I get it, it will be tough to break up the conferences into divisions, but its going to happen. That was just my take on it. Interested to hear your break down. Obviously the expansion candidates have changed since I made that initial post. Willing to redo my predictions for divisions after the MLS Cup. By then we should have a decent understanding of the next couple teams.
It's weird, but how about 7 four-team divisions, at least one of which would have to overlap the eastern and western conferences. Everyone plays everyone once, then further home and away games against teams in your division for 33 in total. The "divisions" might effectively replace the MLS Rivalry Cups (Cascadia Division but with Sacramento added, for example. This solves the problem when you draw the east/west line between, say, Minnesota and Chicago and they never play. Even if you did that, they can go in the same Great Lakes/Midwest Division to guarantee three games a year. Playoffs will be some combination of 7 division winners + next 5 or 7 best from either the combined table or the East/West Conferences (if we even keep them).
There shouldn't be divisions that include clubs from different conferences. With 7 divisions of 4, conferences should be abolished. I think every club should play every other club unless MLS has too many clubs for that, but here's a three-part model where clubs can only play clubs from the other conference in the playoffs: Part 1: 2 conferences of 14 clubs Play everybody in your conference twice to make 26 games Part 2: Each conference splits into clubs 1 through 5, 6 through 10, and 11 through 14 Play each club in your group twice to make 8 games and two matchdays off for clubs 1 through 10 and 6 games for clubs 11 through 14 with their season ending earlier. Clubs 1 through 10 will have 34 games and clubs 11 through 14 will have 32 games. Divide the points from Part 1 by 2 and add the points from Part 2 so that Part 1 will have about 8/(8 + 26/2) = 8/21sts of the points for clubs 1 through 10 and 6/(6 +26/2) = 6/19ths of the points for clubs 11 through 14. Part 3: Playoffs with 6 clubs where clubs play against the other conference. Round 1: The 2 conference winners get byes. Second place in each group of clubs 1 through 5 hosts third place in the other group. Since playoff clubs in the same conference will have played each other 4 times before this, I want clubs to play opponents from the other conference. Round 2: East 1 plays the winner of West 2 vs. East 3 and West 1 plays the winner of East 2 vs. West 3. If the home club won in Round 1, these games would have one club from each conference. Round 2 would have 2 legs. Round 3: It would be a one game Final with the host determined by: 1. Points in Playoff Round 2 2. Aggregate margin of victory in Playoff Round 2 3. Points in Playoff Round 2 and at the end of Part 2 combined. I would not use Playoff Round 1 as a tiebreaker because it's possible that one finalist will have played then and one finalist will have gotten a bye I admit this is complicated. Scotland, Greece, Belgium, and Israel divide into groups after the regular season, but I don't know if any league divides into groups and has playoffs to determine a champion after that. Belgium has playoffs after that to determine Europa League spots but not the champion.
Its interesting but also reminiscent of the playoff bracket from the movie Baseketball. Golf's FedEx Cup points system is cleaner by comparison too.
I like getting to a single table feel with a league of 28, and this actually works well with further expansion, as well. But I don't think everyone can play everyone and make this work. You could break it into four divisions, everyone plays everyone for 27, plus a second versus division rivals for 6 more, plus a designated rivalry game each season for 34. But I'd prefer, two 14 team conferences, home and away for 26, plus eight inter conference matches, rotating so that everyone plays at least every two years, and you can make an annual LA v NY series a thing within this (for example, if that's wanted).
I've always assumed any format would have to allow for an annual LA v NY game, but I wonder with the addition of NYCFC and LAFC if that's still true. Those new clubs water down the LA v NY matchup for me, and I think the LA and NY derbies will have far better atmosphere inside the stadium and probably better viewership on TV as well. NYRB v NYCFC has turned into a great game even for me as a neutral, and I expect LAG v LAFC will as well.
28 Clubs 2 Conferences, 14 clubs each, 26 regular season games. During Regular Season ONLY same conference games. PLAYOFFS =Interconference Games 16 clubs R1: 8 clubs (#5-#8). One game (5-home team VS 8, 6 -home team VS 7) R2: 8 clubs (R1+#3+#4). One Game (#3 and #4 home teams) R3: 8 clubs (R2+#2+#1). One Game (#2 and #1 home teams) R4: 4 clubs. Home and Away Games R5: 2 clubs. One Game. Host City - regular season games; +playoffs games This model is prepared for 32 or 36, 30 and 34 regular season games.
I'm obsessive-compulsive, so building ideally balanced schedules is very appealing. But the schedule pattern comes after the number of teams and the number of games. There's no indication the league will change from the current pattern as it expands. This means after 24 teams, then either some non-conference teams will be skipped some years or some conference opponents will only be played once. Maybe that involves divisions, maybe not.
I think 34 regular season games are to many, resulting in some "calendar constrictions". I believe with the growing number of teams, regular season should be shorter, giving play-off more room in the Schedule.
Also with only same conference games during regular season, at the end you have a conference champion with no need for playoffs. Playoffs will be used to determine National Champion between best teams from both conferences. This is very clean and simple, and Works for 28 or 32 clubs. 30 regular season games should be the maximum, above that like I said to many games. With this arrangement you could have some US Open Cup games (final rounds) during weekend.
I think everyone needs to play everyone at least once. The schedule won't be balanced either way, so you need to be able to host the big teams from either coast at LEAST once a year. People are pissed enough when they miss Beckham, Giovinco etc once a year and have to wait to get them at home the following year (injuries permitting), IMO it's a bad idea to limit regular season to "in-conference" play where garbo non-playoff teams will literally never play against certain MLS teams on the other coast
This is a real concern. I like to watch certain players in the other conference, like Giovinco, Piatti, Higuain. Not having a chance to see players like that is not ideal.
Probably... But I guess most fans want to see their team players not the other teams players. However US Open Cup could gain some "status" being a competition with interconference games earlier in the season. And also,Playoff will be even more interesting because this "interconference factor".
Baseball and basketball get around it by having a bazillion games schedule. The English lower leagues play a balanced schedule with 24 teams, so MLS could choose to go that route even now (and they have more money that league one or two clubs, so could handle it at least as well), but as they appear to be sticking to a 34 game schedule (the 46 game league schedule is a bit much) everyone isn't going to play as we get to 28. Maybe that desire to see players drives tv?
And I meant "at least once every two years", i.e. the current set-up where you'll get to see a big star (injuries permitting) in your home stadium at least once every other season. I know it's not perfectly aligned, but in the alternative it seems weird that an East team and a West team with a few bad years in a row will never get to play each other. If one's Canadian and one's American, no chance for Cup play either.
The difficulty for MLS is that travel makes fixture congestion significantly worse for any given number of games. 34 games in MLS is not the same as 34 games in England. English clubs in domestic play may have overnight trips a few times a year. The distances involved in MLS mean virtually every away game involves two nights away from home, and almost a full day's worth of hours spent traveling.
I'm not necessarily convinced conference-only play is so terrible. Unlike every other US sport, soccer has its best players spread across several leagues. And there's no guarantee that any two clubs will face each other in the Champions League, no matter how big and successful they are. The 2014-15 Champions League final between Barcelona and Juventus was the clubs' first competitive encounter in 12 years -- they hadn't even played each other in a friendly since the 2005 preseason. And to that point, it was the first time Leo Messi and Gianluigi Buffon had faced each other, for club or country, since that 2005 preseason friendly, which was the only other time they had ever been on the same field at the same time at any level. Messi has never played a match in Turin. Given that the US is basically the size of Europe, having regional leagues that only meet in the playoffs would be the rough equivalent of Europe's multiple top leagues.
I don't disagree and I wasn"t saying a 46 game season is in any way ideal. It is, however, possible, as both the NBA and MLB prove.
This would be my preference, though to make it would without any interconference play before the championship, it would require a 36 team MLS. A 28 team, with 8 interconference games and 26 conference, might work well enough.
I see 32 teams very soon, but a look at 28. Expansion: 24. Miami 25. Nashville 26. Cincinnati 27. San Antonio 28. Sacramento — 29. Detroit or Indianapolis (+Baltimore, Rochester, Pittsburgh, Ottawa) 30. Charlotte or Raleigh (+Jacksonville, Tampa Bay, Birmingham, Milwaukee, Cleveland, Louisville, New Orleans) 31. Austin or St Louis (+Oklahoma City, Tulsa, El Paso, Albuquerque) 32. Phoenix or Las Vegas (+San Diego, Riverside, Calgary, Fresno, San Francisco) Pacific Conference: LA Galaxy, Los Angeles FC, Seattle Sounders, Portland Timbers, Vancouver Whitecaps, San Jose Earthquakes, Sacramento Republic*, Phoenix/Las Vegas** Western Conference: Real Salt Lake, Colorado Rapids, Sporting Kansas City, Minnesota United, FC Dallas, Houston Dynamo, San Antonio*, Austin/St. Louis** Atlantic Conference: New England Revolution, DC United, Toronto FC, Montreal Impact, New York City FC, New York Red Bulls, Philadelphia Union, Detroit/Indianapolis** Eastern Conference: Atlanta United, Chicago Fire, Columbus Crew, Orlando City, Nashville*, Cincinnati*, Miami*, Raleigh/Charlotte** With 28 or 32 teams, play each in conference twice, outside once. Either, 33 or 38 games a season. ———— Now, what I do propose: Change the US Open Cup and the schedule. schedule: MLK: Start of Preseason Presidents Day: Start of Season Memorial Day: End of First Half of Season August 1: Start of Second Half of Season Halloween: End of Regular Season Saturday after Thanksgiving: MLS Cup In the summer, There’s the US Open Cup, an America’s Club Cup (get rid of the CCL)/Transatlantic Club Cup. This also allows time for players playing in tournaments. But the summer months are for tournaments. In June, the US Open Cup is in full swing. 40 team tournament, 8 groups of 5. All MLS teams qualify. Other teams compete around the year to qualify for the main event. Group games are home/away, however knockout round games are awarded to the team with highest average attendance. In July, the World Football Challenge or whatever you want to call it is in full swing. Either way, it’s a 40 team tournament; 8 groups of 5, with the top 5 teams in each conference in MLS qualifying. The bottom 2 teams suffer MLS version of relegation. Nonetheless, this needs to designed and promoted as a competitive tournament that the best European and South American and teams around the world want to competeo in. Single leg throughout. MLS teams host international games. Inter-MLS games are played home to highest fan attendance. In November, all single leg Playoffs. Home is awarded to highest rank team.
Good luck with that in Denver, SLC, Minnesota, Chicago, Boston, Toronto, etc. (and no, having cold-weather teams start on the road for a month every year is not a solution)
You got teams in Houston, Orlando, Atlanta, 2 in LA, one upcoming in Miami and possibly one in Phoenix, San Antonio and Tampa. It can be done.
How? How do you avoid playing in the cold weather cities without putting them on the road for a month? As it is with the season starting the first weekend of March teams like Colorado and New England typically get 1 home game in the first 3 weeks of March or so.