A few years ago, I posted a challenge to everyone on the YBTD forums who thought it would be easy for MLS to switch to a winter schedule, or a 38-game schedule, or any other kind of schedule. I created a spreadsheet for the 2014 or 2013-14 season and invited them to fill it in, to schedule one entire MLS season. You can read this thread to see the original spreadsheet and the suggested solutions. Well, 2013-14 is behind us, but there still seems to be no shortage of people who think a winter schedule is trivial. So it's time for the new, improved, 2017-18 YBTD MLS Schedule Challenge. To participate, just open this spreadsheet in Google Docs: 2017-18 Schedule Challenge Duplicate the first (locked) sheet into a new sheet. Rename it to have your name or BS handle. And follow the instructions to fill it in. The spreadsheet will help you keep track of how many home and away games you've scheduled for each team, and how many times they've played each opponent. Want to tell us how easy it would be for MLS to take your YBTD advice? Put your money where your mouth is, and start scheduling.
Great idea. But disappointed there are no Sundays in there. I need Sundays in LA during late fall/winter so I can back-to-back Galaxy and CUSA games.
OK. I disagree with your "conflicts" as well. The MLS Cup final can be played as late as the UEFA Champions League Final, which this year is May 25. If a couple dudes miss the first couple weeks of "World Cup Camp" so be it.
Just use the "Saturday" column for any weekday game and the "Wednesday" column for any midweek game. If it helps, assume Chivas gets off their ass and gets their own stadium. I should probably just rename them to "Weekend" and "Midweek." It's not that simple. It's also not just "World Cup Camp." Here are the regulations for the 2014 World Cup: In other words: the Champions League final will probably be the only game that will be going on anywhere in the world on May 25 involving rostered World Cup players, and that is only because the FIFA Executive Committee granted them a special exemption. I doubt they'll be as accommodating for MLS Cup, although you're free to argue otherwise. The exact rest period dates for 2018 haven't been set yet, but I made a reasonable assumption based on the 2014 time periods.
Also, in case it's not clear...I picked plausible dates for the CCL and Open Cup games, but given the year-to-year changes in those tournaments, you shouldn't consider them as etched in stone.
You probably need 2 midweek days. It is entire possible to play on a weekend, then an Open Cup game on Tuesday (midweek 1), then a CCL game on Thursday (midweek2) and then again on the weekend. Currently MLS finalist play 5 Open Cup games, perhaps it will be 6 as the Cup adds more teams (maybe more early rounds for some MLS teams). CCL would be 6 games in the spring (if they make the final) and 4 games in the fall.
I disagree that this is "entirely possible." I don't know of any top-level soccer competition that schedules this tightly. MLS never has, as far as I'm aware. Playing four games in a seven-day period was expressly prohibited by the old CBA, and I can't imagine the players' union would sign off on having two midweek games a week a regular thing. If you want to modify the template to make that kind of schedule possible, feel free...but be aware that many people will not consider such a schedule realistic.
I agree that's too much. I don't have a problem with games on the weekend after a CCL game though. Nor two games a week for multiple weeks. But three games in one week - Friday, Tuesday, Thursday? - that's nuts.
Well the CCL ends in April, and MLS team don't usually start in the Open Cup until end of May, so no issue in the spring. In the fall I guess it would depend on what the USSF does. CCL starts in July, so it would be up to the USSF to schedule Open Cup games on weeks that Concacaf does not have CCL games. I guess worst case; MLS teams would move their weekend games around to not violate the CBA (much easier to move MLS games, that to coordinate with USSF or Concacaf to move games in the Cup or CCL). I guess really the only risk would be end of July (CCL starts) and maybe August (Open Cup final perhaps).
Canada may have the issue in the fall in years to come (if more Canadian teams join NASL/USLPRO). But the solution for the fall would just be giving any Canadian team (can only really be 1 team) still alive for the CCL final a bye (or more) in the UCC if need be. So no real issue I guess.
On a calendar switch, Canadians will have to move their championship to July to get out of the way of the MLS playoffs.
I'll be that guy. If MLS ever moves to a summer-to-spring schedule part of the rationale would be not playing during the World Cup which will make FIFA happy. Using that as a bargaining chip could be what they'd need to get ExCo approval to play the final on the same weekend as the UCL Final. It's only one game, between two teams, and the rest of the league is idle. They're not asking for the moon (and, overall, would be giving FIFA what they want).
Another question, is there a way to add Atlanta and San Antonio as teams 23-24? It is a hell of a lot easier for a guy like me to do a schedule on a spreadsheet with two 12-team divisions than it is as it stands now. Home and away against your 11 division opponents (22 games) plus one game against each team in the other conference (12 games) gets you to 34 games. Is it cheating if I do that? Is it wishful thinking to think those teams will be playing by 2017-2018?
I'm pretty useless when it comes to Google docs but that's what I'm trying to do myself by inserting columns and moving some labels. Also, "@SEA" seems to be missing from the Schedule Table at the bottom on the template.
I'm going to wait for the 2020-2021 planning thread for when the USA (or Canada) is hosting the Confederations Cup.
Teams 23 and 24 have been added. They're called "MLS23" and "MLS24" right now, but you can change the names and everything should still work (as long as you change them in the totals area at the bottom of the sheet, too). Also added the missing @SEA line back in.
You have 2 @ mls23 entries in the Schedule Table As for making the schedule that is not in and of itself terribly difficult once you know the number of teams and number of games. What makes schedule making truly difficult are the million other things happening in each city that this does not account for Venue Conflicts Preferred Dates Other Civic Events that are not Venue Conflicts per se. Too simulate some of that I would say pick 4-6 game dates per team an make them unavailable that begins to simulate the myriad of crap that really goes into schedule making. But doing so probably means adding a weekday 2 option each week. In the case of Seattle I would make every other weekend unavailable from August to December. Assuming NYCFC is still in Yankee stadium I would pick 3 consecutive match days every other weekly cyckle from June-October, and then April-June unavailable. But that may be more effort than it is worth.
Thanks I have put forward my suggested schedule. A couple of assumptions: - Expansion teams in Atlanta, Miami, Minneapolis and Orlando; - Due to expansion of MLS, NASL and USL, MLS teams start the US Open Cup at the Last 64 stage; - Also, Canadian teams start at the Quarter Final stage. Format/Schedule: - 24 teams split into 2 conference of 12 teams each: EAST and WEST - Teams play in own conference twice (Home and Away) and teams in opposing conference once (Home OR Away) for 34 games in total; - Cross-conference matches played in 4 blocks of 3 matches (weekend-midweek-weekend) to reduce the number of long distance travels to 4 per season (from a potential 12); - 10 or 12 teams make the playoffs, using the format currently used.
In your proposed format, if a team was participating in the CCL and made it to the final of the U.S. Open Cup, that team would have two games a week every week except for FIFA breaks between July 8 and December 2 and their two CCL bye weeks. I'm just not sure that's realistic. Soccer is not a two-games-a-week, every week, sport, at least not the way it's played today. And if a team makes it deep in Champions League, they're pretty well screwed for the MLS playoffs. Then you have two games scheduled for every team on Thanksgiving weekend, and one for Christmas Eve--which will kill season ticket sales. Would you buy a 17-game season ticket knowing you're going to miss 2 or possibly 3 of the games? A lot of people will be in that position. Then, with all that, you keep what is probably the worst feature of the current calendar: the two-week break before MLS Cup. I don't see the players' union ever agreeing to a schedule this congested.
OK, lets look at some 2013/2014 European schedules, if you if ignore FIFA matches periods, the first rest dates since the start of the season are: Spain - Midweek of 3/4/5 December England - Midweek of 18/19/20 or 25/26/27 February [for EL teams, if they play every match possible, then they will have to play every weekend and midweek slot available, and sometimes 3 times a week] Germany - Midweek of 29/30/31 October Italy - Midweek of 3/4/5 December Ukraine - Midweek of 3/4/5 December Russia - Midweek of 3/4/5 December Netherlands - Midweek of 3/4/5 December Belgium - Weekend of 28/29 December Sure, European based players complain the hell out of congested schedules... but have they ever refused to play or gone on strike?! Of course, MLS is regionalized, and I have bunched together long distance matches to reduce excessive travel time. The US Open Cup is somewhat regionalized until the latter stages too. I don't see a problem with this: 7 NFL teams last season had home games on both Thanksgiving and Xmas; likewise several NHL teams did too. Attendance at these games don't seem too badly affected. Now, I know comparing MLS attendance/fan commitment to NFL/NHL is a sensitive subject, but is there any particular reason why MLS fans wont turn up to Thanksgiving games? I agree, I don't like it either, but from what I recall, its been received positively. With the current schedule, 34 League, 6 playoff, 5 Cup, 12 CCL games, 12 FIFA matchdays/rests and not to mention major competitions every summer (World Cup, Confedersations Cup, Gold Cup), it will be very hard to fit in 69 matches into the fall-spring calendar without bunching matches together and avoiding the worse of winter.