Primer: English Premier League (Nuts & Bolts Part 1)

[This is part 2 of a 3?-part series]

Alright, with that out of the way, let me lay out everything you'll want to know (and then some).

How the League is structured

Though it might seem mundane and merely fundamental, the Premier League's structure (which is basically the same across the top leagues in Europe) provides a great deal of its appeal and marks it as foreign and exotic compared to the Big 3 American sports (sorry, hockey, you remain a niche sport--which I think you'll admit suits you better).

There are 20 teams. But it's not always the same 20, you see. At the end of each season, the three teams at the bottom of the table are dropped into the division below. The term for going down is relegation. In one sense, this is like getting sent to the minors. But in another sense, it's nothing like that, because the divisions below aren't merely farm teams. They represent cities and towns all across England and these teams all have varying degrees of ambition. Some of these teams are even former greats that have fallen on hard times.

Think about that. The Premier League could never have a perennial punching bag with an owner that didn't care, like the Clippers. It gets new punching bags every season, to be sure, but these teams are full of piss and vinegar because they've clawed their way to the top of the heap, or, rather, clawed their way to a new heap. And that heap is a potentially huge pile of money.

Think about this. Toward the end of the season, teams that have no shot at the title may still be involved in some drama and some meaningful games. Think about all the meaningless games played in American sports once playoff spots have been determined. Of course, there are still teams in the middle whose games mean little, but the higher you finish, the bigger your share of the dough.

So what's the format for how these teams play each other? The answer provides yet another contrast from American sports and, in some ways, is a better alternative. I think so, and my wife--herself a huge sports fan--also thinks so.

Each team plays ever other team twice, once at home and once away. Perfectly equitable, no doubt. Less obvious but more important, the number of games--38--seems to me to be quite the sweet spot. Part of the appeal of gridiron (American) football, both professional and collegiate, is that each game really matters because there are so few. But if you like the sport, that means there are so few games to watch and the season isn't all that long. The club soccer season is just like the school year: middle of August through end of May, taking the summer off. There's just something awesome about that, right?

At 38, each game is still meaningful but not quite so make-or-break like college football. And because each club plays every other club, there's no schedule disparity like in pro football where some teams have creampuffs in their division they get to play twice, and games outside the division for one team may be against teams far weaker than those for another team. Here, the playing field is much more even (at least schedule-wise. As we'll see, there are several factors that keep the playing field tilted).

When it comes to basketball and baseball, nobody can deny there are too many wasted games. Ask any player what he'd do if he were commissioner and invariably they'll tell you "shorten the schedule."

But there's also another reason many games are meaningless, which brings me to another fundamental difference between the League and the Big 3--one that freaks out a lot of Americans as being very foreign: there are no playoffs. That's right, no playoffs. The team that finishes on top after playing everybody home and away is the champ who takes home the big trophy and the bragging rights. Crazy, right? The team that has the best season wins, simple as that. The appeal of that may not seem clear in print, or even in your head, but the more you follow the game the more it will begin to appeal to you.

But , you say, there's something about a scrappy upstart peaking at the right time and knocking of a big dog. The answer addresses your concern but again, it will seem quite foreign to you. During the 38 game season, which constitutes the whole of the Barclays Premier League (Barclays being the bank whose sponsorship is so large it extends to getting its name into the League's name), there is another, separate competition. It is called the FA Cup. FA being the Football Association, the governing body which rules all football in England--both the national team and the club teams. This competition is old--over 100 years old. Unlike the Premier League, it is not a season but a tournament. A tournament that lasts the length of the season!

It is strictly a knock-out competition--there is no best of 7 series. There are fourteen rounds; the first six are for the smaller teams to qualify. And when I say small, I'm talking semi-pro. Guys with real jobs. Fields (or pitches, as they're known to our cousins) are often of sub-high school quality with only the barest of bare-bones bleachers for the supporters. And yes, some of these "minnows" can rise up and knock off a Goliath. Nothing, and I mean nothing in the Big 3 American sports can compare to that. As the tournament advances and the minnows fall by the wayside, there still remain large professional clubs that ply their trade far below the ranks of the rich and famous and they, too, get a chance to knock off big teams and even advance to the semi-finals and final, which take place in England's biggest stadium. The day of the FA Cup final was long considered England's "Super Bowl".

Sadly, in the recent era of big, BIG money (you may have heard that Manchester United sold a player to Real Madrid for $130 million) it has become nigh on impossible for an also-ran to make it that far. But the structure is still in place to allow it to happen, even if the culture isn't.

So, let's summarize:

The 3 worst teams at the end of the season get dropped down to a lower league.

There are 20 teams who play 38 games--2 games against each team, once at home and once away.

The champion is the team who finishes on top at the end of the season--there are no playoffs.

There is, however, a knock out competition that runs concurrently with the "regular" season.

Ok sportsfans, I think this is a good place to stop. Be assured, part 2 of Nuts & Bolts will be up later tonight.