STARTING PREMISE
From an American standpoint Relegation/Promotion is the one aspect of world football that completely different to the way professional sports leagues operate in the US and Canada. Rel/Pro battles are some of the most engaging and enthralling parts about following European football, particularly English football. But the purpose of Pro/Rel is not to provide me with cheap entertainment but to act as a Darwinian force to push competition of the league and country's pyramid. Where parity is king in North American sports, survival of the fittest reigns in European football.
In the modern footballing era (after 1992) we have seen many leagues divide into the haves and have nots with only a handful of clubs winning championships; especially since the turn of the century. Unlike in North American sports leagues where there is an attempt at parity and a diversity of champions across all sports, a Rel/Pro system does not seemingly have the same effect in modern football.
THE QUESTIONS
Is Rel/Pro still effective at creating a diversity of Top Flight clubs or has it become more tradition than practical?
Have most leagues reached a stasis that the league makeup is mostly set and only a handful of clubs are yo-yoing between Top Flight and second divisions much in the same way that the top of leagues are becoming more ossified?
This was my assumption for all but a few leagues
THE RESEARCH AND DATA ANALYSIS
I looked at the Overall league tables of nine European leagues since the 98-99 season up to the last completed season (14-15). Why 98-99 you ask? I used this website to easily look at historic tables. The data for continental leagues only went back to 98-99 seasons.
The countries I looked at were: Belgium, Netherlands, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Scotland, and England. For England I ran the numbers from 98-99 for consistency sake and from the first year of the EPL.
What I learned:
Top Flight Clubs since 98-99 by country
I distinguished between clubs that played less than 3 seasons or less to eliminate clubs that were not "sticky." This will become more clear why with subsequent graphs.
England led the way with 43 clubs with Italy and Spain not far behind with 41. Scotland, unsurprisingly, had the fewest Top Flight clubs but still more than I thought I would see. Germany was the big surprise here with only 34 different clubs and only 25 playing more than 3 seasons.
I then divided the clubs into 3 groups: "Eternal", "Perennial", "YoYo".
The Adjusted Pool of clubs is the Perennial Clubs + Yoyo Clubs.
ETERNAL:
Clubs that have never been relegated (in this time frame).
Every league had at least 5 Eternal Clubs and no league had more than 8. No league makeup had more than 33% of its clubs come from the Eternal group with most Eternal clubs making up about 20% of the league roster.
PERENNIAL CLUBS:
Clubs that have played in the Top Flight for 85% of the seasons (14 seasons). I considered any club a "perennial" club if that beat the turnover rate of the league the were in. A 20 club league that relegates 3 clubs has an 15% annual turnover, an 18 club league relegating 2 clubs is 11%, etc.
This group includes all of the Eternals plus clubs like Newcastle, Villareal, Hanover 96, Florentina. The range of which these clubs make up the total Pool is wide from 50% of the Eredivisie to only 20% of the EPL. I am not sure what conclusions to draw from this. It seems that the higher the percentage the more stable the league turnover but not so high that any club here is completely safe.
YOYO CLUBS:
Clubs that played less than the league's turnover rate but more than the relegation rate. The relegation rate in all cases came to 3 seasons rounded up.
What was of interest to me with this group was the larger than expected number of clubs represented here and the length of time that clubs spent in the top flight. This suggests that the available pool of clubs runs deep in all leagues.
In general there are two clubs for every "in flux" Top Flight spot available in every league. These so called "YoYo" clubs have spent an average of 8 of the 17 seasons in the Top Flight "In Flux" is the # League spots minus the # of perennial clubs.
Surprising to me is that Portugal has a large and active turnover with 17 clubs rotating through 11 spots. The other big takeaway was seeing both Germany and The Netherlands having relatively low number of YoYo clubs and fewest spots in flux; pointing to Leagues with relatively predictable League Roster.
DEPTH OF LEAGUES
The next thing I looked at was how deep a league was and how much turnover was taking place. Since 98-99 England has 22 different clubs playing the majority of the EPL games with the median Top Flight tenure only being 7 seasons. Scotland by contrast has had only 13 different clubs playing at least 10 seasons in the SPL.
IMO the leagues with the greatest number of clubs spending the fewer number of seasons is the biggest indicator of a deep, competitive pyramid. That being said every league I looked at had a much deeper pool of Top Flight clubs than I was expecting to find with 50% of the clubs turning over every 8 years.
PERENNIAL vs. YOYO DIVIDE
While putting together this post and looking at the data, most of the data didn't give a clear story and most of the results were interesting but didn't point to any big revelations. This changed when I looked at the Top Flight tenure of the Perennial clubs compared to the tenure of the YoYo clubs.
A Perennial club has spent, on average, twice has much time in the Top Flight than a YoYo club. An average YoYo club will have only spent 8 years in the Top Flight while an average Perennial club has been up for 15+seasons.
In the modern footballing era this translates to a millions and millions of dollars. When one compares the EPL data to the England data it one can see this in the data. The number of Perennial clubs has increased this century while there are fewer EPL spots in flux and a smaller active pool to draw from.
CONCLUSION
My assumptions were proven to be not quite on target. Pro/Rel is healthy across all leagues I looked at and has continued to deliver on its promise of delivering a wide variety of clubs to the top flight. There is a consistent churning of clubs and plenty of opportunities for clubs to "live the dream".
I still don't think Rel/Pro is right for US soccer anytime soon and I still think there are systemic issues that keep good, solid clubs from making the leap to elite status but I am now convinced that Rel/Pro isn't just a quaint part of world football.
Some individual observations.
Thank you for taking the time to read over this post. I would love to hear your take on the data or for someone to tell me that I am completely wrong with my methodology.
