Opinion: To Relegate or Not to Relegate

By: Anthony Tazbaz

Image Credit: Jose M

This may be a cliché, but let's start a conversation about it on this platform.

What happened

I recently discovered a tweet by well-renowned American sports journalist and MLS Insider Tom Bogert that the United Soccer League (USL) is preparing to vote on a potential adoption of a promotion-relegation system.

Bogert specified that, should this pass, the USL would establish three leagues (which they already have), a potential restructure in 2024, and an official promotion/relegation element added in the following season.

Although he mentioned that the sources are optimistic that this could pass, nothing is certain.

A deeper look: The USL is considered the second tier of the United States soccer pyramid, after Major League Soccer (MLS). Implementing such a system could have a serious influence on the future of the MLS. This ultimately begs the question derived from the title: Should the MLS implement a similar structure?

While this has been a hot topic in North America and fans from across the world mock the league for not having such a structure, and rather opt for club expansion, I believe that this could be massively beneficial for the league, the US Soccer Federation, the fans, and the players. Even better, make that X2, with the three Canadian clubs potentially reaping massive benefits.

Potential benefits

Picture this: Lionel Messi joins Inter Miami to lead the club out of the relegation zone. That would be a likely headline published today (or yesterday) if the MLS had a promotion/relegation system.

While the prospect of Messi joining a relegation-club sounds incredibly remote, an attractive market such as Miami being in the relegation zone (particularly bottom of the league) would not render the prospect of a star joining a relegation-bound club in North America fairly more likely.

At this moment, you would be witnessing three of the top 10 highest-paid MLS players - including the two highest paid in Messi and Toronto FC's Lorenzo Insigne - fighting their way out of relegation to a second division.

The idea that star players could be in a relegation battle is intriguing. While one could argue that star players would not dare join a relegation-bound club or would jump ship from a sinking club, the MLS has one thing European clubs do not have: a rigid salary cap. This is definitely one thing that I prefer in North American leagues over European leagues because it fuels competition on a broader scale.

A salary cap is designed to avoid long-standing dynasties and oligopolies or monopolies, whereby one or a handful of clubs dominate the league for years, decades, or even generations. It also leads to better facilitation of intra-league trades and loans. Without a cap, there would be fewer trades, and more transfers, which could create lopsidedness and stifle competition.

Without getting into too many details, the MLS has also Targeted Allocation Money (TAM) and General Allocation Money (GAM), which are used to buy players coming from oversees and also as trade chips to acquire big-name players within the MLS.

While the definitions of these terms are a little murky, one thing is for sure when seeing trades: GAM is more valuable than TAM (and the names perhaps speak for themselves). For the sake of saving space on this newsletter, this Sportsnet article does an efficient job at concisely summarizing the meaning and importance of the two terms.

Finally, Designated Players (DPs) are players registered on a team whose salaries do not count against the salary cap. DPs typically carry the heaviest contracts. Each club has a maximum of three DP slots, where they can be filled via marquee signings from David Beckham to Lionel Messi. With such an overly complicated signing structure and a salary cap, shifting the MLS into a promotion/relegation system could further complicate matters.

And now this begs the second question: How would such a structure work?

Now, the system could be designed in different ways.

First, the MLS could be split into two divisions and keep the status quo on being completely exclusive from the USL's system. I could envision this as being the most reasonable scenario, at least as a start to a longer-term project.

However, the MLS should grow by a handful of additional clubs, perhaps 2-4 before creating such a system. With four additional clubs, the MLS would reach 32 clubs, which could be split into two divisions of 16 clubs.

This would also enable the MLS to maintain their complicated salary structure. Ultimately, such a structure would literally ensure the MLS can maintain the status quo and the competitiveness, while having two divisions solely based on the calibre of the players and game playing (not even the size of markets, thankfully).

Second, the MLS and the USL could combine to create a broader system. This system would be far more sophisticated and would have to address several issues, particularly regarding the salary rules seen in MLS that do not exist in USL and how it could be integrated within or resorting to create something from scratch.

Having such an integration is quite ambitious. However, it could be one of the greatest things to happen. With that being said, this option could simply be a follow-up to the original scenario, whereby, instead of four divisions (one from the MLS, three from the USL), there would be up to eight total divisions - all of which would be considered semi-pro to professional levels.

Imagine this: a third division club from Tucson, Arizona rises to the top, signs several young talents and takes on the mighty markets of LAFC, Atlanta United, and Inter Miami.

Having such a system could entice more fans to out to come watch matches in their own city, rather than save and plan a long-weekend trip to a major city located three hours away, just to see top-flight football.

It would also attract a larger pool of talent from all over the place. Young talents from higher divisions and in Eastern Europe, Africa, Asia, or even lower divisions in Latin America may arrive due to the competitiveness and the job security of receiving higher wages.

Bottom line

Although these scenarios are enticing to many, several questions - in addition to the obvious topics of salary, transactions, and competitiveness - will need to be answered.

• First, travel time. If one were to split the current leagues by half, there would need to be a significant amount of time and money allocated to travel because such a system would need to follow the home-away format of Europe to ensure a balanced schedule for all clubs.
  

• Second, we need to address the elephant in the room (or on the map): Canada. How will Canadian markets integrate into this system, currently having clubs in both MLS and USL? With the gradual rise of the Canadian Premier League, will some, most or even all Canadian clubs move to the Canadian Premier League.
  

Honestly, with the exception of Toronto FC, I could see all other MLS and USL clubs move to the CPL as USL clubs aren't much bigger than those in the CPL and CF Montréal and Vancouver Whitecaps rank 28th and 26th most valuable MLS clubs (out of 28), respectively.

With that being said, however, I can see both Montréal and Vancouver perform not only in the American market, but in the top division, where the MLS would be split into two. Let's also not forget that Montréal finished third overall in the regular season, only two points behind Supporters' Shield and MLS Cup winner LAFC, whose squad is valued at more than double the size of Montréal's.