Great piece by Neil Morris on the craptastic schedule for 2014. He is about the only person I've ever talked to about the schedule (outside of the crazy Deacon guy, where did he disappear to anyway? LOL) that admitted to liking the split format, so it's hard to accuse him of any bias. http://www.indyweek.com/triangleoff...spring-season-truncates-schedule-and-fairness
I dont know if they would still consider fixing it but having a 10th game based on regional or rivalry status would probably be the best solution of a bad situation. Now on the flip side of the sschedule the team that is short one home game in the first 9 could get an extra home game in the second half of the season with the regional or rivalary concept used for that extra game to give each team an equal amount of home games across at least the two parts of the season.
What would you guys think if you were told the teams bid on who would host 5 home games and who would host 4 or that the 5 teams chosen to host 5 home games are the teams that the owners determined would generate the most revenue? For me, Minnesota, FTL, and Edmonton have rights to complain. The folks in Atlanta that took 3 years to find local a ownership group and Carolina who still don't have local ownership can only blame their supporters for not being convincing enough to potential local investors. Now with that all said, I support the split schedule and yes an unbalanced schedule sucks, but it's the deck of cards that's been dealt. If you are really supportive of this league, you'll complain for a bit and then move on. If you treat this as most of you treated the Cosmos joining last Fall, you should watch another league because it seems many of you NASL "fans" only like to piss on every single decision the league makes. The fact is if there was this super large front office that made every decision perfectly the teams would be losing millions of dollars a year and you'd have no teams. Every young league has growing pains and this is no different. I Just hope the Cosmos sweep the Spring and Fall so we can turn the tables and bitch about having to play the Soccer Bowl. If you guys really stopped to think about it, the Cosmos are the odds on favorite for 2014 so anything that provides and opportunity for disruption is actually good for your teams.
Adding a 10th game would help, and its a longshot but hopefully they get a lot of complaints and do start maybe a week earlier, having a "rivalry" weekend to open the season. I support the split season (equal games per split or close to it) but not this type of 9 game spring season, very awkward and bush league IMHO and it doesn't look good on the NASL.
Sorry not all of us can be the greatest brand of all time. If money is enough to buy your way into a better schedule, I will turn into a #PetersonOut supporter. It's a competition, and if the league is gonna let teams buy advantages, we might as well call this a reality TV show. The article is right: the Railhawks' schedule sucks. This certainly doesn't make the spring sprint seem any better to those outside of New York.
Says the guy whose "authentically New York" team is owned by Arabs. Can't speak for everyone here, but it seems like a lot of us are ambivalent about the Cosmos themselves, while our real problem is with jagov Cosmos fans like you.
I simply asked a question, I didn't state anything as fact. Was the US Open Cup destroyed when they bid out hosting rights, think it survived last I checked. Peterson is a figurehead in the grand scheme of things and people keep attacking him and treating him like Bud Selig. Read the article from Empire of Soccer last week if you have any doubts. His job is to execute on what the team owners want him to and coordinate things including expanding the league. The owners clearly decided this was the format they wanted given the alternatives. If you don't like it you should #WatchAnotherLeague because the only reason you even have a team is because Traffic has funded it the past 3 years. The league is growing and has had some unfortunate breaks along the way but these are one off issues the solve themselves not fundamental issues like MLS had in 1996.
I know it's not fact, but it sure doesn't seem implausible. The US Open Cup survived, but the right to buy home games didn't. And just because my team doesn't have oil money doesn't mean I can't dislike the schedule. Your solution to every complaint is to go watch another league? Criticism will make this league better, not weaker.
Are you really telling everyone that has criticism towards the league to go watch another league? You do realize in doing so you're basically telling that to 90% of the fans, right? Lol.
The Cosmos fanboys may as well have the league to themselves since they clearly live in a world of their own creation.
Your ranting against fans that have been supporting their teams in this league far longer than you is just dumb. No one has a beef with the Cosmos, just the idiot brigade running the league. "The owners" didn't sit around a table and unanimously decide on this schedule. To believe that would be to believe every owner in this league has shite for brains. The format was concocted to get your team in last year to pacify the USSF for sanctioning because at the time, Minnesota hadn't been bought yet, and the one thing all the owners did agree on was that they were tired of funding the team that kept getting to the finals instead of their teams. That's how it was sold. If they dropped it the very next year, everyone could have said, see, they were giving the Cosmos an unfair advantage and catering to them. And the egos in the NASL front office would never stand for that. So instead, they have made last year's schedule look fan-frakking-tabulous compared to the dung heap they are dropping on us this year just to save face and say, see, it was not just for the Cosmos! And maybe there is something to the comments suggesting the teams feel they are saving money on playoffs. So great, we can then change the name to the Cheap Ass Shite With Delusions of Grandeur League. Because we can't afford a couple of playoff games, but we are just "a few years" from being on par with MLS. If you can't afford legitimate business costs, the USL will take you in a heartbeat, just bring your checkbook, no questions asked. They don't give a shite that the fans, the players, the coaches, and I'd bet even some of the owners don't like it. They don't care. They operate under the premise that the hard cores will show up no matter what BS they shove at us or what their ass-clown mouthpiece commissioner says. And the casuals don't know enough about what's going on to understand how stupid it is anyway. But hey, after the Cosmos have won the USOC, the CCL, and the Club World Cup, 5 MLS teams jump ship and join the NASL, and the NASL is such an international brand that their tv rights and merchandise out sell every other league on the planet - all in the "next few years" all us critics wll be morons and you'll be the big cheese telling us to go watch another league again, right Bill P.?
Let me ask you a simple question, how do you THINK decisions in the league are made and who makes them? Do you THINK they are unnanimous or do you THINK certain parties have veto power, super votes or that the league is run by an all controlling dictator? Do you THINK there is constant dissent from certain owners over these decisions? I just would love to have a clear vision for how everyone THINKS this works. I know you THINK everyone involved in the NASL league management is an idiot, and every decision they make is made to either favor the Cosmos or do something stupid, just need to understand in detail how this works better.
You guys should just put Penske on ignore. Your lives will be greatly enriched. I know I don't miss his ridiculous posts.
I think that's a great idea. I don't agree with everything Penske has to say, but this is a discussion forum where different opinions are made, right? So long as you don't disrespect and or start with the name calling ( like some people) it's all good... So if you can't handle the heat step out.
I didn't personally put him on ignore due to a difference of opinion, and clearly I was being snarky here. Give him time though, he'll be on everyone's favorite list in the end.
Last game of the fall season at Edmonton http://weatherspark.com/averages/28127/11/2/Edmonton-Alberta-Canada
Well according to Grant Wahl, MLS thining about playing the Cup final 3 weeks into December. League is also considering moving the MLS Cup final to the third weekend of December.— Subscribe to GrantWahl.com (@GrantWahl) January 16, 2014