"Pro/Rel would destroy Soccer in the USA" 

Not so sure I was making his point for him, but thanks for listening.

Could not agree more. Filippo was outstanding. As was Daniel.

True. But he doesn't ever change his mind. I don't know if Filippo will ever see the light.

No wants to watch 36 teams of average to below average players

@@fundalementalliving1321 Keep that same energy with all the other countries that have worst players and have existed longer than the MLS.. US soccer fans can never enjoy the sport with people like you

@@fundalementalliving1321 This mindset is why the US will never have pro/rel. There is people who say they want pro/rel now, and then the other half says they don't want to watch it if it's not good enough.

With 36 teams you can also do 2 groups with playoffs.

Why do people assume MLS will continue growing to 36 or more teams? MLB and NBA have 30 teams, and the NFL and NHL have 32. The expansion of those leagues has been minimal, if at all, over the past 25 years. There is only so much that the market will support. I could see some teams moving. CF Montreal is in financial trouble. But I don’t foresee the MLS growing beyond 32 teams in the foreseeable future.

The only way they would allow it, is if they are allowed to continue using their own stadium, and can also rent it out to whoever gets promoted to replace them. In other words, they would need to be able to make money somehow. Maybe guaranteed streaming time on Apple TV

True. Most of these teams have huge debts and hundreds of employees. It would be bad if the team got relegated

That's where the conversation begins and ends, period. Even if relegated MLS owners are willing to eat the ~$350 million loss, there's still the question of all the 3rd party contracts every one of these teams has executed with cities, sponsors, vendors, etc. that all explicitly state MLS. They'd wake up to that huge loss plus a few dozen major breech actions. This would make relegation a death penalty. No owner would willingly vote for that.

Very true... that's why we can't rely on those owners to make the decision.

​@@khalilshahyd9063 I think they might have more power than you.

That's not bad. MLS might grow to 32 teams, so how about leave those 2 spots for USL teams to prove themselves. How about, out of 2 USL teams that get "Promoted", only 1 gets to stay. So New Mexico and Charleston join MLS in 2025, but the lower one in the standings gets "Relegated", say it's Charleston. Then the USL Champ of 2025, say it's Louisville, gets "Promoted" to MLS in 2026 and has to battle New Mexico to remain in MLS for 2027.

That's a good variation too.

The right answer is to just not have a promotion or relegation system. They say that relegation lowers the value of the club. And the owner does not invest more in a weak team. Do you think the bottom ranked team will win the League?

Sounds good except they can't. They NEED USSF to adjust their div status so that teams can promote/relegate without the investor requirements, otherwise it's just a smoke show.

Pro-Rel is a treadmill stuck in a sand-trap. USL doesn't want to shoot itself in the foot by adding Pro-Rel. Most SPORTS FANS don't want it.

So here is the double edge sword... He makes the point we aren't challenging Prem League yet believes people won't pay attention if their team is relegated... The people who won't support a relegated team also aren't supporting an MLS team because it's already considered "minor league" in their eyes... Prem, La Liga, ect are the major leagues and why more watch Prem league than MLS in the USA... How can you compete with the world with your soccer league? You get the best athletes from your country you can to participate in your sport and in your league... How do you do that? Well from what I see England has the better system to keep from allowing any talent to fall through the cracks... In the long run would we compete with Prem league? I don't see any chance of that happening. BUT if you are producing a decent amount of talent that is becoming successful in the Prem league ect, people will watch... Especially IF/When you get those prospects in your league...

I agree with this point too. MLS is competing only against American sports. Nothing, including Pro/Rel will get PL fans to take it seriously In the short term. The best debate shows on TV currently center around football and basketball. Baseball get some love but not much. NHL is a mainstay on the sport’s center top 10 plays. If We can get to a point where the sport center top 10 plays include MLS/soccer plays on a daily/weekly basis. That going to increase the fans and at the same time grow the game.

Well, yes and no. There are millions of American who are soccer fans but not MLS fans. You really want those people because they are the most likely to have soccer as their favorite sport and will be the most passionate (spend the most). There are many, many millions who aren't soccer fans who are fans of the big 4 sports who you also want. Culturally though, those people tend to 'hate' soccer as it's not really seen as part of American sports culture. You want both.

MLS is competing with Liga MX for active soccer fans in the US. It is the most watched and followed league in the US, and MLS cannot grow to its potential without making inroads into that community. The Leagues Cup brings in money for a particular game, but will it bring them back? After all, it is still much easier to watch a Liga MX game than stream an MLS one on Apple. It competes with mostly a different segment of the "active soccer fan" population with the European and South American leagues, though obviously some Liga MX fans also follows teams in those leagues. It isn't as large. After all, there is a reason most La Liga, Bundresliga, and Premier League games are on streaming platforms while Liga MX has national broadcasting with Univision, Telemundo, TUDN, and Fox. It is competing with the NFL, NBA, and MLB for more generalized sports fans. This is a much larger pool of people. MLS, and soccer more generally, has always struggled in that lane. I think some of ownership groups who also have other teams have done a better job of outreach, but the Apple deal makes it difficult for people who aren't avid fans to casually watch a game or two and find a player or team they enjoy watching. It also really closes off people who don't live in the 24 metro areas with an MLS team, which is a pretty good chunk of the country where there is no localized reason to be interested in a team and the league makes it difficult to give it a chance.

The MLS ranks 5th in both minutes watched and revenue in 2023, behind MLB & NHL by a large margin. The MLS is just not ready for a relegation system for all the reasons stated.

You're not wrong. If you've seen Welcome to Wrexham, then you would of seen a team called Dorking Wanderers FC started by Marc White and some friends. Eventually he took it over as the owner and manager of the team and the team played at the lowest level of football around tier 11 and worked there way up to tier 5 football. Tier 5 is the National league, within the pyramid and is the lowest level of professional football. However they only need one promotion to be in the EFL. Here's the thing Marc started his team in 1999, that's 25 years ago!?

Here's the difference though, England is the size of Alabama in terms of land area, but it has a population that is 20 million larger than the population of California. The population density in Europe allows it. It wouldn't work in the US where things are so spread out. It's a lot easier to recruit new talent when you have 60 million people living within a 5 hour car ride. Imagine someone in Fargo trying to scout out the latest talent.

All I know is that I live in El Paso texas and ive never so much as seen ANY of the 3 mls teams even care about El Paso but now we got a USL team and the city LOVES them so till mls shows me something i couldnt care less hell I can even watch the local team on tv without cable lol

@loganleroy8622 I don't think the density issue is a problem. The non league teams WIll vacuumed up anyone with any talent. Therefore, no one should fall through the cracks. I think that's what makes the bigger leagues national teams so damn strong... There is almost NO chance a talented footballer falls through the cracks...

@TheHabsification look up Farnham town FC on RU-vid. While this team has a lot more money invested than a lot of the smaller non league teams. You can see what they're able to accomplish and where they're attempting to go with much much much less invested than if you were going to attempt to start a small club or some form of minor league team in the USA...

Colleges are not an adequate development system for soccer though. The VAST majority of football and basketball players aren't ready to play in pro leagues until they're 21-22 anyways. In soccer and hockey by the time you're graduating college you're already too old to really be considered a prospect with much growth potential. Youth academies are much more relevant to player development and almost all of the good American players at the moment didn't play in college and came out of a professional team's academy. The NCAA is also super corrupt (maybe even more than FIFA) and inefficient and really should be abolished not invested in.

​@@keveyson I agree, the NCAA coaches in every sport are worried about winning, not development of players. Why have we seen a drop in quality of rookies in the NFL and the NBA? Because coaches have more pressure to win, especially with NIL and how much money is put into collegiate sports now. A college coach is gonna pick the players that help him win faster, than try to develop a kid that maybe is gonna help him win in 3 or 4 years or reach his ceiling in the pros. By year 3 or 4 that coach might be fired and that kid is gonna help whoever replaced them or whatever pro team drafts him. Soccer, like hockey has always been a sport were your best players are developed through academies or pay for play systems. And unfortunately some fall through the cracks because their families can't afford to pay academy fees or equipment fees like in hockey. All these European clubs that have academies abroad say they're trying to look for the best talent but for a kid to make it into that academy, their parents have to pay for them, first just to try out, then if you make the academy, you have to pay to stay there.

@@aidenroqz yes, pay to play is a problem, but that's just a reason to invest in making academies free or at least cheaper, not wasting resources on the NCAA, which is basically just a haven for players who are never gonna be good enough to move the needle. Ultimately the problem is greed. University administrators and coaches often are in it for big dollar payoffs, and clubs are trying to turn a quick profit with their academies. Clubs should be forced to spend money subsidizing development for low income players.

@@keveyson I agree it isn't the best option and the academy is a much better option but It maybe the best option given the way things are set up in the USA right now for drawing interest and getting the youth involved the main thing for the university push is to increase demand. As Tac was saying one of his objection was lack of opportunity and interest if you don't have an MLS team near by but a lot of people do have pride in the local universities. Like Kentucky, and Louisville basketball (a state with No NBA team but loves basketball) or Alabama and Aurburn gridiron football (despite no NFL team in the state Gridiron football is like a religion to them).

@@keveyson I guess the algorithm I see is. States with no professional team are very loyal to their universities. University Soccer starts getting pushed and more tv and promotion time The youth in that area get interested and start playing soccer. Private companies see the demand for soccer training and provide it to the youth or MLS expand opportunities to get involved. Youth become good soccer players and get recruited by MLS, USL, or Colleges. If talent pool increases enough then teams in Europe and or MLS take a look at them and offer to take them into the academies.

I absolutely hate that in Germany where I live. 2nd teams can only go as high as the third division, but that's a blight on the league. In terms of Germany, I think 2nd teams at regional level is fine, but it shouldn't be allowed at a national level. Any system that makes hoarding players easier/better is terrible.

Well, interestingly enough.... Based on the annual MLS-PA reports, that list every player's salary, the average MLS Payroll has been DOUBLING every 5 to 6 years (since 2010). Avg MLS team Payroll for 2023 was $17 million, 6 years ago it was half that. That not the "Cap" that you're referring to, but it's a decent indicator to see that MLS is in fact increasing spending on players/talent.

What problems? And MLS is and has been investing in youth development. They created an entire 3rd Division league, they have nearly 700 academies across the country.

For MLS to "break through" in the U.S. sports landscape, what it's going to take is bringing Pulisic, "Captain America," to Chicago Fire, Weston McKennie to Atlanta United, Alphonzo Davies to Toronto, Gio Reyna to NYCFC... after the 2026 World Cup.

Would go a long way towards cutting travel time and costs too

Except, you eliminate the star power effect. I support a team in the Western conference, and I have seen a dramatic increase in fan attendance this year. Why? Because Messi is coming to town next month, and it was cost effective to get season tickets. You take that away, and you lose thousands of fans.

@@pcoleman1971 the idea is to stop relying on “star power” we need to increase the level of our players by creating real competition, when we see our own step up their game the fans will come back, we aren’t even better than liga mx, first we need to conquer the Mexican, Argentine and Brazilian leagues, those leagues don’t rely on “star power” and they are better than us.

@@glencassiano2658 Developing talent takes money. And yet, you are proposing a system which would bring in less revenue.

@@pcoleman1971 not as much money as a franchise player costs, plus mls is subsidized by the us soccer federation, it is very likely your local mls team loses money more than it generates, right now mls is all based on future projections but once Messi leaves there will be a huge dip in popularity, and yes I accept that teams should get ready to weather the storm until they get it together and the fans understand why it is so important to be there for their team and only the strongest will survive, from personal experience I am sick and tired of having my local team serve only as a roadshow venue for the better teams in the league

Brazil, due to size.

Hybrid method. Brazil due to size, and Japanese due to competing with powerful sports (baseball and sumo in Japan). I am biased to Japan (not just because of the wife) because they do have similar stipulations like MLS like proper stadium sizes needed to be in the J.League pyramid.

@@Thomao You got a japanese wife! Lucky! Japanese women look like they are 25 when they are in their 50s.

Okay, so where's the Time Machine that could make that rationale work? Otherwise, we're living in modern times, and your argument holds no water.

Also, are there NFL teams/Pro FB teams in every town in Wisconsin? No. Is there Relegation in the NFL? No. Case closed.

It's not about MLS.

If you quit supporting your team then you aren't a fan. The pain and joy of seeing your team fight back from relegation would be better than seeing them consistently at the bottom because of poor ownership

In youth sports it is very popular for kids playing. But in viewership and buying merch, for adults and kids? The gap is very wide.

The number of teams that a league can support is a function of money, domestic talent, and access to international players through both funds and labor law. MLS is structured to have a flatter distribution of funds throughout the league than you would see elsewhere. As such, the relative gap among the highest, mid, and bottom teams is not such that it makes competitiveness to be one of its problems. The domestic talent pool can be debated, but the ability for MLS teams to bring in international players (and later for those players to get green cards and become domestic players) has allowed the league to double in size over the past fifteen years without significant issues. MLS has its issues, but I don't think over expansion really ranks.

First none are actual futbol fans second their ain’t no money in actually making soccer great in the US

Yes, I divorced reality years ago.

MLS owners have invested a billion dollars in their MLS teams. They won't stand for the risk of devaluing their billion dollar asset by relegation to a minor league. And if USSF tried to force it on them, they would be standing in front of 12 judges in a district court.

They do have "hope" to be promoted to the first division... by buying into MLS.

​@davepazz580 yeah, very difficult for a $20M franchise to come up with $500M... almost equates to no hope without a Billionaire boys club investor

@@CoachSeanUT I agree is difficult but nonetheless, that's how it's done...

​@@davepazz580you're a jackass...

@@khalilshahyd9063 and still right...

I think I mentioned the amateur status… agree in principle but not something I would argue about … agreed. Not in this video but I did mention that I think the lower divisions need the most work before you can go to pro/rel …. Think I would argue this based on location. Larger city teams will do better than smaller city teams for the most part.

How is anyone outside of the MLS Cartel benefiting from that "parity"?

@sunrae3971 Growth in soccer academies, and growth in overall interest in the sport. Kids can see matches and aspire to one day play professionally. It's no longer just a sport played overseas. Plus, the US and Canadian national teams are much better than they were 20 years ago. As a Vancouver fan, I saw a young Alphonso Davies play his first professional match after emerging from the Whitecaps academy, so I saw the MLS development first hand. Are there still problems? Yes. I agree with the issues noted by JK. But those issues won't be solved by pro/rel.

@@pcoleman1971 The Question is on how many "Davies" the MLS Cartel is missing out. There are so many WC Champions such system would have ignored. No regular peasant gets such risk free deals on investments.

Lack of interest? I mean, I can list 50 things that are wrong with youth soccer and player development, lack of interest most certainly not be one of them.

Unfortunately, in the United States, you don't know that.

The scam refers to the fact that for it to work, promoted and relegated teams need to be subsidized. It doesn’t mean that pro rel is a scam.

Examples: messi was "too small", Kane was "too fat", Xabi Alonso was "too slow"

Really not sure what I said that would make you think I was delusional.

Do you watch USL?

Go to Detroit city fc it's well worth it

And therefore your team will never be able to pay for quality players to get to Promoted and stay there. I would lead to less and less Parity, and more towards only 3 or 4 BIG teams winning everything every year.

@@davidday2373 completely unlike the chiefs and patriots. You forget man city was in the second division in the early 2000,s. Leicester won the league after being promoted two years earlier. Your argument doesn’t track.

@@thepitch8077 Well, 10 other teams won the Super Bowl during the Patriots' SB reign (2001-18), so even "dominant" teams aren't so dominant. And the RICHEST team in NFL hasnt won the SB in 30 years!

@@thepitch8077 LOL, they always bring up "Lester City" as the rare exception. Even with Lester, in the EPL's history, 80% of Championships have been won by only 3 teams. BTW, in the 90+ years of La Liga only 9 different teams have ever won the League. And how dies anyone justify Bayern/Bundesliga, PSG/Ligue1, etc?

Many don't have a "pathway" to *any* major league sport... that's life, it isn't fair.

How many more cities are actually MLS ready???? USL teams play in HS football stadiums or in municipal fields with nothing more than bleachers and maybe a snack bar! But those who want this system expect their tax payers or investors to build (at the very limit) $12,000 seat stadiums, with parking, adequate concessions (that’s where the money is at to pay back sponsors) and all the required codes and safety features that these type of projects require. The only way these things happen is in today’s economic and political landscape is if there’s a guarantee on return for your investment which means “playing in the highest league”. This is not 1904 where every club, every community that fielded a team where all on the same playing field (as it applies to resources and fans). 2024 America requires major planning and investment and civic (public and governmental) support to create facilities that can accommodate an actual fanbase!!!!! Smaller cities, and places where soccer is not near the top of the sports/entertainment hierarchy…this expectation is not feasible nor realistic.

It’s not a question of whether soccer exists at that level. Between the USL leagues, NISA, NPSL, and UPSL there are literally hundreds of lower level teams in existence already. They can be a revolving door at times (since very few of them draw enough fans to produce revenue), but they’re there already. And quite a few of them have involvement in local youth soccer orgs. In Milwaukee alone, we have three major youth soccer orgs (Wave SC, Milwaukee Kickers, Bavarian Soccer Club) that have at one point or another had ties to a pro, semi-pro, or indoor team. (The Bavarians field a USL2 team, the Wave is one of the longest running indoor teams in the US, and the Kickers used to be the host facility for an outdoor iteration of the Wave). These orgs don’t just have rec leagues, they have select teams and academies and summer camps and everything. So this thing that you and so many others say that pro/rel is supposed to provide already exists. It’s pay to play, because very few teams generate enough revenue to keep themselves afloat, much less do they make enough revenue to subsidize youth soccer. But it exists. Pro/rel advocates will trip over themselves to claim that pro/rel will somehow fund these activities but no matter how many times and how many ways it’s asked, they cannot explain HOW. I’m left to assume that it’s all magical thinking and circular logic. No cause and effect. No reasoning. Just “pro/rel will fix everything and pay for everyone’s youth academies because… pro/rel is great and will fix everything… the end”. Don’t ask where the money would come from.

Hey mate, All of these questions can answer themselves, just leave the US and get involved in a pro/rel pyramid. You need to have a system that gives people reason to spend and invest more money. You need a system that is a meritocracy, and you need a system where the players are valuable, not just the parents money. In a normal country, every time a player is sold for a transfer fee, part of that fee is given to every club the player played for aged 12-23. So there is a financial incentive to produce good players in that aspect from the youth level. Secondly nearly every academy or youth set up is connected to a senior side. The senior sides have the ability to move up the pyramid and down the pyramid. Which creates a lot more teams looking for players. There is an extra incentive that your youth set up can create players for your senior team. Of course this isn't mandatory these are incentives. Some teams don't give a damn about the youth, some focus their entire business model on the youth. In the US, for 99% of teams they have no incentive to really produce pro players. MLS academies make up a small fraction of total youth teams. These youth teams are incentivized as a normal business, meaning how many paying customers (the kids parents) can they attract. That's the main goal. Not maximizing development. If you look to a senior level, where does the money come from u ask.. It comes from a variety of sources. Local governments, wealthy business people, community efforts, etc. Some teams have no money, some have a lot. But there needs to be an incentive to spend money. Without pro/rel there is not a real incentive to spend for many people. Even if you win your NPSL region or USL 2 what do you get? What's the reason to spend more? What's the reason to pay salaries? What's the reason to pay bonuses? Most teams at this level pay $0 to players for a reason. The owner of Stockade FC in NPSL published blogs of his financials over the years. He said outright, he has more money, but he won't spend it on the team as there is no point. They can't promote out of NPSL, why dip more money than what sustains the team where they are. Promotion is the carrot that encourages spending and investment for many. Obviously not every team wants to spend and promote to MLS. Some teams are happy in the amateur leagues, some in semi pro leagues, some in lower pro leagues. But when it's an open system with thousands of teams, the owners will get to decide exactly what they want to achieve and what to spend for it. Currently in countries with economies far weaker than the US (minimum wage $400-500 per month) amateur players in these places make more money than many "pro" players in the US in NISA or MISL for example. In the US, there are also players that don't play in sanctioned matches just playing for in cash tournament (usually Latino leagues) making $2,000 per month. This is on par or better than basically all pro soccer below USL championship in the US. There is a clear demand for soccer not being supplied in the US. You need a pyramid with pro/rel that divides up the country smaller and smaller to reduce travel as necessary. For example 1st tier national 2nd tier East/West 3rd tier NE, SE, NW, SW 4th tier regional 5th tier State league 6th tier regions within state 7th tier Counties within state regions. And within these you can add tiers as necessary, you can have 2 NY state tiers, 5 NYC regional tiers, 4 Brooklyn tiers etc.

No one wants to watch soccer games in the snow... makes for an overall bad experience from a fan perspective.

@@davepazz580 if you attend all games and snow happens 2-3 times in a season then it's nothing bad, it's basically same as going and watching game in heavy rain in the fall or during the super hot and humid day in the summer. I was 7/8 years old when I've attended first game, now I'm basically 30 years older. Experienced it all. Even the bankruptcy of my hometown team and falling from Ekstraklasa, five or even six tiers below and then re-activating under a bit different name. So yeah just watching a game in bad weather conditions isn't anything spooky and bad for me.

What you described already happens nearly every year in MLS... not long ago a game in Salt Lake (I believe) was played on a field totally covered in snow. If MLS instead followed the "international" calendar, there'd be a *lot* more of such games... just not something I'd look forward to or to even judge properly in my opinion.

Me? Yes. @SC149249

If you don't watch, how do you know?

Kicking out one bad team and replacing it with another bad team every year won't change anything...

@@davepazz580when you have pro/rel there are a lot of options available. The team that gets promoted can choose to spend money e.g Nottingham Forest. The team that get promoted can choose to sell to a rich investor who will spend money e.g Bournemouth. There are much more activity on and off the pitch with Pro/Rel which gets the fans excited. So I totally disagree with your assessment.

Sure, that happens in Europe because it's a free "club" system with very little restrictions on team building... But such a scenario wouldn't happen in MLS because the league itself owns all the teams... there's no such thing as a billionaire coming in and "buying" an MLS team and pumping all kinds of money into it.

@@SimpleCoachTVI am not interested in watching MLS loading up inter Miami with talent so that Messi can treat the league like a bush league. The same Messi who couldn’t do anything at PSG but is now the undisputed King of MLS. Every MLS soccer fan was expecting the league to increase the salary cap when they sign the Apple deal so teams could recruit better players but instead MLS kept the salary cap the same so that Messi and inter Miami wouldn’t have any competition and they would have a great chance of winning the league. It’s all set up for Messi. Barring any injuries or unforeseen circumstances, inter Miami should win the league. Unfortunately, I am one of those soccer fans who is not interested. When MLS increase the salary cap and the talent is spread out throughout the league to allow greater competition send me an email, but until then my attention will be elsewhere.

Exactly... not making the playoffs = "relegation" enough.

I'm sorry I don't know what I am talking about. I failed Sociology of Me my junior year in college.

@@SimpleCoachTVyour English is totally poor. Your last sentence is totally off.

@@Stewy-xw9fz Poor, yes. I did go to kollege though. This last sentence is ON.

It's always interesting seeing teams like kc playing big market teams like galaxy

@@Handysoccersc absolutely, and even with the hard cap, Galaxy has been a traditional power due to DP rules. No DP is moving to KC over LA.

I'm an LAFC supporter, Pro-Rel would arguably likely benefit my team the most, tbh. BUT as a fan of many other sports, I think I prefer Parity in a league.

The "move up or down" bit only makes full sense in a league made up in totally independent, self-sustaining "clubs", where the regular season is basically just a method of "ranking" top to bottom placings and nothing more... But in a single-entity system where the league itself outright owns all the teams and they are all essentially "business partners" with each other to sustain that concentration of financial power, then it *really* starts making no sense at all... A second division team will *always* be just a second division team in quality... being the "top" second division teams wouldn't magically transform them into a top division quality team nor would they have any "right" to join a single-entity league just based on a second division record.

@@davepazz580 Which is why it would work for USL's format. That is my point. Other sports teams in the US can't move up/down so there's no real investment in lower teams. Average American fans aren't even aware of a possible system.

The Jets also haven't always sucked. They've won a Super Bowl and at times have been competitive. No team has always sucked, not even the ones without SB wins.

Plus Jets fans are still watching the stars on the other side play their team. Jets fans may be booing Travis Kelce when he comes to town, but they are still showing up.

Kicking out one team and replacing it with another bad team every year doesn't equal "stakes" anyone really cares about...

@@davepazz580 If teams get booted from the league, they're losing money, so nobody wants to get kicked out. That's why they strive not to finish last. If you move up to the higher league, you earn more money, so they strive to stay and improve. If you have no disadvantage in finishing last, you don't have to make an effort, as is the case in the NBA. The Spurs decided they wouldn't make it to the play-in tournament midway through the season and stopped trying to win to get a better pick in the next season. It's better to let yourself lose if you're in the middle of the table. Of course, there are stakes.

I know all that... but I meant league-wide, nobody really cares what the *worst* teams are doing - people would more naturally focus on who's doing best or challenging for the top spot. Last-place team in US sports are just an afterthought... once you fail to make the playoffs, most fans tune out anyway. What generates interest is qualifying for playoffs and seeing how far a team can "extend" their season and possibly be challenging for the league title. In the NBA, the last place team isn't automatically given the top pick anyway (that's decided via lottery, so simply playing to lose won't guarantee anything). The proper way to look at it is teams that finish last should worry the *players* and *coaches* because they specifically are the ones who could "lose money" by being demoted or sent away as individuals. That would only make sense, since finishing last wasn't the fault of the paying fans... why drag the entire team and fans down also?

Countries where soccer isn't the 5th most popular sport... it really only thrives in countries where soccer is the national obsession or suffers from very little competition from other sports leagues.

How many sports leagues exist in Japan? How popular is soccer compared to them?

Right... which means soccer there doesn't face the same crowded sports environment as the US does.

What American sports fans have "never seen" is a system that places any importance on which team is doing *worst* as much as which is doing best... Most American sports fans don't care which team is at the bottom (nor should they)... it's more natural to incentive teams to play to be the best, not to avoid being the worst.

The playoffs pretty much negate the need for relegating teams, since teams that didn't qualify are effectively "relegated" anyway... And once teams don't qualify for the playoffs, fans tune out regardless...

I mean, not really the same thing at all. Do you think it’s fair that - Chelsea can spend a $1 billion and finish mid table; simultaneously, Luton spends a fraction of that, and is a relegation scrap. Who actually did worse? I’d argue Chelsea. So, modern pro/rel is just rich getting richer, and poor staying poor.

@@Phogadacbietso because the saudis are trying to tap in to the game you use that as an excuse to hinder the growth and culture here in the states? Makes sense.

@@Phogadacbiet Luton has 200 million dollars in the bank and are in the prem. 10 years ago they were not even in a pro league. Id say Luton are doing better than Chelsea, relatively

@@urmomlovesmymilksteak not really just Saudis. Fenway sports group. Glazers. W/e the consortium owning Chelsea. Every big club in the premier league is using the spam unlimited cash, so they’re never actually in danger of being relegated. Ergo, pro rel only hurts bottom 5 sides who don’t have that ownership

@@ian_r125 I mean, sure they’re doing better relative to what they spend. However, only one is realistically going to be in a relegation scrap. Why’s that? Because pro-rel in modern times only affects 10 teams (bottom 5 of Top league and top 5 of top 5 in second league)