Ideas for MLS League Design [Superthread] IV

It makes sense, but I'd be surprised that the MLS brain trust would go for it. MLS, actually was a three conference league in the early aughts. But, everything changed with contraction and the arrival of The Don.

Since then, I think that the long term model MLS is looking at is the NHL. Sooooo, once the league expands to 28 teams, I imagine what we'll see (like it or not) are two conferences that a subdivided into two divisions -- and I think that MLS will pretty much will stick with that design concept.

The NBA and MLB added a division to each of their two conferences for a six conference setup and the MLS could go that route down the road. But, if you're going to let half of the teams in the league into the playoffs, why add an extra division or two to the conferences? Having six divisions sort of makes sense for MLB because only ten teams (out of a thirty team league) make the playoffs. Division winners get a bye and the next four runner-up teams battle it out in a wildcard game. It doesn't make sense for the NBA, though, because winning a division title is relatively meaningless.

Designing a league with two conferences subdivided into four divisions sort of makes sense for the NFL because only twelve teams (out of the thirty-two teams in the league) qualify for the playoffs. The two division winners with the best regular season in each conference get a first round bye and the next two division winners host runner-up teams in a wild card playoff.

But, as we have seen, MLS seems determined (like the NBA and the NHL) have an expanded playoff. Therefore, why wouldn't MLS follow the NHL's league and got for two conferences composed of two divisions? It's much cleaner that way in terms for seeding playoff teams for the post-season tournament.

 

For those who believe that MLS will re-align into a NFL/NBA style of alignment here is a possible re-alignment when the league reaches 30 clubs.

With this alignment I can foreseen a 34 game schedule with clubs playing each club within their division 3 times for a total of 12 matches, then play all other clubs within their conference once (10 games) for a total of 22 games within the conference. Thus then they with 12 matches against clubs from the other conference. As to the playoffs 7 clubs from each conference will qualify for a single elimination MLS Cup tournament, 3 Division champs plus 4 at-large clubs regardless of division. The top club in each conference will receive a initial round bye.

 

This is a condensation of a couple of my posts from May.

If you share the revenue, you could add, eventually, talking long term, have an MLS1 and MLS1

Miami
Sacramento
San Diego
Las Vegas
Phoenix
Tampa
Detroit
Miami
Cleveland
St. Louis
North Carolina
Indianapolis
Nashville
Milwaukee
Cincinatti
New Orleans
San Antonio

That's 17 new markets, the smallest being New Orleans. That gets you to 40 teams, 2 divisions of 20. Garber talks about "we need to add fans." How do you add fans? Give them a team to root for. You don't think there are more hockey fans in Las Vegas than there were last year? You don't think there ware more hockey fans in OC than before the Ducks arrived?

I would add some inter-divisional play during the regular season. I mean that each team will have a few matches each season against teams in the other division. The vast majority of the games would be intra-division. But, they would have a few that are inter.

That would 1) create interest for the 2nd division team; 2) reduce travel; 3) preserve rivalries.

It's still all MLS. Still single entity. Still shared revenue.

They could announce the creation of MLS2, a second division, which would be ramped up for eventual pro/rel. Add like, 6 to 8 teams for a 6 to 8 team 2nd division. Let that league exist for a couple of years while the teams get their act together.

That would give the current ownership group time to get their head around the fact that this will eventually happen. If they want to sell their team, they can sell it. I bet every single one of them would get one hell of a lot more money than they paid for it - even with pro/rel looming in a few years.

I'm guessing that soccer ratings are the worst in the South. If you've got legit pro teams in Atlanta, Nashville, New Orleans, and North Carolina, you're going to expand interest in the game dramatically in that region. The question is coming up with ownership groups. But, there's no hurry. Come up with a plan and the ownership groups will come.

And, I am not a pro/rel fanatic. I don't care about it. My only motivation would be to grow the sport in the U.S., grow the player pool. England has a 20 team top tier. But, how many clubs do they have that have youth training of some sort? Close to 100? Does that go down to League 2?

Why should a nation the size of the U.S. have 1/3 the number of professional clubs training youth as England?

And, again, I'm talking long term.

 

40 teams. 2 “leagues” or conferences of 20 with the champions of each conference playing for MLS Cup. Pro/rel ain’t happening even with 40 teams in MLS and it’s completely unnecessary

 

Soccer fans are also accustomed to soccer teams playing soccer games where the object is to score more goals over a single 90 minute soccer game, not run the score up at home and then lose by slightly less on the road. Two game, aggregate score, away goals tiebreaker for playoffs is a blight on MLS. It's beyond stupid that you play single soccer games for eight months then play a completely different competition format when it matters the most.

It's fine for an unseeded cup competition when you want to prevent any home field advantage. When you have a regular season that determines seeds, it's insulting to a team with the better regular season that they can be eliminated from MLS Cup competition by losing leg 1 on the road by multiple goals. It's an insult to the fans of the team with the better regular season record who paid their hard-earned money in advance for tickets to a home playoff game as we get robbed of getting to watch a meaningful home playoff game because the series is already decided by a multiple goal loss on the road in leg 1.

Keep in mind that this is in a parity league where teams have to fly coach. Close games often get blown open at the end of the game due to the away team simply getting fatigued from travelling coach, transferring planes, flight delays, etc.

It's also beyond stupid that you spend eight months to seed the playoff tournament and then do a format that completely nullifies that home field advantage. Home field advantage means only having to win at home, NOT the "privilege" of digging out of a deficit at home while the other team's goals count double. The Red Bulls were robbed by the format this season, just like every other higher seed over the years that lost on the road in leg 1 then couldn't dig out in the second leg because the lower seed only had to park the bus. The higher seed also couldn't throw numbers forward like they would in a regular 90 minute soccer game because conceding a counter-attack goal costs TWO goals rather than just one.

As a fan, I've been on the side of losses in the knock-out round and losses in the home-and-home rounds. While it's always difficult when your favorite team's season is ended, I accept the result of a loss in the opening knock-out round or MLS Cup as being fair while I'll never regard the scenario where my higher seeded team loses on the road but then wins at home but is eliminated as fair.

 

That's a terrible idea. If you split the league into an "MLS1" and "MLS2," both the fans and the broadcasters will regard MLS2 as minor league. Fans won't want to pay major league ticket prices, buy major league merch, or have major league engagement. Broadcasters won't pay for a major league TV contract. You'd immediately decrease the value of your product by 50% by only having 20 major league TV markets rather than 30.

Further, no major league city will agree to fund infrastructure improvements for a team that can be booted to the minor leagues after a single bad season.

 

I'm personally not in favor of applying current major league sports alignments or a traditional soccer table alignment (two conferences, single table in each) for MLS. The strengths of MLS to me:

1) 34 games, which presents some unique scheduling possibilities we don't have in the "Big 4" leagues here. In NHL/MLB/NBA, there are so many games that there is a lot of pressure to "play everybody" and thin the schedule. In NFL, you're only dealing with 16 games, so the schedule becomes very uneven, with heavy emphasis on divisional rotations. These types of schedules aren't great in terms of forming a season narrative. 34 games is sort of a "sweet spot" where you can make things more interesting before they get boring (with bloated NBA, NHL, MLB schedules).

2) the league isn't going to be a high revenue world beater, but it can be a solid second tier to the Big 5 UEFA leagues + elite clubs from other leagues. There are plenty of markets to support that level of club investment.

Long term, I'd borrow something from college sports to build multiple areas of focus across the season. Eventually a 48 team league, 4 conferences of 12 teams in each of the Southeast, Northeast, Midwest, West. Phase I of the season is all about rivalries. Everyone in your conference home and away to build rivalries, Fox Sports Regional packages for broadcast $$$, promote away fan support, etc. Each conference more or less resembles a major college conference. This is 11/17 of the schedule.

Phase II flights clubs based upon their conference finish 1-12.

Top flight (shield): Top 2 teams in each conference. H2H result from intraconference 1v2 results carry in. So each team plays the other 6 1st and 2nd placed teams home and away (12 more games). The winner of this table is regular season champ in a competition more worthy of a supporters shield. All 8 teams are seeded 1-8 in the playoffs.

Bottom flight (better luck next year): the cellar dwellers (11+12) from each conference play one other in the same format as the top flight. It gives them some matches to experiment in the final 1/3 of the season against other struggling teams where results are up for grabs.

Middle class (wildcard tables): teams 3-10 from each conference would still be alive for the playoffs after conference play. Flight all teams into 4 separate groups where the top 2 in each group get the remaining 8 spots of a 16 team playoff. For example: Southeast #3 and #4 with Northeast #5 and #6 and Midwest #7 and #8 and West #9 and #10. You're always with one another team from your conference (results from H2H conference play carry) and 2 teams from each of the other three conferences. 12 games.

This keeps the schedule at 34 games, promotes rivalries, creates a true table race for the shield and some interesting playoff chases. Just different ways to package the league at different points in the season. It helps fans build more of a college mindset when setting expectations/following their club for a given season. Sometimes you're cheering for your team to win the ACC. Some years staying out of the cellar is good enough. Some years a good year is to finish in the top half and maybe get into the postseason. This feels more intuitive to people IMO than 3rd in a 5 team division, is that wildcard material? in US pro sports.

 

For Sport Billy







Don Garber
@thesoccerdon

Replying to
@RWhittall
@rwhittall
30 seems like too many. Improve player quality, fan experience, local club relevance while maintaining economic viability
3:10 PM · Apr 23, 2013 · Hootsuite

Somebody said Phienix, Saint Louis and Sacremento have shovel ready stadium plans.

I don't know that any of those cities have shovel ready stadium plans.

Haven't even seen a rendering for Saint Louis.

 

A couple of things:

-Garber definitely said that back in 2013...although in the last two weeks he's contradicted this statement with notions the league could expand past 30 because "it's a big country".

-Re: St Louis renderings. They are out there via google. It's the same design as the prior proposal in 2017. https://kmox.radio.com/articles/st-louis-county-could-help-pay-downtown-soccer-stadium

I wouldn't call it "shovel ready" though because there is quite a bit of site prep work that needs to be done before the stadium footprint is essentially a blank slate.

 

This is why I have bought into a 30 team league broken into 3 conferences of 10 clubs. This would promote regional rivalries and maintain the 34 game schedule. So with the additions of Austin, St. Louis, Sacramento and Phoenix, it appears we are coming ever closer to the end game of MLS expansion.

 

I highly doubt there will ever be 3 conferences again. That was a very short one season experiment. It is too complicated for playoff purposes and CCL qualifying.

 

*two seasons

 

Garber stated they were looking at ways to make the regular season more meaningful in his State of the League address. A good way to do that is to make the regular season a stage, tourney style affair and there are definite ways to make a 30 team, 3 conference league that promote that.

The short of it is to play 18 matches/club within conference first to sort each conference 1 through 10. Then the top 4 from each conference play for a league shield, CCL spots, and playoff positions in a single table. Teams 5-10 in each conference are folded into two "wildcard tables" of 9 clubs for the final 4 spots of a 16 team postseason. The league gets a rivalry/conference title race in the first 18 dates in the regular season. Then a single table league crown, CCL, wildcard chase the last 16 dates. Then a "league cup" for the postseason.

The drawback is that only the first 18 matches are "fixed" in advance of the season, but it's really not too hard to follow. If you finish top 4 in the conference you get another fixed schedule of 16. If you finish below that, you get another fixed schedule of 12 and then another 4 matches depending upon if you've clinched a playoff berth, you've been eliminated, or you're still on the bubble.

https://postimg.cc/JtSHZP9h

 

I'm not sure we could do that because in a league of 24-32 teams, owners would expect that the majority of clubs would need to be in the hunt for something as the season winds down. That's the point of a postseason IMO.

The other problem is that with a big league, you lose that league narrative for the regular season title without everyone doing a double round robin format. That's why the supporters shield means squat IMO. So to "fix" that, you'd need to cull teams pretty early to get to a final table that could play out in 40 or so games over all phases.

Let's say there are 32 clubs. 2 conferences of 16 = 30 conference games. Then take the top 5 from each conference, carry their intraconference top 5 results over to a 10 team "supporters shield" table and play out. 10 more games to complete that table. 40 total. So more than two thirds of the league is out of stuff to do other than play out the regular season....the rare team still in some sort of league cup/open cup excepted.

That's kind of why I mentioned the 3x10 format that I did (diagram in the link). You still have the integrity of a single table shield for the 12 higher finishing conference level clubs but another 10-14 teams would probably still be in playoff contention three quarters of the way through the season.

 

There is a multi-League cup.

 

Actually it's quite simple for the playoffs. Especially since the league is now going to a single elimination bracket system. First, off conference champions are now awards based on regular season preference. The three conference champs plus 10 other clubs qualify for the playoffs, top 3 each conference plus next 4 clubs regardless of conference. This bracket isn't much different than from what has been just announced.

As for the champions league I believe MLS gets 3 berths. They would be the US Open Champion, MLS Cup Champion and the Supporter Shield winner.

 

Again, I only see the league expanding to 30 clubs. Maybe someday, let's say 10 to 15 years after a pause to 32, but no-more than to 32 clubs.

 

US Open Champion is not a MLS berth.

 

Talking about Pro-Rel in MLS, I just had a disturbing thought.

What if the plan is to have current MLS eventually be Division 2? One day in the future, Garber and the MLS front office could announce that they will be splitting the league in two. This new level, called MLS-Premiere would have a salary cap of $30-50 million, increasing in $10 million increments each year until the cap reaches $100 million? They would allow a maximum of 18 teams, and if more than that want to join the first season, then there would be an additional level-up fee of $50 million that existing owners would have to pay. Any owner who balks could just play under the current salary cap in the second level.

That would pretty much leave a number of the current MLS clubs on the outside looking in (*cough*ColoradoChicago*cough*), but you could probably guarantee that Atlanta, NYCFC, Toronto, LAFC, LAG, and Seattle would join, with some of the newer MLS3.0 clubs with owners with big ambitions, like Nashville and Miami...

Someone slap me.

 

Dude, I want some of whatever you're smoking.

Copying and pasting my previous post about why that will never happen:

That's a terrible idea. If you split the league into an "MLS1" and "MLS2," both the fans and the broadcasters will regard MLS2 as minor league. Fans won't want to pay major league ticket prices, buy major league merch, or have major league engagement. Broadcasters won't pay for a major league TV contract. [edit: What national broadcaster would want to pay money for a product that has 12 teams in the top-10 TV markets one year and half as many in the top-10 markets the next?!?!?!]

Further, no major league city will agree to fund infrastructure improvements for a team that can be booted to the minor leagues after a single bad season.

 

There's an American soccer league that uses that format. It's called the USL. That is a perfect competition format for a minor league looking to save on travel expenses. However, such a competition screams minor league.