[JaredL]

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Question, when do you think US Soccer will adopt its Euro counterparts system? We already have MLS and USL, lets make this [censored] happen.

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This touches on a deeper issue. The popularity of soccer is obviously fairly low in this country - both relative to its popularity in other countries and the popularity of other American sports. For this reason, the MLS has tried to go mainstream. This IMO is a mistake. The reason for that is that there are a lot of hardcore soccer fans such as myself and others here, who have been following football in other countries for some time. These fans are largely turned off by the changes that get made. So instead of having a small, rabid base of support, there aren't a lot of strong supporters (by which I mean people who would buy a directtv type package to see their team's games, travel to away games etc.). What's worse is that these changes didn't really do the job in terms of winning over the types of people who watch the world cup then don't give a [censored] for four years, especially those who wouldn't watch the world cup finals if the US didn't qualify (which given all the concacaf spots should now never happen).

Think of it like Metallica. When they made the black album (think enter sandman), they went from a band with a very strong cult following to a mainstream metal band. Thus, they lost a lot of their fans. However, they gained a hell of a lot more new fans in the process. This was due to the pop/rock culture being ready to accept their music. To take this metaphor ridiculously too far, the MLS is basically like Metallica after the all black album if they were then also rejected by mainstream music fans.

At this point I think that the MLS is having an identity crisis. Things like naming a team Real Salt Lake do nothing for anybody. To someone like me it makes it very obvious that they're trying too hard and not quite getting there which is worst case. (I've mentioned this before, but it's completely absurd that a team in the US, the original modern (monarchyless) republic, would have a sports team named Real X since Real is Spanish for royal, and noble titles are strictly prohibited in the US by our constitution) Moreoever, casual fans think these names are bizarre. So basically, I think the MLS needs to make a real (no pun intended) effort to appeal to actual soccer fans and try to build on that. If, for example, you lived in Columbus, Ohio and worked with someone that was a very rabid fan of the Crew (assuming this team still exists under this name), then you could very well be won over and start going to games, watching them on tv and giving a [censored] in general. If, however, there are very few major supporters then this is less likely happen and as a result the popularity of the league will not improve.

So that was a pretty long response, but my point is that I think things like promotion/relgation should be added to the league and would greatly help its popularity. I think this would increase the popularity of soccer across the country as well. For example, in Portland the Timbers have a very small but strong group of supporters despite not being very good. If they could even potentially get promoted there is a fair chance that someone with more money would buy the team or at least invest and interest would grow. If they actually made the top flight then their popularity would I think skyrocket as people in all of Oregon (I'm sure TSC can attest to this) would really like to have a professional team to cheer for that isn't the Blazers who are something of a shame. I'm sure the same would go in other cities.

Another benefit of this would be that if it went well it could potentially spread to other sports. I think baseball would benefit greatly from this system. That I currently live in Pittsburgh is part of the reason I think this.