Would promotion and relegation hurt or help US Major Leagues grow their fanbases here and abroad?

[Buzz Rules]

Would promotion and relegation hurt or help US Major Leagues grow their fanbases here and abroad?

 

[EACarlson]

The only one you could reliably do that with would be soccer. Baseball, basketball and hockey have minor league systems where the players are controlled by one of the teams in the top league. Football there is only one league.
The one place I think you could do this would be college sports. No reason why Vanderbilt should be D1-A in football when they'd get beat by half the teams in 1-AA or even some of the teams in D-2. It would also stop a team like Mount Union that was in the finals of D-3 something like 8 straight years.

 

[Buzz Rules]

The only one you could reliably do that with would be soccer. Baseball, basketball and hockey have minor league systems where the players are controlled by one of the teams in the top league. Football there is only one league.
The one place I think you could do this would be college sports. No reason why Vanderbilt should be D1-A in football when they'd get beat by half the teams in 1-AA or even some of the teams in D-2. It would also stop a team like Mount Union that was in the finals of D-3 something like 8 straight years.

My idea is that Major League teams could no longer own minor teams and that those minor teams would attract investment from other local rich owners. This creates more business between local communities and the professional leagues. So it could work for baseball. Hockey and basketball use a pro/rel system in Europe already.

 

[_19disnA]

Had never heard of the term 'relegation' in the context of sports so had to look up what the means. Apparently relegation means moving up/down in a league based on skill/performance. In the US, some of the obvious minor leagues I can think of are baseball/hockey/golf/auto racing. Do more/less people watch baseball/hockey/golf/auto racing due to their structure?.........no. Would more people become fans/interested if they change how they are organized?............no.

 

[Buzz Rules]

Had never heard of the term 'relegation' in the context of sports so had to look up what the means. Apparently relegation means moving up/down in a league based on skill/performance. In the US, some of the obvious minor leagues I can think of are baseball/hockey/golf/auto racing. Do more/less people watch baseball/hockey/golf/auto racing due to their structure?.........no. Would more people become fans/interested if they change how they are organized?............no.

It does in multiple sports around the world. The public follow their teams no matter what league they go to. High risk/reward is pretty common in sports anyway...

 

[GoingSince1990]

Having grown up in the UK as a fan of a fairly mediocre soccer team, one thing about relegation is that it makes the end of the season almost as exciting for fans of bad teams as for fans of contenders. Almost every season my team was in contention for promotion (when it was in the second tier) or relegation (if it was in the top tier) and this was often not determined until the last day of the season. In the US, however, with MLB, NFL, and NBA teams valued in the billions and a deeply entrenched system of ownership, incentives, player control, and so on, it is inconceivable that such a huge change could ever be made.

 

[Buzz Rules]

Having grown up in the UK as a fan of a fairly mediocre soccer team, one thing about relegation is that it makes the end of the season almost as exciting for fans of bad teams as for fans of contenders. Almost every season my team was in contention for promotion (when it was in the second tier) or relegation (if it was in the top tier) and this was often not determined until the last day of the season. In the US, however, with MLB, NFL, and NBA teams valued in the billions and a deeply entrenched system of ownership, incentives, player control, and so on, it is inconceivable that such a huge change could ever be made.

Minor teams becoming more valuable and profitable would be enticing for those rich US leagues.

 

[EACarlson]

My idea is that Major League teams could no longer own minor teams and that those minor teams would attract investment from other local rich owners. This creates more business between local communities and the professional leagues. So it could work for baseball. Hockey and basketball use a pro/rel system in Europe already.

Speaking specifically to baseball and hockey. Most minor league teams are not owned by the major league affiliate. The difference here is that the minor league teams have their players' salaries paid by the major league team that owns their rights. It would drastically change the business models of those two systems. Asking a minor league team to cover the salaries would require a completely different funding level than what most have now. I think it could be used in lesser followed sports but not in the big 4. Teams moving from MLS to USL could be done, many of the current MLS teams started there.

 

[ronandannette]

NBA expansion into other Canadian cities. The Raptors are Canada's team and beloved by all, but just yesterday there was a news article about talks starting to bring a team to Montreal and perhaps back again to Vancouver. Both these places have existing facilities and more than enough population to support a team and given our geography, would make attending actual games (and spending actual $$$) accessible to a far larger portion of the population. The same could be said for MLB, I suppose.

 

[tony67]

Cant imagine it working in the US - we are too far along at this point.
Most American would not even know it existed if it was not for Ryan Reynolds and his team.
I've been asked about it more and more since that.

A major market like NY begin relegated would be a big money loss IMO.

Someone like Kraft would not have invested in the Revolution if they could have been moved down to the A league.

I vaguely recall that some of the A League teams also had no interest in joining MLS for various reasons back at the beginning - they were doing just fine without it.

I guess the A-League is gone now, but the point is still the same - there is too much money involved and no history of it in the US.

No doubt it adds a lot of excitement and gives the worst teams a reason to continue to give their all and a reason for fans to show up and support the team even when the team is not doing well.

We could not even allow ties to be ties and had to do the shootout because they did not think it would work here.
That went away as well.

Also the whole home and away goals differential system was something they did not think they could sell here.

 

[john7994]

As a casual sports fan beyond baseball - could care less to be honest - this concept could have happened in sports and I wouldn’t even have noticed it. Maybe, I am in a small demographic. I find “sports” in the US to be more an entertainment business converting over to leagues being used as one-step below full on gambling than competitive sports enterprises. I don’t have any basis of comparison to outside of the US.

 

[tony67]

It does in multiple sports around the world. The public follow their teams no matter what league they go to. High risk/reward is pretty common in sports anyway...

I remember friends giving up on the Patriots, not going to the games, giving up their season tickets after years of supporting the team.

A year or two later there was this new guy, Brady or something , and now they could not get tickets to games let alone get their season tickets back.

For the most part we give up on loosing teams, yeah there are some exceptions.

Even without relegation casual fans gave up on the Revolution in the early years - not sure they would have survived it.

 

[Buzz Rules]

It could force teams to invest more into local youth leagues (ex: better access to funding in poorer districts, using free academies to replace pay to play). Talent pool increases=more valuable player pool.

 

[jimmymc]

It could work, but it would completely change the landscape of US sports. Going off the reverse, I feel like non-US teams are popular because of how big their branding is and their sustained success during portions of history. Teams like Man U, Man City, Chelsea, Barcelona, or the All Blacks Rugby team. So for American sports, you'd want to promote the Yankees, Dodgers, Cowboys, Chiefs, and other top teams by fanbase and viewership. I don't think relegation would work with the current salary caps and other league restrictions. So you can't threaten a team with relegation while also telling them they aren't allowed to go buy a better player. But if you went back to the club days, get rid of the draft and salary cap, and tell teams to go wild, then it could work. You'd piss off a lot of American fans who hate seeing the same teams dominate the headlines every week, but it would probably help expand interest abroad.

I don't think it will ever happen, because owners love the salary cap, but it's at least worth looking into for something like baseball.

 

[EACarlson]

Sounds like someone is thinking about it for College Football. There would be 70 permanent members of the super league, and another 10 that would be promoted and relegated from the lower divisions. If this ever happens, I could see it changing eventually to get rid of the permanent member and be reduced to the top 40 teams overall.
https://bleacherreport.com/articles...om&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=editorial

 

[Cannot_Wait_4Disney]

Nobody would invest the amount it takes to buy a team and pay players in the United States if relegation were a possibility.