The NFL should adopt Relegation/Promotion (title edit)

[ThurmasThoman]

As the FIFA World Cup takes center stage this summer, American news outlets once again will cram soccer down our throats. It's a game the rest of the world loves--in fact, it is truly the world's sport. But what is it about soccer that makes it so exciting? As an American watching the games, I'm bored to tears--between the low rate of scoring, the flopping, and the asinine subjectivity of the referees, it's hard to imagine the sport ever taking off in America at a level that rivals any of the big four sports.

 

But the reason why Americans can't conceptualize soccer as a dominant sport has nothing to do with the game itself, and everything to do with our ignorance of the way the rest of the globe structures their sports leagues. And I will preface this discussion by saying that the first American sports league to modify their league structure to mimic that of global soccer leagues will reap the financial benefits--forever.

 

For those of you unfamiliar with relegation and how it pertains to global soccer leagues, check wikipidia--it does a better job explaining it then I am able to, or care to: http://en.wikipedia...._and_relegation

 

But more importantly, how would relegation look if the NFL adopted a similar model. Or, phrased differently: how would the NFL become the most dominant sport on the planet if relegation became part of their scheduling procedure?

 

The first step in the NFL taking over the world would be in starting a "minor" league.. It would of course be run in the exact same manner as the NFL, and could even follow the conclusion of the league schedule: Perhaps games on Saturdays starting the weekend of the conference championships, and running for 10 weeks. Teams making up this league--let's call it the "NFL Proving Grounds" for now could be placed in cities with infrastructure that can already support teams: college towns in Alabama, Mississippi, maybe San Antonio, (yes) Los Angeles, Portland, Hartford CT, etc. etc. The key is to have teams in cities where the NFL isn't--cities that may not be big enough to support an NFL team, but still have fans that want to watch football.

 

Here's where it gets interesting: following a regular season of action in the NFL Proving Grounds, and a brief 2-3 round playoff, a champion is crowned. For the sake of argument, the Oklahoma City Stampede are your 2015 NFL Proving Grounds champion--and then immediately take their place in the NFL. Replacing the team who finished dead last in the NFL the season before, in this case, the Houston Texans. And what happens to the Texans? They are relegated to the NFL Proving Grounds.

 

Now, as in European soccer, certain rules would need to be in place to ensure that the teams in the NFL have all the competitive advantages: higher salary caps, preferential treatment in the draft, etc. etc. etc. Once you're in the NFL, getting relegated to the Proving Grounds should be difficult. And if you're an NFL team that gets relegated, getting promoted back to the NFL should be relatively easy.

 

But that's why soccer is a global phenomenon. Put yourself in the shoes of a kid in Tuscaloosa Alabama, who just got an expansion franchise in the NFL Proving Grounds. Hey, your little podunk stadium might be playing host to the New York Giants in next years NFC championship game if a few bounces go your way.

 

I could go on and on and on about this for pages--I've thought about it from every conceivable angle. The stadium experience is dying, so who cares if teams in the NFL are playing games in small college stadiums. The drama of a team moving up from the Proving Grounds to the Big Leagues and having a chance at shocking the world would be amazing television. The fact that every moderately sized city in America could be host to an NFL game at some point is enticing. The hundreds of players that go undrafted would have a career. THE NFL COULD OWN TELEVISION EVERY WEEKEND OF THE YEAR FOREVER.

 

Mark my words: some day, an American sports league is going to realize that the money isn't going to be in getting people in the 30 biggest cities in America to spend more, it's going to be in getting the people in the next 75 biggest cities their own teams to root for. A league with 2, 3, 4, even 5 levels of relegation could ensure that every fan in every city has a personal, home town rooting interest... and they can hold on to the 1 in a million dream that their team from Nashua New Hampshire could be NFL champions someday.

 

Expansion into London? Why not? Have the NFL Europe be the first step in relegation/promotion.

 

London, Berlin, Rome, Madrid, Paris and Moscow. The Winner comes to the NFL--the worst team in the NFL becomes part of NFL Europe.

 

Keep the NFL at an even 32 teams, with its flawless scheduling format, and its flawless playoff structure.

 

Don't expand the NFL--expand the minor leagues. But in every city you put a minor league franchise, give them the hope of someday being Super Bowl Champions.

 

Act now Goodell, because it's too good of an idea to let another league take it first. Mark my words--the first league that does it, be it the NFL, the NBA, the NHL... they will own the sports landscape in America forever.

Edited June 26, 2014 by JohnnyGold

[ExiledInIllinois]

These are Anerican football rules using soccer rules?

 

I am in.

 

The Bills would have been relegated to Pop Warner ball over a decade ago!

[bowery4]

The real problem which some one pointed out to me once (with expansion on a global scale) is talent would have to come from all over said globe. There are not enough Americans/ Canadians and few other places where American football is played to ever man what you are talking about. Soccer has a true advantage with the sort of cheap/almost no equipment. Only the NBA and MLB can go truly international with this limitation.

Edited June 26, 2014 by bowery4

[May Day 10]

There arent enough guys to make it work with American Football. Also, are marginal players going to play in the 2nd - 4th tiers and destroy their bodies for peanuts?

 

 

I have been saying this though. The US Sport that needs this overhaul is MLB/MiLB. I think they need to wipe out the minors system and allow teams to spend what they want and allow players to fall where they may. MLB teams' rosters can be expanded. Perhaps players can be loaned to lower tiers. No more draft, it will just be open season and you can sign a guy to a contract when he is 18+ or something like that. Lower teams wont be able to employ a scouting staff etc so maybe a lot of low level players would remain somewhat local. The fact a young guy will need to play for less money at first may enhance NCAA Baseball. If a young guy is ripping it up for a low level team, then he can be traded for or bought by a higher tier, etc.

 

It would be awesome. If the Bisons were really playing for something like a possibility of winning the IL/AAA and going to the show, I would probably go to a ton of games. (They have sucked the soul and meaning completely out of minor league baseball which is a huge problem). As it is now, even if the Bisons do well, they get to the playoffs, September call-ups happen, and their playoff team ends up being a bunch of miscellaneous and inferior players we havent seen all year. Its garbage.

 

The only selling point in the minors is when they do special events and try to draw people in for anything they can think of (that isnt baseball).

 

Heck I would even check out Batavia a lot more.

 

This would restore baseball throughout America IMO. They could even place a couple teams in San Juan and Mexico City (remember, no draft and players are ultimately free). I think it would also be cool to see washed up minor leaguers be able to stick around well into their 30s.

Edited June 26, 2014 by May Day 10

[ThurmasThoman]

There arent enough guys to make it work with American Football. Also, are marginal players going to play in the 2nd - 4th tiers and destroy their bodies for peanuts?

 

 

I have been saying this though. The US Sport that needs this overhaul is MLB/MiLB. I think they need to wipe out the minors system and allow teams to spend what they want and allow players to fall where they may. MLB teams' rosters can be expanded. Perhaps players can be loaned to lower tiers. No more draft, it will just be open season and you can sign a guy to a contract when he is 18+ or something like that. Lower teams wont be able to employ a scouting staff etc so maybe a lot of low level players would remain somewhat local. The fact a young guy will need to play for less money at first may enhance NCAA Baseball. If a young guy is ripping it up for a low level team, then he can be traded for or bought by a higher tier, etc.

 

It would be awesome. If the Bisons were really playing for something like a possibility of winning the IL/AAA and going to the show, I would probably go to a ton of games. (They have sucked the soul and meaning completely out of minor league baseball which is a huge problem). As it is now, even if the Bisons do well, they get to the playoffs, September call-ups happen, and their playoff team ends up being a bunch of miscellaneous and inferior players we havent seen all year. Its garbage.

 

The only selling point in the minors is when they do special events and try to draw people in for anything they can think of (that isnt baseball).

 

Heck I would even check out Batavia a lot more.

 

This would restore baseball throughout America IMO. They could even place a couple teams in San Juan and Mexico City (remember, no draft and players are ultimately free). I think it would also be cool to see washed up minor leaguers be able to stick around well into their 30s.

 

Wow. First of all, thanks for taking the time to reply with such an awesome post. In my opinion, this "issue", as it were, is possibly the most important question in North American sports. Your post does an amazing job highlighting why it's so relevant. What you just described for baseball sounds like something that would be lightyears ahead of the NBA, NFL and NHL in terms of putting fans in the seat across the country--from the smallest city in Maine to the biggest city in California.

 

Which is why Goodell needs to find a way to make this work for the NFL before another sport swoops in, implements this league structure, and "wins" the eyes of the American public.

 

It's not hard to envision a scenario where, let's say, baseball does this first, and immediately shoots to the top of the country in terms of attendance, viewership, revenue, etc. etc. etc. All of a sudden, with less eyes on the NFL, their problems become more compounded and less easy to sweep under the rug (concussions, etc.) They experience the same swoon that the other 3 sports have experienced in the shadow of the NFL these last 15 years, with the difference being that when they do decide that a relegation/promotion system could work, it's too daunting of an issue for smaller municipalities to turn over their college stadiums for 3-4 months a year to host the NFL minor league. In my opinion (and my opinion only) yes, football would be the hardest sport to install a minor league, which is exactly why they need to do it first: strike while the iron is hot and you have the eyes, ears, hearts and mind of the country at your disposal. Right now, anything the league does, people will watch--stake your claim now Roger.

 

The real problem which some one pointed out to me once (with expansion on a global scale) is talent would have to come from all over said globe. There are not enough Americans/ Canadians and few other places where American football is played to ever man what you are talking about. Soccer has a true advantage with the sort of cheap/almost no equipment. Only the NBA and MLB can go truly international with this limitation.

 

This is another great point and a part of the equation that I've mulled over for a long time as well.

 

Put simply: of course the smaller, minor league teams are going to suck compared to the big boys in the NFL. It will be a league constructed of the guys who just weren't good enough to make it to the big leagues. However--they're supposed to suck! And this is where it becomes somewhat of a paradigm shift for the American sports viewer who is accustomed to seeing 32, top flight teams competing every sunday, each with the goal of winning the superbowl.

 

The minor league system would be so large, and so widespread, that as a fan you simply wouldn't watch the majority of minor league games. Let's say, for instance, there was a "southern" league, with 6 teams scattered about louisianna, georgia, mississippi, florida, and alabama. Hell, it might even grow to 20 teams over the years. The talent level in that league might be so low that it's classified as level 3 in terms of the minor leagues, (level 1 being the NFL, level 2 a larger scale minor league, etc.) So instead of playing for promotion into the NFL, youre playing for promotion into level 2 football. Now, the team that wins the level 2 championship won't be great, compared to their NFL brethren, but that too is not the point. The point is that a team from the middle of nowhere could, theoretically, work it's way up to the NFL.

 

Imagine a 15,000 seat stadium in the middle of Kansas hosting the Dallas Cowboys some Sunday. Imagine (if you're not from Buffalo), your little town hosting the Patriots some day! That's why soccer fans riot, that's why they stand and sing for the entire game, that's why everyone in the world watches. They don't love the beautiful game, they love that their backwater town in the mountains of Italy could make it to the premier league someday and beat ManU. It's never going to happen, obviously, but the Bills aren't exactly going to win the Super Bowl any time soon, and here we are.

[Beerball]

I could go on and on and on about this for pages

No chit?

 

How about fixing the title first so that people have some idea what this is about?

[May Day 10]

I just dont think there are enough players to stock 43+ 'minor league' teams, or even a fraction of that.

The drop off between the 32 rosters and the practice squads and CFL is pretty severe. You would also lack the minor league TV contract to really pay the lower tier players well enough to destroy their bodies over a short period of time.

Im not sure if it is going to get much better either as we can expect youth participation to decrease due to all the health issues that have come to light.

 

The idea of promotion/relegation in any league excites me. I just believe the NFL is the most unlikely specimen for it. You also have to remember that perhaps the NFL's biggest strength is its Socialist/Universal structure.

 

 

One alternate way to make it work is allow the NFL to place teams where it wants to get to 40 teams, and make it 2 Levels of 20. Even then, 8 more teams would stretch it thin.

[ThurmasThoman]

No chit?

 

How about fixing the title first so that people have some idea what this is about?

 

done! sorry.

[TheLynchTrain]

Promotion/relegation is a pretty cool idea in theory, but I don't know if it has shown it works all that well in practice. I believe the Premier League is dominated by "The Big Four" (Arsenal, Man U, Man City and Chelsea) who've won every championship except one (Blackburn almost 20 years ago). With the dominance of new/retrofit super stadiums in England and the rise of TV money, the top level Premier teams have such a built in advantage that they'll never be relegated. Usually, its the same 6-8 teams taking up the bottom 4-5 slots (and top lower level slots) every 4-5 years while every other team stays in place.

 

There's also the issue with the vast disparity of playing the Premier League versus the lower leagues that teams that have been stable for 100 years go belly up after being promoted, getting used to the new money, getting relegated again and then losing HUGE amounts of money dropping back down. I think the Premier League tried alleviating some of this concern by giving relegated teams "parachute money" to withstand the financial blow, but then that again creates entrenched interests - those recent relegated teams have built in financial advantage against the rest of the League Championship teams.

 

Again, its cool to think that some guy could buy a team in some tiny town, spend the money and go all the way to the top, but the reality of that actually happening is slim to none.

 

EDIT: I think it would be really cool if NCAA Football tried this system. I just really can't see it working in any of the professional leagues though.

Edited June 26, 2014 by TheLynchTrain