Since we soccer fans had to endure the tiresome flood of articles telling us what's wrong with our game during the World Cup, it seems only fair that fans of baseball, basketball and football take a moment to consider this key problem with basically all American professional sports: relegation. Or the lack of it.

What does the absence of relegation teach us, besides the fact that sports teams here are little more than corporate subsidiaries charged only with generating cash? It teaches that there are no consequences for poor play.

If millions of dollars and adulation aren't enough to make major leaguers perform, down they go. What could make more sense? It fits perfectly with our sense of competition and the free market. If only successful businesses deserve to survive, why not the same for our sports teams? Why not give 'em a year or two to think about motivation while playing on free hot dog night in Tulsa, Omaha or Nashville and hopping on the bus after the game to bed down at the Red Roof Inn?

If the Crew can't kick it on the field, down to AAA we go. If the Bucks can't sink some crucial free throws in the final seconds and finish at the bottom of the standings, down we go. If the Packers play like they did for a couple decades before the arrival of Brett Favre, off we go to the CFL. If the Cubs continue choking, sooner or later they'll end up in the Chicagoland Little League system.

Now, I like baseball and the teams that I root for -- the hometown Brewers and my life-long team the Mets -- are not perennial winners, so as a fan I stand to lose from this concept sometimes. But that doesn't make it wrong.

And, there is an upside, too, for fans. My favorite soccer team Torino -- which was for many years the greatest team in Italy, with the national squad virtually mirroring the Toro starting lineup -- lives in the shadow nowadays of a more famous team in the same city. Imagine the joy for a fan when his Toro returns to Serie A in the same season "the other team" heads down to B. There is no greater joy.

Say what you want about the world's preferred sport -- and I know you will via the talkbacks -- but the Europeans have it right when it comes to relegation. Nothing makes a team try its darndest like the threat of playing at a city park in Little Rock and living in the partially ished basement of a local family.

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