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| Sports Expansion... | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Mar 2 2011, 08:12 PM (732 Views) | |
| Scrooge McSuck | Mar 2 2011, 08:12 PM Post #1 |
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I'll get you next time, toilet!
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Don't know how to start this topic, or how to focus myself in a way to make it seem like I make sense, but short and simply, which of the "big four" sports seems likely to expand past North America and create a true "world" competition in a league? We see random games from the NHL, NBA, MLB, and NFL being held overseas during the regular seasons, but will there ever be a day when an entire divisions' worth of teams will come across the world and create a more global experience? Automatically, I have to eliminate the NFL. Outside of of america, "American Football" isn't played much. Lest we forget how terrible NFL Europe was. NBA is pretty much in the same boat in the realms of not happening in my eyes, not because of a lack of interest, but because of a serious lack of talent to get it off the ground without serious over-saturation. The NBA has enough trouble fielding competitive teams in the states, thanks to superstar tandoms. Imagine having to add 6 teams in Europe and needing to transfer american talent there to make teams competitive. NHL seems like an obvious yes, because it's a world-wide sport, but te NHL seems to have lockout problems every 5-6 years, and have thus killed a huge american fanbase, but hockey is still loved everywhere else (that's a hockey playing nation, of course). Hell, wipe out a lot of existing teams like the Islanders, Coyotes, Blue Jackets etc., bring back more teams to canada for their own division, and go from there. Finally, MLB. World-wide, talent comes all over the place, although I'm sure it's safe to say that most of the sustained international talent comes from Latin America. The main problem other than the obvious road trip lengths would be sheduling games. It's already a bitch with the unbalanced schedule now. Then try shuffling things around to create new international teams and it becomes more hecic. |
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| Erick Von Erich | Mar 3 2011, 09:26 AM Post #2 |
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I'm Big E and I tell it like it is
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Not a hockey fan at all, but I agree: NHL would be the easiest to expand. I think it'd actually improve the sport's appeal to North American fans if it was truly global. It's played in the entire Northern Hemisphere. For years (this year included), Denver fans have been hearing about how Peter Forsberg's been dicking around in Sweden. Instead of wasting American fans' time; like he did this year with his latest "comeback"; just stay and play a few games over in Sweden. MLB I'd like to see go global, but the logistics will make it difficult. It's basically a Western Hemisphere sport; with Japan, Korea, etc being the exceptions. I remember Dave Nilson came from Australia, but is there really a baseball scene down under? I'm not asking sarcastically, I'm curious. The WBC teams of Italy, South Africa, etc are a joke. So keep it free of Europe and Africa (at least initially) and it'll be okay. For both MLB and NHL global expansion you couldn't have teams go on long road trips for 3-4 weeks to hit the other countries. So put them in separate divisions. Just like how the AL and NL existed separately until 1997. Whether that ends up being 2 or 4 divisions; well, they'll have to work that out. Maybe they only meet in the postseason? That wouldn't be so bad. Baseball expansion idea: -North American divsion (US, Canada and Mexico) -South American division (Central America, Caribbean and South America) -Eastern division (Japan, Korea, Taiwan) -"World" division (everybody else, but I presume it could end being something like "European"). If it starts to suck, do something like English soccer does. They basically have different levels of competition. If your team's bad ass, they're in the "premier league". If they suck, they're lower. The neat thing about this is that teams can move up OR down, depending on how they perform. So for instance, the MLB premier league would have the Yankees, Phillies, Twins, White Sox, Red Sox, Rays, Giants, Rockies, etc. In that bunch, teams that would have recently moved up would be the Rays, Rockies and Giants. And yes, the Pirates would have been in the premier league in the early 90's; being kicked down at the end of the 1994 season. I figure you have two seasons to make sure the first losing season wasn't a fluke. |
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5:31 PM Jul 10