https://www.mlssoccer.com/post/2018/12/13/2019-mls-playoff-structure just hoping quakes will be part of it..... The Bracket In 2019, 14 of the league's 24 teams will qualify for the postseason, up from 12 in 2018. Only one team per conference will be given a first-round bye, while the higher-seeded clubs will host all matches, further emphasizing regular season excellence. Furthermore, there will be no reseeding, so if the No. 7 seed upsets the No. 2 seed, they'll still play the winner of No. 3 vs. No. 6 irrespective of the other results.
As I said elsewhere ... I have to elaborate. With so many teams making the playoffs, the owners, GM's, and honchos of various kinds can pretend that they had a successful season because "we made the playoffs." It would be much better if only three teams from each conference made the playoffs. Team 2 plays Team 3 in a home and home series. Winner plays home and home against Team 1 (who got a bye on the first round). That makes the playoffs short, and it forces every team to try harder to be more competitive. It also makes the US Open Cup more worthy because many teams will feel they have a better chance at that than MLS Cup. With fourteen of twenty-four teams making the playoffs, it's harder to miss than to make it. This lowers the competitive bar. It's crap. GO Quakes!! - Mark
And with the new format, there is virtually no chance of a home playoff game for the Quakes, unless any of you think we are positioned to finish in the Top 4 in the West.
And the NBA In fact, within 2 years the NHL will go back to being a 50% playoff league, and in 4 years MLS will probably be a 50% playoff league as well. So the NBA would still have highest playoff percentage if they don't expand in 4 years.
Not to mention the lowest variation in participation rate in the final. Four straight years of Curry vs. LeBron would be pretty boring if I were paying attention, which I'm not because Buffalo hasn't had a team since 1978.
I’m tempted to puckishly opine that a “NQR” in the title might be moot, based on recent (and not-so-recent) history.
It effectively means, for the foreseeable future, we're not going to have a home playoff game to get excited about. We're pretty much at a point where an entire generation hasn't seen us win a play off game at home...
And yet the re-born Quakes have won two playoff games on the road (NY 2010 and LA 2012), which suggests the new format favors us.
Definitely in favor of going to single elimination, and of finishing before December, but if they are only going to shorten the playoff timetable, it means they haven't added any breathing room into the regular schedule, so the blight of midweek games and multiple game weeks continues. The only way to alleviate things now would be to reduce the number of regular season games, which I'd be in favor of, since the teams don't all play each other an equal number of times, anyway.