this always gets messy on who goes where. The PNW teams are a certain package, as are the LA teams. We seem like a smart package with the cRapids but then they would also want to probably stick to SKC, so things get hairy. Reminds me of the region alignment here in Utah for 6A. Riverton (where I grew up) is within a few miles of Bingham but plays in a different region currently. Instead, Riverton drives to Taylorsville and West Jordan (both of which have you drive PAST bingham) along with Herriman and Copper Hills. Meanwhile Bingham is with all the Utah county schools because... reasons?
I dunno about the state champions playing each other, but it would make sense from a competition standpoint, kind of how the cup champion would play the league champion in certain European countries. I would think that travel would be less for teams from RIo and Sao Paulo since you are guaranteed 4 to 6 more "home" games a season given that there are so many teams located in the same area. Kind of like the EPL with some many teams located in the greater London area. As for the other teams, I would think it was the same, more or less.
I would think that Sacramento would be in a region with the rest of California, assuming that you have four teams in California and there are four teams in a region.
Probably. That's why I'm in favor of three conferences. RSL is screwed no matter what unless Las Vegas gets a team. I wrote a blog about it a while ago. https://mlsbot.blogspot.com/2019/02/dirty-30-mls-in-near-future.html
So, with three conferences, how would that shake out? Western - LAFC, LAG, San Jose, Sacramento*, Portland, Seattle, Vancouver, RSL, Colorado, Phoenix* Central - Chicago, SKC, Dallas, Houston, Austin*, Minnesota, St Louis*, Cincinnati, Columbus, Nashville* Eastern - NYRB, NYCFC, New England, DC United, Philly, Atlanta, Inter Miami*, Orlando, Montreal, Toronto * Future cities Edit: Duh. If I read your blog post, you said the same thing, although I had Toronto in the Central division and then moved them to the Eastern because I thought Nashville would have a bigger rivalry with Cincinnati than Atlanta. But, you could go either way, Nashville in the East and Toronto back in the Central.
we've had this very discussion, I think even in this thread, not that long ago. 30 teams fits nicely with how that is drawn up, but the league would be pretty stupid to not take the millions of dollars these folks are willing to pay for a franchise. It gets hard to say where the line should be drawn on expansion because so many larger metro's probably should have a team if we want the sport to grow more and more. A fear, as a small market team, of a line drawn is that then you see the NFL days of teams moving. DLH is a business man and, even with his love of the game, he'd be dumb not to entertain someone buying (or whever would be the means of it happening) RSL from him if the league put a cap on teams. Start of rant/ As long as the cap can grow to a reasonable number, I don't buy into the notion that it'll dilute the league's talent. We've seen new teams come in and utterly dominate, which goes completely against the argument that the league's talent is spread too thin. In fact, new expansion teams should be god awful if that were true as they would only get the "remaining" talent at the diluted price point. TAM/GAM/DPs/Academies are combating this in a huge way and drastically changing the talent pool MLS teams pull from. In the day of a single DP and the cap what it was, sure, that pool was very limited. But there are too many tools now for genuinely good GM's to tap into for their roster to be competitive. In fact, it is telling to watch how GM's handle legacy players in this league. Those that are of the talent to remain in the league should be moved down in importance. Those that have been journeymen all along should probably find their way out or have their contracts adjusted accordingly. Our GM isn't terrible at this, but also isn't great. You see some of the contracts he has on this team and you shake your head. others you nod and go "not bad, Craig". Which is a reasonable expectation - he's not going to nail them all. But as the league grows, the ability to find new talent at a changing price point is going to be vital. /wow this turned into a rant, sorry
Whether you've followed along or not, this is a good piece about where Inter Miami FC is at. Since they have both Kreis and Javi on the staff, there may be more than schadenfreude from RSL fans.
Sounds like a slow-motion train wreck with a lot of "oh-yeah-Miami-Fusion-played-in-Fort-Lauderdale-and-folded-but-this-time-its-different" thrown in for good measure.
Atlanta is in an interesting location. It’s not close to any other teams. Orlando and DC are the closest to them, and those are long drives for the fans. Nashville is closer than either of those 2 cities. I can see Atlanta/Nashville being the new designated rivalry. Miami would replace ATL as Orlando’s designated rival.
My vote is that with 30 teams, the league creates an MLS 2 of the bottom 10 teams with Pro/Rel between the 2. With a goal of 5-10 years to open up MLS 2 to relegation to USL top league, with promotion from USL. Profit sharing to continue for 1 season to the MLS team at 50%, with 50% to the incoming USL team. If the MLS team fails to promote after one season, they get no more profit sharing until they promote through normal means. The USL team gets standard profit sharing after season 1 in MLS2.
Pheonix getting into MLS would be bad for us, no? I'm not sure all the academy rules but isn't the Pheonix area in our homegrown territory that we would lose?
Will not happen. Owners who have invested hundreds of millions of dollars for a first tier team will not agree to second tier status under any circumstances. Would surprise me if that wasn't written into the franchising contracts.
It's an interesting idea and would create a sense of urgency among the teams, but I don't see it happening for at least 20 years. That assumes MLS continues to grow the way it has in the last 8 - 10 years, the enthusiasm of places like Atlanta permeates into the expansion teams and the rest of the league and a substantial 2nd-tier league establishes itself. We haven't had a good pro/rel fight around here for a while, so this might be as good a place as any.
yes, please pay us millions and millions of dollars. Oh, and if you're not good your first season you're not going to be in the top division. Cool? Great. Euro associations can talk a big game about how pro/rel is great for development and such. And I would agree there is some (though not as much as made out to be) validity to that. However, no club owners would EVER sign up for it in this day and age. The vast difference between the premier league and the championship, one of the better second divisions in terms of reveneu, is insane. Owners are not going to be ok with that with the amount of money that is being demanded to get into the party. Pro/Rel will not happen in the US in my lifetime. I'm not yet 30 (though inching ever closer)
Correct It is where Brooks and Glad are from (arizona area). Though the growth of the SL metro area continues to make this less and less of a potential massive loss.
I was holding off for 20 years or so before pro/rel comes into being, but given the past success of your predictions, I'm scaling back. I'm thinking it's a done deal in under 10 years. Because, you know - Europe.
It'd be very bad under current rules, but it seems fairly likely that MLS is going to end homegrown territories soon-ish which would make it OK. We'd still be able to recruit there and could recruit even more from Southern California and elsewhere.
One thing about Pro/Rel is you may see a league in Europe eliminate it before MLS introduces it into this league. Tradition may keep it the way it is but at some point if they get enough owners on board you could see the EPL saying adios to Pro/Rel at the top and just say tough to any team not on top when they do.
This is predecessor to a larger question: as MLS expands what happens to the concept of “home grown” being tied to distinct geographical areas? I think it will be increasingly difficult for MLS to sustain the concept as currently instituted.
Fair point. It'll likely turn into the Euro model where it's a free game and how much importance clubs put into it is there own prerogative. You'll see some clubs take a Bayern Munich approach of just buying all the talent, though in MLS constraints, and you'll see Dortmund's emerge as top talent identifiers.
Other than getting a spot for the CONCACAF Champions League, I can't think of any other major recognition a team gains by winning it.