English Premier League

So I enjoy watching soccer... once you understand it a bit it's as exciting as any american sport and when you factor in the lack of an obscene number of commercial breaks, I'd rather watch the rest of the world's football than the American version... but the point of this is to just note how completely independent of the actual game, the English have a MUCH better league set up than American pro sports.

Why?

1. The best thing about English soccer is that at the end of the year.. the three worst Premier League teams are essentially demoted to the next lowest team.  They are replaced with three top teams in that lower league.  Imagine how much more exciting the end of the season would be if instead of teams throwing in the towel the last week and playing for better draft picks, they'd be fighting to avoid relegation to a lower league and the loss of tens of millions in TV/advertising revenue... Leeds United 8 years ago was one of the top teams in England... now they are roughly the equivilant of a double A team... now that's motivation to run your team well.  In theory, you and 10 buddies could start a soccer team at the lowest level and in 10 years be playing in the Premier League.

2. Emirates Stadium... perhaps this is a cultural thing thing more than a Futball thing, but when Arsenal wanted to build a new stadium, it wasn't a question of how much money they'd get, it was an issue of what they'd have to do to get the city to allow them to build their stadium.  After agreeing to cover moving a wastewater treatment plant and upgrading at least one subway station and providing affordable housing, they were allowed to finance and build their stadium with NO government subsidy... and guess what, they were still able to do it and remain competetive.  If you need to have a $400 million dollar government tax assistance to make your business model viable, then maybe you should look into a better business.

3. Freedom... every summer, you will notice the occasional English team touring and playing various American teams and occasionally throughout the year they will schedule "friendlies" against teams from other leagues.  I just think it would be cool for the Twins to play the Saints a couple times a year.  Maybe they could go to Japan and play a few teams there or play a visiting contingent from an Asian or south American team.  Ultimately, outside a limited league schedule, teams are allowed to play who and where they want.  Owners should have that right to persue the match ups that the fans want to see not just the strict league schedule.  I know I'd love to see NBA teams line up against some teams from European leagues, or instead of preseason games, maybe the Vikings could challenge Winnepeg at a game of Canadian rules... that would be way more fun than watching the Vikings pre-season shit.

4. The Champions Cup... top teams from all of Europe's top league get together to determine the best of the best.  Yeah... that produces something closer to a real World Champion.

5. FA Cup... Talk about fun... every team in England gets a chance to play for the championship.  Sure it usually ends up with a few top teams in the championship game, but along the way a team used to playing to full crowds in a 60,000 seat stadium may draw a road game vs a team that typically plays in front a few hundred people... talk about your potential cinderella story...

Anyway, the more I get into English Football, the more I realize how professional sports monopolies are ruining our professional sports.. If I want to start a pro baseball team capable of competing at a Major League level and work out an agreement with the city to use the soon to be vacant dome to host my home games, why should the MLB be able to block me from competing?  I should have equal opportunity to prove successful and compete against the other teams, but thier current monopoly over the schedule and what teams are allowed into the league makes it impossible for me to join the league without getting their approval and paying hundreds of millions in franchise fees... is that really a "free market?"

I also think we should eliminate school sports and replace them with sufficient town or club sports like much of Europed does.

Sports programs lose money every year, even for most colleges, and that way our school district can focus on what's really important.

My roommate went to England to Study abroad and came back exactly like that description.

I'm semi-torn... between the joy of having someone actually reply... and the pain in knowing that it was only Toddah... and he replied 3 times...

But really, I do play in park league soccer, though I don't really have a favorite team.

And mainly what I like about soccer is that they play for 45 minutes with no commercial breaks, TV time-outs, two minute warnings etc, 20 sec time outs etc that seem to stretch the last minutes out forever.  It's 45 minutes, a couple minutes of injury time it's over you can be fairly certain that barring overtime the entire thing will take 2 hours and that's it.

Also, the point of this post was not about the game so much as the league set-up.  I for one would like to see the Dolphins relagated to the NFL b-league... shipping off the bad teams is the easiest way to get rid of piss poorly managed teams or teams in markets that aren't willing to support them.  And to eliminate the artificial shortage of teams that the Monopolies allow the pro sports teams to hold cities hostage for obscene amounts of stadium subsidies.

I'm sorry, me again!

I totally agree with you, I lived in Europe for a good portion of my childhood and grew up playing soccer.  I too enjoy it immensely but I couldn't resist that post that I had just read the other day.

If NFL Stadiums were money makers there's no way in hell the league or the teams ovwners would allow tax payers to touch any part of it's development. 

I've never really fully grasped the concept of watching strangers play sports. Watching it happen on TV is just that much more confusing to me.  Sports do nothing for me.  Maybe that's why I'm so f*cking fat.

NewUser:

I'm semi-torn... between the joy of having someone actually reply... and the pain in knowing that it was only Toddah... and he replied 3 times...

Why is this so unbelievably funny?

 I like watching the World Cup.....and thats it, however 

I only watch sports when its the finals and that is every sport.  To me it seems like they acutally play for real in a playoff situation.....I know its just me....

Regular season.....boring 

 Hey, I'll break away from my lurker mode for just a moment to comment here...

NewUser, I completely agree; the relegation aspect of professional soccer (in most leagues around the world, not just in Europe) is a fantastic idea.  Gives lower-ranked teams something to fight for, and for fans of those teams a chance to get excited.

BUT...  It wouldn't really translate too well to the American professional sports, I'm afraid.  Having lived in Ireland and having been a season-ticket holder for Celtic matches (in the Scottish Premier League) I can't tell you what a waste it is going to see the Bhoys play against Gretna or Inverness Caledonian Thistle, where the stadiums just aren't up to par.  The facilities are completely inadequate, the field ("pitch") is a mess and the game suffers because of it.  There have been several occasions in Scotland where a team has been promoted to the Premiership from the First Division but hasn't been allowed to actually join the league because their infrastructure isn't of sufficient quality to host top-flight professional matches.

Because of the nature of our major league/minor league teams (baseball and hockey anyway), we couldn't promote the winners in the lower league to the big league; those teams are of course feeder teams for the parent clubs.  The whole point of those leagues is to provide a talent pool for the major league teams.  

Football?  The NFL Europa thing was discontinued after last season, so who would the Dolphins play?  

Even in a perfect world where teams could be set up to go up and down, the stadium capacity issue would be a major one.  Tough to have the Yankees or Red Sox come to play a road series against the newly-promoted Louisville Bats at Louisville Slugger Park, with its 13,000 seat capacity (one of the largest in the minor leagues).   They just aren't set up for hosting big-league teams.

 That all having been said, I wish that we COULD do something to mimic soccer leagues in that respect; I for one am tired of seeing the Twins v. Kansas City Royals.  Plus, I think the Twins would do well in AAA!  haha

Adam 

Back home I played almost for 15 years soccer. I played almost 10 for FC Basel, the top team at the moment in Switzerland. I went through all their youth teams and when it got to the point to make it, well I didn't. I then played and coached youth for another 4 to 5 years and the I quit.

Yes you're right I think the system in Europe is very competitive....Basel for example was demoted 1988 in the B-league. I took them 3 years to get back in the A-leage and it took them another 5 years to win the champion ship. The reason for demotion or promotion lies in the money. If a team has money they get the players they need to win.

In England this is what is happening in the last 10 years. A lot of investors arrived on the island and soon enough not ITaly, Spain or Germany were the top leaugebut England. England was also excluded from any European competiotions due to the hooligans for almost 5 years, after that ban was broken they started to open up. Another factor was that before the EU community a team was allowed to have only 2 foreigners in their team. But when a lawsuit allowed or made the EU market possible you could have as much as 5 EU player plus another 2 non-EU players...

So right now teams are not directly from the same nationality and this bugs me. I remember when only 2 foreigners were allowed, that was soccer.....now it's just who has the money can buy a team and it's not the same anymore.....

Also the game changed a lot in the last 30 years. I remember when Germany won their 2nd world champion ship in 1974 or Argentina their first in 1978. That was great soccer, clever a lot of passes, nice to watch.... in the late 80's Milan changed or developed a new system with acting and defending from the start and that changed the whole thing to watch......now it's just boom boom foul, very fast.....and strategically unbelievable. I coached for several years but I don't think I could keep up anymore with the game...

Also in England it is known that they kick and rush the ball and who makes mistakes pays....

I wish I could watch more Italian leagues over here....sometime I get something on the DW german channel the Bundesliga, but to be honest I can't stand how the US plays......it is very boring. The US team in 2002 was great but most player are playing the European league.

If you get a chance to go see a game in Europe it is always worth it! The game is spectacular the Fans are spectacular....their singing and cheering will make up of any cheerleaders in any  team....

Also I don't get how you can call yourself Worldchampion if you play the game in one country (or maybe two if you count CANADA) I don't see any other national teams playing the NFL or NHL or NBA.....Can someone explain where this comes from?

 I do too love the idea of demoting the crappy teams. That's a neat wrinkle. 

I will occasionally watch soccer if I see it on TV. I never found it to be a boring sport, it's quite skillful IMO. I just never followed it...and in thinking why, I guess I don't really know.  

pumarolo:

Also I don't get how you can call yourself Worldchampion if you play the game in one country (or maybe two if you count CANADA) I don't see any other national teams playing the NFL or NHL or NBA.....Can someone explain where this comes from?

hblockadam:

Because of the nature of our major league/minor league teams (baseball and hockey anyway), we couldn't promote the winners in the lower league to the big league; those teams are of course feeder teams for the parent clubs.

Obviously, this would change pretty quickly if the winners of lower leagues would move up.  As it stands the lower level teams may feed the bigger clubs but the teams are all owned independently, all that would have to change would be the rights structure of teams "owning" rights to a player.  No other career is there a draft that decides the one team you can play for after you finish college... that is somewhat appalling to me when I really think about it.

I think there are plenty of stadiums with more than adequate facilities.  Granted New York may not want to play in a stadium that seats 13,000 but the reality is on a lot of days the Twins don't draw that many and the Manchester United's and Arsenal's of the league often travel to stadiums with capacity less than a third of what they are used to. 

I do think it would essentially eliminate major college athletics.  Lower tiers of pro football would steal the talent I suspect...

I'm not sure how it would all work out, but our professional sports in general seem to have become increasingly stale while athletes make increasingly more money and we foot the bill for stadiums that don't make financial sense to the owners without the huge subsidies.

If professional football is not a profitable enough enterprise that it supports building a stadium without huge subsidies then maybe the business model needs to be revised.  Right now by giving them Anti-Trust exemption we are allowing them to create a monopoly creating an artificial shortage of teams that causes skyrocketing salaries and francise values built on taxpayer subsidy.

NewUser:

I do think it would essentially eliminate major college athletics.  Lower tiers of pro football would steal the talent I suspect...

I absolutely agree with you here; I have often (when drunk in a bar) argued for the complete overhaul of college sports; athletes who can't get into the school academically and who want to play should be paid as employees of the university.  Most aren't there to get an education anyway it seems.  Just call them what they are--professional athletes.  If a better "lower league" system in football and other sports helps to change the status quo in college sports, I'm all for it.

Adam 

Hey I'd be all for Notre Dame having it's own professional football team and if they wanted they could offer them the same benefits that other employees got, like free tuition etc.

Why should some poor 18 year old kid with kids of his own that he needs to support be forced to generate revenue for some college before he can get a job doing what he's best at to take care of his family?  It would create a lot of jobs in the middle range between the obscene top level salaries and nothing.  What's a CBA player make?  Maybe $35K a year?  Why are the options either a job that averager $35k and a job that averages almost $5 million.  How about letting the market determine how much demand there is for basketball players at all levels from $35k up to $20 million?