BOSTON — As sports have grown in popularity through the years, so have the four major North American sports leagues themselves through expansion. And although the divisions and conferences have shifted to accommodate new teams, Nate Silver still wonders if the leagues would be better off without such rapid growth.
The analytics guru and FiveThirtyEight creator doesn’t want to start getting rid of teams, however. Silver said Saturday at the 2016 MIT Sports Analytics Conference that he’d rather see a system like the one used in European soccer.
“I wonder if it isn’t too many (teams),” Silver said. “I’m one of those typical hipsters who kind of likes the European relegation system, like every sports nerd does pretty much. I do wonder in the long-term if you’re only winning a championship once every 30 years and only in the championship game roughly once every 15 years, I do wonder … if that becomes harder at some point versus a league that’s 20 teams or something instead.”
With relegation systems, there typically are two divisions within one league. After every season, the worst team or teams get relegated to the lower division, while the top teams from that division get moved up. It’s a system that works in Europe, and Silver thinks it could work here, too.
“European soccer, it’s pretty darn market-tested,” Silver said. “… Which doesn’t mean I think that cities shouldn’t have the right to have their franchise. That’s why I think that a tiered system or a relegation system is, in the long run, the way to go.”
So, don’t worry, Philadelphia 76ers fans, because Silver doesn’t want you to lose your team. He simply wants them to play in the D-league.
Thumbnail photo via Jerome Miron/USA TODAY Sports Images
