- MLS needs to do away with the conferences.
This is nothing ground breaking - most people who follow the league have been saying this for years. My big issue with conferences is this: the purpose of having conferences and divisions is to ensure that local rivals play more games against each other than against teams from the other side of the country. It not only helps grow the game, but it helps keep travel costs down. In the US, all major sports leagues - NFl, MLB, NBA, NHL - have divisions and conferences. In each instance, the schedule is unbalanced so that division foes play each other the most (in baseball, the Mets play the Phils roughly 18 times but the Giants only 6). When it comes to individual records, teams from the same division can easily be ranked against each other and the winner is naturally awarded a playoff spot. It works.
In MLS (at least in 2011), there was a balanced schedule like what you see in European soccer: each team plays each twice (home and away). This means that fundamentally, Philly is no different than Seattle because they play the same teams. In this setup, each team can be ranked against each other. The problem is the MLS Commissioner Don Garber is a big fan of awards. He thinks it is important for a city like KC to be named Eastern Conference champions. Somehow that is supposed to mean something. - Keep the playoffs
Look, I get it. We live in America. Crowning a league champion simply based on regular season merit is not how we do things. Regular season games are played to determine some type of seeding for when the playoffs come. In the end, champions are crowned based on their performance over a set of games at the end of the season. I would love to see the regular season determine the champion, but I am fine with having playoffs. - With that being said, MLS needs to change their playoff structure
I learn something new every day. Yesterday while listening to the Sounder at Heart podcast, I learned the reason why soccer traditionally has had 2-leg ties. The guys noted that it all has to do with international competitions...you see, it is impossible to accurately rate a team from the EPL against one from Series A or the Bundesliga. Simply put, there it is impossible to determine which team deserves to have home field advantage so as a result they are both afforded a home game. This is totally unlike the aforementioned sports leagues where teams play each other during the year and some sort of rank can be determined. The reason to be successful in the regular season is to gain home field advantage for Game 7 of the series. This is why MLS needs to do away with the two leg ties and either go 1-game or 3-game series. Seattle, by virtue of having more points than RSL should have been rewarded properly. And to show that I'm not just a homer, the two leg tie is totally unfair to LA who had to fly across country twice to play NY on the road even though they ran away with the league.
As for seeding, I think you need to do an overall league ranking. Again, I know this sounds like sour grapes, but there is no difference between Eastern teams and Western teams. They play the same teams - it just so happens that the top 3 teams were from one conference. As a result, instead of Seattle getting Columbus and RSL getting Colorado, they had to play each other. What would have been so bad with having the best match-up (LA vs either Seattle or RSL) in the MLS Cup final. Wouldn't that be a good thing for ratings? Instead, KC or Houston is going to be in the final for LA to slaughter.
As for the number of teams, I get what they are doing. On one hand it sucks that more than half of the teams qualify for the playoffs, but without relegation and promotion, there is not much for the bottom teams to play for. It is clearly apparent that relegation is never going to happen in this country. It makes sense to give the teams on the bottom of the table some incentive to keep playing. If adding two extra teams did anything, it was to ensure that at least 13 teams had something to play for the last weekend of the season. - If conferences are to stay, then make the schedule unbalanced
Seriously, if Don Garber wants to keep the conferences, then how about this for an idea (considering a 20-team league with NY getting the 20th franchise)? Create 2 divisions within each conference. In the Northwest division, you have Colorado, RSL, Portland, Seattle and Vancouver. In the West division, you have LA, Chivas, San Jose, Dallas, Houston. In the Northeast, you have NY, Philly, DC, NE, NY#2. In the Midwest you have KC, Columbus, Chicago, Toronto, Montreal. Teams play division foes 4 times, conference foes 2 times and teams from the other conference once. Treat it like the NFL and rotate home games every year. The advantages of such a system are obvious: more games against local rivals and more meaning to conference play. The drawbacks are less obvious, but deserve some mention: small markets like Columbus might not get to see the likes of David Beckham every year and of course, the separation from traditional European league schedules.
Ok, I think those are my thoughts...but I will allow myself to come back and add more if I see fit.
I'm with you for most of your points (funny how I always say that, but as your better half once commented, I have many opinions :-)), but this is my idea:
ReplyDelete1. Stay with a balanced schedule - everyone plays each other home and away
2. Playoffs are single elimination games - Use seeding for matchup and home field advantage
3. Decrease to 8 or increase to 12
- In case of 8, seeding and home field advantage
- In case of 12, wild card round with high seeds with home field
4. Best record still wins Supporters Shield but increase prize money and retain Champions League spot - also maybe add in first option on All Star game host for following year as a little bonus?
I find your idea of a best of 3 series interesting, would mean you have to have a winner in each game (extra time and PKs). Would change the dynamic a little too much (injuries and suspensions might be become more tactical - i.e. more teams playing for PKs in Game 1 away from home) in my opinion but maybe its just because I only associate this format with baseball, basketball and hockey.
Ha..my better half told me recently that I think about too many things...so take that for what it's worth
ReplyDeleteThe league used tohave 3 game series, but apparently they went away because attendance was dreadful. Of course, that was MLS 1.0. I would have to think that attendance would be great in places like Seattle, Portland, LA, NY, Philly (Toronto too but they are so far away from making the playofs).
I am not necessarily sold on 3 games - I'm just saying that if you keep your balanced schedule then it needs to be an odd number of games in the playoffs to assure that the team who finished higher gets some sort of advantage.
Your incentive idea is an interesting one.