Why promotion and relegation can't work in Australia

On this site, and on many forums around on the various football codes of Australia, there is one subject that keeps rearing its ugly head: promotion and relegation from top-tier leagues.

Now, yes, there is an argument that many of the codes need to expand to grow, and there are often more areas demanding a new team than there are spots in the top level for a sustainable competition. And therein lies the problem: sustainable.

Nowhere in the world is there such a competitive market for running open field ball sports as we have here.

Australians love sport, and the various codes provide for differing tastes for people who prefer differing balances between stamina, physicality, skills of the feet, and skills of the hand.

England has about 51 million odd people, mostly mad for the one sport. Yes, union and league have their strongholds, with union having more player numbers while league is more or less on par in top-flight attendance figures with union. But the disparity between “football” and these two is more akin to putting Australian Rules football up against basketball in Australia.

The level of interest, TV ratings, and therefore money simply dwarfs the other two.

In most of the large countries, if people want to watch an open field ball running game, there is only one sport that people are interested in at the high money-generating level. Just ask 80 million Germans, 48 million Koreans, 120 million Japanese, 160 million Brazilians and one billion Chinese.

The only place that even part-way resembles our own environment is the USA. However, they only have one ball running game. And a population of 310 million, you can throw a dart at a USA map and you’ll probably find five cities within 500km that have populations larger than most of our own major state capitals.

But the USA premium sports market is as competitive as ours with four major sports, NFL, NBA, NHL and MLB. And they recognise that in such a competitive environment, closed franchises are the only way they can sustain their growth.

Is it a co-incidence that the only other league in the world with a salary cap is the Major League Soccer?

Here in Australia we have a population of only 23 million, divided between four field-ball sports. In such condensed marketplace, long-term strategies are needed to sustain each individual sport’s growth. Every code needs to hang onto all their individual “franchises” that they can get their hands on.

You can’t put down to pot-luck the survival of any team. Any team can have an off year, sending them plummeting to the bottom of the table. Just look at the Gold Coast Titans.

While mismanagement has resulted in debts because of the centre of “excellence”, the NRL had to draw up contingency plans, with the bottom of the list being the rebooting of a new Gold Coast incarnation all together.

They have not even entertained the thought of walking away because the region is too important strategically. Expansion areas can be lost in a time-frame even shorter than they took to set up. Kick GWS out of the competition, see what that does for AFL planning.

More importantly, what if a club of strength is lost to the top-flight? Take the Broncos out of the NRL, Collingwood from the AFL, Melbourne Victory out of the A-League or the Reds or Waratahs out of the Super Rugby. In any of those individual circumstances, the CEO of the three other codes will be doing cartwheels down the street.

It could cripple those codes. How do you think that would affect TV rights dollars? And don’t kid yourself into thinking that a second level competition is sustainable in any sport.

Too many people will be disenfranchised, and without their team in the top flight, they can just pick any other team in any other code. Just ask the supporters of the North Sydney Bears.

I know this is only anecdotal, but my girlfriend’s Dad was a Bears fan. He now only watches union. Only a handful of hardy souls will follow their team down. One season with next to zero gate-receipts and sponsorship revenue will finish most clubs off.

And one more thing that makes relegation completely incompatible with Australian sports: salary caps. In such a tight marketplace, code administrators cannot take the risk of a top-heavy uncompetitive competition.

So salary caps (and the AFL’s draft) are needed to allow the have-nots to have a chance of competing with the haves. Salary caps are necessary here. And so if relegation was instigated, a team is better off lingering between second and second last, rather than risk coming first. Salary caps punish success, and in-turn relegation punishes the unsuccessful.

The sport that most naturally would be pre-disposed to relegation is soccer. And even Bin Hammam’s Asian football Confederation has hassled the FFA in the past that they need to instigate this.

But Buckley, Lowy and the FFA have resisted. Picture an A-League with no Sydney FC, or Brisbane Roar, or even Adelaide or Perth. They know that there is simply too much to lose.

In summary, promotion and relegation in Australia just won’t work. If you want to torpedo the strategic plans of any one code in our ultra-competitive football environment, then this is the perfect way to do so.