Yes, it makes it harder to move up and harder to move down. From a business standpoint, I can see owners liking this. It’s trading some potential gain for a lower risk. No one wants to deal with the loss of almost getting promoted and then being relegated the following season.
From a competition standpoint, it’s concerning.
Using American sports as a comparison because of the different structures of each sport, baseball is the most similar to European football due to no payroll caps and a huge variation in team salaries. And baseball is really struggling… for several reasons but one being that fans are sick of the lack of parity. You have single players on rich teams that make what an entire poorer team makes.
Basketball has a soft salary cap which means teams over it have to pay taxes. Basketball is doing very well and is even talking about going to a hard cap to help with parity because the LA teams are spending absurd amounts of money.
American football has the most parity and is most popular.
European football shares the most with baseball in terms of structure and Id be worried about viewer fatigue if City keeps dominating or there aren’t changes that keep the competition fresh. Foreign fans do not want to watch the same season on repeat… see Ligue 1, Bundesliga, and La Liga’s decline.
