Sports law professor and author Stephen Ross explains why international soccer's league system helps make it the world's game.
Q: How does the system work for leagues abroad? A: There are 20 teams in England's Premier League, for example. Every year, the bottom three teams in the league drop out and go down to another 20-team league called the Championship League, and the top three teams in the Championship League are promoted.
Q: What impact would such a system have on the way U.S. teams are managed? A: The principal effect is that perennial losers would have to improve. The Detroit Lions are a classic example. Under our proposal, that team would not be crummy. As much as I hate to say it because he's a Penn State grad, they would have fired Matt Millen years ago. And if the replacement general manager failed, the owners would have fired him in six months, because the team can't afford to be relegated. No question, Lions fans would be better off with this system.
Q: Major League Baseball has its minor league system, but what could the National Football League use as a second tier? A: You're talking about creating a new league. One interesting way that our proposal might get implemented, as we have suggested, is that if the upstart United Football League actually becomes successful, rather than have it heat up into a salary bidding war - as happened with the old AFL and NFL, or with the USFL and NFL - the UFL would just agree to become second tier to the National Football League. And the obvious increase in value of its franchises, which would now be playing for a chance to get into the NFL, would be huge.