Would a transfer system work for North American sports?

[Karim]

I've often wondered about this question and in light of the Beckham transfer I think it's an appropriate time to ask.

The only league that is even contemplating it is the NHL. I heard a reporter ask the commissioner about potentially a "soccer system" for the new CBA, but naturally Betman evaded the question.

As a supporter of small-market teams generally, I've hated seeing stars and favourite players leave as they become too expensive. They eventually leave outright or get traded for cheaper prospects who may never develop.

If, however, substantial money was coming into the team instead of prospects, it is arguable that the revenue could be used to resign players who otherwise would also be gone or to attract free agents who wouldn't even consider signing with your team.

A small-market team can get richer at the expense of possibly winning in the short term, while a large-market team can field its team of superstars which is still no guarantee of winning.

The best example I can think of of a team that would have thrived under such a system would be the Expos. They've developed substantial players over the years only to see them depart. If huge money was coming in for guys like Walker, Grissom, Alou, Wetland, and Martinez, the organization would be in great shape today.

So would a transfer system work for the NFL, MLB, NBA or NHL? Has soccer provided a significant case study for why this would or would not work?

[VPI97]

Excuse my ignorance of soccer, but isn't a transfer just like trading cash for a player with a no-trade clause? One team gets the player, the other gets cash (aka tranfer fee) and the player has the right to nix the deal if he doesn't like what his potential team says about a change in contract terms or a contract extension.

Realistically, the Expos didn't have to trade all those players away for prospects, they could have traded them for cash under the current system.

[Axxon]

Originally posted by VPI97
Excuse my ignorance of soccer, but isn't a transfer just like trading cash for a player with a no-trade clause? One team gets the player, the other gets cash (aka tranfer fee) and the player has the right to nix the deal if he doesn't like what his potential team says about a change in contract terms or a contract extension.

Realistically, the Expos didn't have to trade all those players away for prospects, they could have traded them for cash under the current system.

Not exactly, the player has to agree to a contract with the new team or no deal. It gives him more leverage in the deal and it's not a simple extension situation.

[MIJB#19]

The transfer system in the soccer world is changing by the year, so far it has always favoured the richer teams.
Free agents are still free agents and the team losing the player will get not a single cent.
The best players on the small-market teams will always leave to richer teams.

The best players always end up playing in Italy, Spain or maybe England, no matter where they come from.
The second tier players will go to Germany or France.
The third group will end up in Holland, Portugal, maybe Scotland, Greece, Turkey or Belgium. (Or stay in Brazil if they're Brazilian.)

Leaguewise, the same system applies.
For example, in Italy Milan AC and Juventus will always get the best players in Italy.
Lazio, Inter, Roma and maybe Parma get the second group.
Other teams will always see their best players leave and be replaced by new talents or over the top veterans.

[Dutch]

Why Italy, Spain, and England in the 1st and Germany and France in the second?

Is it because France and Germany fill out there teams better with national talent?

[Katon]

No, it's because the Italian, Spanish, and English leagues are where all the money is. Most of the French national team actually plays for Arsenal in England. And for a few other English/Spanish/Italian teams as well.

[Karim]

The transfer system in the soccer world is changing by the year, so far it has always favoured the richer teams. Free agents are still free agents and the team losing the player will get not a single cent. The best players on the small-market teams will always leave to richer teams.

I understand that free agents and better players will head to richer teams.

My thought is that if a small-market team can develop talent, those players under contract could be sold for greats amount of cash thereby increasing the long-term stability of the organization. A rich team would actually spend less money to get a player from a poor team than from another large-market team.

Let's say the Dodgers who have no offense pay the Blue Jays $25 million for Carlos Delgado. Toronto suffers in the short term offensively and probably at the gate. However, that money could bolster their pitching staff which is the weakness on the team.

I don't know. It seems like a good system to me. Maybe the difference is the number of teams we're talking about. North American leagues have around 30 teams with a minimal talent pool as compared to soccer.

[rexallllsc]

I dunno about transfer...but I think a relegation system might work...

[ISiddiqui]

Not with a draft it (relegation) wouldn't :D.

[SunDancer]

Remeber, Soccer consists thousands of teams, thousand of leagues all over the world. In the NHL and MLB, the entire minor league system would have to be revamp, losing the affilation with parent teams for it to work. With European leagues and clubs in hockey and Asian and Latin American Clubs in Baseballs, it could work.

But how is it differenet from American teams. While teams get money for talent, I would think they would use the money to pay the debts, not neccessary spend it on talent.

[EagleFan]

If you go with a tranfer system that you would almost certainly have to restructure with some sort of relegation system. If you don't restructure than it could get even worse.

If set up properly it could work well, especially with something like baseball.

Have your 'major league consist of about 20 teams and then structure downward from there. Allowing for relegation for teams and such. This would eliminate the draft and minor league affiliations. It would also add the possibility that your local mionor league team could some day be playing better teams and theorhetically have a chane to one day become a major league team.

I only say go with this because I know that there is no realistic way it will ever go back to what it once was, which would be my first choice.

[TroyF]

No thanks. I'll pass.

TroyF

[Craptacular]

I honestly have no idea how big the crowds and stadiums are for European soccer, or who owns the stadiums. However, I don't think you'd see Detroit or Milwaukee, etc, build $300M stadiums for teams that might get relegated to the minor leagues.

edit: To continue that thought, what happens when a minor league team with a stadium that holds a few thousand gets elevated to the big leagues?

[stkelly52]

The other problem with relegation in MLB is how would you develop players? Without a draft, all of the good college players would be picked up for big contracts by the Yankies. The only way to get some of them is to pick them up out of high school and hope that they develop into great players, but without a minor leage to develop your players, they will never properly hone their skills.

[sterlingice]

Originally posted by MIJB#19
The transfer system in the soccer world is changing by the year, so far it has always favoured the richer teams.
Free agents are still free agents and the team losing the player will get not a single cent.
The best players on the small-market teams will always leave to richer teams.

In other words, nothing would change at all. The A's would still be pretty good because they spend their money well and wouldn't transfer until they had to. The Orioles would still suck because they can't spend the money well. And then there are those shades of grey inbetween where there are a lot of teams who spend quite a bit of their money well but don't have a lot of it (Twins) or who have tons of money but don't spend it all that well (Dodgers).

Then again, this will never ever ever ever happen in baseball: MLBPA.

SI

[Karim]

I agree that the transfer system works best with the sheer number of teams in soccer.

Why is it that in NA the leagues are so reluctant (esp. the NHL) to allow cash transfers of the sort of sums we're talking about?

[EagleFan]

Originally posted by stkelly52
The other problem with relegation in MLB is how would you develop players? Without a draft, all of the good college players would be picked up for big contracts by the Yankies. The only way to get some of them is to pick them up out of high school and hope that they develop into great players, but without a minor leage to develop your players, they will never properly hone their skills.

Not if your talking roster limits. They wouldn't risk signing a player that is still years away from making an impact over a star player that will help them win now.

[JHandley]

Transfer rules work for the rest of the world because there is simply no other way to disperse talent. How would a world-wide draft work, would you limit the clubs a player could play for to simply which country he was born in? Who would get the first pick, who would get the last? How many rounds?

Likewise, what leads you to believe that implementing a transfer system in the NA major sports would fix the problems? As was already mentioned, in Europe, the rich stay rich and the poor stay poor. As realistic as CM is, it is still a game and a game that was made to be fun and give players the opportunity to lead their teams from the lower leagues to competing for Champions League year in and year out. The reality is, rich teams can make mistakes and poor teams can't. Same as a trading system.

[daedalus]

I don't know that the transfer system would work as well.

But I'd dearly LOVE to see the relegation system. Owners like Donald Sterling and Carl Pohlad have no business leeching off other teams like they do.

[andy m]

Originally posted by daedalus
But I'd dearly LOVE to see the relegation system. Owners like Donald Sterling and Carl Pohlad have no business leeching off other teams like they do.

relegation is not the way to fix this. changing the bizarre revenue sharing system is the starting point, so that owners don't get paid money for having empty stadiums. accountability is where it's at.

[QuikSand]

I dunno... conceptually, how different are the two systems?

The inherent value of young players or prospects in most American sports is that they can be productive while playing for less than market value (in dollar or salary cap terms). Isn't that basically the same thing as money?

I know that there is more uncertainty involved, but it all boils down to capital. Cash is more liquid, but aren't we just proxying "value" in the various deals that we make around here? If the Ravens trade a player and get a draft pick, couldn't they then use that draft pick to trade to get another player? Isn't it essentially just like cash in that respect, just a bit less convertible?

[MIJB#19]

The biggest difference is that in the USA, players grow from High School teams to College teams, to pro sports teams.

Looking at how it goes in the Netherlands (I realise things might differ a bit abroad) the global example below applies.

In the soccer world, players grow up at amature teams, independent of schools.
Bigger teams in a region scout for talent and get them.
Bigger teams in a bigger region scout for talent and get them.
etc...
Pro team scouts for talent and get them to sign a contract or join youth teams.

Remember that in the soccer world, most of the stars today have been scouted by pro clubs in their home countries before they turned 12!
Teams develop their own talent and sell them to the richest teams (unless they are there already and are loaned away to smaller teams to develop into the last step to see themselves get "cut"(out of contract) or sold for a relative small amount.)

I guess the system performing sports in a school based team or a local club based system makes the big difference in how talent develops and is acquired by pro sports teams.

[MIJB#19]

Originally posted by Dutch
Why Italy, Spain, and England in the 1st and Germany and France in the second?

Is it because France and Germany fill out there teams better with national talent?
Originally posted by Katon
No, it's because the Italian, Spanish, and English leagues are where all the money is. Most of the French national team actually plays for Arsenal in England. And for a few other English/Spanish/Italian teams as well.
Well, Katon's explaination is legit, however my idea to put France and Germany on the second list is because star players seem to prefer Italy, Spain and England.

Though, the money in Germany (they have potentially a btter market the the top3) is good, somehow Germany and France are not so popular.
I don't know why, it just is that way.

In the end (looking at European cup competitions) the German and French league are more competitive as the talent is more spread and more teams have good players.

Basically, the top5 in Ita/Spa/Eng are much better then the top5 in Fra/Ger.
However, the teams around 7-last in Fra/Ger are muh better then those in Ita/Spa/Eng.

At least, that's what I've seen the past 10 years...

[ISiddiqui]

But I'd dearly LOVE to see the relegation system. Owners like Donald Sterling and Carl Pohlad have no business leeching off other teams like they do.

The problem is which teams would get promoted? And if teams would get promoted, then you couldn't have the minors being owned by the majors. You really can't have two major league teams owned by the same guy and one being a farm team for the other (even though the Marlins after they won their WS wanted to be a farm team for the entire league ;)).

That, and who would pay the high sums of money to be a major league team if they were going to get relegated?

[daedalus]

Originally posted by andy m
relegation is not the way to fix this. changing the bizarre revenue sharing system is the starting point, so that owners don't get paid money for having empty stadiums. accountability is where it's at.

I agree that revenue sharing would need to be fixed. But I think having a relegation-type system *would* fix the idea of owners getting money for having empty stadiums. As an example, Donald Sterling is getting major money every season from the NBA for being *in* the NBA, regardless of whether his team has HEARD of the Conference Final or think the NBA season really ends after 81 regular season games. On the other hand, if his team was relegated to, say, the CBA and getting *their* TV money instead (heh), then I think he would certainly be more "motivated" to either do something about his team playing more than 81 games per season or at least get out of the business.

The problem is which teams would get promoted? And if teams would get promoted, then you couldn't have the minors being owned by the majors. You really can't have two major league teams owned by the same guy and one being a farm team for the other (even though the Marlins after they won their WS wanted to be a farm team for the entire league :)).

That, and who would pay the high sums of money to be a major league team if they were going to get relegated?

My opinion is . . . 1) make the big league a few teams smaller and then 2) combine the 3 AAA leagues into 2 and promote, say, 2 from each. In a relegation/promotion system, you wouldn't have a definite relationship system between mother club and minor league any longer in any case.

[ISiddiqui]

In a relegation/promotion system, you wouldn't have a definite relationship system between mother club and minor league any longer in any case.

And that's exactly the problem. The majors ain't gonna be giving up control of their teams any time soon :D.

Second, which city is going to build a decent stadium for a team that could end up relegating? In Europe, you have local teams that have rabid fans. Here, if you don't make the playoffs suddenly, your stadium is half empty! It'd be a disaster! And I'm not sure how I'd like having Newark or Columbus, GA, or Thisplacesucks in the major leagues.

I mean it works very well in Europe, because that was how they started out. I don't think you can go back again.