Mostly similar teams, but surprising rises and declines do happen. The relegation system is a huge part of the fun for people watching, too. (So two good teams from second league make it into first every year in eg the German football system.)

Hoffenheim's football team is an interesting example (http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/european/hoffenh...). They did have a rich guy backing them, though; but still came out of basically nowhere into the Bundesliga in a few short years. Though still:

> “Obviously we are not spending money like the big clubs in Germany so we are really focusing on our youth development, on our academy. There is a big number of players like Niklas Sule [sold to Bayern Munich this summer for £18m], [Jeremy] Toljan, [Nadiem] Amiri, [Philipp] Ochs who all came from our Under-17s and Under-19s. That's what we want to keep on doing: develop our own guys, but also sign players for less money who increase their market value. This is how we are working.”