- by Ted Westervelt, writing from Denver
- via soccerreform.us
“Where competition is feasible, the government should get the hell out of the way”
- Alfred E. Kahn.
Open competition is feasible in US club soccer. It is time for our federation to get the hell out of the way.
This is a plan to deregulate professional soccer in the United States, vindicate it from the crimes of a business model, and propel it into an unlimited future.
This is not a plan to adopt European soccer history. It is a plan to reclaim ours.
Eighty years ago, one US league was raiding so many top European players, Scottish newspapers referred to the phenomenon as “The American Menace” Thirty years ago, another league was drawing more fans than the Yankees or the Giants, in Giants stadium. Today, ratings wane, performance drops, and our club game falls further behind the skyrocketing popularity of soccer, and our federation is still happily wed to the same basic scheme that failed them both.
So committed is US soccer to our current manifestation of closed league top-flight club soccer, they have blessed MLS with a multi-tiered defense against the tried and true system or promotion, relegation and independent clubs that accompanied the game to global dominance: It begins with the only D1 league in the FIFA top twenty armed with majority ownership of every team and ends with a federation led by an MLS executive.
Under these circumstances, in order for US club soccer to divorce our local sports model and join the world of traditional open soccer leagues with fully independent clubs connected with a system of promotion and relegation, it will have to begin outside of MLS and USSF.
It already has.
One US league, the WMLS, is building two open soccer leagues of independent clubs tied together with promotion and relegation – without any franchise fee buy in, and without any prompting from USSF. International pressure has been applied at the highest levels – at one point, directly from FIFA President Sepp Blatter to US President Barack Obama. Dozens of plans to implement promotion and relegation in US club soccer percolated through the blogosphere in 2010. Talk of open leagues trickled down into the conversations of US soccer supporters from Seattle to to St. Petersburg.
International pressure has mounted. FIFA has made it clear that it does not approve of USSF/MLS ways – and has done so at the highest levels. Our bid for the 2022 World Cup narrowly lost to a nation with one demonstrated advantage: Qatar has made every effort to maintain a system of promotion and relegation – in a country a teeny, tiny fraction of the size of ours.
Indeed, the momentum towards deregulation was strong enough to cause MLS Commissioner Don Garber to make a mysterious offer to study a “simulation” of promotion and relegation – a few days before our bid to host the 2022 World Cup was rejected.
This is a five year plan to translate that momentum into action.
It begins with a simple premise: Crafting a transition to independent clubs and open leagues that appeals to MLS is a futile as crafting a plan for free and fair national elections that appeals to Chinese President Hu Jintao. Pitching equal opportunity and meritocracy to an organization that depends on control and subjugation is an exercise in futility.
It ends in either one unified, open, national soccer pyramid, or east and west soccer pyramids competing for national supremacy next to a single entity MLS.
Promotion and relegation was not designed with the needs of any one league in mind. It was designed as a fair and equitable way to organize independent clubs into leagues – while harnessing open competition to advance the game. It cannot be catered to fit the needs of any one league. In order to implement it, independent federations offer a simple choice to every independent soccer entity: Join in a new, stable, sanctioned, unlimited and internationally integrated open soccer pyramid, or forfeit your sanction. This is a plan that asks our FIFA sanctioned federation to do just that.
The plan will be simple to implement. The rules are tested and internationally recognized. The methods are fair and the market potential is vast. It addresses many concerns specific to US geographic circumstances, and does not dictate behavior to any league or club. It rewards existing owners from every corner of the US soccer pyramid, It opens up an new opportunities for potential investors at every level.
No sports league system has proven more stable. Never has any system of soccer leagues featuring independent clubs, promotion and relegation gone bankrupt. Unlike multiple attempts to form US closed leagues, no open league has ever folded with all it’s teams.
American club soccer supporters expect no less than our global contemporaries. This plan simply demands the same level of respect from our federation, our leagues and our clubs.
Revenge of Kahn
In 2010, perhaps scientific polling would not reveal deregulation on the wish lists of most US club soccer supporters. Likewise, it probably didn’t break into the consciousness of the average airline passenger in 1976. Nevertheless, one airline regulator saw the vast unrealized potential of commercial air travel in the United States, and stood up against the establishment to realize it.
In the early 1970s, our US domestic airline industry operated in a heavily regulated market – not unlike the one US club soccer inhabits today. The federal government maintained a virtual caste system of airlines. National status were awarded to a small set of entitled airlines. Regional carriers like Southwest were prohibited from flying national routes. Markets were tightly controlled to favor a few large airlines, and serve to stifle competition.
As the head of the Civil Aeronautics Board, it was Alfred E. Kahn’s job to set prices, control routes, and regulate the entire industry. As the architect of airline deregulation, he probably became the first Washington regulator to eliminate his own position.
In 1978 – against the wishes of virtually every national carrier – Kahn unlimited the futures of virtually every US airline. The federal government curtailed market controls, and removed the bureaucratic barriers between regional and national airlines.
The outrage at entitled US national airlines was palpable. Many executives insisted they were striving to reach the market potential of our domestic US flying public. A few CEOs swore the survival of the US domestic airline industry depended on the continuation of intensive government regulation. Some industry lobbyists argued that the huge investments that national airlines had made in our commercial aviation infrastructure must be respected – and that respect depended on maintaining a strong web of regulation to protect investors.
Consumers proved them wrong.
Ending the US domestic airline caste system did not kill commercial air travel. It invigorated it. No longer restricted to their intrastate caste, Southwest went on to achieve national size and scope. Scores of new airlines entered the unregulated marketplace. A few domestic carriers expired, their over reliance on regulation exposed. Most grew. Competition boomed, and the popularity of air travel skyrocketed. By 1990, US domestic airline passengers doubled, and domestic revenue passenger miles tripled.
Deregulated soccer is not a new phenomenon. In ’78, Kahn was breaking new ground. We were the first large developed nation to deregulate airlines. In ’10, we were way behind the curve. The US remains one of the last large developed nations yet to deregulate club soccer. Reams of soccer specific data may be drawn on to support deregulation. Scores of our regulated, closed soccer leagues have already failed. It is difficult to argue that our caste based pyramid is approaching the potential of the market.
By the dawn of the twenty first century, deregulated club soccer had already conquered the globe. Where it was permitted in the US, it enjoyed a fabulous year in 2010. More Americans attended European friendlies than ever before. In a trend that began in 1966, when surprising ratings startled Jack Kent Cooke, Lamar Hunt and other establishment US pro sports owners into forming two separate pro soccer leagues, US World Cup television audiences broke new ground. The second round World Cup match between the US and Ghana drew a record 20 million US viewers. For the second World Cup in a row, ratings trumped World Series and NBA Finals broadcasts. US television audiences international club matches were also on the rise. In late December, Chelsea v Arsenal drew nearly 50% more US viewers than the MLS Cup. EPL passed MLS as the most watched soccer league in the United States earlier that month. Perhaps most remarkably, Americans bought more World Cup tickets than the citizens of any other nation – for an event held on the other side of the planet.
Yet, in 2010, the fortunes of our heavily regulated US soccer pyramid were heading in the opposite direction. The failure rate among limited US lower division clubs stood at 75%. MLS Cup ratings on ESPN took a 44% dive between 2009 and 2010 – the lowest viewership for the match on record. Indeed, in that exact timeslot, more Americans were watching college volleyball on ESPN2. Ratings for regular season MLS matches on the Deuce were down over 13%, dropping MLS below WNBA for the first time. Fox Soccer Channel MLS regular season broadcasts was averaging roughly 10,000 viewers per state. MLS also featured fewer World Cup players than at any time in its history. The league sent a record low of five players onto World Cup rosters the previous summer – down from twenty-two in 1998. MLS regular season average attendance records rotted in 1996.
Perhaps more startling, MLS was coming up short against its own predecessors. Regular season matches in the less regulated NASL averaged 75% more viewers than the 2010 MLS Cup. Critics will argue that the TV landscape in 1980 was dramatically different, yet professional sports viewership continue to set records today. Indeed, the 2010 Superbowl shocked the industry by breaking a ratings record of Babe Ruth proportions: It was the most watched TV program in US history, eclipsing a record set by the final episode of M*A*S*H* in 1983.
Defenders of MLS take comfort in the mere survival of the league. Armed with these statistics, anyone can argue our heavily regulated system falls far short of reaching the market potential of US club soccer. No MBA required.
Giving USSF a Black Hole
In the current state of affairs at USSF, even with pressure from average supporters, any plan for promotion and relegation has a tough row to hoe. MLS has prided itself on being so immune from failure, the Commissioner of Major League Soccer admitted that low TV ratings don’t concern him. Perhaps more importantly, that commissioner has a friendly brother-in-arms at the head of US Soccer.
The gravitational pull of black holes is so great, light cannot escape. As a result, astronomers have relied on observations of nearby bodies to detect them. Similarly, Sunil Gulati, the President of Kraft Soccer (the operating group of the New England Revolution) can be difficult to directly observe when acting as President of USSF. Thankfully, the void in independent leadership he leaves may be detected by observing the behavior or MLS Commissioner Don Garber, FIFA President Sepp Blatter, and even US President Barack Obama.
At halftime of the 2010 MLS Cup, eleven days from FIFA World Cup host selection for both 2018 and 2022, the former NFL executive stunned MLS supporters when he suddenly proposed a study to simulate promotion relegation – and a real shift to winter play. USSF President Sunil Gulati could not be detected on the screen.
In 2009, Garber had the honor of introducing US President Obama to FIFA President Sepp Blatter. Again, Gulati was undetectable. In the void of top USSF representation at the meeting, Blatter used the occasion to express he feelings on MLS and American soccer structure – directly to the President of the United States.
“In short, Blatter doesn’t think it’s a ‘proper’ league. According to Garber, the FIFA president, when introduced to U.S. President Obama, inquired as to when America would adopt a more traditional approach. MLS is a metaphorical boil Blatter would like to lance.” – CBC Sports
As the President of Lockheed Martin shouldn’t be proposing nuclear arms control treaties, the Commissioner of MLS shouldn’t be proposing fundamental changes to the structure and season of US club soccer.
In 1894 the English FA set the tone for the club soccer world by establishing an open system of independent clubs, promotion and relegation. As an independent federation not in cahoots with any one group of clubs, they were tasked with crafting decisions that put the game itself before the needs of any one league or team.
Today, the tone the FA set rings louder than ever before. Soccer swept around the world over the twentieth century. Promotion, relegation and independent clubs went with it. Everywhere indigenous club soccer blossomed, the responsibility to frame open leagues fell to independent federations.
While any league accustomed to permanent first division status would struggle to embrace the meritocracy of open leagues, the MLS single entity business model stands in vivid contrast to the concept. Unlike any soccer league on the planet, MLS is the majority owner of every team, and uses their collective will to impose all manner of restrictions on each. In 201o, the league was reportedly charging upwards of $40 million for the privilege of joining the US first division. They turned the US soccer pyramid into a scheme.
Suffice it to say, blessed with the most controlling business model in the soccer world, and employee at the helm of USSF, MLS is as likely to make an independent move towards promotion and relegation as Wal-Mart is.
Indeed, independent leadership and US Soccer have a long and oxymoronic history. In the 1920s, the most prominent top flight league thumbed their nose at our federation before expiring in the early 1930s. In the 1970s, our top flight league was simply chose not to affiliate with our federation at all. Today, our federation exhibits all the hallmarks of being an arm of our top flight league. Without an effective and independent governing body, it is little wonder our club game lags so far behind.
This kind of behavior from American pro sports owners is predictable. They are accustomed to running their own worlds. They are not accustomed to answering to any independent governing body, much less an international one that views them as a backward backwater.
Yet, light beams from the end of this dark tunnel. Club soccer supporters are blessed with the most democratic oversight bodies in an otherwise autocratic world of professional sports. Like all federation Presidents, Gulati is elected. The USSF board elects the President. The board answers to US supporters. US supporters are already asking questions about our over regulated US soccer pyramid. International pressure is mounting, and the scales are tipping.
The vacuum of independent leadership at our federation is the largest remaining obstacle.
Tipping Point
MLS has amassed significant power over their own teams, our federation, and the perceptions of the average American soccer supporter. Many US supporters believe in the concept of promotion and relegation, yet believe it’s unrealistic in the short term.
Still, perhaps this scenario is not the guarantor of the status quo it is widely acknowledged to be.
In 1990 – despite an admission from a wide majority that the system was unfair, broken, and fundamentally wrong – few South Africans predicted the rapid and relatively peaceful demise of Apartheid. A bigoted minority believed millions of citizens were unprepared for the power of full citizenship. Some thought such a major change to the status quo would create massive financial upheaval, and the nation would descend into chaos. Most thought the Botha government too strong, and too entrenched to ever willingly allow their ugly caste system to rightfully lapse into the dustbin of history.
They were wrong. In 1992, Nelson Mandela became President of South Africa.
In the decade that followed, the economic growth rate in South Africa doubled.
Admittedly, the struggle to free US club soccer pales in historic significance to the one Mandela and Biko engaged in. Don Garber and Sunil Gulati are not bigots and the USSF/MLS caste system is not race based. The fall of Apartheid is, however, a great example of conditions under which a government mandated caste system can lapse very quickly – despite a high level of public apathy – when domestic pressure is bolstered with consistent international opposition.
If we were on a path to a traditional league model, away from the USSF caste system, 2010 would have been a fantastic year for USSF to map it out for FIFA. Over the last decade, FIFA let their feelings be known on our US soccer caste system on many occasions and through multiple channels: MLS/USSF closed league intransigence was a serious issue. We may never know if this was a deciding factor in the rejection of our bid to host the 2022 World Cup. We do know the US bid committee did not play it’s strongest hand without a plan to adopt it. We did see the US come within three votes in the final round of voting. We also witnessed MLS Commissioner Don Garber claim to plan to study a the issue just eleven days from the final decisions in Zurich – on national TV.
Meeting FIFA conditions and concerns has made a real difference in the past. MLS owes its existence to a promise from USSF to FIFA that a proper soccer pyramid and first division would be in place by the 1994 World Cup. Eighty years before, our entry into FIFA carried with it an expectation for USSF to form a proper, national US club competition. The competition began that year, featured our first great clubs of the twentieth century, and remains with us today in the form of the Lamar Hunt US Open Cup.
Still, with a World Cup host bid on the line, and FIFA’s preference for promotion and relegation voiced at the highest levels, US Soccer chose to remain mum on the subject.
Although it was compelling evidence our federation has no concrete plans to open it, it is clear the door to promotion, relegation and independent clubs has not been locked.
International opposition remains strong. Domestic opposition to MLS and USSF is building. In 201o, more American soccer supporters produced plans for promotion and relegation in the United States than ever before. Garber’s MLS cup halftime comments revealed cracks in the single entity closed league bulwark at USSF and MLS. Despite the fact that the World Cup no longer hangs in the balance, international pressure appears unlikely to lessen.
No doubt, the demise of Apartheid was a huge victory for basic human rights, but he economic silver lining was not insignificant. Real GDP growth in South Africa doubled in the decade following its abolition. It was the moral thing to do, and the right way to grow.
The historic significance of the fall of Apartheid will always dwarf the fall of our MLS/USSF club soccer caste system, but one last hopeful US Soccer parallel may be drawn from its demise: The same leaders that pledged undying allegiance to that abhorrent system chose to abandon it.
Hopefully our current soccer regime will follow that example.
The Transfer of Power
The battle for independent leadership at USSF may be long and arduous. If so, the actual five year transition to full promotion, relegation and independent clubs will be cake in comparison.
One controversial element in this plan is the lack of existing soccer infrastructure in the US. Regardless of the validity of that statement, this plan accounts for it. With MLS reportedly charging entrance fees as high as $75 million, perhaps investment groups with that kind of cash could use it to break ground on a new stadium. It gives every club with first division aspirations five years in which to fund and construct appropriate facilities.
Perhaps the most controversial element of this transition will be stripping of sanctions from any league or club that chooses not to participate.
It shouldn’t be.
As interesting as it was to watch the commissioner of MLS propose to study a simulation of promotion and relegation, it was like Ronald McDonald proposing to study a simulation of tighter federal food safety standards. A legitimate realization of concept is DOA at MLS.
The decision to to move to authentic promotion and relegation must be made at the federation level, and the only real incentive they can provide is sanctions.
This plan allows MLS to choose their own future. Perhaps MLS stands little to lose. The two most visible perks of the USSF D1 saction - US Open Cup berths and CONCACAF Champion League play – are vastly underutilized by MLS. Outside of Seattle, average attendances at USOC matches at MLS stadiums remain a tiny fraction of league matches. Indeed, 2010 saw one MLS club draw only 500 people for a home match in the competition. The commitment from USSF to promote it is lackluster at best. The official website for the US Open Cup, thecup.us – though a fantastic beacon of US club soccer history deserving full association and funding from USSF – remains a volunteer effort organizationally distinct from US Soccer. Perhaps the league disregards CCL even more. In soccer crazed Seattle, a certain MLS team attempted to schedule a CONCACAF Champions League match in a stadium with a listed seating capacity of 2000 – 3% of the capacity of their home stadium. Another marquis team was shellacked in CCL play at home, losing 4-1 to a second division club.
It shouldn’t surprise anyone that a league on which mediocrity is imposed to produce domestic party has never won a match on Mexican soil. Perhaps it should surprise everyone that we keep sending their handicapped teams into unlimited international play.
Critics of this plan will argue that loss of sanction would severely limit player recruitment. If NASL recruitment in the 1970s is any indication, MLS shouldn’t have any problems. It is also a good bet that if MLS decides to continue without a sanction, FIFA will be pleased enough to allow the league to test their theories on collectivization and central planning alongside a traditional open pyramid. Perhaps our open leagues will develop clubs that will join MLS. Perhaps MLS will develop teams that will join our open pyramid. The market will lead the way.
Indeed, for all of their attempts to posture their league as un-NASL, MLS shares more DNA with their top flight American predecessors than virtually any other league in the world. It’s as difficult to make a case that a D1 sanction would have changed any realities for NASL as it is to argue that loss of these same sanctions would hurt MLS.
After re sanctioning is announced, the five year transition looks like this:
2011
USSF President announces five year bottom up transition to fully independent clubs, promotion and relegation to be completed pyramid wide by the beginning of summer 2016/winter 2015 season.
USSF mandates stadium standards for each division.
Current D2 and lower clubs choose whether or not to remain in USSF pyramid
2012
final year for non-US clubs in D3 and and D4.
2013
third and fourth division play in tournament begins open league transition
fourth division broken down into state leagues
Third Division broken down into NW, NE, SW and SE leagues of no less than 8 clubs and no more than 20
Deadline for MLS teams to opt out of pyramid and form unsanctioned, stand alone league.
Final year for non US D2 clubs.
2014
D3 clubs promoted from regional leagues to fill out East and West D2 Leagues of no more than 20, but no less than 8 clubs.
After initial season, top finishers in each D3 league promoted. Bottom two finishers in each D2 league relegated to respective regional D3 leagues
Final year for non-US clubs in D1
In the event of full D2 shift to D1, top finisher from East and West awarded CONCACAF Champions League, while second place finisher from each league competes in a one game playoff for final CCL slot.
2016
If MLS chose an unsanctioned closed league future in 2013, East and West D2 leagues awarded D1 sanction, and D3 awarded D2 sanction. Stadium standards shift accordingly.
In event of D2 ascendancy to D1, CONACAF Champions League slots awarded to East and West league winners, second place playoff for final slot.
If MLS has chosen divestment and transition to open league status, current D2 clubs promoted as needed to fill out D1 to 18 teams.
Post Single Entity Scenarios
Two likely scenarios – and an MLS nuclear option – emerge from this plan to deregulate US club soccer.
In the first, our lower division clubs benefit from a huge increase in value, and new investors rush in to prepare their run at D1. The D3 play in tournament not only snags a TV contract, matches average more viewers than MLS regular season games. MLS willingly disbands into the independent clubs on which the concept of promotion and relegation is based and accepts initial D1 sanctions. In this scenario, a rising tide of interest and investment sweeps over lower division of US club soccer as transfer to open leagues begins. MLS, wanting to rise on the same tied as D2 and D3 boats, releases teams into a new, national and open first division of independent clubs.
Outside of arbitrary salary and squad restrictions, Former MLS clubs will finally be free to explore the the upper edge of US club play. Top clubs will head onto the international stage free of any collective efforts designed to impose domestic parity and shield speculators from financial risk.
Our open league future emerges with a small, but very high performing, national first division, with regionalized lower divisions arranged in a unique structure that limits travel costs and guarantees wide geographic dispersal of clubs at every level.
In the second, the transition to open creates mass confusion among American sports fans and financial uncertainty with advertisers and sponsors. Few Americans tune in to the third division play-in matches, and value and investment in lower division clubs does not dramatically rise. As a result, MLS chooses to continue on as a single entity, confidence renewed in their closed league protections. Superliga becomes the only path to international play for MLS, and the competition carefully manages entrants to produce close matches. They will be completely free to explore a niche market of soccer fans who subscribe to a US pro sports culture comfortable with closed leagues that focus on domestic parity.
Meanwhile, two open pyramids vie to access the unused potential of club soccer in the United States. Supporters get the best of both worlds and sponsors and advertisers get a side-by-side comparison. Major League Soccer renews commitment to acclimatizing the average US sports fan to soccer, while an open league system of unlimited clubs will be free to appeal to existing US soccer supporters.
Should they choose to maintain closed single entity status, MLS will no longer be guaranteed full transfer rights to D1 after the 2013 window closes. Two open pyramids may, however, remain unfilled for a period of time. In this case, individual MLS teams could still granted automatic D1 bids on a case-by-case basis.
Indeed, the future of US club soccer may lay in this dual pyramid format – making an MLS opt-out a short cut to the full development of US club soccer. Two new unlimited first divisions will be free to explore the envelopes of open league performance and interest. As a country many times the size of any one European nation, and an economy comparable in size to the entire European Union, we have the capacity more first division clubs. There are over 300 clubs at or above MLS financial size and skill in the European Union. This system, large as it may seem, would still only grant the US 36 first division clubs. Worries of geographic concentration of clubs would be tempered, since NY and LA metroplexes would be hard pressed to dominate two eighteen club regional leagues. Separate pyramids also revitalize the US Open Cup, as it becomes the only US competition to feature interleague D1 regular season play. We’ll have two leagues vying for CCL slots, setting up a dramatic East West playoff for the third slot. Perhaps there would be potential for a national playoff series, and, if there was still room in the marketplace, we could add an additional east/west inter league “Carling Cup” type competition.
A third distinct doomsday scenario is technically possible. As the majority owner of every team, Major League Soccer could pull their own plug – and attempt to drag all of their teams down with them.
Portland Timbers supporters demonstrated in the streets to lift their club club to D1 status. It would safe for MLS to assume that they would do so again should they threaten to take their team away. As much room as there is in MLS for divergent agendas, we have to hope that nervous speculators would find their way out of the league long before taking their teams down with them in yet another US closed league conflagration.
The Fiscal Frontier
Citing a lack of funds, the US Soccer Hall of Fame in Oneonta, NY closed its doors to the public in 2009. Despite the inability of USSF and MLS to keep the lights on our rich soccer history, it remains a vast untapped resource. Of all the benefits to abandoning our closed league time capsule in this plan, reclaiming our soccer heritage has the greatest potential market value. Many US supporters have heard that 1950 US World Cup hero Joe Gaetjens was a dishwasher. Some know he died at the hands of the Haitian secret police. Few recognize him for his ASL Golden Boot winning exploits for New York Brookhattan that year.
Joe is a crystal on a snowflake perched on the tip of a massive iceberg.
Our current USSF/MLS regime emphasizes the weaknesses of the game, and displays a short, shallow history in order to justify their control over it. They’ve chosen to sway wary investors by offering vast market protections to lure investors into a US pro soccer arena scarred with a long history failed leagues. They blame an overcrowded US pro sports market for many of the difficulties soccer has in gaining American relevance. In their plan, superclubs are miscast as villains to justify spending limits, and our homogenized sports market is used as an excuse to restrain it.
This plan accesses US club history – in it’s entirety – for the benefit of the game. It bathes US club soccer history in an entirely new light. It transfers blame from the shortcomings of the game to the closed business model under which it still struggles.
Indeed, the vast depth and breadth of US club soccer history is only matched by our massive underutilization of it. This is a plan to completely rehabilitate US club soccer history – and sell it.
The unedited highlight reel of US club soccer history is already over a century long. The popularity of professional soccer second only to professional baseball in the 1920s. Our USMNT built off that success, playing in three of the first four World Cup Finals, and reaching the semis in 1930. The first European friendly to sell out a US Stadium happened in 1926, when Vienna Hakoah defeated the original New York Football Giants in the venerated Polo Grounds. The New York Cosmos drew more fans than the New York Giants – in Giants Stadium – in the late 1970s. The first US soccer specific stadiums were built in the 1920s. US club players from the 1920s hold remarkable records in international and club play. The Game Has Been In US for a long time. This plan utilizes every second of this history to sell the game, and blames every shortcoming on the sports model in which it was miscast.
This plan also harnesses the power of superclubs, instead of banning them.
Indeed, superclubs are a hallmark of healthy, popular soccer leagues all over the world. By subtracting superclubs from their business model, MLS may save money, and shielded the league from the cellar dweller stratification that marked the demise of NASL and ASL, but they also shut down the warp engines of legacy and player development. Look no further for evidence of this phenomenon than the makeup of our 1990 USMNT World Cup squad. The majority of that team were Cosmos fans – despite the fact that our last superclub spent almost nothing developing local talent, and hadn’t played a soccer match in five years. It is easy to argue our first reappearance in the World Cup Finals since 1950 may have been delayed at least another four years without the New York Cosmos.
Not every superclub has an academy system to match, but without superclubs, the world would lose many top academies, and eons of legacy. Where would club soccer be today without Real Madrid, Manchester United, AC Milan, Bayern Munich, or Club America? If their respective federations allowed USSF/MLS style closed pyramids topped with single entities, imposing mediocrity on teams in the name of domestic parity, it is easy to argue that the legacies of these clubs would be wiped from history – along with the players they developed and inspired.
This plan does not concede anything to the market shares of other pro sports.
Our crowded pro sports market takes center stage in many MLS single entity justifications. Commissioner Garber has gone well out of his way to discount MLS as a competitor for the fans of other US pro sports. Most agree that US pro sports owners subscribe to a fiefdom model of American pro sports fans, in which every sport competes for the attentions of a finite number fans. In terms of traditional TV advertising, an MLS fan is only worth 1/6 of an NFL fan, since soccer matches can only muster 10 minutes of in-game commercial time to the hour long barrage an NFL viewer receives. Owners and executives of of other pro-sports are well represented in MLS. Marketing club soccer in the US is a major challenge. If any of these factors are combining to temper the effort to grow US club soccer, it is easy to see why MLS runs far behind the demonstrated potential of the sport.
The abandonment of the USSF caste system and MLS central planning will immediately open financial doors in our lower divisions. As it did with domestic US airlines, deregulation will grant every existing lower division investor upward mobility, increase the value of existing clubs, and draw new investment from outside their ranks. The same will be true for every existing lower division club – an apt reward for owners that have been toiling under the adverse circumstances of our closed league caste system for decades.
In lieu of the 75% club failure rate in our caste system of lower divisions, and a century of closed league failures, it’s hard to argue that intrepid investors haven’t already been recognizing the untapped market potential of soccer.
By shifting some blame from the business acumen of every failed lower division owner to heavily regulated environment in which so many fail, this plan brightens the prospects of every current D2 and 3 owner and inspires new investors.
Today, potential international investors are shocked to find the Seattle Sounders drawing more support than Spanish club Sevilla. Imagine their surprise to discover a thriving US pro league in the 1920s. Envision their disbelief when they’re told an American holds the record for goals in a top flight club season. Watch them shake their heads when told an American notched the first hat trick in the World Cup, or the the USMNT participated in three of the first four World Cup finals. We have a rich club soccer history to sell. It is a phenomenal waste to discount any of it in order to justify our soccer present.
Conversationalization Trumps Collectivization
Despite all the central planning and collectivization at USSF and MLS, they cannot control free speech. If this plan is too obtuse, heretical, or pie in the sky to spark that conversation, hopefully it will beget a plan that does.
In a regulated marketplace that doesn’t incentivize owners to reach every potential consumer, under a governing body run by an MLS executive who benefits from that regulation, it is abundantly clear that the deregulation of US club soccer will not happen without a spirited national conversation. If club soccer in the United States was on a natural trajectory out of the MLS closed single entity status quo, USSF would have elaborated on that plan in 2010. Hopefully this plan challenges the notion that standing by patiently and waiting for nature to take its course at MLS is a unrealistic path to full integration with the footballing world.
In order for this discourse to result in a sea change in US club soccer, it must transcend the vilification of every governing body. This game, unlike our more domestic sports, thrives under the careful governance of independent federations. Allegations of corruption may rain down on FIFA daily, and their recent decision to accept Qatar’s bid for the 2022 games was curious on many levels. Still, no one can argue that the organization is not fully committed to spreading soccer around the world by any means necessary. The organization may be rife with odd agendas, in bed with sundry moneyed interests and have a grandiose self image, but it remains a independent governing body responsible for more than the fiscal health of any one league. On occasion, FIFA does remarkable things. It was FIFA, with the IOC, led the international sporting community against the Apartheid regime in South Africa, banning the federation from 1964 until 1992. It was FIFA that accepted the US bid for the 1994 World Cup.
One common argument against promotion and relegation is that, unlike in England, it didn’t develop organically here. As MLS approaches the magic number of twenty clubs, supporter groups begging more and more insistently for a shot at first division soccer, promotion and relegation plans sprouting from average supporters, and quality of play being limited by a small collective of top clubs, perhaps US club soccer is approaching it’s organic moment. This is a plan for a federation capable of acknowledging its arrival. The concept of promotion and relegation grew from conditions surrounding a glut of clubs, incapable of coming together amongst themselves to conjure a rational, fair schedule of play. There have been three peaks in the number of active, professional, US soccer clubs: The late 1920s, the late 1970s, and today. All were fertile moments for promotion and relegation to take root.
Any discourse an deregulation can devolve into a discussion about the banking crisis. When our banking industry came together to demand deregulation from the government, it resulted in the greatest financial crisis since the great depression. When our government fought the airline industry to deregulate commercial air travel, it was a boon to consumers. This plan to deregulate US club soccer seeks to emulate the effort to deregulate domestic airlines.
Airline deregulation began in an independent governing body convinced that the potential marketplace for a product was not being reached – against the will of nearly every major airline. With millions of potential US club soccer consumers unreached, this plan recognizes Major League Soccer owners are benefiting from the same regulations that held back domestic air travel.
This plan takes full advantage of our homogenized and closed pro sports market, instead of bowing to it. It utilizes a time honored strategy for succeeding in a crowded marketplace: Be Different. Upstart American football leagues have tried to stake out a new personality with pro wrestling announcers. Upstart American Basketball leagues tried colorful balls and big hair. With promotion and relegation, soccer can be the most fundamentally different pro sports product in US history. If that scares MLS investors with financial stakes in other sports, those investors need to find another place to put their money.
This plan stops the retardation of US club soccer for the financial benefit of a small group of MLS speculators. Indeed, every conversation on this topic must include our intrepid lower division owners and supporters. Today, more of them investing their lives and savings in this game than at any point since the 1920s. You can find them stocking beer carts, staffing concession stands, attending every match, performing field maintenance and striving to keep their clubs relevant in a caste system that prohibits upward mobility. It’s time to draw on the spirit of these pioneers. This plan gives them a chance to push the US club soccer envelope.
Huge investors the world over are happy to trade the risk of relegation for the chance to build the greatest soccer clubs. You may not find them stocking beer carts, but they attend games, know and appreciate their players and are knowledgeable supporters of club and sport. Their interest in soccer isn’t measured in return on financial investment alone. This is a plan to incentivize them to help build US club soccer.
Perhaps it’s no coincidence that noted airline deregulator Alfred Kahn was born in Paterson, NJ in 1917, or that his first job was in a silk mill. He grew up in the cradle of American soccer. The day he was born, the Paterson Silk Sox, one of our most venerated soccer clubs, was already celebrating their thirty-seventh consecutive season.
This plan goes out to every Sounder fan who doesn’t want the quality of their club dictated by the least supported team in MLS. It is penned for supporters in Tampa, St. Louis, San Diego, San Francisco, and every US state east of Texas below the Mason Dixon line with top flight supporters, and no top flight club. It makes clubs and supporters the deciders in the United States, not league commissioners. It gives us our club soccer history back. It draws new investors in the game, and allows them to choose how to spend their money. It’s deregulation in it’s purest form.
It doesn’t require a strange, new world, new life forms or a new civilization to reach the full potential of the US club game. It just requires us to boldly go where soccer has gone before.
