Let’s relegate bad teams out of US sports. It’s good business

We need more pain in American professional sports leagues – and by that, I mean financial hurt.

Maybe you didn’t know that much of the world makes their pro teams sweat to keep their status in top-tier leagues. What’s called “relegation” is an annual culling of the sporting herd.

Consider soccer’s English Premier League, for example. Every spring, the three worst of its 20 teams are booted out of one of the world’s top sports leagues.

Let me explain. As its season was recently winding down, the best Premier League teams competed for championships and qualification to continental playoffs.

The twist of relegation is that season-ending sports drama also played out in real-life “survival games” at the bottom of the Premier League standings. Clubs were fighting to avoid demotion to the second-tier league.

Now I know relegation seems almost un-American. Could you imagine your favorite team being cut from a major league?

But the intrigue surrounding these sporting demotions has become pop culture lore. Relegation was a common theme in the popular “Ted Lasso” comedy from Apple TV about an English soccer team and its quirky and overly-optimistic American coach.

The script had Lasso’s fictional team relegated out of the Premier League, then back in. But the fear of losing that lofty status was ever-present.

“The teams that get relegated, they can get un-relegated, yeah?” Lasso asked in one episode.

Is a bubble brewing for sports businesses?

That kind of pressure to produce is quite a contrast to America’s franchised pro sports. U.S. owners purchase eternal rights to play in the nation’s pre-eminent leagues governing football – the American kind and soccer, baseball, basketball, and hockey.

Yes, many U.S. sports teams choose the costly fight to battle for supremacy. But no fear of relegation translates to other franchises spending far less money and energy toward victory.

Worse, American sports actually nudge teams to play poorly. There’s too much guaranteed cash flow, win or lose, as well as curious incentives to be really bad.

Think about one way U.S. sports leagues try to keep play competitive. The weakest teams aren’t kicked out, rather they’re awarded better chances at acquiring the next generation of talent.

Relegation’s payoff

Imagine the entertainment value U.S. teams could create by using relegation.

There’s the excitement of a late-season rush for struggling major league teams to avoid getting sent to the minor leagues.

Then add to that buzz what’s happens in the league one notch below. That’s where top teams play to win promotion to the high-profile competition next season.

In English soccer, the top two teams from the second-tier Championship League automatically qualify to for an upgrade to the Premier League for next season. The next four teams in the standings compete to decide who gets the final coveted promotion to the Premier League.

In late May, Luton won that elevation by defeating Coventry in front of 85,700 fans at Wembley Stadium in London in a dramatic match that required overtime play and a six-round shootout.

Forget the cute storylines. “Luton returns to England’s top league after 32 years.” Or that only five years ago, the Hatters were playing fourth-tier soccer. Or that Luton’s 118-year-old home field seats only 10,000 – and will easily be the Premier League’s smallest venue.

This is a real business victory. Premier League is an estimated $200-plus million windfall each for Luton plus the two other promoted clubs – Burnley and Sheffield United – compared to remaining in the second-tier circuit.

And that cash was lost by the Leicester, Leeds and Southampton clubs – the trio relegated down to the Championship League for the 2023-24 season.

Thank the tank

In most businesses, you almost never profit by losing. Yet American sports owners can plot to reap the odd business perks of being a loser.

Sure, sports executives never admit to “tanking” – polite words for losing with purpose. However, some tanking teams shed talent. Others ignore tactical options. Or star athletes can be rested at key moments.

And tanking is bad for business as it spins fandom on its head. Team supporters actively argue whether a late-season victory is good news or a bad move, hurting chances to obtain high-end talent.

Tanking, sadly, is a real business tactic because losing can pay.

Note that the Dallas Mavericks were fined $750,000 by the National Basketball Association this spring for what was deemed “conduct detrimental to the league.”

The team sat key players at the season’s end so it could miss the playoffs and get a better draft choice.

Does losing win?

Look at the Anaheim Ducks, the National Hockey League’s worst club this past season.

That infamy got the team the best odds to win the first spot in the NHL’s annual talent draft. And this year’s selections include what observers say is a once-in-a-generation talent.

Ducks fans have suffered several years of horrible results. It’s a retooling bet that losses help the franchise acquire young players who’ll return the team to its  glory days.

Now this decline in the Ducks’ fortunes pains me, a season ticket holder since the team’s inception in 1993. And the Ducks actually “lost” the draft lottery despite favorable odds and will pick second.

So projected superstar Connor Bedard won’t be joining the Anaheim team.

Meanwhile, it seems Major League Baseball’s homestand in Oakland is over.

The A’s are having a historically bad season watched by stunningly few fans. The long-suffering franchise, known for incredibly cheap ownership, has alienated its supporters and local politicians. That indifference cut support for a new A’s ballpark in the city.

This mismanagement unfortunately may have won the A’s a relocation to Las Vegas. The team recently secured tentative deals with Nevada business partners and political leaders, deals that includes taxpayer assistance for a new stadium just off the Vegas Strip.

Bottom line

I know it’s fantasy to think relegation would ever come to an American sports system that’s so darn profitable for its wealthy team owners.

Obviously, there are no replacement teams. The lower-tier U.S. leagues are essentially training grounds for the major-league clubs – not competition for a coveted spot in the game’s top tier.

Still, this missing incentive to win is diluting the product. Regular season matches often lack passion. Teams frequently play just well enough to qualify for the playoffs. Then, sadly, competition begins in earnest.

And that modest motivation speaks only for the teams that dare to seriously compete. It’s too easy for pro sports organizations to accept mediocrity as a profitable strategy.

Or, as Ted Lasso said in the TV show when asked how no relegation impacted the weaker teams in America.

“They play out the rest of the schedule, going through the motions in meaningless games contested in lifeless, half-empty stadiums, and everyone’s pretty much fine with that.”

Jonathan Lansner is the business columnist for the Southern California News Group. He can be reached at [email protected]