As I said, get FIFA involved then be ready to change the schedule to Fall to Spring, fucking Blater has a hard on for the "International Schedule", NASL may be more desperate and accommodate that shit, I would hope both leagues would tell FIFA to fuck off if that is their demand. To me changing the schedule is too high of a price to pay, regardless of the league.
I'm more inclined to think that the last thing the Don would want is a World Cup in the US within the next 8 years. We lost to a tiny country in the desert where they'll have to air-condition the stadiums just to make it playable. That doesn't happen by accident. I think this went according to plan.
Obviously clarification is beneath you? I still don't get why a longer winter break would be problematic.
He already said it. Taking long breaks in a season is stupid and I agree with him. Why would you play in the winter and have to take a 3 month break because of weather? We can just as easily play in the summer and not have to worry about such breaks.
So the problem isn't the winter break, but the summer one? I just want to clarify what the real problem is. After all, no league plays in the winter here anyway except indoor leagues. Is this about conflicting with other outdoor sports?
Wait, what summer break? I didn't say anything about a summer break? Lol. Umm NFL, so if you want to go up against those guys have fun with that. Lol. You can also count college football as well since this county is a big into college sports.
College Football and the NFL do not play in the winter? If we go by World Population, almost half the world plays the same schedule as MLS (FEB-MAR to NOV-DEC). Thanks to China The problem is that there would be 2 long breaks, one during the summer and one during the winter, with the winter break being longer than the summer break. Just personal opinion, that is very stupid.
Then these two sentences are unclear. "Why would you play in the winter and have to take a 3 month break because of weather? We can just as easily play in the summer and not have to worry about such breaks." Oh. So it's about competition with the NFL.
It would seem then, that the folks who run the NFL would stand the most to lose from their business interests. As we know, some NFL owners are MLS owners, and the moneymakers currently are the NFL teams. My, my, my. I wonder why that schedule is so distasteful.
And you said you're not paranoid! What is distasteful about the schedule? What is wrong with playing from March to November? How is that inherently worse than playing from August to May? I follow a league (Poland) that has a 3 month long winter break. Our "off-season" break is shorter than the winter break. That makes no sense to me. I do not see the point in having a mid-season break be longer than the end of season break.
Ives talks about MLS v NASL toward the end of his latest podcast. Brief but substantial discussion: http://www.soccerbyives.net/2013/06/episode-look-panama.html
It doesn't matter who the owners are. It's common sense. When would you rather play? Through the summer, playing night games in places like LA and Dallas to avoid the heat, and where your only major league competition is baseball? Or through the winter, where you know there will be multiple games having to be postponed and rescheduled due to the harsh conditions we see every year in places like Chicago, Toronto, and the entire northeast, while you're competing for attention against the NFL, NBA, and NHL? Another thing, not just to you but to everyone. Stop going down the road of MLS anti-soccer conspiracy theories. It discredits everything you say. We get it. Some of you hate MLS. Some of you despise its format and business structure. Some of you think the NASL does everything right, and MLS does everything wrong. Fine. But bring some facts and common sense to your arguments. And when confronted by facts that may disprove what you believe, accept it, rather than continue to be blissfully ignorant of reality. If one of your ideas gets blown to pieces by some actual truth, don't bring it up again 2 weeks later just to have the same argument again. Reading a thread like "This is what I think is wrong" is like being stuck on Groundhog Day.
For fun, I choose (b). Now what. I don't automatically equate "MLS" with "soccer", so that's silly. Besides, this is the thread for the "conspiracy theories". I don't believe either statement. I'm just not some toady for whatever I read on MLSsoccer.com. The fact that I disagree on some issues and it becomes and "MLS anti-soccer conspiracy theory" tells me that I'm not the propagandized one here. Can you please demonstrate where I have done so, thanks. I'd really like an issue in which I've done this. I don't think you have one. Just one idea.
NodineHill For the sake of everyone on here, please grow up. If you can't do that then please leave the site.
I love the comments at minute 55, because it sounds like certain folks here: "Every time we put up a Cosmos story on SBI, it gets like 100 comments! Like more comments than MLS stories, right? And what gets me is that a good number of the comments are people saying "No one cares". And you know what? You're an example of someone who does care. You hate it, but you do care. You can have a problem with it, you can have an issue with it, you still care. It's striking a nerve, whether positive or negative." He then goes onto describe Cosmos fans in Cascadia. Some folks just can't deal.
I don't know if this is a correct interpretation. Respect the internacional schedule is respect the "FIFA International Match Calendar", not necessarily adopt the european calendar.