What if, modeling soccer’s English Premier League—widely considered the most popular and commercially successful in the world—American professional sports adopted the relegation/promotion arrangement? That is the practice whereby the Premier League standings’ three bottom-feeders at the end of each season are demoted to a lower league and replaced for the next year by the lesser league’s top three finishers.
It is pretty much standard procedure throughout Europe, unheard-of on this side of The Pond, yet it appears part of a startling vision of Gianni Infantino, the 55-year-old Italian-Swiss president of soccer’s international federation. On something of a star turn in the U.S. as his sport’s Club World Cup and the regional Gold Cup tournaments unfold this month, Infantino has declared that, in “three to four, maximum five years,” soccer will be “top, top, top” among Yank sports fans. And that “one of the beauties of promotion and relegation” is that it results in “surprises…and the little one can beat the big one, right?”
He noted the success of Wrexham AFC, the Welsh team that has climbed into Americans’ awareness partly via back-to-back-to-back British league promotions—up from the country’s fifth tier of competition to one step short of the Premier League—but mostly known for being featured in the FX television series “Welcome to Wrexham” and for its free-spending owners, Canadian-American actor Ryan Reynolds and American actor, producer, writer Rob McIlhenney.
Could a Wrexham thing happen in the United States?
Based on last season’s NFL football standings, the three teams with the worst records—all 3-14—were the Cleveland Browns, Tennessee Titans and New York Giants. But, unlike Europe, there are no comparable pools of independent minor league teams that could be promoted to replace relegated teams. So even if the Giants, New York’s oldest grid franchise, were to be busted down to—let’s see, the combined USFL/XFL spring league?—would a logical replacement be the XFL’s St. Louis Battlehawks—currently winners of eight of 10 games? Or perhaps the Big Ten’s reigning national champion Ohio State Buckeyes?—whose facilities, finances and well-compensated stars clearly amount to a professional venture.
Here’s a related thought, just as buggy: What if there were relegation and promotion among college football conferences? Penn State up to the SEC; Mississippi State down to the three-team Pac 12.
Theoretically, the promotion/relegation system ensures more competitive urgency throughout the professional season right down to the struggling franchises. Instead of finding solace in receiving a high draft pick by continuing to lose, the failing clubs in a relegation set-up are motivated to avoid being kicked downstairs to a minor league, since that can knock a hole in broadcasting, sponsorship and attendance revenue. (And motivate the best players to seek an un-relegated home.)
The way American sports are organized, relegation surely would introduce financial instability for some teams. Consider even one season of the New York Giants sent to XFL/USFL purgatory. Similarly, wouldn’t the NBA’s Utah Jazz—winners of 21 percent of their games last season and therefore ticketed for a demotion the following season in a relegation scenario, lose significant spectator and financial commitments if forced into the NBA’s developmental G League against the likes of Osceola and Stockton?
The U.S. majors are built on a franchise model, tied to big cities, huge stadiums and arenas. Demoting the Chicago Black Hawks, who had the second worst record in the NHL this past season, and substituting the AHL’s first-place Laval Rockets representing a municipality of roughly 450,000 on the outskirts of Montreal—obviously would play havoc with perceptions of what is a “major league” city.
Especially since the Windy City’s lowly White Sox, whose 121 losses in 2024 set a modern MLB record for ineptness, also would be shipped out—to the International League or Pacific Coast League?—in a relegation framework. (Based on current standings, the White Sox apparently would relinquish their MLB home to the Lehigh Valley IronPigs or the Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp.)
So while the relegation landscape rewards success and punishes failure with a tiered league structure, the Yanks’ model focuses on maintaining the stability of franchises and balancing leagues through such mechanisms as free agency and the draft.
Upon sober reflection, and not to dismiss Gianni Infantino’s futuristic views, not everything about big-time sports translates from English (and European) to American. “Ultimately,” a 2016 Sports Illustrated report declared, “the likelihood of [U.S.] major leagues introducing promotion and relegation is about as likely as America joining most of the rest of the world in embracing soccer as its national sport.”