It’s the final day of the 2023 English Premier League season. Fans pack into Goodison Park ready to watch a football (soccer) match between Everton and Bourenmouth. Every seat is filled, the energy in the stadium is high, the stakes could never be greater. However, Everton isn’t fighting for glory, they are fighting for survival. With a record of 7-18-12, Everton needs to win to avoid getting relegated out of the league. As halftime hits, the crowd is tense as the score remains 0-0. Suddenly, as the 57th minute hits, Everton midfielder Abdoulaye Doucoure scores a beautiful goal. The crowd goes ecstatic as there is hope for the future of the club. No more goals would be scored in the match and Everton would live to fight for another season.
Every sports team experiences ups and downs, but in all major American sports leagues there is little to no consequence for performing poorly in a season. Instead, struggling teams are often overlooked and have irrelevant games towards the end of a season. Relegation is a system where the bottom teams in the highest league get demoted, and they are replaced by the top teams from the lower league at the end of every season. Introducing the idea of relegation would cause low tier teams to have high stakes games at the end of the season. Teams on the verge of relegation would do everything in their power to stay in the upper league, turning previously non-competitive games into some of the most important games of the season. Getting relegated would be devastating for a team because the lower leagues earn much less money and are provided with inferior resources.
The NFL, MLB, and NBA operate as closed leagues. This means that every team and division stays fixed no matter the result of the previous season. In contrast, the English Premier League, the top tier of soccer in England, follows an open league system.
The English Football (soccer) System is built up of seven levels with the Premier league sitting at the top. After every season, the bottom three teams from the upper league and the top three teams from the lower league will get promoted and relegated to the respective leagues. Another main aspect that separates the English football system from American sports is their recruiting system. Instead of drafting from college, English football teams have youth academies where they recruit players as young as eight years old. The English football system also doesn’t enforce salary caps on any teams which means there is no limit on how much a certain team can spend. This system can allow some teams to get extremely rich, but it also reinforces the idea of the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer.
The main reason introducing a relegation system is good for american sports is it eliminates the idea of tanking. In the american sports draft system, the teams that are worse usually get the earlier draft picks in the following college draft. The intention of this is to give them a fair opportunity to rebuild and create more competitiveness within the league. However, this system is far from perfect. Midway through the season, if a team knows they aren’t going to make the playoffs, there is no reason for them to perform better. In fact, performing better during the tail end of the season would actually negatively affect the team because they would get a worse draft pick.
For example, during that 2020 season, the New York Jets were head to head with the Jaguars in terms of getting the number one overall pick, but they won a late season game against the LA Rams when the punter made a touchdown saving tackle. This resulted in the Jets getting the second overall pick in quarterback Zach Wilson. Through the past few years, it has become very clear that Trevor Lawrence is the better quarterback and Jets fans wished they had lost the game against the Rams back in 2020.
On the other side of the scale, the Jacksonville Jaguars in 2020 were the worst team in the league with a record of 1-15. Because of this, they made some management decisions that clearly showed they were giving up on the season. They traded away star cornerback Jalen Ramsey mid-way through 2019, they released running back Leneard Fournette, they traded defensive end Yannick Ngakoue and defensive tackle Calais Campbell. All of these were pro bowl players that they gave up for future draft picks. Though this did secure them the number one overall draft pick in Trevor Lawrence, it made the rest of the 2020 season demoralizing for Jaguar fans and boring for the NFL as a whole. This “planning for the future” may benefit teams in the long run, but it makes current sports uneventful and one sided.
Adding a relegation system will also create an exciting mini playoff at the end of the year where the worst teams are all at the center of attention. Currently, towards the end of the season, bad teams are forgotten about and are often considered irrelevant in the grand scheme of the league. With the relegation system, the teams on the chopping block will be doing everything in their power to stay in the upper league. The final games of the season for these teams will feel like playoff games because of the importance of them. This will add a whole layer of entertainment to these leagues and make watching American sports more exciting as a whole.
The goal of American sports draft systems is to give the worst teams the best players, but this usually doesn’t actually result in better outcomes for those struggling teams. In the 2023 NBA draft, the top five picks were taken by the Spurs, Hornets, Blazers, Rockets, and Pistons. Even with the top five players in the draft, these teams still ended up as the bottom five teams in the NBA the following season. Another example is when the Carolina Panthers traded a plethora of draft picks and star receiver DJ Moore to the Bears in return for the 2023 number one overall pick. They used this pick to draft quarterback Bryce Young who is clearly performing poorly today in the NFL. At the time of writing this article the Panthers have only won three of their last 21 games with Bryce Young as a starter. The NFL does have some teams who have successfully rebuilt, but the NBA has struggled with teams that are bad and stay bad. All of this proves that top prospects are always hit or miss and giving bad teams better draft picks is not enough to keep leagues balanced and entertaining.
Another problem that comes along with tanking is players sitting. When a team is out of playoff contention, it is common for them to sit some of their star players to avoid the possibility of getting injured. Some avid fans can only afford to attend one game every season. Imagine how disappointed a fan would be if their favorite player wasn’t playing at the one game they could attend. Tanking doesn’t only take away from the entertainment of games, it can be detrimental to the fan experience.
The main reason relegation has become such a big possibility in western sports is the development of the lower tier professional leagues. Recently, the United Football League has become a prominent league during the spring in addition to the NBA G League and Minor League Baseball. Most of the players in these leagues are players who formerly played in the upper leagues. Promoting some of these strong teams from the lower leagues will give an opportunity to rising stars who otherwise would have never gotten a chance in the big leagues. Promoting these teams will allow a fresh new look for leagues and allow a wider fan base.
Incorporating lower leagues into the overall scope of big professional leagues will allow american sports to expand internationally. The NFL has already tried expanding their influence overseas by organizing games in Europe and South America. Lower professional leagues can have the flexibility to create new teams that are based in international locations. For example, instead of being affiliated with a NBA team, G League teams could expand to teamless cities like Seattle. This will allow fans from all over the world to become more involved in American sports.
Furthermore, lower league players have done more than enough that they are competent enough to create good competition for top professionals. According to Fox sports, 60% of UFL players were invited to NFL workouts last year and 78 individuals signed contracts on NFL teams. A prime example of success after promotion is kicker Brandon Aubrey who played on the Birmingham Stallions for two years before being signed by the Dallas Cowboys. Now, Aubrey is considered one of the best kickers in the league, making 95.8% of his total field goals including one from 65 yards. It’s not only in football: according to NBA.com, on opening night of the 2023 season, 50% of NBA rostered players had previously played in the G league. This proves the lower league players clearly have the competence to perform well at the higher level.
However, this relegation system would be a lot more feasible in non-tackle sports like basketball and baseball. This is because it can be dangerous for football players to face players that are much stronger and hit harder. If a whole UFL team gets promoted to the NFL, that team would most likely sustain a lot of injuries, as the players are not used to the speed and physicality of the NFL. This is one of the reasons the NFL does not allow college players to declare for the draft before they use up their college eligibility. Some people argue that superstars like 17 year old Ryan Williams should be drafted in the upcoming year, but the reality is it isn’t safe to allow such young players go up against full grown men. In contrast, promoting minor league teams in basketball and baseball can be safe and exciting for these teams. In basketball, it is a lot more common to see players get drafted into the NBA after only one year of college play. For example, in 2019, Zion Williamson was drafted first overall after only playing one year of college basketball at Duke. In basketball and baseball, young and developing athletes can still safely compete against their professional counterparts.
Considering that the NBA is a lot more fit for relegation, there are many teams in the NBA that are bad with little room to improve. For example, the Detroit Pistons have not won a playoff game since 2008 and have only achieved a winning record once in the past 16 seasons. They even set the record for most games lost in a row last season with 28. The Charlotte Hornets have also failed to win a playoff round since 2001. These teams stay persistently uncompetitive and it results in a large amount of blowout games. Allowing G League teams to separate from their NBA affiliates along with promoting some of them will allow teams like the Pistons to start winning games in the G League and rebuild properly without being destroyed every season.
The main argument against relegation is it financially impacts relegated teams too much, however there are many solutions to this problem. When a team gets relegated, they will receive a “parachute payment” from the league, which is a large sum of money given to cover a dip in player wages and TV broadcasting costs. Likewise, it would be included in player contracts that if their team got relegated, their salaries would go down. This is reasonable, because their poor performances were most likely the reason for their relegation. Players will be motivated to try harder in their games if they know their paycheck is on the line. In terms of game ticket scales, most loyal fans will rally behind their team regardless of relegation. If a fan is not loyal, they most likely would not support the team anyway if they were tanking at the bottom of the league.
In conclusion, relegation would create end of season excitement that american sports currently lack. It could redefine the meaning of competitiveness and resilience. As fans, we deserve to see players give it their all for the whole season. We deserve to have a system where every game counts.
