Fly In The Hummos

How to counter arguments against promotion and relegation in U.S. Soccer.

Imagine yourself at your wife’s annual office BBQ. Maybe this entails imagining you have a wife. Anyway, you’ve been chatting up on movies, kids, pregnancies, and relatively clean gossip. Suddenly, and amazingly, you think you hear someone talking about soccer – with no mom attached. Attention grabbed, you tilt your head like a Labrador Retriever trying to locate range and direction. Have you found that rare needle in a haystack, a real U.S. club soccer supporter engaged in a discussion of the league at an average American social gathering?

Cautiously, you approach. Was it just a random David Beckham comment or maybe just a quick World Cup reference? In that case, you stand little chance of joining the conversation before the it switches to the NFL, MLB or the latest Judd Apatow movie. Worse still, if you do somehow arrive on the scene before the conversation turns, you’ll only get blank stares when you blurt out “Open League featuring Promotion Relegation for the MLS!” As you half the distance, ears straining for further clues, you hear the word Ralston, and maybe, something that sounds like Qaranta? Best not to get your hopes up – they could still be talking pet food and/or favorite tequila. However, as you saunter up to a conveniently located hummus tray, a few feet from the discourse, your hopes are confirmed: There is a discussion about soccer going on – and more remarkably still, they are not talking EPL or Serie A. They are talking MLS!

Now you’re in a real pickle. You’ve hit the jackpot, but must maintain total composure. Rare indeed are the chances that you can bring up your obsession with instituting an open league system, featuring promotion and relegation, to U.S. Club Soccer. You utilize a mouth full of hummus to block any possible outburst, and slowly enter the circle.

Pausing, you remember that the best thing about this topic is – it’s truly a universal remedy. Here are your typical entry cues to drop the subject casually:

Any comparison between the MLS and any other league In the world.

Any mention of astro turf/football lines on the field

Any mention of Red Bull New York or Chivas USA

Tongue-in-cheek references to the shootout and scoreboard clock

The following cues require a stronger and more immediate insertion of the topic:

Any mention of stagnant, poor, or weak in reference to quality of play.

Any mention whatsoever of Don Garber

Utterance of the first syllable of “CONCACAF Champions League”

Shockingly, you’ve received a Don Garber reference. Things are now getting really weird. Statistically, you’ve entered the realm of ball lighting or spontaneous human combustion.

You swallow hard and forge ahead.

You nonchalantly wonder aloud “So, do you think the Commissioner will ever agree to an open league system for U.S. club soccer featuring promotion and relegation?”

Head swelled by your good fortune, you’ve gone for a risky approach. Statistically speaking, many American club soccer supporters are initially ambivalent and/or apathetic about the concept. If the group is unified on this, you’ve played right into their hands. Mirroring these stats, two of the gentleman say “They’ll never go for it” in unison and begin to return to their original discussion on foreign vs. domestic players. (I haven’t had the heart to tell them that Santino is a U.S. citizen, despite his tattoos and party hearty ways)

However, there is a third. This gentlemen, who we’ll call John, says “probably not, but does that mean it can’t happen?”

Entre Vous!

Now we’re talking, and it’s going to get interesting. Harkes is willing to listen, and together we’ll engage the other two.

This is an important time to remember the most typical response when the topic is broached:

The league will never go for it (often with a slight roll of the eyes)

While I’ve already referenced this response, and while it doesn’t really qualify as an argument, it is the most common reply and deserves another mention. Instead of having the discussion, a lot of real, unsatisfied, honest to goodness American soccer supporters seem really happy to accept the permanence of the current situation.

They unconsciously bow to the powers that be, and find further conversation unnecessary and pointless. As much as you’d like to call them puny corporate serfs trapped in the franchise matrix, unwilling to have a conversation about needed revolution since they blindly accept their masters word as fact, you MUST hold back. You tell them, “Instead, try and realize, there is no franchise. Free your mind, and discuss what would be best for the game.”

At first, they are not sure whether or not to be offended by your clever paraphrase. Then, after a few seconds, one of the remaining gentlemen, who we’ll call Marcello, says, “Mr. Anderson, you’re probably right. Promotion and relegation though an open league system would probably be a huge boon to American club soccer.”

Two down, one to go.

Alexi is the last man standing and he wants to argue the case for the MLS corporate franchise.

Let’s go over his likely arguments and some suggested responses:

2. Where would MLS teams be relegated to?

You’d be surprised how many people make this argument. It’s not always that they don’t know about the USL. They just rightly view the two leagues as entirely separate entities competing for the same market. In this case, tell them the current soccer pyramid has been sanctioned by FIFA and U.S. Soccer and that no matter how well an American USL team plays, they can never rise to international champions league play. In the current system, they are permanently relegated to second division status.

3. You are going to scare away investors. Who would want to spend millions to bring a team into pro sports league if they could get bounced out after their first season?

Tell him that there is no minimum cost for bringing a club into this system. Investors need only finance a team that can perform well enough to rise through the system via promotion and relegation. Clubs are autonomous entities, not franchises. They rise and fall on their own merits. And being relegated to an open USL-1 would be no death sentence. You could be promoted the very next year.

4. Who would buy long-term television rights to a sports competition in which there was no guarantee that the major media markets would be represented from year to year?

Ask him if he’s ever heard of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament.

5. What do you propose to do with the salary cap? We don’t want another NASL on our hands! Won’t super teams like the Cosmos, ManU, Chelsea, et al, ruin the league?

You’ve got a smart one here. Tell him that the NASL would have gotten it right if they would have adopted promotion and relegation. Salary caps, drafts, and other enforced parity measures are symptomatic of the franchise system. In an open system, clubs don’t stagnate at the bottom of the league. They are relegated to make room for new teams, new investors, and new supporters. In addition, there are other competitions and cups that teams compete in, like the U.S. Open Cup – one of the oldest competitions of it’s kind in the world. Again, clubs are autonomous entities under this model – they should be able to make their own decisions without the heavy hand of the league involved.

6. How come the closed franchise system works for every other sport in the US?

Again, a relatively straightforward response, with one caviat: All of our major professional sports leagues are universally accepted as the predominant leagues in the world, and are shielded from international competition, except MLS. MLS is not moving up that scale in either perception or reality, and international competition is a fact of the game. The caviat here is that someone could conceivably make the argument here that they don’t care about international competitions, and this makes it a moot point. I have yet to run into a supporter that accepts this blissful isolationist approach, but it is statistically possible. Us Americans have a history of isolationism.

7. Americans don’t understand a sports competition in which teams aren’t static from one season to the next. It’s too cutthroat, too harsh, too unpredictable.

Again, make reference to the NCAA Basketball Tournament. Mention the success of cutthroat reality TV. Tell them Americans will understand when underperforming teams are kicked off the island. Reference the free market.

8. Lots of things work in Europe that don’t work here.

Ask him which is more European:

A sports league that taxes its teams with a huge entry fee, then provides a giant safety net to insulate them from failure due to underperformance.

Independent Clubs competing for a prizes and promotion in a performance based system. If a club does not perform and does not cultivate a supporter base large enough to sustain itself, it will be relegated, and ultimately fail. Again, reference the free market.

9. Whatever. The closed league franchise model is our model. We can’t have both. It will lead to entropy.

Mention that Japan runs both systems – closed franchise for baseball, open promotion relegation for soccer. It hasn’t affected their homogeneity. There is no evidence that it resulted in mass hysteria. Then, ask him how he’d feel if the only restaurants that existed were either corporate or franchises – but only if you’re sure that Hooters, Chilis, Outback Steakhouse, and Applebee’s are the only places he’s ever taken a date.

Well, you exhausted all of these arguments in your efforts with Alexi, and he’s not budging. But Marcello and John are have been convinced that your arguments carry water and are eager to spread the word! Two out of three really ‘aint bad!

Now is your chance, direct them to sign up for alerts and contribute to SoccerReform.us.

Together, we can free football from the franchise!

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