2023 MLS Season

Source: Dynamo will open the 2023 MLS season February 25 on the road against FC Cincinnati, 6:30 PM kickoff. The full MLS schedule will be released today.

— Dynamo Theory (@dynamotheory) December 20, 2022

 

Apunten en sus calendarios, que el fútbol esta apunto de arrancar!📆🔥 | Powered by Shell Energyhttps://t.co/YWvuVVBDcM#HoldItDown pic.twitter.com/U6LtFCiuXh

— Houston Dynamo FC (@HoustonDynamo) December 20, 2022

Home opener March 18th vs Austin

 

Just want to say that if Miami does end up signing Messi to come to MLS in the summer window, ******** MLS for putting them on our home schedule in April.

 

so my count is 2 away games -- cincy and NER -- then an international break, then home games commence.

but if they don't get on the stick personnel wise i won't be bothered.

the first couple games allow us to dip toes in the water. the schedule then doesn't look soft until after memorial day and then after july 4th. i think the last couple months are fairly soft if we are still in contention. if not it won't matter.

 

if i were us and i was making tepid efforts to stay competitive in my state i would be campaigning with the league for a schedule where we play everyone once and then a handful twice. you do not want to emphasize rivalry games if you don't handle your rivals well. 3 austin and dallas games each are not helpful if we aren't giving the same level organizational effort they do. 1 is plenty, 2 is enough. 3 games with in state and not even seeing some opponents is absurd and not sporting integrity. is how i would explain it.

along the same lines as it wouldn't be beneficial to leeds or everton to play a rival/region heavy schedule rather than get some of the crap southern teams (bounremouth, soton) in equal doses as the schedule sends them strong nothern english manchester or liverpool sides.

likewise i would be pushing this in the direction of 3-4 divisions with us in a central division. look at a map and where the top table teams are located. now we would be in with dallas and austin but after that StL Nashville Minnesota KC Columbus Cincy, etc. see what i am saying? a 15 team conference is getting unwieldy. there are smaller whole first divisions in places like scotland.

i mean, the oilers were often crippled by being in the AFC central with pittsburgh and the ohio teams. despite recent struggles the AFC south is fairly easy by comparison. you then still have to try which is a separate problem. but when properly run we can be in the playoffs years in a row.

people can chuckle at the perceived weakness of looking around for ways to make us more competitive, but RSL got something for raines who wasn't even in their program anymore, and FCD shopped houston's academy and never gave us a thing. stuff is always going on and we can try to make it more fair and friendly or we can be the gravel the good teams run over. squeaky wheel gets the grease, and we should be encouraging the competition towards a concept that benefits us.

 

along these lines, one can trace "AEG can't own 2 teams" to our downward spiral. i doubt we thought up that concern. suddenly politics made that seem important, we got sold, and here we are. we can play the game or keep getting played.

i am pretty sure the real idea was teams sick of it being us or LAG winning things. because in reality we were actually the red headed stepchild and i never saw anything like AEG coordinated the teams.

 

The @HoustonDynamo will head to Mexico and Miami for preseason, head coach Ben Olsen told fans at a team event at Senate Avenue Brewing Company. Dates and opponents TBA. #MLS #HoldItDown #DejaloTodo

— Victor Araiza (@victoraraiza) December 21, 2022

 

doing something different for preseason would be good even if it turned out a mess. we are way too safe for a team this bad. what's the risk, we suck? already there.

fwiw MLS.com points out we were not chosen for the Olsen Bowl with DC in our schedule. 6 games with austin and dallas and none with our manager's ex. fire the writers.

 

Only 2 games against Dallas

 

I don’t get why you’re waffling around. Just give up on the season already. This is a 12th place team that won’t get better. Check back in ‘24

 

the literal analysis appears to be intended to make the point we play the west twice, except we don't, we play AUS thrice, which is not helpful, and NSH not at all, who we took to the cleaners. NSH is moving east.

i laid out how being in the west isn't helpful and playing in state rivals a ton isn't helpful, and you basically responded with checking my math and a systematized explanation rather than an assessment if that arrangement is any benefit to us, which was my point.

just look at a map of MLS to see my point. the only west coast team we beat with any regularity is SJ, and it's not any better mountain west.

strictly speaking we should be campaigning for either central or MLS2 in a pro/rel scheme.

 

Alright I’ll bite, San Diego and Vegas are front runners for the #30 expansion slot. We should volunteer to be the team that goes East

 

The 3 Canadian clubs and the Dynamo are the only ones without a scheduled appearance on Fox or FS1 this year. Classic

 

Good, the Dynamo have done nothing to earn national exposure. This is the best MLS related broadcast decision Fox has made in years.

 

https://www.mlssoccer.com/news/mls-...evisaunivision-tsn-rds-reach-multi-year-deals

the subtle thing being that apple aside, canada has separate media rights, eg TSN, and i'm not even sure what their level of access to FS1 is. put differently, we are nonexistent within our own rights area. but they will be shown within theirs -- presumably.

is there a separate domestic spanish language deal or set of them because that was what passed for our national tv lately eg unimas. not sure how many english language cable sports games we were getting before now. couldn't have been many. close to zero my guess.

side point, surely they grasp the contradiction between apple pay-to-play/media irrelevance and their seeming push to chase casual fans. the mexican yeti might trip over a game and watch -- but we've been mostly paywalled and it sounds like aren't on the current english language network national schedules. which then if we are talking chasing casual fans how will they even find the dynamo to trip over. the yeti might know where to look but not care. the casual fan won't find us. to me they are picking a bad time to take the regular fan for granted, while providing a poor team, and spend their efforts chasing the yeti or the non-fan, who will start out inherently resisting.

that sounds like how to run a grocery -- increase market share by chasing people who shop whole foods or HEB -- not a soccer team. soccer team if you don't provide the soccer a massive chunk of the fan base will stop watching. which is probably true of groceries the same, but one presumes a grocery chain chasing the upmarket folks and organic buyers has a functioning cereal aisle, butcher/bakery, etc. but then maybe that's the point.

no, right now is precisely when you should be endeavoring to give a competent competitive product people might consider following behind a paywall. i think they aren't considering the feedback loop of tv coverage to fans showing up live. maybe you liked how the last game went. maybe you heard about the new acquisition and couldn't resist any more.

 

i believe my original point was we might play austin or dallas as many as 5-6 times in 2 years but others not at all. people corrected whether dallas was precisely 5 or 6, but that or showing there are eastern teams we haven't played a regular game with in yeas proves rather than disproves that thesis. even our eastern schedule is hit and miss. buried beneath the lists you say at the end we played some teams twice, some once, some not at all. TFC, who has sucked lately, is one of the not at alls. so that's 3 points a game lost to the conference sorters and schedulemaker. now, i don't think it's as bad as the NFL -- where the schedule rotation from division to division can alter your success year to year -- but if we play teams as many as 2-3 times a season that might shape the outcome. or in the case of us vs Dallas 2021 suggest we were mismanaged.

my second point was normative, just a sense that we would benefit from being put back in the east or into a central division. i don't see any big payroll teams up the center of the country, and the second half of our run of success was as an east team. i also think if we're going to make no special competitive or payroll effort then we should encourage a pretty balanced schedule where we play everyone at least once, and then multiples of no more than 2. as it stands we will play austin 3 times again and some teams not at all. austin is trying. we're not. that just kicks our butt. why are we encouraging that other than ticket sales.

either that or we belong in MLS2. the telling feature of recent years has been the degree games just followed the form book. if we're only playing teams 16-and-down then the dynamo can compete.

last, if you read my posts the layer beneath that was an even broader critique of our inability to shape the competitive and rules environment. that we are the team that FCD can fleece our academy with no punishment or compensation but if we sign someone who isn't even coming direct from RSL we have to trade for the privilege. i assume this is because RSL squeaked where it got greased. i don't remember a public peep about quill or what FCD did. no screaming for picks, money, or demerits. it was all rumors and whispers. part of competing is also fending for yourself in the rules committee, or making a fuss when you're getting screwed.

i'm sure a lot of this is lack of effort or laziness. little too obvious to me so many we sign are "i know a guy." if we sign franco, he knows sebas. [did he actually set up sebas very much in. paraguay? not really, that the stats logs say.......did he set anyone up that much? not really......]

 

At this point the Dynamo serve the league as being a team in a top 10 TV market that the league can claim they have "covered" for advertising and marketing purposes to national sponsors. That's about it.

 

but if you're switching to a nationalized streaming model isn't a struggling big city team a letdown on show views, like some idiot talked you into a cowboy bebop live action reboot? in the streaming world we'd get canceled and replaced by some other show targeted at our market.

 

Well you still have gate revenue and sponsorship coverage plus whoever watches the Dynamo opponent. Its not a pure TV game play.

How the local team sponsorships work with the Apple TV deal, no idea how that is constructed. Based on the last few years of the commercials being exclusively team sponsors, have to think that the old model was sell team sponsorships which include commercials during the broadcast.

Setting all that aside, Dynamo clearly at the bottom of the list for MLS and any partners in terms of attractiveness of games to be on TV or featured.