What age group are you talking about? The people in my circles at the time were mostly aged 18-30. Note: I've literally never met a single person, in person, who refuses to follow MLS because of single entity or the lack of pro/rel.
20's, 30's, 40's. Most of the soccer people I am acquainted with are either American Outlaw supporters or die hard USNT fans.
I deliberately excluded my LA Riot Squad friends and acquaintances, who are obviously Galaxy supporters and mostly season ticket holders, from the people I'm referring to. Other than them, the soccer people I was acquainted with were, as I said, at various San Gabriel Valley pickup games. While a few declined to watch MLS because of the standard of play, and I see more people who decline to watch MLS due to standard of play now that I've moved to a non-MLS city, not one person I have met, in either LA or Sacramento, has ever cited single entity, lack of pro/rel, etc. as a reason for not watching.
I have* *not trying to hijack thread into a pro/rel discussion just pointing out that these people do genuinely exist
I don't "refuse" to follow MLS but my interest level is certainly reduced because of those factors (and others to some extent, such as the relative unimportance of the regular season). For example, I went to watch San Jose on Saturday night with one of my daughters, but that likely will be the only regular season game I'll go to this season.
Those are people who would find an excuse to bash MLS even if the league completely changed its structure to fit their preferences. The idea that a significant number of American soccer fans shun MLS due to free agency or lack of pro/real is nonsense. There is a demographic of American soccer fans who will never embrace MLS. And that's fine. The league can't really make them happy, unless it relocates to England and changes its name to the Barclay's Premier League.
For a significant segment of the US soccer-viewing audience, MLS is going to have a whiff of artificiality compared to the big Euro leagues for a while, I'd expect. Which is quite all right.
I think the problem for MLS is more that the league simply isn't as good as the top leagues in Europe. If MLS teams suddenly started paying $100+ million payrolls and signing the top talent from around the world, the fans complaining about lack of pro/rel and the like would quickly forget about those issues, and start following their local MLS team.
Would a potential promotion/relegation system come with single table and the elimination of playoffs? I'd actually be less inclined to follow MLS if that happens. I like that the league has a unique system for a unique soccer culture. As far as the league being too artificial for some fans, fair enough. I can see that it some ways, especially with certain fandom behaviors/chants and all that. But at the end of the day, though, the actual game is just as "real" as any Europeon league as long as there are two teams on the field, a ball, two goals, etc. Not the same quality, but for me there is also something artificial about quality-hunting if you're engaging with foreign clubs in a "we did this", "we did that", "we sold this guy" manner.
While this seems to be true, it may not be if we actually put the game into perspective. Time and space are both infinite (there or thereabouts), so terribly important would require something that demands attention. Yet any single item in an infinite timeline is, of course, essentially non-existent, and therefore completely insignificant.
I have no idea why this is such a controversial issue. In most of the World the Premier League is going to be the most watched Soccer league on television. In countries in Asia and countries in Africa you are going to find a ton of passionate fans of the Premier League. My relatives and neighbors from the Caribbean love the Premier League as well. Heck the US is one of the few countries where the PL is not the most watched league on television since it is still the Liga MX by some distance. And I really do not think European Soccer is what is hurting the popularity of the MLS. If anything it is Liga MX and our traditional major sports like NFL, NBA, MLB, NCAA whose schedules overlaps a lot more with MLS than European Soccer does.
If there was promotion and relegation, I don't know if single table would help if the schedule was unbalanced. If MLS had 20 to 24 clubs in two conferences, one possibility would be to relegate the bottom club in each conference and have the second worst clubs in each conference play a survival or relegation playoff. With 30 clubs, the bottom club in each division could be relegated. 30 clubs cannot be broken down into four equal groups, but there could be two divisions of 7 and two divisions of 8 like the NHL has. I don't see why promotion and relegation would eliminate playoffs because obviously no playoff clubs would be relegated. Promotion and relegation could impact promotion from a lower level with playoffs to MLS. Just like how a CONCACAF Champions League spot changed from the club that loses MLS Cup to the regular season conference winner that didn't win the Supporters' Shield, the lower level would have to decided what combination of playoffs and regular season would determine the promoted clubs. England's League Championship has two direct promotion places and one promotion place from a four club playoff. I don't think American fans would want a promotion playoff but have the champion determined by the regular season. One option would be that the regular season sends two clubs to a final series and sends at least four clubs to a promotion playoff. The top two clubs could play each other three times with the better club getting two home games, with the winner determined by points first and aggregate goals if points are tied. Some European leagues split into a "championship group" and a "relegation group" at the end, but that's determined by the regular season. The only European league I know of with two groups that are separate for the whole season is the very weak league in San Marino.
Not in Europe, but both Ivory Coast and Indonesia were split into two regional groups for most of their respective histories. Indonesia had a 36-team first division for a very long time. Not sure what the point of the Ivory Coast split was, the majority of the clubs were in Abidjan anyway so the dividing line always passed right through the middle of the city.
I have alot of reasons for not following MLS. I live in a city that has pro teams in the four major sports but only has a third tier soccer team playing in the USL. That's bad enough. The fact that they play their home games in a baseball stadium is even worse. It's just a lack of respect. At least if there was promotion and relegation there would be a lot more excitement in places that don't have MLS teams. Basketball and football have college programs with large followings in markets that don't have pro teams and that increases interest in those sports. With soccer, the college scene isn't really followed because there's so many options and with European and South American leagues being better products than MLS, why would I watch when my city doesn't even have a team? The other big reason is that MLS seems to be more interested in making money than growing a genuine soccer league. It's never felt authentic to me, whether it's the weird scheduling outside the international calendar or the long drawn out league and playoff system which mimics the big four American sports leagues. On the first part, it seems MLS prefers to compete with international soccer tournaments than going up against pro and college football in the fall. Why else would the season already be 20 plus games in? And I'm much more interested in the upcoming Olympic soccer tournament than MLS. They're trying to appeal more to casual fans than they are to people who's favorite sport is soccer. That's why regardless of what overseas players they bring into the league, the number of American sports fans that list soccer as their favorite sport doesn't grow and is normally at 2-3%. The way to change the sporting culture is to go up against football for fans. It might hurt attendance in the short term but with all the problems and scandals that football faces, they'd be gaining a bigger share of dedicated fans over the long-haul. On the second part, the league is way too long. They could do a straight league (28 games, play conference members 2x and the other conference 1x) and cup competition with a shortened playoff version for the league (top two in each conference). Or they could do two shortened seasons (spring/fall) with the winner of each conference playing in the final and then a grand final between the winner of each season like they do in Latin America. As it stands now, the cup competition is much more exciting and those are the games they don't televise. Can anyone explain why a 20 team league plays 34 games? And why some teams, like the New York clubs, have played each other at least three times already this season. And why six playoff teams in each conference? It seems it's maximized for profits. They need to streamline it because none of it makes sense. What's next, an 82 game season with seven game series in the playoffs? Or maybe they'll go with best of nine.
Looking at what cities have teams in "the four major sports but only has a third tier soccer team playing in the USL," are you in Phoenix? Reducing the number of games from 34 to 28 will reduce revenue. With 24 clubs, the format you proposed with playing each conference opponent twice and each club in the other conference once would make 34 games, so maybe MLS will do that. I don't like having two seasons per year. The New York clubs have met three times, but three times is the same percent of the season regardless of when in the season the games are played. You said "at least three," but no clubs meet more than three times in the regular season, so you don't need to say "at least."
I'd think the winner of the second split season (Clausura) would have a better chance to win the overall than the winner of the first season (Apertura). Anyone have stats? Many baseball minor leagues in the US have split seasons. The excitement goes away for the winner of the first season because they know they're in the final. What's even worse is that in some leagues a team that wins both seasons still has to play in a final against a second place team. No league, much less MLS has the financial reserves to wage a war for fans against gridiron football in the US.
Yes! As far as how often teams meet I have no idea how that's determined and didn't know if the NY clubs were scheduled to meet again. I'm sure that MLS prefers to increase profits by scheduling more games against rivalry teams rather than have a balanced schedule. Imagine if a European league had some teams meeting once and other teams facing each other three times. They'd be considered a joke. You don't see the Manchester teams playing more league games against each other just because they share a city. I'm sure there are plenty of hardcore soccer fans that like MLS/NASL/USL, it's just not for me. The best part about being a soccer fan is that because it's so popular there's always something going on. It's not like it's either MLS or nothing. That may be the case. I may be biased since I'm not a football fan, but from my point of view, I find it hard for football to sustain it's popularity. Youth and HS football numbers are already dwindling. So either there are more kids playing video games or those kids are taking up other sports. When the full extent of CTE and concussions in football is understood, there's going to be a push for some major rule changes which is also going to hurt the sport. They're already talking about doing away with kickoffs. All the controversy with PEDs and assaults, etc. by the players obviously doesn't help either. MLS should be able to see this trend and the league would be a lot better off by switching to the fall. Yes those that grew up playing HS football may not be receptive to watching soccer over football but the younger generation that grew up playing soccer would probably end up choosing to watch soccer and I can see women spectators also choosing soccer over football if given the choice. But as it stands now MLS is competing with international soccer tournaments and family vacations.
Forgetting about the playoffs and a team having nothing to play for in the second half, when I want to see the Yankees' minor league teams' records, I have to go to an extra page for the combined standings because it first takes me to the second half standings during the second half. Unlike in most of soccer (MLS clubs have USL affiliates but not a set a minor league affiliates), minor league baseball players want to be promoted as individuals, so I don't think it would make sense for them to not try as hard even if their team has nothing to play for. Edit: I watch MLS a little but I don't watch much of any league other than the English Premier League. I don't like having two seasons per year in any sport. If MLS remained the same and the English Premier League had two seasons per year, I might watch MLS more.
I love the game regardless of borders, but at this stage of my life, I get a stiffy with J-League over European leagues If anything, I follow the European leagues for the supporter culture just as much as what happens on the pitch.
Weather kinda dictates when MLS can and cannot play. It's not like they can just pick any starting and ending point to the season that they want. In any event, I don't understand why it makes sense to go head-to-head against NFL. I mean, they sorta do that already (September - November). But I think it would be silly for MLS to go out of their way to compete with NFL any more than they already are. There's just nothing to gain from that. Nah. As a fan of the Argentine league I can assure you that 2 season in a calendar year is awful. The length of the MLS season is pretty standard in comparison to other leagues around the world. They may want to tweak the format a bit though to make regular season games more meaningful by giving the top teams a real advantage in the playoffs. Two-legged, aggregate goal matchups were specifically designed for situations where neither team should have an advantage. So why the hell is MLS using them in a situation where a team earned and deserve an advantage?
with "supporters" like these in the stands at Asian football (this was at a Thai game) sometimes I also get a little ...err... psst, are we talking about the same thing?
Very interesting thread, imho. I'm an American, and most tightly follow MLS, NWSL, and our NT's, plus the CONCACAF CL. I'm American, so I relate better. Sure European and a lot of South American soccer is higher quality, but I am not one of them. I think a big part of european soccer popularity is the 'cool" factor. All the cool guys watch, so I will, too. Something to have in common. As well, traditions are interesting, and those European leagues have been around longer than MLS. It's just so mainstream over there. Not as much over here. I do still like Man City and Leverkusen, but I like supporting our traditions even morel. Go Sounders, Thorns, Riverhounds, and USA!
You mean American winters are different than European winters? Because I don't see them playing in the summer. I'm not saying MLS needs to go out of their way to compete with the NFL but they should do more to cater to soccer fans considering it's a soccer league. At the very least they should follow the international calendar and have a balanced schedule with a simplified playoff. There's no reason to play 34 games just to have 12 out of 20 teams qualify for the playoffs. That would go a long way towards gaining legitimacy. Promotion and relegation would be a major step but I know that's a pipe dream.
I don't know where you live but, yes, American winters (in parts of the U.S. and Canada) are worse than European winters (in most of the continent.) Some European countries that have winters similar to the U.S. do play in the summer, in particular in Scandinavia. The Scandinavian leagues run March to November just like MLS. Russia that has similar weather to the northern US and Canada used to play almost exactly the same schedule as MLS. They have switched to a schedule that is closer to western Europe but take a long winter break and have a very short off-season in the summer. This year their schedule runs from the end of July to the first of December and then March to May in the spring. The only difference with MLS is the break in June and part of July. Their mid-season break is longer than the summer break. There is no "international" schedule unless you mean the FIFA dates. MLS has done better and better in honoring those. Brazil plays pretty much the same time of year as MLS. They seem to do OK.