Regarding high attendance months, I wonder if kids soccer is a factor. I least want to go to a game when I've spent the day watching my kids play. Also, the Rapids, like most teams, only play their opener in March, so it is not really an average- just one game.
In my opinion if MLS continues the gradual movement towards earlier season start in March, and maybe February someday I hope, and push the final game deeper and deeper into December while opening up a longer summertime break in late June and early July that lines up with the international schedule then even the staunch winterists like myself and Coach Klinsmann will have very little to complain about. Plus an added benefit would be that MLS teams will have their legs up under 'em when they play Champions League games against the Mexican teams in March. It would be cool to play a Euro Champ of Champs in a match that matters in December...and be prepared for it when it eventually happens. So, good for you, The Don, if you keep to your own suggestion you will have managed to please everyone once again.
Not just that, but for fans who live in the general region of a team (an hour or two away) kids' soccer can have games starting at 5:00 or 6:00 pm on weekdays or weekends, which means going to an evening game is out of the question.
There isn't much reason to move further into March or December. MLS has already established that having a balanced schedule is not in its future plans and I don't foresee them adding games to their current number of games. You do have a valid point about not being as competitive in the CCL knockout rounds as they could be, but the overall quality difference between MLS and FMF teams is far more significant than the lack of sharpness of MLS teams due to pre-season vs mid-season form.
This is an issue (MLS Calendar) which has been in discussion for decades, and even Sepp Blatter, FIFA's Prez has pointed to this issue as the reason why players from abroad do not want to come here, and as well as the MLS Calendar conflicting with the World Cup and the International Calendar. IMHO, it should stay the way it is. The NASL had the same Calendar and that had nothing to do with why it sank.In addition, remember that RUSSIA, NORWAY, SWEDEN and FINLAND also share the same Calendar as us because of the weather. Don Garber has made the MLS Calendar more "FIFA Friendly" in the sense that MLS will not play when the Nats play. Also, in the future, when the World Cup is in session, the league that year will take a 3-4 week hiatus while the World Cup is going on. Anyway, I am not sure how the league would do if you moved the season to a September-to-May Format like in most European countries. My disadvantages weigh out the advantages- take a look: DISADVANTAGES: 1.Cold Weather from November to early March; We are not in Europe, we are in the US / North America. The Jet Stream from the Arctic Pole can come quite down, fronting a very cold, snowy winter. We were lucky this year as an example, we had a mild winter,but that is a rarity. 2.Because of the Cold Weather, Attendance would probably suffer, especially here in the NorthEast and in the Central US, along with Montreal and Toronto. You would have to have the League take a 2 month break(Jan and Feb.) and that might just be too long. 3.Soccer will be up against 4 Major Sports during those months, more or less, Football, Baseball, Basketball and Hockey are all in play- not all at the same time, but there seasons overlap with ours. I just dont think our sport would survive. ADVANTAGES: 1.Lining up the transfer windows; Market value of players lining up evenly with ours. Business End of the sport. 2.World Cup Year; Season would end in May. But I think overall, Professional Soccer in this country is catching on. We have 19 Teams in the League, NBC SPORTS signed a contract with MLS to broadcast games (which is BIG, NBC never broadcasted Soccer matches before- they were always against the sport). MLS is doing well. And, In my opinion the Calandar really has nothing to do with getting the great European Players to come and play here. WHY? Just look back at the glory days of the NASL / NY COSMOS. The Cosmos had the best players from around the world play here during their time - Pele, Beckenbauer, Chinaglia (RIP), Neeskens, Tuart,Birkenmier, Seninho, Marinho, Bogicevic, Eskandarian, the list goes on and on. SHOW THEM THE MONEY AND THEY WILL COME. ITS ALL ABOUT THE MONEY, AND THE $$ PAID TO THE CLUBS FOR THE TRANSFER FEE. IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE CALENDAR. Eric Wynalda has actually shot himself in the foot with this article.The reason whay I say that too is because he knows it takes $$ to get the sport on the map. Just like with the Stadium Issue, I have heard him say - "BUILD IT AND THEY WILL COME". Yeah, build it alright- $90 million dollars or so later to build Red Bull Arena. So there is a Parallel here with his saying and what I am saying- You spent the big bucks on a stadium, you can also spend money on those marquee players too. LIONEL MESSI CESC FABREGAS RONALDO BUFFON DANI ALVES ROONEY MEXES VAN DER VAART ROBBEN RIBERY BALOTELLI SHOW THEM (& THEIR PRESENT CLUBS) THE MONEY, AND THEY WILL COME!
Russia is in the process of transitioning to a fall to spring season schedule. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/fo...football-calendar-falls-line-rest-Europe.html
Please don't use Sepp as any reason why we should change our schedule. http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2006/dec/04/newsstory.sport5
but ignoring the name or title of the person who put forward an idea or suggestion, the suggestion itself has some broad merit to it: this issue as the reason why (a good number of) players from abroad do not want (in part) to come here, and as well as the MLS Calendar conflicting with the World Cup and the International Calendar. players (or the best players it would seem) do not want to be put in a position of choosing international play and missing out on club matches on the same dates. MLS's schedule used to be packed with such dates (where players were missing from their clubs due to international duty). the league has done a better job in recent years of scheduling to avoid international match dates, and MLS can certainly work on a solution that maintains a spring-to-fall schedule and completely avoids those FIFA international match dates/periods. (or they could opt to avoid FIFA dates and set a league schedule that started in a different part of the calendar year.)
I think MLS should align with the best and biggest factory of players in the world and a league that could be the best league in the world in the next 25-50 years. Brazil. BTW, China, Korea, Japan (I will assume Mongolia) Also use the spring to fall schedule, so I also think MLS should form some type of union with them, the Scandinavian countries and Brazil to tell FIFA to suck it! There are at least 12 leagues that play the same schedule as MLS and two of them have huge potential (China and Brazil), maybe in 30 years the argument will be why aren't other leagues changing to the normal soccer schedule as followed by the top 3 leagues in the world USA, China and Brazil.
I posted my winter schedule on Chapka "The New, Improved, 2013-2014 YBTD Challenge" so I guess maybe it can be viewed there. I guess it only took me a little more than 5 minutes- like 3 months to completer. It's called "Oceans of time 2013 -14 MLS Winter Schudule.
Today was a good day If this isn't a wakeup call to MLS top brass and homers then i don't know what is a professional team getting beat by a sunday league pub team formed about a month ago. managment has to be thinking of at least considering some of the view points that Wynalda brought up because this was just a pathetic showing today I mean what team in any respectable league loses to an amateur team?? never heard of Chelsea or Manchester United losing to a sunday league pub team I just want my league to improve but with the current policies it won't get better so I am glad Wynalda formed that pub team to wake up the MLS groupies and management that the league still has a long long long long way to go and that Wynalda is not the enemy, but a great friend and partner of the league. He has great viewpoints that can help this league prosper. I wish that one day instead of garber looking for a new franchise in NY that he would focus on actually implementing one of the points brought up by Wynalda Otherwise we will start seeing top US prospects heading abroad or to Mexico for the best development since MLS can't do that as evidenced by this embarassing loss to an amateur team
Marseille and Rennes beg to differ. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Coupe_de_France_Final Seriously, this guy has to be a sock puppet for Eric.
Yep, one data point completely contridicts the past 17 years of lower league sides losing to MLS sides in the USOC and proves that a loud mouth like Wynalda is correct. Next you'll tell me that the data gathered at CERN in that single experiment proves Einstein is wrong about the speed of light being absolute. Never mind their failure to replicate it.
GOOGLE these: League Cup FA Cup Dutch Cup German Cup French Cup Italian Cup .... look at the results and report back.
What do Wynalda's proposed changes to MLS have to do with an upset in a USOC match? The top players tend to go abroad because that's where the money is. As MLS grows financially, it'll retain more top American players. It's pretty simple, actually. Yeah, Portland losing last night is hilariously tragic, like seeing a clown get murdered. But upsets happen in every sport. Now, if we were going to predict who would win a best of 3 or 5 game series, would you put money on Portland or Cal FC?
BUT, you know what ? Spoiler (Move your mouse to the spoiler area to reveal the content) Show Spoiler Hide Spoiler HE'S NOT DEAD ! HE'S OK !
Since he's yet to actually articulate Wynalda's proposed changes, I doubt he can answer your question.
Wait, Cal FC players don't play a fall-spring schedule? And this thread doesn't make any sense? I don't know how to live anymore
You might be right, if Wynalda's arguments about the schedule and his team's win were related in any way. If this win shows anything, other than that cups are fun because sometimes fluky wins happen, it's that Wynalda has some talent at scouting, managing, and/or motivating players. Honestly, I don't think anyone ever doubted that. Eric Wynalda doesn't have trouble finding a job in MLS because of his talent; he has trouble finding a job in MLS because of his personality and temperament. This is a silly comparison because: 1. Manchester United and Chelsea have likely never played a Sunday league team in a meaningful tournament, because Sunday league pub teams aren't eligible for the FA Cup. The Sunday leagues are somewhere around the 25th level of English soccer. 2. MLS is a parity league; one of the benefits of parity is that we don't have "superclubs" like Man United and Chelsea. And if we did have one, Portland, currently tied for seventh place in the nine-team Western Conference, wouldn't be it. 3. MLS teams aren't as good as Premier League teams, meaning they aren't as far removed from amateur teams as Premier League teams are. Nobody thinks they are, at this point in MLS development. 4. Top division teams do lose to amateur and semi-pro teams in cup tournaments even in top-level European leagues--it happened this year in the Coupe de France. 5. Cal FC is not a "pub league" team. It's a team that Eric Wynalda, who is currently a professional talent scout, made up out of mostly young pro prospects, including some former pros. Yes, it's an amateur team, and yes, Portland should have beaten it, but you're trying to pretend they're the Bad News Bears and that's just silly. Do you honestly not think that the league has improved since Wynalda scored the first goal in 1996? Because as someone who watched that 1996 Clash team in person, I have to tell you that this year's Toronto FC could probably beat them easily, Wynalda and all. The league has improved, and in the last few years it's improved pretty dramatically. Why do you think it won't improve further? I can see you now, shouting from the mountaintop: "Wake up, sheeple! The Portland Timbers aren't as good a team as Barcelona! Why don't you understand that?" Of course the MLS has a long way to go. That's not a surprise to anyone. The Timbers spend $4 million a year on player salaries. Barcelona spends $6 million a week. Mid-table Bundesliga teams have ten to twenty times the salary budget of most MLS teams. So we all agree we have a ways to go. The question is, what makes you think Wynalda knows how to get there better than the people who actually have been running MLS during the years it's seen most of its improvement? When will we start seeing this? Again: MLS, and specifically MLS player development, has been improving for the last 16 years. If the youth players haven't jumped ship by now, they're not going to.
Portland has been operating an MLS Academy for how many years now? (Note: If the answer is any number less than 4, your argument is invalid)
Good to see you buddie. Was looking for you yesterday when Wynalda beat the timbers. Nowhere to be found
Yeah, funny how I wasn't up near midnight on a work night, imagine that. BTW, have you admitted you were wrong yet?
I was looking for you to actually respond to some of the points made. That's nowhere to be found, either.
Now I admit that I have long advocated for not doing something one way just because Europe (which usually really means England around her, imho) does it that way. However, when I was a kid, before (almost) everyone had cable, before the internet, before soccer became more than just a niche sport, long after the NASL died, I honestly believed that soccer was a summer sport. My logic was simple--I played soccer in the spring, the World Cup was played during the summer. Then I got cable and learned that most countries around the world consider soccer to be a winter sport and in a way that made sense to me. I don't think MLS should be a winter league though. If it started in the fall its opening would be drowned out by football, it crowds would stay home before going out in the cold during the dead of winter, the playoffs would be drowned out by the NBA and NHL playoffs, etc. etc. etc. I am sure this has all been raised before. Before the new Yankee Stadium opened, the old one (the real one) basically told the NHL that it could not host the Winter Classic because no one was sure that the pipes would be able handle a full house during January. The stadium simply wasn't built for use during the winter. The new stadium doesn't seem to have that problem because they host a bowl game a week before the Winter Classic. What I wonder though, is this. The House that George Built had a budget of a gazillion dollars or something like that, so winterizing the pipes might not have been an issue. But, if MLS did switch to an English...I mean international schedule, would all of the stadiums be usable in the winter or could someone have cut corners by deciding that if no one was going to be there in February, the pipes didn't need to fully winterized?