Mexican style system. Balanced schedule (no split season), play everyone twice (30 games, then 32, then 34, etc. with future expansion) Playoffs at the end. Keep conferences, but it's for tradition only and lets say an automatic top-two playoff berth to each conference winner. In Mexico they have groups, but it's still a balanced schedule, and there are playoff incentives for finishing higher in your group. West San Jose, Seattle, Chivas USA, Los Angeles, Salt Lake, Colorado, Houston, Dallas East Kansas City, Chicago, Columbus, Toronto, DC, Philadelphia, New York, New England This is a model I think can support itself untill we get to 20 teams. After that, I think the league would benefit from a cooling off period, line up a bunch of MLS2 candidate cities, have them start and introduce P/R at that time. (ducks)
Nothing wrong with the current playoff system in my opinion. It frankly works better with a 16 team league. Play a balanced home and away schedule. Half the teams make it, half don't. Top two teams in each conference get the top four seeds. Take the next four teams regardless of conference. Voila! But the balanced home and away schedule also adds some legitimacy to the Supporter's Shield. And it creates a real pecking order for selection to represent the league in International competitions.
If MLS does not go to a single table with 16 teams it never will. They like all teams to feel they are still in the playoff hunt for as long as possible, so if you are 8th in the East and last it feels like you are only 4 spots out as oppossed to 8 spots, even if it really is an altered single table playoff qualification system anyway.
USL-1 has single table and playoffs because the league is geographically disballanced. You've got 3 NW teams, 1 Midwest team, and the rest located along the Atlantic Corridor. You could go West/Northeast/Southeast for divisions, but the disparity in distances would put the "West" teams at a disadvantage. MLS is far more geographically ballanced. San Jose to Houston is roughly comparable to New York to Kansas City.
This is a very good point. FIFA came out with that "limit" several years ago, but the EPL, Serie A, and La Liga (among others!) still carry more than the limit. And if you think that FIFA wouldn't let America's Div. I league expand beyond 18 teams, consider that according to their guidelines at the time, the US shouldn't have even been eligible to host the 1994 World Cup. Why'd they bend the rules? Money.
Ok. Great explaination of why USL-1 has a single table but it does nothing to suggest MLS can not. If anything it suggests a single table would be easier and fairer in MLS.
This line of reasoning comes up every so often and it still doesn't mean much. First of all, as already mentioned, despite FIFA's "limits" a bunch of leagues are over 18 teams. So, clearly it's not any sort of real limit. But more importantly, FIFA doesn't give a rat's ass about the number of teams in a league -- the limit is entirely about limiting the number of games. If a league has more than 18 teams, but fewer than 34 games in a season, FIFA wouldn't care. MLS, playing in divisions with unbalanced schedules (as they are likely to do), would not be in any violation of FIFA's principles.
I hold out hope.... We got rid of shootouts, clocks going wrong way, short meaningless overtimes, weird payoff structures like best to 5 points.. -- We haved added SSS, DP's, better TV, expansion in good places -- Now, if they would just go the final step= home and away, single table and 30 games..... It would actually help attendence... If your big rival or Becks is only coming once a year, you better get to that game..I also would think it makes selling season tickets a little easier, knowing the games may mean more than much of our season now.. Knowing that the single table then dictates who goes to Sud-America, the Champions League, MLS Cup and automatic berths to USOC (the top of the table gets first round bye-the bottom has to enter a round or two earlier), THE TABLE BECOMES EVERYTHING !! LIFE AND DEATH FOR YOU DROPPING 3 PTS AT HOME TO A BOTTOM TEAM, OR YOUR TEAM COMING BACK TO TIE A GAME IN THE LAST MINUTE ON THE ROAD AND STEAL A POINT. --This is what makes many of the other leagues in the world what they are- tense, exciting races at times. Our league needs pressure and tension on both the players, coaches and teams. How else do you strive to succeed? -- What about the bottom teams since we don't have relagation.. Well consider it relegation if you don't make any of the cups or playoffs.. Not qualifying in most American sports for the playoffs, is like being relegated in other soccer leagues in other countries.... Good enough for me.
If MLS goes to a single table with 16 teams, it's just going to split back into conferences when it expands again and is too big to have a full double round-robin. So I don't see what the big deal about it is. People on BigSoccer are going to be all joyous about it, as if it will have an effect on their enjoyment of the game, and then it will be gone in two years or so, unless you think the league will stagnate at 16. There's something to be said for just being consistent and maintaining the conferences all the way through.
=================== But single table works well whether you have odd or even number of teams, and whether you have 15-16-18-20, whatever number of teams.. You don't have to fumble over weird playoff scenarios... Plus, I would like to create enough space in the season for the FIFA dates...
It doesn't work when you have so many teams that it makes the season too long. A 20-team MLS isn't going to play 38 games. I don't believe that the league has any inclination to extend the schedule beyond 32 games, and it seems that 30 is a strong preference of those who decide such things. Which is one more reason not to extend the schedule beyond the 28-32 games that MLS has always had.
32 games doesnt get you considered a top league though. on the balenced schedules: u guys miss the point. balanced schedules people. balenced schedules. the worst things about MLB and NFL is the screwed up schedule difficulties. thats how you end up with the patriots with a powder puff schedule and the broncos with a really hard schedule and one gets in to the playoffs and one doesnt and the strength of the team becomes less important than the strength of the schedule. Another example, AL East. Boston and Yankees play Tampa Bay and Toronto and Baltimore a ton of times. more than any other teams do. Those teams also happen to always be terrible. So then the Sox and Yanks have these awesome records and always get into the wold card and well, they spend their whole season playing the 2 of the worst teams in baseball more than any other division does. its terrible. soccer is about balanced schedules, its about everybody playing the same opponents and the same difficulties in strength of schedule and the top 8 teams going to the playoffs. it makes the SS mean a whole lot more since everybody is playing the balanced schedule and makes a better case for the top 8 teams actually being the top 8 teams. ^^^^ by the way, im with ya man, that by far makes the most sense. it gets ya to 20 teams after that a soccer league just cant sustain more and keep a balanced schedule. honestly, after 20 cities have teams, the MLS needs to evaluate the league and make sure all the teams are in the strongest cities possible. they probably end up moving a couple teams that would be better in bigger markets. at that point, you seriously have to look at the rest of the cities and ask yourself, is .... a top tier league city? most of the answers to that question are no. the ones that are yes can make up a second league and earn promotion to the league. it wouldnt be that big a deal. i dunno why its such a touchy subject.
balanced schedule and playoff works only for 16, 17, maybe 18 teams... (30, 32, 34 games) we need to think boyond that. this whole discussion is limited only for 2-3 years when we have 16, 17, 18 teams. when we get to 21, 22, 23 teams, we should go back to the drawing borad. no need to spend much time on this subject.
since Garber said that there is going to be a long pause at 18 to re-evaluate expansion then this gives us probably 6-10 years when MLS could be playing a balanced schedule with a single table. I don't think it would hurt to evaluate that at the same time. Why not? MLS is striving for increasing legitimacty and relevance in the eyes of core soccer fans in this country and worldwide (the league is now broadcast in 200 countries so while some bigsoccer poster don't care what the world thinks, MLS obviously does because it is potentially more $$ for MLS) Nothing would help their cause in that area more than going to a balanced schedule with a single table. It is simple, elegant and fair. What's not to like?
I dont remeber Garber saying anything about a Singletable, plus thats not likely to happen.. especially with 18 teams.... I see a 24 team league within 10 or 15 yrs from now with two conference and maybe divisions under, maybe two conferences with a divison designated as a 1 and 2 for each conference. Single table wont happen makes no sense.
I think MLS is the exception to the rule than the standard By FIFA 'cause how MLS and Most American sports are formatted and also is better suited for the Majority of Fans. what Might work in Europe formats wont necessarily work here in north america...
Also Singletable is psychologically is NOT sexy here in American Soccer... Seriously, only EuroSnobs like it only cause they think it makes since.... but no Fan is going to look forward to a 18th place versus 10th place matchup. even with promotion and relegation it would kill tv ratings for sure.
I think a minor adjustment to this would help. Namely, have the round robin games all come FIRST. Award the Supporters Shield BEFORE the "extra" matches.
The problem with having so many divisions is it increases the liklihood of having meaningless regular season games near the end of the season. A team is more likely to get "locked" into a postion within their division, with no realistic chance of moving up or down, than they would be if you had a single table. Of course, you could base your playoff teams and seeds on the conference or single-table ranking, but that introduces an unfairness because you'll be ranking teams who have played schedules of varying degrees of difficulty. ( I know other US sports do that, but there is no good reason to imitate a mickey-mouse format) Also there's no evidence that small divisions help build rivalries. At least not in leagues where you play every other team anyway.
they dont say 18 is the absolute limit. they recommend it, and all leagues that have more get slack b/c they had more before the recommendation was made. im pretty sure the recommendation applies to all leagues under future expansion. it is a recommendation from what i understand nothing set in stone, but i will say this. If you were in a different country and you wanted to start an league of american football and the NFL recommended doing it like this, and your main argument was that you had to do it like your country feels it would succeed, youd be called an idiot. the nfl is the most successful league in the US and to ignore everything they have found successful b/c it would need to be moe japanese or more indian or whatever is just dumb. their is a reason NFL is where it is in american football circles, changing a successful format simply to be different is moronic. the same applies for soccer here, these other counties have had footy for over a century, they have built it to be a world sport based on that success. if americans are to ignore that success so they can create their own format, its missing the boat. its ignoring everything that has made it what it is. you might as well have just kept kick ins and shoot outs to end ties. its like learning nothing from what the rest of the world has spent centuries perfecting. all in an effort to build appeal to an "americanized" soccer mom or some old man community, who wasnt ever gonna give footy the time of day here ever regardless of the format it is presented.
Your second paragraph of course. Why would you not base playoff teams on conference ranking if your going to have conferences? Obviously if you're going to divide the league into separate divisions you're not going to take the best 8 league wide for the playoffs. You skew the schedule so there are more divisional games at the end of the season, they do this in all major American sports leagues. That eliminates some of the problem you mention in your first paragraph. As for the last bit about lack of evidence. I'm not saying that you do a single round robin. I'm saying that you play your divisional rivals more. Did you ever think that it's not so much the sport that matters but the environment that it is played in? If I recall, hockey and basketball leagues in Europe are single table with pro/rel? Why don't they adopt the style of the US leagues? Those kind of things just don't work in the US. Our country is freakin' huge! Maybe the reason that sports leagues have a certain format here, and a different one in the UK, etc is because those formats work best for that country regardless of the sport. You know, I'm not even going to bother. No matter how many times people say things it's just... I give up.
Which goes back to my point of immitating stupid ideas. How can you rank/seed teams across a conference when the teams have played totally different schedules? And if you use a balance schedule, then why have divisions at all? Well, there's a saturation point to consider too. I mean, the Yankees playing Boston 19 times each year clearly didn't help that rivalry. In fact, I believe the NHL is going back to a balanced schedule (within each conference) soon because people just got tired of the seeing the same teams over-and-over.
No, that's my point. If you have them play schedules based on division then you have to seed playoffs the same way, like the NFL or MLB. If there is no difference in scheduling between teams in different divisions then there is no point in divisions. We agree. I'm not sure what the stupid idea is you're talking about imitating. I don't know any league that has conferences/subdivisions that does not base its playoff seeding on that in some way. I don't think playing two home games against an arrival as opposed to one will reach such a saturation point. If anything, all I suggested was one extra home and away game against three specific teams in addition to the round robin. MLS is currently doing something similar. Actually, my setup is less biased than the current one, because every team in each division plays the exact same schedule, whereas in the previous and current MLS not every team plays the same schedule, not always even teams in the same conference. Granted, 16 is one of those ideal numbers for such a thing, and the league is expanding. But the league has changed its scheduling as team numbers fluctuated all along. So, they'll do something at 16 teams. Single round robin for 30 games is unbiased. My system is unbiased as long as you base playoff seeding on divisions, and I love the idea suggested earlier in this thread about doing the last divisional round robin series at the end and not counting it for the Supporters' Shield, though that does complement things a bit and lead to run on sentences. Honestly, this past MLS season was biased. I don't feel like crunching the numbers, but the fact is that each conference played its own members 3 times and then LA got an extra game against Chivas, Dallas against Houston, and Colorado against Salt Lake. That obviously led to some teams having weaker schedules than others. 13 is a hard number of teams to work with though. This years schedule is even more of a mess. They're "giving attention to rivalries" without biasing playoff selection. So, MLS already likes to showcase rivalries with more matches, why not make it official?
Has anyone else noticed that many newspapers this time of year start to switch their NBA and NHL listings to Conference single tables with little stars noting division leaders and a line cutting off the 9th place (non-playoff teams). The more I think about it if MLS has decided that it will not exceed 18 teams in the next five years it should switch to a single table balanced sched at 16 teams when that gives you the easy 30 game sched. As long as Becks is in the league it is a given that every team wants to share equally in his gate potential. And by then Henry could be playing for Red Bull. Why not give it a shot and inch closer to the Euro feel a touch? They had that three division experiment, give this a gander and check out the response/feel of it. And seriously, I can see MLS going up to 20 teams but after that, we are in fantasy land. If I am wrong then MLS will be so successful we will be in completely unchartered territory and the whole league will need to revamp itself anyway. As for the number of games for a 20 team league being too many, if the EPL can do it, MLS can, especially if it is a raging success the money will be there to significantly increase the roster sizes. Cut out meaningless exhibition games during the season and all will be well, kill the SuperLiga in favor of the new Champs League and revamp the US Open Cup format. It will work in 2014.