My arguing for soccer on Thanksgiving in this thread was made without thinking about the specific present application for MLS - that in the current set-up if any game is played on Thanksgiving it would most likely have to be the MLS cup final. In that sense, I think I'm persuaded by your all arguments that December 1 (or December 8) would be a better date for the MLS cup. But I prefer watching soccer over football so regardless I am in favor of finding soccer to watch on Thanksgiving instead of football. It is kind of nice that they've scheduled Europa League as well as the Mexican Liga semis for Thanksgiving so those are possibilities for me. Maybe in the future they could play one champions league game on Thursday (instead of Tuesday or Wednesday) to try to cash in on more Americans watching sports on Thursday during the day than during the day of the preceding Tuesday or Wednesday of the same week.
I doubt they care about the holiday for sentimental reasons, but as an organization that tries to maximize profits, its possible they could be looking for outside-the-box ways to increase revenues. If whoever bought the U.S. rights to UCL offered more money for them to switch a game or two to the Thanksgiving thursday, I'm sure they would at least consider it. In other words, it would only be a switch of one or two days. There were 8 champions league games this week. Although I'm sure there would be some disadvantages, it seems to me to be quite feasible to have 1 or 2 of those 8 games played on Thursday to be able to show a game during U.S. thanksgiving. I'm not saying that the UCL has called me recently asking what they can do to gain more of my interest, attention, and money, but i'm just brainstorming here and this is a message board.
I don't like the fact that the higher seed team gets to host. This gives no time for the fans or clubs to schedule any pre cup events. No meet and greet for the fans. Also Saturday is alright but it should be played at 4pm local time. BTW I am a Galaxy fan
They schedule on Thursdays because that's when Europa League games are many weekends in the Fall. Period. You could probably get just as many viewers on the Wed before Thanksgiving as on the actual day in the US. Thanksgiving in the US is spelled NFL. Period.
U.S. live viewers??? no way the Wed before thanksgiving would get more U.S. live viewers than a Thanskgiving day game would. during the day before thanksgiving (Wednesday) tons of soccer fans are still at their usual job doing usual work while the games are played. I'm not saying the game would outdraw the NFL game, but I know quite a few people who would choose a thanksgiving day champions league game over the typical Lions or Dallas game.
Yeah, and those "quite a few people" probably has a large percentage that don't give a crap about the NFL game in the first place. That Wednesday before has MANY people being let out rather early (half day usually), and a huge swath of kids don't have school that week and/or are let out rather early on Wednesday.
People complained that the highest seed should be hosting the MLS Cup for years. MLS decides to do that, and people complain that the scheduling is f*cked up. Guess what? MLS Cup is about a whole hell of a lot more than just the game. There are a lot of events that go on around the MLS Cup and there is a lot of logistical planning that needs to get done. Not to mention selling tickets to a game where the location isn't known until a few days before the event. And lets just say that New England, Seattle, or San Jose were hosts. None control their own stadiums, which ads to the headaches. And for fans who are traveling, it provides an extra week to plan and save on travel costs (no last minute airfares). Jesus H. Christ. Do people actually think at all before they bitch and moan?
You're assuming that there is some major crossover between college football fans and MLS fans. My guess is that there really isn't that big of an overlap to have a major affect on TV ratings. Those college football fans are much more likely to tune in for 12 straight hours of NFL football coverage rather than flip to an MLS game.
my post that you quoted mentioned college football, nfl, as well as NBA. it wasn't based on some huge emphasis on cross-over between college football fans and MLS fans. I'm not an MLS tv ratings expert but I'm pretty sure that I've read on here before that MLS TV ratings drop quite a bit from summer to fall. It seems like that drop would be due to increased competition from other sports including college football.