Major League Soccer commissioner Don Garber sensationally hinted the league could be set for a major overhaul in the future and introduce the prospect of promotion and relegation, as the league prepares to launch a new era bankrolled by Apple.
Much like all other major sporting leagues in North America, there is no relegation in MLS, with the league operating under a closed shop format. The National Football League, National Basketball Association and Major League Baseball all operate the same way, with the lack of risk involved attractive to owners when it comes time to invest hundreds of millions of dollars.
The doomed European Super League was viewed with distain by European fans due to the proposals following the same format, but it has worked in North America. However, that could all be about to change before too long.
Speaking to Mirror Football, Garber indicated he wasn't against the idea of revamping the league to include relegation to lower leagues, but first the lower leagues need to be built up.
Major League Soccer is expected to announce a 30th team later this year - most likely in Las Vegas or San Diego - but changes are needed in the feeder leagues before the prospect of relegation can be introduced. Speaking at the official MLS season launch in New York this week, Garber explained: "The league needs to be larger for all the reasons that make sense.
"Not the least that we're trying to grow the connectivity of a professional league in a market/environment when you don't have to worry about that in any other country in the world. I'll be in Germany in the end of March, their football scene has been there for 100 years. We're creating it a new.
"We're doing it without promotion and relegation. You can't ask someone like Carolyn [Kindle] and her family to invest $700million and then find out if they have a bad year you might be playing in a league that can't provide the opportunity that MLS can. By the way, that may change at some point a generation from now.
"I do believe the league will be 30 teams, we want to get there and announced by the end of the year. We don't have any plans to go beyond that, but the other major leagues in the US and Canada are 30 or larger.
"Once we decided we want to expand the league to cover the geography of the US and Canada there's no reason we shouldn't go larger, but no plans for that yet. There are a lot of big cities in this country that don't have teams.
"I say that not knowing, but I live in a world where there's never a time for 'never'. Who knows what the world is going to look like?" He added: "I do think the ecosystem of professional soccer is evolving, but we're a long way away from what exists in the rest of the football-playing world. We're a long way away from that.
"In order to have promotion/relegation you have to have the ecosystem in the pro game that can support it. That doesn't exist today, but who knows what will happen in the future? I've given up trying to predict where soccer in North America can go because it's over-delivered on all our expectations."
