Quote:
Originally Posted by Krayz
The reason the franchises are so rich is because Americans ****ing love football, and there are 300 million of us for one domestic league.
If England had the population of the US, you'd see similar numbers iyam.
But there's plenty of other countries with major football leagues. Every freaking country in Europe has a major soccer league. Add England, Italy, Spain and Germany and you get 250 million. Add in second tier, but still major leagues in Portugal and France, and you get 325 million. Population simply don't explain the difference.
What does explain the difference is population per team. The US sports leagues, because they were developed on a specific business model instead of organically, have about 100m people per team per sport. Europe, otoh, typically have about 40 major teams per country. The major sports leagues in the US are an oligopoly which makes the owners a ton of ****ing money. The major sports leagues in Europe are much more open to upstarts because of the relegation and promotion system.
I just don't see the MLS owners giving up their slice of the pie. In order for it to happen, relegation and promotion is going to have to create a ton more pie, or the pie will have to be shared in a much different way than other countries.
This doesn't mean that I wouldn't love to see the MLS go to a relegation/promotion pyramid system because I think it would be great for the sport. I just don't see it happening in the near to distant future.