The first Superliga was a fun and successful novelty tournament, but once the big Mexican teams lost interest and they started choosing the MLS teams based on league placement rather than attendance potential, it went downhill quickly. No one cares about the Revs versus Puebla.
Crappy enough that Ol' Jack had to hastily expand the CCC and turn it into the CCL? (Not that SuperLiga needs to come back. Group stage meetings between MLS and LigaMX on the other hand...)
I see where the OP is coming from, and I want to get behind the idea. Problem is two fold though. We can't beat Liga MX teams yet, hell we're not 100% locks to always beat Central American teams. We need to earn that respect first. What's more Liga MX has CCL AND Copa Lib to worry about and from what I gather, Copa Lib outweighs CCL by a hefty margin in the eyes of the Mexican Football Fan. Only thing we can hope to do is try to own CCL and get to the Club World Cup. Yes, no one in Europe cares about it, but everyone else does. If you ask me, if spun right, a good showing in the CWC can help MLS perception even if only superficially.
I would say wait until MLS can beat Liga MX teams more than once a decade, and then lobby to get the top two teams from MLS and Liga MX into Copa Libertadores. CCL could continue with the rest of the teams. Not much of a change for Liga MX, and even though I'm sure the MLS teams would get spanked initially, it would a huge step up. That would allow two teams from each league to play international who are currently excluded. Beyond the top six teams from each league, do you really want to see anyone else? Veracruz v. Colorado in the Futility Bowl?
Was SuperLiga even profitable? I remember it having some boost due to Beckham playing for Galaxy but that was so long ago.
Probably not or it'd still be going but that doesn't mean a similar event wouldn't be profitable today. Things change. One thing MLS needs to get better at is selling the non-league events its teams play in. Its a new concept to the average American sports fan, MLS should be educating its fan base by heavily promoting both the CCL and US Open Cup. In the long run both events being popular will help MLS.
The 2010 SuperLiga Semifinal in Foxboro garnered an amazing 5,854 spectators. I was one of them, and I will swear that about 5,000 of those fans came dressed like blue chairs.
I don't want the Superliga to come back, but if that's what caused the CONCACAF Champions Cup to become a CONCACAF Champions League then I'm happy the Superliga existed temporarily.
We have a hard enough time getting people to be interested in CCL, I don't see how a secondary competition will ever be useful. And we have enough friendly competitions (which is what SuperLiga really was). If you want to create something new and unique that would drive interest I say combine MLS playoffs with Liga MX Apertura Liguilla and call that SuperLiga. They both go on about the same time, and if you were to combine both MLS/Liga MX playoffs then you could go to broadcasters and try to get a new deal for the new competition.
How many clubs do you propose participate? The Mexican playoffs have 8 clubs playing three rounds that each have two legs. That's 6 games, and 6 games is the most MLS playoff games a club could play. If you expand it to 16 clubs with 8 from each country and every round has two legs, the finalists would have to play 8 games. It would also make the CONCACAF Champions League qualification complicated because Mexican clubs could play two playoff formats a year, one with only Mexican clubs and one with MLS clubs. What if the last remaining MLS clubs were eliminated in the same round? For playoff seeding, you could double the points for the Mexican clubs because Mexico plays half as many games, 17 compared to 34, but it would get more complicated if MLS changed its number of games played. Then you could compare clubs based on points per game but you wouldn't be working with whole numbers.
This would be only the fall season playoffs for Mexico. Apertura Liguilla would become SuperLiga as would MLS Cup Playoffs. CCL couldn't be determined by this competition. LIGA MX would determine their CCL spots with their spring playoffs. This is how I would propose US CCL... CCL 1 - Western Conference Champion (or runner-up depending on SS) CCL 2 - Eastern Conference Champion (or runner-up depending on SS) CCL 3 - Supporter's Shield Winner CCL 4 - USOC Winner Liga MX would send 8 teams as would MLS. There would be 4 rounds. You would rank the teams 1-8 in MLS and 1-8 in Liga MX based on points, and then pair them up with 1 in MLS playing 8 in Liga MX...and so on. RD 16 - 1 leg (home goes to the higher seed) RD 8 - 2 legs RD 4 - 2 legs Championship - 2 legs Total amount of post season games would be 7 for the champion (1 more then current format). MLS cup is usually about a week before the Liga MX finals so for scheduling reasons it would be about the same. Its obviously clear why MLS would do this, but the question would be getting Liga MX to buy in. But if MLS/SUM can sell a broadcast deal that makes sense for everyone, it could be a big step forward for both leagues financially. The truth is that our CCL will probably never be a real revenue generator. But if marketed correctly a combined playoffs could generate some new TV/sponsorship revenues for both leagues. http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/20...mas-reaches-4-7-million-total-viewers/266177/ http://fansided.com/2013/12/10/tv-ratings-mls-cup-final-show-least-watched-mls-history/
I too liked Superliga but I doubt it was profitable to MLS and Liga MX or they would not have scrapped it.
It was essentially replaced by the touring European teams with the capability to draw 70,000 fans (and to hammer the LA Galaxy by the seven goal margin).
What an ignorant post... "It didn't work years ago, with a different format,therefore, it will never work!" is what you are saying. It didn't work last time because our teams featured a bunch of people they didn't know or care about and the Mexican clubs(or MLS clubs) didn't take it seriously. It could be completely different this time. MLS will be much, much more competitive with LigaMX starting next year.
The one colossal mistake that people seem to make on this board all the time is suggesting that a change in competition format will affect viewership, sponsorship, and attendance. It's simply not true. Monarcas versus Houston isn't a draw. It's just not. American sports fans simply don't jump at the opportunity to play meaningless in-season games. Sure, RSL/Man City would draw 70,000 in Seattle, but that's because Seattle and Man City are big draws. Chivas/America would sell out, so would Sounders/Timbers...and it doesn't need to be part of some bigger tournament. I went to the Liverpool/Roma friendly in Boston. Sold out show. Y'know what absolutely no one talked about, the World Football Challenge.
So you have to spin it to get superficial help to MLS' perception? Sounds like it's worth devoting resources to. To build off what Achowat just said, there are too many times here that people put forth that some achievement (winning CCL, playing Al Ahly in the UAE some December when no one is paying attention) would be such a boon to MLS that they neglect all the other infrastructural and permanent things that actually have lifted MLS' profile over these last 10-12 years or so. The Club World Cup sounds like it should be a big deal. But it's actually not. It's the latest in a long line of moving targets that MLS has to hit before some folks "take them seriously," even though they'll just pick something else that MLS has to do before they'll take them seriously if they ever hit the original moving target.
It's no more ignorant than thinking that simply changing the format will some how get more people in NE to give a flying crap about Pachuca .... or people in CHI to care about San Luis ... or people in KC to care about Atlas ... etc etc etc. I said exactly what I meant, so no .... your attempt at putting words in my mouth is piss poor. Nobody cared about these games then .... we have a CCL that is finally gaining traction and gives better match ups with better teams. People that are going to care, are going to care about the CCL .... not participation tournament number 4. It happens with big clubs in big soccer countries with the Europa League. Sure, there's enough soccer clubs and countries in Europe to justify a 2nd tournament and have it be meaningful for enough of the clubs that having it in the first place isn't a waste. Still though, at the upper end of clubs in the tournament you see (from the fan bases as much as the teams) that it's more of an annoyance than anything else. Hell, in South America the Sudamericana pales in comparison to Libertadores, and in of itself is the evolution of defunct secondary competitions. If it weren't for the rewarding entry based on a half season (Apertura/Clausura) it wouldn't get the following it does because there wouldn't be as many clubs year over year that qualify. The problem wasn't competitiveness with the Mexican clubs. Hell, NE won the thing. Two of the three finals went to penalties. An American team made every final and Mexico never had both finalists while MLS did that one year. For the Mexican clubs this tournament would be something like 3rd or 4th on the list (if that). They strive to get into the bigger South American tournaments and then care about CCL simply to keep us in our place. Changing the format isn't going to change that. But yes, go on about my ignorance ....
QFT Seattle could beat Bayern Munchen 6-0 in the CWC, and people would still come up with an excuse to not take us seriously. The CCL is the lie that people tell because it's nicer than just saying "your league is dumb and I don't care about it".