1GregStewart Posted February 9 Share Posted February 9 The real issue isn’t the format or how many times teams play each other. The real issue is it isn’t competitive, that’s what’s boring. Look at the American sports and how many different winners there are. Teams fluctuate all the time as it’s a competitive set up. Golden state warriors won the nba, and this season they are toiling in the bottom half of the league. Thats what sport is all about. Not the stitched up closed shop crap we are served up. imagine entering a league that you know you will never have a remote chance of winning in your entire life! Sounds great eh 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Central Belt Caley Posted February 9 Share Posted February 9 16 minutes ago, RandomGuy. said: I dunno, tbh, it would definitely hinge on how big you want the top flight to be. Just now the Championship can churn through a fair number of teams and switch up a lot with some "bigger" teams both dropping into it and down out of it. Making 2 top divisions of 16 clubs would be brutal and after 5/6 years people would be bored of it too. Definitely do get your point and that’s the beauty of the championship, I think only Morton have been consistently in the league with us since we came down, everyone else has had a period in the premiership or the seaside. Playing 4 times a season does get on my tits though even going back to our top league days. It’s a double edged sword though really Current setup: Play more games against the same teams, tighter leagues so less meaningless games. Bigger leagues: Play more teams less often (albeit those teams less likely to change as much) and bigger leagues lead to more meaningless games. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trackdaybob Posted February 9 Share Posted February 9 10 minutes ago, VincentGuerin said: At the moment we have a genuine title race No really. One of brand bigots 'winning' every season makes it pretty much irrelevant whether its won tomorrow, next month or on the final day. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VincentGuerin Posted February 9 Share Posted February 9 Just now, Central Belt Caley said: Definitely do get your point and that’s the beauty of the championship, I think only Morton have been consistently in the league with us since we came down, everyone else has had a period in the premiership or the seaside. Playing 4 times a season does get on my tits though even going back to our top league days. It’s a double edged sword though really Current setup: Play more games against the same teams, tighter leagues so less meaningless games. Bigger leagues: Play more teams less often (albeit those teams less likely to change as much) and bigger leagues lead to more meaningless games. If I'm paying the thick end of thirty quid a pop to watch this shite, then I want there to be something riding on the game. I honestly think an 18-team league would gradually lead to a drop in crowds. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VincentGuerin Posted February 9 Share Posted February 9 1 minute ago, Trackdaybob said: No really. One of brand bigots 'winning' every season makes it pretty much irrelevant whether its won tomorrow, next month or on the final day. You can choose to care which of them wins it or not. But the fact remains you have that choice. There is competition in every part of the league. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dons_1988 Posted February 9 Share Posted February 9 3 minutes ago, 1GregStewart said: The real issue isn’t the format or how many times teams play each other. The real issue is it isn’t competitive, that’s what’s boring. Look at the American sports and how many different winners there are. Teams fluctuate all the time as it’s a competitive set up. Golden state warriors won the nba, and this season they are toiling in the bottom half of the league. Thats what sport is all about. Not the stitched up closed shop crap we are served up. imagine entering a league that you know you will never have a remote chance of winning in your entire life! Sounds great eh American sports usually are literally a closed shop though, no? Not to disregard you point at all. We suffer here (and every league in Europe other than one or two) from having a sort of continental pyramid system where domestic leagues have a vested interest in their teams doing well in the big European competitions. If we had a different league winner every season with varying degrees of even worse performances in Europe than at present then the coefficient drops and we effectively get shut out from the uefa scraps. This is the reality that no one ever says, our clubs are perfectly content letting the OF prop up the coefficient during good times and riding the wave. Aberdeen and hearts have done just that. American sports tend to be one closed shop league where none of these incentives exist therefore a genuine competition is fundamental to what they’re putting up. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Molotov Posted February 9 Share Posted February 9 24 minutes ago, VincentGuerin said: You can argue the quality is shite, but it's not boring. What is boring is the most lucrative league in the world. Barclays. I watched a great game midweek between two sides St Mirren and Dundee in tough conditions. It was highly entertaining. End to end. Plenty of chances. Good football and lots to discuss post match (shite officials and Combe the cnut). Football played by top clubs like Man City bore me to tears. Earlier today I heard that Everton are 16-1 to win tomorrow at the Etihad with one bookie. That’s an incredible difference and shows the gulf between the sides. Aside from when playing the OF we do tend to get very competitive games. I honestly don’t understand why OF fans get any enjoyment from watching their teams win every fcuking week domestically. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ICTChris Posted February 9 Share Posted February 9 American sports like the NBA or NFL are not viable comparisons with any football league, certainly not in Scotland. They are closed, as noted above, they have salary caps of varying 'hardness' - the NFL salary cap is a strict cap, I think the baseball and basketball caps have a bit more leeway though. They have a draft system which allows new players coming into the league to be distributed to the teams who have had poorer seasons. There are no transfer fees, the contracts are held centrally with the league rather than with individual clubs. This is possible because all these sports are a closed system - they don't have any real competitors. There are other basketball leagues that are decent standard but none approaching the NBA; there is Canadian football leagues and NFL Europe but it's light years away from the NFL; with baseball you have Asian leagues but hte top players from there gravitate to the MLB. The system works because there isn't some competitor league to lure away top quarterbacks from getting drafted by the Bears or some other pish. None of this could ever translate to any European league, Scottish or otherwise. The circumstances are just too different, in ways that are too numerous to go into. For example - players (with very rare exceptions Hi John Elway and Eli Manning) accept they are getting drafted by teams that are the worst in the league as that's the way it works and it doesn't really hinder them that much, not really. The equivelent would be a top young player in Scotland having to to Elgin City instead of Celtic - obviously Elgin are part-time, they don't have as good coaches, they don't have as good facilites, they won't be able to pay the same. It would kill their career, really. Now, whoever gets drafted first in the NFL this year will go to the Bears, who've been pish for a few years, but they will have the same pay, play at great facilities and have a real shot. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ranaldo Bairn Posted February 9 Share Posted February 9 31 minutes ago, VincentGuerin said: If I'm paying the thick end of thirty quid a pop to watch this shite, then I want there to be something riding on the game. I honestly think an 18-team league would gradually lead to a drop in crowds. Probably the number one reason why we binned it in 1974. I would never want to go back to that (not that I was aware of the SFL in 1974) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DiegoDiego Posted February 9 Share Posted February 9 3 hours ago, Shadow Play said: I wonder what an old Soviet league table actually looked like? Thanks to the information superhighway, these things are at your fingertips. 6 Russian clubs, 6 Ukrainian, and 1 each from Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Belarus and Armenia. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shadow Play Posted February 9 Share Posted February 9 51 minutes ago, DiegoDiego said: Thanks to the information superhighway, these things are at your fingertips. 6 Russian clubs, 6 Ukrainian, and 1 each from Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Belarus and Armenia. Can I push my luck and ask for one in English please?…….. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DiegoDiego Posted February 9 Share Posted February 9 Yes, you may. In order: CSKA Mos Spartak Mos Torpedo Mos Chernomorets Odessa Dynamo Kiev Dynamo Mos Ararat Yerevan Dinamo Minsk Dnepr Dnepropetrovsk Pamir Dushanbe Spartak Vladikavkaz Shakhtar Donetsk Metallurg Zaporozhe Pakhtakor Tashkent Metallurg Kharkov Lokomotiv Mos 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Valentino Bolognese Posted February 9 Share Posted February 9 How about 6 relegation / promotion places? Would be absolute carnage, and cascade it down the divisions / pyramid for maximum team churn. As it's the internet I feel compelled to point out this isn't really serious. Might be fun though. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clangers Posted February 9 Share Posted February 9 6 minutes ago, Valentino Bolognese said: How about 6 relegation / promotion places? Would be absolute carnage, and cascade it down the divisions / pyramid for maximum team churn. As it's the internet I feel compelled to point out this isn't really serious. Might be fun though. Wow that would be crazy, actually love the idea. We are looking like a Down-Up-Down as it is! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Black_and_White_Stripes Posted February 9 Share Posted February 9 I love our league. It is relatively unspoiled by money. It's exciting enough, the league's usually tight enough that most games are meaningful. Only our last game of the season was a meaningless game last campaign. This year we've almost met our our first objective, to finish top-six, and then it's to push on and achieve fourth position, and a place in Europe. The quality fluctuates, but we have five (or six) international players and have produced some outstanding moments of real quality over the last few years. I don't think you will see a better goal than this: Okay, that's not an SPL game - for that see his one against Rangers. Or O'Hara's goal at Ibrox last year. I think folk moan about our league unnecessarily. Maybe it's that my club's riding the crest of a wave just now, but I'm quite happy with things as they are. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raidernation Posted February 10 Share Posted February 10 The problem is, as far as I see it, is that the European “Super League(s)” will end up like American franchised sport wher no “Major League” can ever get “relegated” as that might “dilute the brand” 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HibeeJibee Posted February 10 Share Posted February 10 Part of the issue are the unresolvable tensions in what people want. They don't want to play more than twice, as it's boring - but it means having to expand to 18 or 20, as otherwise you only get 26 or 30 games. (Different splits or new cups don't work as well - and anyway they're boring). Expanding to 18 or 20 then means a large mid-table and a weak Championship - which are boring. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DiegoDiego Posted February 10 Share Posted February 10 31 minutes ago, HibeeJibee said: Part of the issue are the unresolvable tensions in what people want. They don't want to play more than twice, as it's boring - but it means having to expand to 18 or 20, as otherwise you only get 26 or 30 games. (Different splits or new cups don't work as well - and anyway they're boring). Expanding to 18 or 20 then means a large mid-table and a weak Championship - which are boring. Apertira/clausura system (kinda) solves that. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tamba_trio Posted February 10 Share Posted February 10 5 hours ago, Raidernation said: The problem is, as far as I see it, is that the European “Super League(s)” will end up like American franchised sport wher no “Major League” can ever get “relegated” as that might “dilute the brand” The SPFL is already like that. Celtic and Rangers are never, ever, ever going to be relegated. Ever. Look at the league winners for the past 35 years. The SPFL is the most shuttered down and closed shop of any closed shop in the history of closed shops. It's weird - Scotland is a relatively socialist country yet our sport is totally, major capitalist. America is crazy right wing yet their sport is practically communism. I'm all for 32 teams, split into 8 divisions regionally, a mix of fixtures that vary from year to year, live games on free to air, revenue sharing, salary caps and Playoffs to decide the champion. Sportsound would spontaneously combust. It would be great fun. -1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RandomGuy. Posted February 10 Share Posted February 10 12 minutes ago, tamba_trio said: I'm all for 32 teams, split into 8 divisions regionally, a mix of fixtures that vary from year to year, live games on free to air, revenue sharing, salary caps and Playoffs to decide the champion. Sportsound would spontaneously combust. It would be great fun. And Celtic or Rangers would still win every year. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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