[emoji38]This is the biggest cultural divide I've ever encountered on here. This mindset is more difficult to understand than your accents.
The best team is the team left standing at the end. The season exists as preparation for the playoffs. That's all it's for, that's all it should ever be for. You don't make the playoffs, you learn from it and try to make them next year. That doesn't mean regular season games aren't incredibly important. They are; but not more than the playoffs.
I'm American and I think this is the most ridiculous opinion ever. Actually, the part in bold isn't an opinion - it's just an incorrect statement. And to say regular season games in US sports are "incredibly important" is a gross exaggeration. The only sport where this is true is college football, which still has its own issues. The NFL it's true for half the season and then there are an increasing number of pointless games. Don't get me started on the NHL and NBA regular seasons.
It's a great idea but it doesn't break up the hold the mega rich teams have over the league itself. They'll just spend even more and hoard even more players to avoid 4th. I'm not worried about the CL, parity in England will sort the CL out in time. Parity in your league will make it easily the strongest league. Massive do or die fixtures beyond what most of the other teams in Europe could ever dream of participating in makes the EPL stronger.
Hell, it might even improve your national team, ffs. Hardened English players knowing what it means to perform when it's all on the line year after year instead of on those infrequent occasions when they land a cup final.
Each team plays each other home and away. Absolutely no need for playoffs. The issue of mega rich teams won't be solved by giving them an extra half a dozen or so games which would no doubt add to their already bursting coffers.
But it solved it here. With 162 games, you could argue there's even less need for playoffs in baseball, but we've got them and it's possible for a (comparatively) poor team to topple the teams spending hundreds of millions of dollars. This is due to teams taking an active role in improving themselves year after year (which imo does not happen in the EPL. Most teams work to maintain the status quo) which spreads the top talent around, and affords more opportunities for talent to develop.
There isn't a need for playoffs in baseball (if they switched to a balanced schedule), but it's all about $$$. The baseball playoffs deliver the most random champion of any sport, even more so now with the WC games.
It's a great idea but it doesn't break up the hold the mega rich teams have over the league itself. They'll just spend even more and hoard even more players to avoid 4th. I'm not worried about the CL, parity in England will sort the CL out in time. Parity in your league will make it easily the strongest league. Massive do or die fixtures beyond what most of the other teams in Europe could ever dream of participating in makes the EPL stronger.
Hell, it might even improve your national team, ffs. Hardened English players knowing what it means to perform when it's all on the line year after year instead of on those infrequent occasions when they land a cup final.
Each team plays each other home and away. Absolutely no need for playoffs. The issue of mega rich teams won't be solved by giving them an extra half a dozen or so games which would no doubt add to their already bursting coffers.
But it solved it here. With 162 games, you could argue there's even less need for playoffs in baseball, but we've got them and it's possible for a (comparatively) poor team to topple the teams spending hundreds of millions of dollars. This is due to teams taking an active role in improving themselves year after year (which imo does not happen in the EPL. Most teams work to maintain the status quo) which spreads the top talent around, and affords more opportunities for talent to develop.
They don't play each other the same amount of times, do they? Do each team play all of the others at all?
There are two leagues. AL and NL. Every AL team plays each other an absolutely ungodly amount of times, and (I think) each division in the AL plays of the teams in a single division from the other league plus any local rival. This is relatively recent. Teams from the AL and NL never used to play at all unless they met in the World Series.
So you've got all the AL teams going head to head over and over again, but we've still got playoffs and no one is upset.
The schedule isn't balanced within the league let alone out of the league. This is true for all four major sports because of divisions and conferences. It's fine because there are playoffs, but for the millionth time - there is nothing more fair for declaring a champion than the format of the Premier League. Financial imbalance is a completely different topic.
Cracking post.
