(07-24-2017 06:09 PM)Brookes Owl Wrote:  

(07-24-2017 04:59 PM)Wedge Wrote:  Also, promotion/relegation is a touchy issue with MLS, because their owners don't like the possibility their teams could be relegated from MLS to the second division. The MLS owners prefer the security of knowing that no matter how badly they mismanage their franchise, it's still in MLS.

Yeah, of course! But that's just failing to see the forest for the trees. Having a big slice of a small pie is not always better than a small slice of a big pie.
Perhaps the TV partners were/are the bigger partner, but if MLS owners are dominated by a "revenue is good enough" attitude, MLS will never touch even third tier status.

Two separate issues there.

Yes, promotion/relegation would make the pie larger because it is what drives interest in the second division. Spain, England, Italy, and others all have relatively strong second divisions because each team has the opportunity to win its way to promotion.

As for "revenue is good enough", that's the long-term challenge for MLS. Right now, fans are being generous, IMO, because the effort has been made to grow MLS and soccer in the U.S. But if MLS doesn't improve in stature and remains a cut below even Liga MX, the appeal will eventually diminish. Fans can watch Premier League, La Liga, Bundesliga, Liga MX etc. on TV every week. MLS fans are going to expect that the level of play continues to improve and reaches or surpasses Liga MX at least, and the only way to do that is to spend more money on players and not get complacent counting today's ticket revenue.