How about this (using 1-5 seeding in a conference): Play-in round: # 4 vs. #5, home and away Conference semifinal: Play-in winner @ #1, single game Conference semifinal: #2 vs. #3, home and away Conference final: single game Everyone gets a home game, but every seed position gets an added benefit. #1: First round bye, gets low-seeded opponent who had to play an extra round, no travel before MLS Cup. #2: First round bye, slight advantage of hosting 2nd leg vs. #3. #3: First round bye. #4: Slight advantage hosting 2nd leg vs. #5. #5: At least they're in. Alternatively, make 4 vs. 5 a single game, which would mean the 2 new playoff qualifiers don't get a home game, but it would still preserve the top 8 getting a home game, and it wouldn't add any matchdays compared to the current schedule. (2 vs. 3 could play their first leg at the same time as a 4 vs. 5) playoff game.
I don't know if this was brought up already, but what if this is because we are going with un-even conferences next year (we have never heard if an Eastern team is moving since Montreal comes in the following year)? If you don't want to have Western teams in the Eastern conference you would have to make it fair for the Western teams since we could have 8 in the east and 10 in the west. So you make it that 4 teams from each conference miss the playoffs. That leaves 4 teams in the east and 6 teams in the west (10 total). The West has a wild card round to determine the 4 teams in the semis and the east just starts with the semis.
Er, that doesn't make it fair, if the West gets 60% in the playoffs and the East gets 50%. Top 3 in each conference plus 4 wild cards would keep it extremely likely that the top 10 overall teams make the playoffs, while eliminating the possibility of an Eastern Conference final with not Eastern Conference teams.
You've ommitted something vital from that example. Montreal had a USL game three days later in Vancouver. Having been eliminated, they had other priorities at that time. That wouldn't be the case during an MLS postseason. To that end, I don't see much evidence of teams tanking or playing reserves in this or any other league, regardless of what's on the line. Consider that the MLS rewards the worst record via parity measures, yet I've watched horrible teams still fighting to pick up wins when a playoff berth has been long out of reach. What you saw in the Canadian Cup was more the product of the schedule than the format.
The bad: it will add another week or two to the season. The good: if they do it right, they could reward the team with the best record in each conference. Give the top team in each conference a buy into the Conference final, which they would host. Let the other 4 teams in each conference play it out to get to the conference final.
Most of the problem of "meaningless" games in a group stage come when the group is double round-robin. That isn't what MLS Cup group stage supporters are urging. The entire idea is a single round robin that significantly rewards the higher seeded teams. In a single round robin, the probability of "meaningless" games is drastically reduced. In fact, it can be eliminated entirely if you find a sufficient way to incentivize a third place finish (as opposed to just 1 & 2). What might that incentive be? Cash? Open Cup advantages? SuperLiga? Not sure. But if you can incentivize 3rd, a four team, single round robin group stage has 0 meaningless games. Seriously. Work out the permutations. Anyway, the other advantage of the group stage idea is added time for FOs to sell playoff tickets. For what I mean by this, see: https://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showpost.php?p=13121958&postcount=110
I still haven't made up my mind, but the more I think about it, the more sense the round robin format makes. One of the complaints about MLS Playoffs is that it's usually the teams that travel the least (aka the lower seeded teams). Whereas the top teams suffer from burnout, perhaps CCL or USOC or SL etc games that they have to deal with. What better way to reward the SS winner by saying that they don't have to travel at all. 3 home games, and then possibly another (semi) and another (finals, unless neutral site). I don't know. Throwing it out there.
Like they say, 60% of the game is physical and the other 50% is mental. Anyhow, while to me, the round-robin postseason still makes a lot less sense than a simple home&away/Mexican format series, there's some precedence here with the old UEFA format where groups were made of five teams, each playing two games home and two games away. However, aside of seeding, it was intended to be a result neutral system, whereas MLS should reward the higher seeds ... but that screws up the home&away arrangements. But, if you want : round-robin + 10 teams in post-season, it could be a reasonable format.
yes, incentivizing the 3rd place finish in the group would be key to making it work. also note that the Canadian Cup example is a poor one, not only because it was a double round-robin, but also it only consisted of 3 teams. in a 4 team single round-robin with concurrently played 3rd matches in the group, the likelihood of a meaningless game is very small. (and with a 3rd place finish being some way incentivized, all group games have meaning.) or, and this is my radical idea, don't even play the 3rd group games. on matchday 1 4/5 winner at 1 3 at 2 on matchday 2 4/5 winner at 2 3 at 1 top two teams after these two rounds are played advance to the Conf Final. (the disadvantage of this system is that the 3 seed doesn't get a home game unless both 1 and 2 are knocked out in the abbreviated group stage. so the better option would be to play the full group stage and find a way to incentivize a 3rd place group finish.)
I'm saying the same thing I said in general - this IS an increased valuation of the regular season and a team's performance in it. finish top 6, you get a bye. 7-10? you have to play an extra game, which will hopefully be midweek right before an extra round of playoffs. this is EXCELLENT - there's an incentive for teams to get into the top 10 (playoffs) the top 6 (bye) the top 4 (2nd game of the 2-game series at home) and first in the conference (host conference championship game if you're in it.) if you're within striking distance of any of these, you have something to play for. people can whine all they want about the evil #10 seeds winning the playoffs, but doing so would mean you did the following: - beat a #7 seed on the road - do well enough in the SAME WEEK against a rested #1 seed that you win the two-game series. the game that you won't be tired-from-midweek-play-in for is also the road game. - beat another higher seed on the road. - in the finals, either win at a neutral venue or on the road against your opponent. i mean, say you went 10-11-9 and finished 10th. If you actually pulled this off, at worse, combining season and playoffs, you're 14-12-9 (and you could be 15-11-9.) and really when is this going to happen? i'm getting very optimistic about this.
You might not see actual 'tanking', like in that example, but you're not going to see valiant effort either. This last group stage game is going to take place a few days after a deflating elimination by a team feeling it was dragged to play games after being eliminated. It's not a good idea. I can see how double round robin would make a difference, but 3 vs 4 teams shouldn't make much. Well, you'd be presuming the incentive is meaningful to a team that's been eliminated, without having told us what it was. Of course, that isn't really a group phase. But that doesn't mean it's a bad idea, necessarily, just a different one that would take some time to work out if there are any pitfalls.
but is it a better idea than making the 1 seed play a H/A versus a conference 4 seed in the first round? all systems have pitfalls. the question is can MLS find a playoff system that "works better" and "delivers more of what they want" (and less of what they don't want) in a post season competition.
I had been bringing up the high likelihood of MLS expanding the playoffs to 10 for some time, and--though I have to admit I didn't see it coming until the league got closer to 20 teams--every time I ran into rather a lot of people who just cannot wrap their heads around the point you are making. The conclusion I drew was that they would just have to wait and see it play out until they got it. But 'wait and see' cuts both ways since the league didn't wait as long as I thought they would. I figured they'd have 10 teams in the playoffs, and that would still be 50% of the league. This way, there's a trade-off between the chance (and yes, if they're competent in how they format it, it's a pretty small chance) the 10th seed could make the final on one hand, versus the reduced chances of the 7th and 8th seed making it (and yes, that should be a meaningful reduction).
If the goal was to make it harder for teams 7 and 8 to make and win MLS Cup, they could just have six teams make the playoffs. Just sayin'.
the real goal is to make money. find a way for MLS to make more money by having just a six team playoff, and I'm sure they'd follow your suggestion.
It would be nice, in that line, if the playoff talk was a little more systematic, listing everything all of the main goals the league would have, so that we can see where they might come into tension with each other. I guess I'll give it a stab: 1) A satisfactory 'build-up' to get bandwagoners and general league fans on board and produces an 'event' at the end. 2) Champions that people feel good about afterwards. (That may not mean the 'best team'. It probably does mean 'earned it' in some broader sense than that. For instance, some folks might still think LA is a 'better team' than Dallas on the basis of the regular seaon record [it's not mathematically certain], but I think few other than the zealots we need not deal with would begrudge Dallas having earned its way over LA into the Final. It was the so-called Eastern Conference that gave us all the trouble.) 3) Elegance (a playoff system that does not confuse the fans). 4) A playoff system that isn't ticket-sales poison. Who can think of others? I'm sure this list is not exhaustive.
I'm not a fan of 10 teams either but I can see this as an oppurtunity. Here's my idea. Season ends on a Sunday: #4 at #5 on wed/thursday (Thur games on ESPN2) #5 at #4 on Sat/Sun (FSC Sat game, Sun ESPN if they want it) After this we start in playoffs week 2 with the current format. #1 - 3 get byes for a week (Benefit - more time to sell tickets, #2 has 3 weeks, #3 has 2 weeks) #4/5 vs #1 (#1 seed has 3 weeks to sell tickets to home leg of quarterfinals and they play a team who just played 2 extra games). Also, in this format all 5 teams get a playoff home game but the negative is playoffs are extended 1 week. Winner of 4/5 gets to ride the cinderella story idea and use their "play-in" game win as marketing to sell tickets to when they play the #1 seed. If #4 or #5 somehow do make it to MLSCup then they can really play the cinderalla story as this means they've played 5 games (2 at home and 3 on the road) just to get there. #1 incentive is they'd only have to play 3 games to get there (1 on the road to a "tired" team and 2 at home with pleny to times to sell tickets). And the final should be at the highest seed. See the past 2 Open Cup games as an example of why theres should be no nuetral venue.
haven't fully analyzed it. but (giving it 45 seconds of thought), I will say that Americans hate ties and higher seeds can settle for ties in the playoffs and still advance. not saying that's a huge pitfall or drawback, but it is something. (and also not saying that having the regular season standings, as opposed to PKs, decide a playoff draw result is a bad idea at all. the higher seeds can always advance without scoring a single goal, right? again, not a huge drawback, but certainly something that could be seen as a pitfall or potential failing.) if the FMF playoff system has zero (or the least amount of) pitfalls or drawbacks, then we can assume that MLS would eventually settle on that system, correct?
I don't know about 'pitfall', but I can tell you the last time the numbers were run, the difference between theory (that it should reward higher seeds much more than MLS's two-legs-with-OT) and practice (in terms of how often those higher seeds actually advance) seemed to me to be considerable. Single-elimination at the higher seed is more elegant, and rewards regular season performance more.
I'm actually not convinced that MLS itself actually takes the time to consider or compile and agree to such a list. there are a lot of different ideas and forces at work within the BoG. if you or I went to work today at MLS HQ tomorrow and were put on the "post-season task force" and we asked our superiors for that list of "main goals the league would have" for their post season, I don't think they'd readily have that list available. this league is still figuring out so many things, imo, and stumbling into "solutions" (or next steps) without really defining or understanding the problem (or the situation and how not to create "new/different" problems).
The goal would be to differentiate among teams who make the playoffs, so that teams who are already in it still have something to play for. Of course, 6 teams in the playoffs would do that, too, since it (not being a power of two) would have to include differentiation. Which is why it would be a fine solution for a 12 team league. Why wouldn't it be a good solution for a 20 team league? Well, I guess here we have our fifth league goal: 5) To make as many teams' fans feel good about the season they had as possible. A lot of fans obviously don't like that this is a goal, but nonetheless, it is. If we're going to ground our recommendations in the plausible, we'll have to recognize that. And I'm hip to the argument that, if you're a losing team, making the playoffs isn't necessarily going to make that look good. But the other way around is that if you invite 6 teams to the playoffs, two teams whose combined record was 25 wins, 18 losses, and 17 ties in the regular season, and who then won 3 playoff games, walk away feeling their seasons were a disappointment. Here, they feel like they did reasonably well. In other words, the league might not gain from having seen a 7-seed win the title (well, except that it probably does from time to time, as long as the fans don't come to expect it), but it does gain something from 7s and 8s in the playoffs, now that it's hit the point where those are still winning teams.
There's variance within a given year (can't eliminate the random element completely nor should you) but it appears that top teams manage to make it into the semis and the finals quite regularly there. Obviously, the split season makes each Cup winner less worthy but also lowers a chance that a bad bounce will decide the entire league. So, you'd have the FA Cup type of pairings where a relegated Portsmouth is playing Chelsea in the final. These are the FA Cup finals : 2010 - Chelsea-Portsmouth 2009 - Chelsea -Everton 2008 - Portsmouth - Cardiff City 2007 - Chelsea - ManU 2006 - Liverpool- West Ham 2005 - Arsenal - ManU 2004 - ManU-Millwall 2003 - Arsenal-Southampton And this is in England, where there's no parity of payrolls. A single game elimination would have the MLS Cups upside down. But this is a total goal tie and one could easily have 2:1 and 1:2 individual matches. Capitalism (or whatever euphemism one may use for free markets) is the most economically efficient system for the maximization of individual freedoms and economic prosperity over the long run. How many countries in the world have that system at least as a plausible goal?