero incentive for them to stay in MLS. At most the top youngsters play a year or two then leave. Or they leave right at 16.

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Who cares? The best go abroad. The mids stay and raise the floor of the league. Stop whining about it.

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I’d love for MLS and every other US professional league to have promotion/relegation, but it’s a terrible business strategy. It’s not going to happen, so it barely warrants discussion

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This, and

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Do most fans really care if the average talent level is the 7th best international league instead of the 10th?

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I would guess 95% of people who attend MLS matches don't care. MLS is growing the sport, providing an opportunity to make a good living playing soccer on American soil, and giving the public the chance to watch soccer in mostly new, soccer-only stadiums, something that was unfathomable in the late 90s. It will never be a league that satisfies the euro-centric purist, even if its over silly arguments like relegation, or more relevant questions like the timing of the season or its relevance to the national team. But that's ok with me, and many fans.

The argument around relegation is not about being Eurocentric, it’s about giving our league and national team the best chance it can. Everyone else is running a sporting merit model and we aren’t. If you don’t think that matters I don’t know what to tell you. It very obviously does.

The real eurosnobs aren’t paying attention to MLS enough to even be critical. People like me and SCH want the US to have the best version of the game we can have here.

And like I said earlier in the thread, I think there are things unrelated to pro/rel they could do to make the league much better and more interesting than it is.

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MLS is growing the sport

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The extent of this is highly debatable

Okay I'll ask you these questions. Is there a greater than 0 percent chance Pro/Rel does the opposite of what you think happens and we end up with teams in lower divisions being bankrupted because the teams that get promoted and relegated into their division create a massive travel disparity? Imagine a division of 20 teams and it so happens a team from, say FL gets promoted into a division with 14 teams west of New Mexico? What happens when a team founded in the 2010s and 2020s gets relegated before they have enough time to develop a fanbase of non Euro fans that will stick with them through relegation?

We wouldn't have things like St. Louis City immediately bring competitive or 70k fans at the Charlotte opener in your version. Matter of fact I like your version to a game of roulette. One chamber may get the results you think you're going to get, one kills you and four fall somewhere in between. No legitimate business is taking chances that are that potentially devastating.

Lastly, none it will happen anyway so pissing on moaning bi-monthly about it in a thread just shows MLS haters have a vendetta against the audacity to try to do it different than Europeans. Nevermind they've gone from non-existent to a top 12-15 league in the world in less than 3 decades, but armchair economists over here can do it better.

Problem is the mids are not that good

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No legitimate business is taking chances that are that potentially devastating.

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And this is the problem

Franchises vs Sporting clubs

Where are all these positive MLS posts from you guys that don't have caveats you attach to them how you think it'd be better? Where is your simple list of "yes this is done well" posts?

At the end of the day you guys won't get your wish to see pro rel anytime soon so I guess you'll just have to be super disappointed with a positive trending league. Darn.