That's like saying that we have an economic meritocracy when lazy children of billionaires are the richest people around. Meritocracy means skill and hard work are rewarded, not a glorious past. You're thinking of feudalism.Originally Posted by Flixy
Hope is the denial of reality
That's how current 'meritocracy' works in society though.
At least it's the actual same clubs and in pretty recent history - in your comparison, that'd be someone who's rich after working hard in his youth. Are you saying in a meritocracy savings shouldn't be allowed because you should keep working hard to get rewards?
Btw the analogy sucks anyway since as soon as they atop performing they lose rewards, just they have an advantageous position due to past performance. How can good performance be rewarded if you can't use the rewards?
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it's a good system, and I kinda like the NHL approach (though it also has flaws). But the american way for sports is actually anti-meritocracy, so I'm not sure why it was brought up on this discussion.
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No its not. Clubs who've succeeded in the past can and do fail and fall down the pyramid.
Looking at it from 1998 until today the AL East since the Yankees were brought up has consisted every single year of Baltimore, the Red Sox, the Yankees, Toronto and Tampa Bay. For twenty four years in a row that has not changed. Every single year the same clubs competing against each other, no opportunity for other clubs to earn the right to replace them in the division. No matter how well or badly these clubs perform they're never relegated. No matter how well or badly other clubs perform they can never climb up to take their spots in the division.
In comparison in that same period of time, despite the Premier League having only 20 clubs at a time, a total of 47 clubs have competed in the Premier League.
In that same period of time ten different clubs have finished in the top 4. Many more if you look at top 6.
I think a meritocracy is something like the old Chinese civil service exam. Capitalism has its meritocratic elements, but it also allows far too much wealth to be passed on between generations. I'd have an inheritance tax of 100% (while closing various loopholes people use to get around it) that exempts the first few million and a single residence. Use the proceeds from that tax to drastically decrease the income tax. People should be rewarded for their work, not their accident of birth.
Hope is the denial of reality
A) The premier league has far more mobility than any major soccer league. So you're using an outlier as your example.
B) Major clubs get sent down only due to gross incompetence (usually bankruptcy). Even when major teams have a few years of mediocrity, they never come close to relegation. Meanwhile, teams that just got promoted never compete for the title. A vast majority get sent back within 1-2 years. Mid-tier teams do occasionally become top-tier teams, but only if they're lucky enough to be bought by oligarchs or princes with deep pockets. Even then, it takes decades before they're given the same respect as the old guard.
I don't really understand your point about AL East. Yes, there is no promotion/relegation. But different teams do well every season. And this is despite a vast disparity in resources between some of those teams, a disparity that does not exist in any other North American major league.
Hope is the denial of reality
Regarding A it helps that the premier league is rich as fuckand pretty egalitarian when it comes to spreading the money. By contrast, here in the Netherlands there's not that much money going around, which a) makes it harder to catch up, and b) makes the extra income from e.g. CL disproportional, it's more than the entire budget for the lower teams IIRC. And this super league would make that differemce between the top and the rest even bigger, especially since you can't even really earn your way in. So I'm still not sure why this super league would be any better than the CL, since it looks to me to make these problems even bigger.
Fair enough, I'd be fine with that. Though arguably the biggest impact is while the kids are young and the parents (hopefully) still alive. Anyway, that's a different discussion.
Keep on keepin' the beat alive!
A) The Premier League is our League where the "Big 6" come from and the one that Boris got involved in responding to which is what this thread was about.
B) Depends upon how you define major. Many clubs that could be considered major have been relegated or threatened with relegation from the Premier League: Man City, Leeds United, Newcastle United etc are all major clubs that have gone down and sometimes stayed down. Many formerly major clubs have gone down never to come back up: Nottingham Forest, Preston North End etc. While some have been bought by oil princes like Man City and Chelsea, that's not the case for most of them and still as I said nearly fifty clubs have reached the Premier League in the same time that not a single new club has ever been able to climb the ranks to compete with the Yankees.
As for not getting the point - well precisely. Promotion/relegation is in the blood of our sport - the fact that any club if it does well can climb the ranks of the sport. Any club anywhere has the potential to one day be in the Premier League, to be in the Champions League. That's not the case in America where the top clubs are fixed and can't be challenged, can't be changed, can't be rivalled by alternatives climbing the ranks to replace them.
Until you understand that concept, you won't understand what was so horrific with what was proposed here. They were setting up an American-style closed shop that did away with promotion/relegation, did away with the pyramid and would kill the dream of supporters of clubs all over the country that they had the possibility of climbing to the top one day.
Rand, Blackburn and Leicester are the only mid-tier teams that won since the creation of the Premier League. Blackburn promptly got sent down within 4 years.
Here's the list of EPL champions (since 1992/3):
Man U - 13
Chelsea - 5
Man City - 4
Arsenal - 3
Liverpool - 1
Blackburn - 1
Leicester - 1
Here's a list of NHL champions since 1992/3:
Detroit - 4
New Jersey - 3
Pittsburgh - 3
Chicago - 3
Colorado - 2
Tampa - 2
Los Angeles - 2
Dallas - 1
Carolina - 1
Anaheim - 1
Montreal - 1
NY Rangers - 1
Boston - 1
Washington - 1
St. Louis - 1
Just for the fun of it, here's La Liga:
Barcelona - 14
Real Madrid - 9
Valencia - 2
Atletico - 2
Deportivo - 1
I imagine a lot of has to do with number of fans and broadcast rights.
Can't fix that without giving the state far too many powers.Fair enough, I'd be fine with that. Though arguably the biggest impact is while the kids are young and the parents (hopefully) still alive. Anyway, that's a different discussion.
Hope is the denial of reality
After tonight's penultimate games of the season, we go into the final day of the season still with stuff to play for, which wouldn't have been the case had these reforms go ahead.
Man City have won the League, the three clubs relegated are settled, but the Champions League qualifiers could still include be any two of Chelsea, Liverpool and Leicester. Tim (RIP)'s beloved West Ham have narrowly missed out.
Had this awful idea been in place right now then there'd be nothing to play for already and Leicester and West Ham would both have been locked out of any hope of qualifying ahead of the other clubs. Worth noting of the "top 6" clubs, Spurs are currently in 7th and Arsenal are currently in 9th and mathematically impossible for them to finish in the top 6.
The NHL is not a single league though, it is more equivalent to the European Cup.
European Cup/Champions League Champions since 1992/93
Real Madrid - 7
Barcelona - 4
Milan - 3
Bayern Munich - 3
Manchester United - 2
Liverpool - 2
Marseille - 1
Ajax - 1
Juventus - 1
Borussia Dortmund - 1
Porto - 1
Inter Milan - 1
Chelsea - 1
Real Madrid winning it three years in a row (four in five) was really remarkable and unprecedented and exceptional. Apart from Real Madrid's hat trick the last time a club had defended the title was Milan when it was the European Cup in the eighties, then Nottingham Forest in the seventies. It was quite common in the seventies and earlier but that was a completely different format and very unevolved compared to what exists now.
In recent years the CL has had fewer surprises though. And don't forget that the Bosman ruling was only mid 90s, which reduced competition in the CL significantly.
Keep on keepin' the beat alive!
The NHL is a single league. This season is different than usual where teams only play within divisions to limit travelling
The reason for the diversity in Stanley Cup champions are:
- Salary cap
- Draft picking (the teams in the bottom of the standings get the first draft picks)
I could have had class. I could have been a contender.
I could have been somebody. Instead of a bum
Which is what I am
I aim at the stars
But sometimes I hit London
And no money allowed for transfers. And yes, definitely a single league.
You also following the playoffs?
Keep on keepin' the beat alive!
There was no salary cap for about 40% of the time period in question. And yes, the NHL is most definitely a single league.
One big reason is that goalies (even mediocre ones) save 90% of the shots in hockey, which means there's a much greater luck component. The better team wins less frequently than in most other major sports.
Hope is the denial of reality
You have more games to compensate for that*, and prior to the salary cap there were dominant teams if I'm not mistaken (red wings come to mind).
* Compare a normal season of 82 NHL games (regular season) vs 34 (Dutch football season). Playoffs are best of 7, all football tournaments I know are either 1 or 2 games per round.
Keep on keepin' the beat alive!
There was an upper-tier of team before the salary cap, but teams rarely stayed in that tier for more than a decade. The Red Wings were an exception, and even they only won 4 cups.
82 games is pretty typical of American sports though. I do think the structure of the playoffs makes it difficult for the best team to consistently win. Then again, the same teams win the English FA Cup despite the knock-out format.
Hope is the denial of reality
The same clubs win the FA Cup because they're better.
The difference between American and European sport ironically is that American sport is very socialist, while European is very capitalist.
In European football if you perform terribly you get relegated down to a lower league where you have to sort yourself out and earn promotion to get back.
In American sport it seems that performing terribly gets you rewarded with better draft picks.
In European football if you perform well you get rewarded with promotion to a higher league, or if you're in the top league then qualification to the pan-European cup competitions.
In American sport it seems if you perform well you get punished with inferior draft picks.
I'm happy to see success rewarded with promotion and failure having consequence with relegation, than rewarded crap clubs so they get better picks.
There doesn't seem to be any negative consequences for a terrible season in America, just rewarding failure with draft picks. Not like here were failure leads to relegation.
What really matters in this debate isn't the USA vs Europe, or a meritocracy vs welfare rewards, or even the big clubs vs the little clubs; it's that Leicester City won the FA cup on Saturday.
Shame they lost against Chelsea midweek and will probably miss out on the Champions League as a result.
It is. Again
I'll take the FA cup over top 4 though. Tough choice but it's a bigger thing for the club and fans. We saw that on Sat.
I agree. Getting a trophy in the cabinet absolutely trumps being also-rans in next years cup competition. Record books will forever record FA Cup Winners 2020/21, they don't record "Champions League participant 2021/22".
Yes. Rooting for the Bruins since 2001
I could have had class. I could have been a contender.
I could have been somebody. Instead of a bum
Which is what I am
I aim at the stars
But sometimes I hit London
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