With J Hutcherson -- Remember when England's League Cup was supposed to become a tournament for the otherwise unoccupied and even the venerable FA Cup was under threat? After all, winning the Premier League and Champions League double was the only thing that was supposed to matter for the elite clubs. The rest were only supposed to be concerned with staying in or making the Premier League party.
Ill-advised naming aside, the Championship hasn't become a major competition all on its own. It also hasn't added to the increasing irrelevancy of the domestic cups. In fact, there's enough enthusiasm to make the point that interest in the two cup competitions hasn't eroded much, if at all.
Sure, it's easy material any time the attendance drops, but that's always been dependent on the clubs involved. Some of us have been around lone enough to remember when current major clubs weren't that major.
What England has retained are three trophies for the top clubs directly under their control. No UEFA strength rankings, fair play slots, or anything else but basic up and down competition. It works, it always has.
That's the problem with trying to complicate what, at base, are simple tournaments. The FA Cup brings in everybody, even the amateurs. The League Cup is limited to the Premier League and Football League. No group stages, invited guests, or anything else that has been added to increase interest in other tournaments.
Contemporary sports of all codes have created a median for success that's not really based on much of anything except whatever is happening with the current market. Baseball used to be played in massive buildings where most clubs expected attendance to drop to four digits after opening day and not get back there until summer. The idea of NFL-specific stadiums used to not make sense considering they would only be used a dozen times a year. Playing to as close to capacity as possible with standing room used to be a trademark of the National Hockey League, but it was a six-team circuit at the time.
Now, anything short of a sellout and a large TV draw is at least approaching failure for any sport. It's silly, an artifact of an era of increasingly disposable income. Simply put, things change. As much pressure as there was, the FA Cup and the League Cup didn't do much in the way of noticeable alterations. English soccer got this one right.
Switching industries, The Atlantic has an article on what might happen with The New York Times that's well worth your attention. If nothing else, it explains the relative worth of the web versus print subscribers for making money.
Comments, questions, solutions to problems that have yet to present themselves. Please, tell me all about it.
