Love it or hate it, the MLS is our league. And no matter what we'd prefer, the national team's roster will always have players from our league.

The MLS mas made ginormous strides the past 10-15 years, but compared to the top leagues in the world, the MLS is just coming out of it's infancy.

So what would you do to improve the league, and get it closer to top leagues around the world?

Relegation? Personally, I'd love this. It brings excitement and an added dimension to the league. But we're just seeing growing interest in the teams here. Viewership and Attendance if finally starting to bloom around the MLS. What happens if a team drops to the NASL for a season? Will fans abandon them until they're back? Can clubs financially sustain the absence?

I'd love to be able to attract better players, and improve the competition. But that takes more money. If the MLS had big money to throw around, could they attract top talent from around the world/Europe? It worked for Colombia back in the day, but the $$ has ballooned since then. And would the schedule be a hindrance, to attract better players?

Speaking of the schedule...would it help to move it from August/September to April/May? Or would that just insure it gets crushed by football? Instead of 100 degree weather, you'd be dealing with extreme cold in some situations. Im not sure it would hurt attendance that much, but I'd think the TV contracts would suffer.

Your thoughts?

Relegation would kill investment in the MLS and as a fan I would be livid if the Dynamo were put down... pretty sure I would just find other ways to spend my season ticket money.


More opportunities to see USL in a city the size of Houston would be nice.

More top level teams in Texas/regionally as well would be great... San Antonio, Austin, New Orleans, OKC.

Definitely not in the short term. But they are inextricably linked in the long term, IMO.

To a degree yes but only in so much as how MLS develops American players. Raising the cap To $20 million and then spending it on a bunch of foreign players and Michael Bradley (or...gasp...Christian Pulisic) doesn't improve the USMNT. Hopefully the academies will go some way to solving that though the jury is still out.

I guess if this was a question of "what can mls do for the usmnt" and I was US Soccer czar and could impose whatever rules I wanted to that effect. I think basically I would eliminate the draft for US based players. All domestic players would essentially be homegrown players available to be drawn upwards toward MLS through entire networks of MLS academies. If the MLS teams want players to fill their (many required) domestic roster spots, they should finance the youth academies everywhere. Let the MLS teams pay the academies instead of the players parents. Get rid of the geography restrictions. If every MLS team wants players from LA, St Louis, and New Jersey, each one better be signing up an academy in each place to align with in those areas to develop players that they can sign from there.

Dre_00 said:

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To a degree yes but only in so much as how MLS develops American players. Raising the cap To $20 million and then spending it on a bunch of foreign players and Michael Bradley (or...gasp...Christian Pulisic) doesn't improve the USMNT. Hopefully the academies will go some way to solving that though the jury is still out.

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I see your point, but improving the competition, and attracting top level coaching (which will never happen without the $$ and players), will go a loooooong way to improving the play all around.

Instead of them going overseas to improve, I'd love that to happen here, rather than it being seen as a detriment to US players development.

The way it happens now, we get good players in their twilight. At some point, we need the MLS to take the next step, and become a destination for players in their prime. Until then, it's always a second tier league, and our players see second tier development.

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If the MLS teams want players to fill their (many required) domestic roster spots, they should finance the youth academies everywhere. Let the MLS teams pay the academies instead of the players parents. Get rid of the geography restrictions. If every MLS team wants players from LA, St Louis, and New Jersey, each one better be signing up an academy in each place to align with in those areas to develop players that they can sign from there.

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And I agree about the salary cap structure.

If investors/owners have money, let them spend it. It's the quickest way to infuse immediate money into the league.

We can worry about a salary cap later once the league is established a bit further (like every other professional league in the US did). Right now, the MLS is doing it a big backward.

Reinstate the development teams

Get into Libertadores. There has to self reflection before you can find self improvement. People are claiming the talent level is increasing. Relative to what? If the answer is the talent level is better relative to its own past, who cares? Other countries and league might be getting better at an even better rate. And then MLS would still be a relatively bad league. Let's put it to the test if the league has gotten better. And lets look past Mexico. Beat some South American teams. Make the top 8 and we'll admit the league has gotten better.

soccer keeps growing you won't have relegation per se but you'll probably end up with something similar to college football with regional leagues and a united cup that they actually try to win

No more turf pitches!!!

Two biggest changes I would make would be the addition of relegation and a greater focus at the youth development academy level (I'd love to see International Transfer Fees being shared with American youth academies like the European and South American counterparts do).

In Europe, the Clubs foot the majority of the bill for the Academies. In the U.S., mom and dad foot the bill, and that pay-for-play system is a MAJOR impediment to reaching top-level quality in the U.S. because it locks out too many potential players who come from households that cannot afford the cost ($5k and up for DA).

As far as relegation is concerned, the intensity, passion, and quality of soccer would all improve if clubs knew they were at risk of dropping to USL/NASL as a result of poor performance. What would it do for the level of play at the Second Division (USL/NASL) if those teams were challenging for promotion? It should also spur owners to actively engage in building a club with MLS staying power.

I will note one other item which is this: the very best players end up in Europe, whether is is Bundesliga, EPL, La Liga, Ligue Un or Serie A. It doesn't matter if the player is South American, Asian, African, U.S. or European-the very BEST play in Europe, and MSL will never achieve that level of soccer, there is just too big of a gap to overcome in terms of investment, revenue, academy and league systems, etc. Every American player that aspires to be world class must also accept the fact that being world class, taking the steps to develop into world class, means playing in Europe.

Interesting report on European Youth Academies, if somewhat lengthy:

http://www.ecaeurope.com/Research/ECA%20Report%20on%20Youth%20Academies/ECA%20Report%20on%20Youth%20Academies.pdf

So for those of you advocating for relegation/promotion, I have a question.

The European countries are much smaller geographically and have a lot less major cities than we do. Look at the UK. London (13.8 million metro) is the largest city and the next largest is Birmingham (3.7 million). Looking at the US, we have two metro areas larger than London (NYC and LA) and another 5 larger than Birmingham most of which are not close to each other. Spain, Germany, Italy are all basically the same. Brazil has a bunch of larger cities, but they are almost all along the coast so they aren't spread out as far as we are.

If one of the major London teams get relegated, it is a big deal but the city still has other London based teams. What happens if FC Dallas or Houston Dynamo got relegated? You could have no top tier team in major population centers (both are over 6 million each). Bad luck and they both got relegated there could be no top tier team in a 6 hour drive from two of the largest cities in the country. Sure, it is possible a team in San Antonio or Austin might get promoted or another team in one of those cities, but the way our cities are built the odds of having major population centers without a team in the top tier are very good.

Do you not think this would be a major problem? It seems that would be very bad for youth development and growing the sport in that region. Or do you have some way to address this?

I think for it to really work you would need to divide the country into a couple of regional top tier leagues (kind of like we do for college sports) so it isn't always missing out on major population centers. Then relegate/promote among those regions with the top teams entering into a new national competition or directly into the Champions League. Then if a team like Houston Dynamo or FC Dallas gets regulated, there are other teams in those major cities that can still make it relevant in that area.

I don't think there is enough support in the US to support that many teams (nor any will from the owners to make the change), but I don't see it working well with the large number of big US cities spread out so far geographically but maybe I am missing something.

I'm a big advocate for promotion / relegation (and would like to see it the rest of the American sports and deal with tankers and perpetual under achievers like browns or kings) but that's a valid concern for relogation.

Andy ultimately I couldn't care less if Houston or Dallas are left with out a top flight team, but if too many tier 1 markets are out of the top flight I can guarantee that media partners will care. With our population being so much more spread out and so many more large cities with only so many top division slots to go around it would be a challenge.

That's great if Cincinnati and Orlando and San Antonio and Kansas City are all great organizations that are building teams the right way, and if Red Bulls and Chicago and FCD and the Galaxy are all second division trash but comparatively speaking no one lives in the first group of cities.

Would like to see multiple leagues with a champions league tournament.

Because it ensures you have 24 teams (or whatever the final MLS number is) who actually give a crap about succeeding and are the best at it as opposed to maybe 12 teams who are good at and 12 teams who couldn't give two ****s about investing properly and correctly into their club because they are only concerned about getting a slice of the pie year in and year out. The teams that are the best at player development, player identification, coaching, etc. are rewarded instead of having a litany of MLS teams who have no intention of ever trying to be the next Seattle, Portland, Atlanta, or whomever.

Dre_00 said:

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Because it ensures you have 24 teams (or whatever the final MLS number is) who actually give a crap about succeeding and are the best at it as opposed to maybe 12 teams who are good at and 12 teams who couldn't give two ****s about investing properly and correctly into their club because they are only concerned about getting a slice of the pie year in and year out. The teams that are the best at player development, player identification, coaching, etc. are rewarded instead of having a litany of MLS teams who have no intention of ever trying to be the next Seattle, Portland, Atlanta, or whomever.

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Good point there. I guess there's not a lot of insight into what every team is doing, I know a lot of clubs like Dallas and KC are doing this already. (not just locally, but getting young South American talent) This doesn't necessarily increase the US national team talent though I guess...definitely no simple solution.

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MSL will never achieve that level of soccer

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Not in the near future, but they could challenge some of those leagues at some point. They real factor is $$$. If we pay the $$$, we'll get the players, coaches, etc. That's not an option right now though.

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I don't get the insistence on relegation. How is that going to improve the quality of US player development going forward?

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It doesnt. But would it help improve/grow the league?

It does create more excitement/buzz for the league(s). More fans, more demand, more money, etc...which improves the league, maybe attracts better players, etc. It would also set it apart from other sports in the US, which at this point, wouldnt be a bad thing I think. You're not going to 'out football' the NFL, if you know what I mean.

But you're right, it doesn't directly improve the development of players.

To even talk about relegation, I think the league needs to grow quite a bit first. They are just now getting good TV contracts, and very good attendance league wide. Relegating major market teams would kill a lot of that Id think.

nereus said:

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If one of the major London teams get relegated, it is a big deal but the city still has other London based teams. What happens if FC Dallas or Houston Dynamo got relegated? You could have no top tier team in major population centers (both are over 6 million each). Bad luck and they both got relegated there could be no top tier team in a 6 hour drive from two of the largest cities in the country. Sure, it is possible a team in San Antonio or Austin might get promoted or another team in one of those cities, but the way our cities are built the odds of having major population centers without a team in the top tier are very good.

Do you not think this would be a major problem? It seems that would be very bad for youth development and growing the sport in that region. Or do you have some way to address this?

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Maybe I'm missing something but I don't see how that matters. From a viewership perspective, if the product is good enough, Dynamo fans and FC Dallas fans will continue to watch MLS even if their teams are relegated. There are a ton of NFL fans in Houston that watch a lot more than the Texans even though the Texans (usually) suck. No reason why that can't happen in soccer too if you assume that MLS is a top quality soccer product.

From a development perspective, it doesn't matter if you release geographic restrictions on development. Manchester United doesn't just recruit from Manchester. They go all over England and the world to identify talent at a very young age. If there's a wealth of talent in east Texas then someone will find it. Either FC Dallas or Houston will acquire it, cultivate it properly, and prosper from it or a "big" club from another part of the US will. If there's enough money devoted to player development, someone will find the talent and sign the talent.

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From a viewership perspective, if the product is good enough, Dynamo fans and FC Dallas fans will continue to watch MLS even if their teams are relegated.

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Maybe.

What about the Aggies? If they were kicked down to DII and had to play UTSA, Sam Houston, and SFA....would attendance/viewership be as strong? I doubt it.

The difference though, is that college football viewership is so strong league wide, they could weather a drop in viewership here, and increase there. For the MLS, I'm not sure the brand is strong enough yet. They need all the viewers they can get. If not, attendance will suffer, and the advertisers/tv contracts wont be there.

PatAg said:

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Dre_00 said:

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Because it ensures you have 24 teams (or whatever the final MLS number is) who actually give a crap about succeeding and are the best at it as opposed to maybe 12 teams who are good at and 12 teams who couldn't give two ****s about investing properly and correctly into their club because they are only concerned about getting a slice of the pie year in and year out. The teams that are the best at player development, player identification, coaching, etc. are rewarded instead of having a litany of MLS teams who have no intention of ever trying to be the next Seattle, Portland, Atlanta, or whomever.

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Good point there. I guess there's not a lot of insight into what every team is doing, I know a lot of clubs like Dallas and KC are doing this already. (not just locally, but getting young South American talent) This doesn't necessarily increase the US national team talent though I guess...definitely no simple solution.

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Dallas is doing a great job at producing national team talent. I'm no Dallas fan but I think pretty much every level of national team set up from the U-14s to the full national team has a player that is/was developed by Dallas. I'm not saying that a guy like Kellyn Acosta is a world class but he's one of the more promising young players in the pool (for better or worse). Houston, on the other hand, is ****ing horrible at this.

If A&M were kicked down to Div III an playing the UTSAs of the world each weekend, I'm certain Kyle Field would be about 20% full and interest in A&M would drop dramatically. But would people in B/CS stop watching college football altogether? Would they not watch marquis games/teams like Alabama, Clemson, etc.? I don't think they'd stop watching just because A&M was sucking it up in D III

So while I'm certain the Dynamo would suffer if they got relegated and they'd lose a lot of money/fans, I don't think MLS would (again...assuming it has a top tier product which is a big assumption).

Dre_00 said:

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From a viewership perspective, if the product is good enough, Dynamo fans and FC Dallas fans will continue to watch MLS even if their teams are relegated. There are a ton of NFL fans in Houston that watch a lot more than the Texans even though the Texans (usually) suck. No reason why that can't happen in soccer too if you assume that MLS is a top quality soccer product.

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I don't have time this moment to go look it up, but I am pretty sure the TV ratings of championship games/series, world series games, etc. that say otherwise. When the major market and big name teams are not playing in the big games the TV ratings go down.

Dre_00 said:

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PatAg said:

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Dre_00 said:

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Because it ensures you have 24 teams (or whatever the final MLS number is) who actually give a crap about succeeding and are the best at it as opposed to maybe 12 teams who are good at and 12 teams who couldn't give two ****s about investing properly and correctly into their club because they are only concerned about getting a slice of the pie year in and year out. The teams that are the best at player development, player identification, coaching, etc. are rewarded instead of having a litany of MLS teams who have no intention of ever trying to be the next Seattle, Portland, Atlanta, or whomever.

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Good point there. I guess there's not a lot of insight into what every team is doing, I know a lot of clubs like Dallas and KC are doing this already. (not just locally, but getting young South American talent) This doesn't necessarily increase the US national team talent though I guess...definitely no simple solution.

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Dallas is doing a great job at producing national team talent. I'm no Dallas fan but I think pretty much every level of national team set up from the U-14s to the full national team has a player that is/was developed by Dallas. I'm not saying that a guy like Kellyn Acosta is a world class but he's one of the more promising young players in the pool (for better or worse). Houston, on the other hand, is ****ing horrible at this.

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Which is bizarre because both the DFW and Houston are youth soccer hotbeds and have been for a couple decades.

One more thing...the notion that MLS needs to compete with Europe and bring European players over earlier before their twilight is misguided. MLS can't, any maybe never will, compete for those players because MLS can't offer UEFA CL football or anything even approaching the prestige of UEFA CL football. Sure, maybe if you pay 10x market value for an elite player in or near his prime you'll convince them to come over but it's a failed policy. China tried this and it looks to have failed miserably as players who make the move end up underachieving because they just don't give a crap (see Tevez, Carlos).

First step MLS needs to do is compete with Mexico and then Brazil/Argentina. Go and pay those players to come to MLS.

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But would people in B/CS stop watching college football altogether? Would they not watch marquis games/teams like Alabama, Clemson, etc.? I don't think they'd stop watching just because A&M was sucking it up in D III

So while I'm certain the Dynamo would suffer if they got relegated and they'd lose a lot of money/fans, I don't think MLS would (again...assuming it has a top tier product which is a big assumption).

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They wouldn't stop watching. But CFB is a much much stronger brand. The MLS needs to grow a bit more before this is viable.

Because right now, I think the league suffers, if a major market or marquis team like the Dynamo suffers.

Yeah, I agree with that. Relegation would need to come along with a number of other changes. No one tool is going to fix all of this.

I don't think the question is as simple as would they stop watching. I think the question is would they watch less. I would guess as a whole that the population in B/CS would watch less college football than they currently watch if A&M was D3. Some people will watch the same. But there is a number of people that watch every A&M game plus all the big games. Some of them will switch to just watching the big games. I also know people that only watch A&M games with a few exceptions a year. They will watch almost no college football.

I don't think you loose the entire BCS/Aggie market, but you will lose some of it and some of it won't be a loyal.

Right, but as you start to lose the BCS Aggie market you start to gain the San Antonio UTSA market.