What Would a Fall to Spring Schedule w/ a winter Break Look Like?

It is an odd situation to find yourself where the suggestion/opinion playing the most important games of the season, playoffs and MLS Cup could have more success if not going up against the most popular sport in this country and it's met with disgust and ridiculous Eurosnob labels. It's preference. All fans have their preferences.

It's one I agree with. Playoffs in May in this man's opinion.

But I'd take it further and say playing on Friday's in Nov/Dec isn't any better for the the league's most important games as there's still the weather factor. I'm not in favor of having the most important games going up against football or be impacted by weather and torn up pitches due to football season.

And it has nothing to do with Europe. Why would what Norway does with its calendar or what Croatia does with theirs factor into when I'd prefer seeing MLS playoffs being played in our soccer landscape and climate conditions?

 

I agree, my opinion has nothing to do with Europe either.

It has to do with what I believe would benefit MLS. I think its comical how so many refuse to even acknowledge that having the playoffs head to head with football is less than ideal. Ideally I'd prefer the playoffs in August but also recognize problems with that (international events in the summer).
I also acknowledge problems with going Fall to Spring (taking a break would be a disaster IMO and sending northern teams on the road for months is not a workable solution).

The difference is that I am at least willing to look at options beyond what is done now. The best solution (given the problems American soccer faces) is likely to keep the current schedule but move playoffs to weeknights. Is it the ideal? No but it seems like the most workable solution.

At the end of the day I don't even know why I am posting at all. Last years MLS Cup playoffs with the away goals tiebreaker just completely ruined my interest (that had been growing) in the league; its just such a bad rule. I came back because I just grabbed FIFA 15 was curious if this board had anything on it and got sucked back in by the stupid alerts.

 

Why post on a board named "You be the (Guy whose primary job is to ensure the financial stability of the League)" if you don't care about the ideas that are in the best interest of that financial stability?

 

Eh, it'll change if and when it makes sense to change and I see that happening at some point as the current calendar has a lower ceiling than a fall to spring calendar.

When playoff games/MLS Cup are pulling big numbers on tv and the tv execs wants those important games in good weather, as do more fans who don't want quality of play in the season's most important games suffering due to weather, when the league is more reliant on tv revenue than gate receipts, when development improves and there's more money to spend/players to sell(ability to participate in global market) aligning transfer windows will matter more, when there's a number of internationals on most teams leaving them without key players for chunks of every summer, whether GC/WC/Confed Cup/Euros/ACON/ and various other tournaments and when a couple thousand fans staying home due to bad weather in Feb doesn't hurt the bottom line, it'll make sense. There will be a point, people should hope for it anyway, we'll have numerous active Euro/African/S American internationals and they don't just leave during WC summers but also during the Euros/Copa Am/ACON summers too and those of course are non-GC years where increasingly we'll have more CONCACAF internationals on MLS rosters leaving every two years for the GC.

MLS isn't near being there yet but if it grows like many hope it will, that'll change and there will be a higher ceiling.

 

Dang, dude. Give it a rest. Given the option of the regular season or the playoffs overlapping with NFL, I'll take the playoffs. Easier to attract eyes for a tournament, and lots of fans tune out when their team doesn't make it anyways. Same goes for other pro sports in America. The only thing that matters is having the Cup final at the best possible time, which should be Saturday night prime time during football season.

 

http://scores.espn.go.com/ncf/scoreboard?confId=80&seasonYear=2014&seasonType=2&weekNumber=11 is for a week of the 2014 NCAA Football season with 2 games on Tuesday, 2 games on Wednesday, 1 game on Thursday, and 2 games on Friday. The Tuesday and Wednesday games were all in the Mid-American Conference. There was also an NFL game that Thursday. Even on weeknights football can be hard to avoid.

 

If it is so easy than why does MLS Cup

Bolded the key part because that is simply your preference (shared by MLS thus far).

I happen to be of the opinion that the best way to grow any sport is to put its playoffs in the best possible spot to draw maximum eye balls.

Millions of people don't watch the NHL or NBA much if at all then tune in during the playoffs of both (the TV ratings prove this). If those sports put their main events up against the NFL those people would tune out (more fans tune into the playoffs almost exclusively than tune out when their team is eliminated) Hell, MLB tries its best to avoid the NFL during its playoffs.

The playoffs are your sports showcase. Putting them in the worst part of the sports calendar is a silly decision. Fine if you disagree but its not its a preposterous idea to try to avoid football (even you admit this).