It's almost 2019,... and lo, the playoffs remain flawed; the defense of the regular ssn continues...

Yeah, that too.

Though, it's possible that higher ticket prices for the "special" one-off, only-home-playoff-game-you-get-unless-you-host-the-conference-final could off-set a big portion of that. The midweek games still aren't huge sellers.

Right now the 5 and 6 seeds get no guaranteed home game, and about a 25% chance of hosting even one. All they'd really be losing is the chance.

3 and 4 seeds get one guaranteed home game, a ~75% chance of hosting a second, and a ~45% chance of hosting a third. But the first one is in a narrow window for ticket sales, and fans know that they may host a better game only three or four days later.

1 and 2 seeds get one guaranteed home game, and a ~55% chance of hosting a second.

So moving to single-elimination, all the same teams get the same number of guaranteed home games, they only lose the chance to host extra games beyond the first.

The league in total loses six playoff games. Admittedly, that's not nothing.

That said, I can live with the current format, if they'd just get rid of the away goals tiebreaker.

And move the final back to a neutral site.*

*I find it telling that for years the BigSoccer smart consensus was that a non-neutral site final was "impossible" for the league to schedule. And now, a few years later, it's "impossible" to consider the league ever moving back or being able to sell tickets at a neutral venue.

 

1964/65 European Cup quarter-final
First-leg Cologne 0 - 0 Liverpool 39,139
Second-leg Liverpool 0 - 0 Cologne 48,948
Replay (played in Amsterdam with one weeks notice) Liverpool 2 - 2 Cologne 47,862
Liverpool won on the toss of a coin, thus UEFA came up with different ways of settling "ties" (can't think of another word).

 

I still think settling conference titles separately outside of playoffs gives the regular season a higher profile.

 

Yeah, if you want to see more higher seeded teams in the conference finals and MLS Cup championship game, you almost have to go to a single elimination tournament. A less radical option would be to give the higher seeded team the choice of whether it wants to place the 1st game at home rather than the 2nd game at home.

The owners would have to give up the home game revenue that lowered seeded teams get for playing in the Divisional and Conference Finals rounds, though. Don't they'd go for that.

Even so, it's unfortunate in terms of television viewership that only lower seeded teams are playing in the conference finals and will be playing in the MLS Cup game.

 

A hosted final makes for more partisan crowd and much better television. Plus, its a big incentive for teams that clinch a play-off birth to keep winning during the regular season ("If we keep get to the final, we will host it").

As for the main topic, I like the away goals rule. It makes the away push, and creates do or die situations in the 2nd leg. However, I do think commentators over emphasize it ("They'll be more than happy to not give up an away goal and tie 0-0" Really, you do realize it's better to win 10-9 and give up 9 away goals than to tie?).

My only slight tweak would be to not have the rule if it goes to overtime. It seems unfair that the away goal counts more then, especially as the home team earned the right to host the second leg by being better during the regular season.

 

British commentator's still say "away goals count double" when in fact away goals are a tiebreaker.

 

That is the current MLS rule. Overtime goals do not count as away goals.

 

With multiple rounds of playoffs to get through first, it's just way too contingent to matter. In Toronto, regular season finish was all about getting a home playoff game for the first time ever, and trying to get a bye. No one even talked about hosting the final until the conference final.

 

And, the home and away format for the conference finals and the conference semi-finals evens the playing field - there's really no advantage to finishing with the better regular season record in those rounds. Mainly, teams just want to finish with a good enough record to to get a bye and avoid the wild card play-ins.

 

We talked about it in Colorado, and I believe the coach or players did as well.

 

And how'd that work out?

 

Shitty! But it did makes care about the end of the regular season. Well, that and the Supporters Shield.

 

Funny is that they had it right before, with a three-game-first-to-five-point series. MLS playoffs should be structured like this:

WildCard round: 1 game
Conf. Semis: 3-game series
Conf. finals: 1 game
MLS Cup final: 1 game

The whole tournament would have the same six dates it has today, but it would be better and fairer, imho.

 

@Unak78


Successful home advantage in the second leg of the last 16 does not necessarily translate in subsequent rounds, however. While almost three-quarters of the sides playing away in the first leg in the last 16 go through, that figure drops to 59% in the quarter-finals; while only 36% of teams away first in a semi-final qualify. That decline is logical given that the draw for the quarter-finals and beyond is completely open, compared with the round of 16 where the eight group winners play the first leg away from home.
http://www.uefa.com/uefachampionsleague/news/newsid=2219279.html

 

For the UEFA Champions League Quarterfinals and Semifinals combined, the first leg away club advanced 34 times and was eliminated 32 times. In the eight seasons there was a Playoff Round before the Group Stage, the first leg away club advanced 28 times (35 percent) and was eliminated 52 times. The Playoff Round has seeded and unseeded clubs, but being seeded doesn't affect what leg a club hosts, and exactly half of the first legs were hosted by seeded clubs.

 

How about instead of doing away goals, just go to extra time on any aggregate tie, and then if it's still tied after extra time, let the team with the better regular season record automatically go through instead of doing penalties. That way, the team with the better record gets a legitimate reward, the extra time stays exciting since one team will have to fight for a goal to avoid elimination, and best of all, no penalty shootouts!

 

Pretty good idea! Definitely better than what exists now.

 

Then what's to keep the better team from parking the bus all game to guarantee advancing?

 

This is the method used in the promotion playoffs in Spain. The added twist is that the away goals rule is still used in extra time. So the only time the "higher seed" tiebreaker is used is if both legs have identical inverted scores (1-0, 0-1, etc.) and the extra time is scoreless.

 

Nothing.

But that's not actually a problem and this fear is overstated. It's not different than if the better team scored first early in the game.

All you've effectively done is let the higher-seeded team start with a half-goal lead. The other team will have to attack to advance, and the two-legged tie can never be tied at any point. Therefore there is no possibility of both teams closing up shop in favour of taking their chances in penalties.

Granted, I don't think the league should do this as I don't think the playoffs are in need of a radical fix--I just think using away goals is idiotic. But this critique of the proposal always comes up, and is always misguided.

 

What would it take to completely eliminate the "playoffs"? Why not just have the regular season Eastern Conference Champion play the regular season Western Conference Champion for the league title? Am I the only one who sees how unfair a "playoff" is for determining a league champion?