re: "Legendary Announcement" - Austin FC is your newest MLS squad

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roster compliance deadline

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They can still change the rules mid season

In what other league are roster rules altered mid season to accommodate a specific team?

Well there’s a non zero chance of it happening, which is higher than I can say for any other team in any other sport.

Am I wrong?

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Am I wrong?

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Yes, we’ve seen enough organic growth around the country at this point to know Pro/Rel can work. Many of those have been “promoted” in a way via absorbtion into MLS. The question is if clubs could survive relegation. Some probably would not, but many clubs haven’t survived because their growth has been artificially restricted by a lack of pro/rel as well. That said I just don’t believe Orlando City would go away had they been relegated last year, either. The support they gave to the USL version is what got them into MLS in the first place. Detroit City and Chattanooga put more actual people in the stands than some MLS teams. If you give lower league clubs the carrot of possibly making it to MLS you’ll see the number of clubs able to do that multiply exponentially.

Also people typically think of the European 3 up 3 down system, which I dont think would be right for the US. You could use the Mexican system and relegate 1 team a year from each conference based on a rolling 5 year average or something, so one bad season wouldn’t send you down but if you’re the Chicago Fire you’re SOL. And honestly wouldn’t MLS be better off without the Fire? And with P/R someone could start a better run club in that market which could eventually take their place in MLS? This is the essence of why Pro/Rel is a better system.

The best argument against is if we had pure p/r then eventually you’d have an MLS consisting of 4 clubs from LA, 5 from New York, 3 from Chicago, 2 each from Atlanta, Dallas, and Houston, plus Seattle Sounders and Portland Timbers. I think you could figure this out but I’m not 100% sure how to be honest. Only thing I can think of is have MLS 1 and 2 with a very tight window between MLS 2 and USL Championship-League One-League Two. You’ve still got to make it possible make it all the way from USL League 2 up to MLS 1 but at that choke point between MLS and USL introduce more stringent controls on facilities and geography and the like.

I have softened somewhat on MLS in the last year or so. I still really dislike single entity and have major reservations about the modifications of Don Garner and some MLS owners, but I can also look at Arthur Blank and say he’s not the reason US Soccer isn’t where it can be. That said ultimately a closed single entity structure, while beneficial to the investor-operators, are not conducive to either the growth of the USMNT nor our best teams reaching their potential in in continental competition.

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Yes, we’ve seen enough organic growth around the country at this point to know Pro/Rel can work

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Whether it can or can't work wasn't what I was talking about. It just will not happen anytime soon at the top level, no matter how many people scream from the rooftops for it. The absolute best that you could hope for is that USL Championship and League One implements it in the next 5 years, and that may be too soon. MLS won't even consider it until at least USL proves that they can make it work, and that won't be for another decade at the absolute earliest.

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But without p/r we won’t ever win a World Cup and our domestic teams won’t ever seriously challenge the best clubs in South America or Europe. At best it will be on par with Liga MX and plateau there

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That's just ridiculous.

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Just look at how Dempsey, Jozy, and Bradley’s USMNT performances regressed when they came back to MLS from Europe.

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None of those players would have felt the pressure of relegation. They were all safely in playoffs every season. If you want to blame the lower level of competition go ahead, but Seattle and Toronto were pushing to win the championship every year those three players were involved.

Liga MX has relegation, but that didn't prevent Omar Gonzalez from having a shite game against T&T and scoring an own goal.

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None of those players would have felt the pressure of relegation. They were all safely in playoffs every season.

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Yeah but when they played the bottom teams in MLS they weren’t playing team fighting for their survival, steel sharpens steel and the relative lack of importance of the MLS regular season, the lack of p/r being one of the reasons why, creates a trickle down effect even for playoff teams.

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Guys like Kaka weren't/aren't phoning it in

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Not saying the players are the problem or that they are phoning it in. I’m saying the structure of the way the league is set up gives less of a man existential pressure from the perspective of the team and that has a trickle down effect to overal quality. Of course an MLS player making 70k a year or whatever is out there fighting for his careers, but the teams are not forced to do everything they can to equip those players to be the absolute best they can be. Even outside of p/r you have Continental Compeition qualification that is hugely impactful on the prestige and bottom line of a club in South America or Europe as compared to here. This isn’t MLS’s fault per se but they have been so focused on their league and their league only that cup competitors are somewhat less emphasized l. This does seem to be changing littlemby little though and I hope MLS sees the value of looking outward rather than only inward.