Major League Soccer is coming off of its greatest ever season, and with the league set to expand to a record 20 teams in the 2015 season it appears poised to become a major fixture in the American sporting lexicon. After a record-setting World Cup in 2014, the nation truly fell in love with the game of soccer for the first time, and MLS reaped the rewards.

On the whole, league crowds averaged more than 19,000 spectators per game and more and more people in the United States are taking a vested interest in Major League Soccer. An ESPN poll released in the spring of 2014 showed that among kids aged 12 to 17 years old, MLS was tied for the third most popular sport in the United States, even with Major League Baseball and only trailing the National Football and National Basketball Leagues

In the last two weeks, Italian National Team manager Antonio Conte remarked on the growing stature of the league, saying "In a few years players will elbow each other to go there. [MLS] will grow so much, and not just in terms of chatter. According to the latest surveys young Americans between six and 12 years old don't choose the traditional sports like basketball and football, but they pick soccer. If they [North America] go down that road, pretty soon there's going to be problems for everyone." 

Yet, MLS now faces a crossroads. They are set to expand the league this season to 20 teams, and commissioner Don Garber has made it known that his goal is to have 24 teams in the league by the year 2020. The playoffs will expand in 2015 to accomodate 12 teams, and the league seems to be moving in a direction which will make it more like the NFL, NBA and MLB. Yet, is that the right way to go? Should they be Americanizing the league? Or making it more like other top flight leagues around the world?

The easiest place to begin looking at is expansion, because that directly relates to the potential down the road for promotion/relegation and the debate in regards to the playoff structure. With 20 teams, MLS seems to be in an ideal spot: they can play a fairly normal league schedule which allows each team to play each other at least once and not crowd the fixture schedule. However, how far is the league going to go in terms of expansion? Will it stop at the stated goal of 24? Or will it keep going? And, if continues to grow, where does it end? 28? 30? 32?

At 24 teams, MLS would be the largest top flight league in the world, bar none. And if it were to keep increasing beyond that, growing towards a number of teams similar to what we see in the NFL, NBA and MLB, wouldn't quality in turn be sacrificed? Going beyond that, if MLS is to expand for eternity, doesn't that rule out ever having a promotion/relegation system?

At this moment in time, due to the single entity structure of MLS, the way that players negotiate entry into the league, the lack of free agency and the relationship between MLS, NASL and USL Pro instituting a promotion pyramid is not feasible. However, if the league does want to become like the rest of the footballing world, that is something which needs to happen. At the moment, the relationship between the three leagues is finely poised: MLS and NASL don't like each other while USL Pro feels like an MLS feeder league. The question must now become: does the NASL and USL Pro become like AAA and AA leagues in baseball? Or do they become genuine second and third tiers?

In this writer's opinion, it is time for all three leagues to truly unite. In order to ensure that MLS becomes one of the best leagues in the world, there needs to be an incentive to improve. At the moment, the lack of relegation does not provide that incentive. However, due to the way in which teams can buy their way into the league the possibility of relegation is not fair for investors or team owners. The league's most recent confirmed expansion club will be LAFC, the rebrand of Chivas USA, and they are set to pay a rumored $100 million expansion fee, per Brian Straus of Sports Illustrated. 

If club owners are set to pay money like that to enter the league, it is truly unfair to them to have the potential for relegation. Relegation extremely devalues the worth of a franchise, and until there is some sort of umbrella package to make sure owners would able to survive such a financial loss, relegation is not feasable. So, MLS must reach 24 teams before it institutes relegation and promotion.

That is now two grand claims that this writer has made in this piece: MLS, NASL and USL Pro must unite and then institute relegation and promotion. This is undoubtedly an un-American ideal, and goes against many of the noises which the league have been making recently. It seems not just unlikely but certain that this league will never do things exactly the way they are done in the Barclays Premier League, Serie A or the Bundesliga. And that is good, because this league needs to be American for it to work here. There are so many potential fans out there who don't care for the league because they feel the sport is un-American, and would rather watch football, basketball or baseball.

That is why, with the league truly at a crossroads, it must compromise some things to become a bit more like the rest of world football while also retaining what makes it truly American. There is no correct answer to the question posed at the beginning of this piece, there is only a right answer: MLS must neither Americanize or become more European. It must chart a middle path going forward, and retain what makes it American, things like playoffs, unforgettable upsets and teams dominating in major media markets while also fully embracing the good things European football has to offer. That is the answer.

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About the author
Liam McMahon
American sports journalist based out of Milwaukee, Wisconsin who has been affiliated with VAVEL for more than a year. Co-editor of the soccer section at VAVEL USA and international football writer at VAVEL UK.