1. Yes 2. HELL YES 3. No, the draft is something the American FAN can identify with it is a staple of American sports. 4. Yes 5. No that is borring as hell. People would stop watching as soon as the points leader clinched. Look at College Football and how much bitching people do about there not being a play off in order to crown a REAL champion. Most of the time it just ends in controversy. 6. Gee MLS should stop trying to be a successful sports franchises like the NFL, NBA, NHL and MLB... oh ok. sure. Yeah they are making NO MONEY and are doing AWFUL in the ratings.
The NFL is a disgrace to sport. It's just a cash cow gravy train for fat-cat executives whilst the sport is relegated to being the engine that drives the gravy train. Does anyone want this in football: Gimmicky conferences and divisions Contrived playoffs just to milk TV revenue Adverts every 10 seconds Teams moving the country around with no respect to tradition or the fans just so the owners can make a bit more cash A season that lasts a few months The game actually STOPPING just for TV A franchise system where smaller teams can't get in, and rubbish teams in the league don't fall into a more suitable division? Crater-shaped roofless stadiums with stands that are practically flat No atmospheres because the fans are in a donut-induced coma with drool coming out of their mouths as they stare blank-eyed at the pitch Ticket prices in the hundreds even for normal league matches No away fans Cheerleaders Touchlines a foot thick Two hundred players on each side, with unlimited substitutions Players who can't do anything other than a single specialised task, which they do for 5 seconds before spending the rest of the game on the bench Steroids Towns which don't have teams for hundreds of miles because they're not considered to be a lucrative enough 'market' A draft system which forces players to play for teams they don't like, and to live in places they don't want to live in, not to mention rewarding teams for failure Endless graphics and fluff on the screen to keep away the ADD viewers.
I have been watching some MFL games on the Mexican channels on DirecTV. They have the most annoying graphics, modeled after the NFL, that they display while the game goes on. In one case this giant graphic soccer ball flew accross the screen obscuring the game in progress just as a goal was scored. I agree there are some things soccer is better off without. This is definitely one of them.
I love conferences and divisions. I dislike single table. I do like the playoff format I don't like all the advertising. But it is what keeps the games on broadcast TV. Most Americans know that the owner has to do what he needs to do to make money. The local hardware store owner would probably do the same thing. Not everything is fair to everyone. Someone is always going to lose. I do wish that the season ran from mid September to late February I don't like this about football I am pretty happy the way it is set up now. I would not like to see 5 teams in NYC and none in Florida. Why do people have orgasms when talking about roofs? Go to a game in Chicago, Green Bay, Kansas City, Denver, etc. It would be different if the vast majority of the games where not selling out. But they are. If people are going to pay the prices, why not make what you can? Indifferent. I love seeing Packer fans in away stadiums. But hate having them at Lambeau. Each visiting team to Green Bay is guaranteed 500 tickets. They are just spread around the stadium to help with the home field advantage. Have you seen the Dallas Cheerleaders? Looks better on TV. A NFL roster has only 53 active players a week. Yawn. I do agree here. Steroids are bad for the game. Green Bay has a population of 102,000. (Although they are the Wisconsin market and that is about 5.5 million). Owners go where they want to go. Like what city will build them a stadium, guaranteed revenue, etc. That is the way we do things in America. Although don't ask John Elway or Eli Manning. The draft is also used to try to turn the bad teams into winners so as not to have the same teams always winning. Unless that is you team doing the winning, it is boring. Getting rid of most of the graphics would be nice. But you have to keep the score on the screen. That has been a great improvement for the television viewers.
Generally speaking, Eurosnob is a term usually used to show someone with ideas different than MLS's in a negative light. It's an easy way to discount other peoples opinions without really debating them.
You know, all of this is 100 percent accurate except for the parts where you have no idea what you are talking about. Don Garber came from the NFL. Ivan Gazidis and Mark Abbott, two of the next top people in the league, were both born overseas (Gazidis in South Africa and Abbott in England), played soccer growing up and never worked for the NFL. Their main background is in corporate law, not professional football. Not sure where Todd Durbin came from. Nelson Rodrriguez, who I believe is day-to-day director of SUM, was a Division I head coach and has worked a variety of jobs in pro sports, but never in the NFL. No, perhaps you don't know your ass from a hole in the ground. And in forming that union, they got some say. How anyone can turn MLSPU into a negative is beyond me. I find it far from mindnumbingly dull, but to each his own. It certainly has faults, biut there's no perfect system. And if you're gonna put structure up against structure, the voting with their feet poll certainly says that MLS is preferred over the USL although I think there's certainly room for both in this counrty and am excited to see how both are growing.
I guess in retrospect two 18 team divisons would be possible within 15 years with the purchase of the USL. A premier and a first divison with pro/relegation all under the MLS moniker. The second divison would be more of a long term project. I think expansion should be reviewed on a case by case basis, but it should be driven by the market. I do think MLS will do better in mid size cities like Salt Lake, Portland, San Diego, OKC....etc.
Could you post some numbers on this, specifically how RSL, Chivas, and Columbus did (KC was in it until the end so I'll exempt them)?
I am sure there is little difference in MLS attendance when a team is out of the playoff hunt or in it. These crowds are mostly manufactured; not people following how the team is doing throughout the season. MLS is a day out, not a passion. Fans would have to care about these teams first for the difference to be noticable.
You would have a four way first divison play off for the last promotion spot. Then in the premier divison two games between the bottom four teams to determine the relegated teams. All this could be determind at the end of the season culminating with the MLS premier cup between the first and the second half winners.
I'm a little confused. In one sentance you say that you would do away with single entity and then in the next sentance you say buy USL. Well, if you buy USL, you just buy the league, but not the teams. Would you then buy all of the franchises within the league? If you did that wouldn't you be back at single entity? You talk about using the free market, but then turn around and create a single market for pro outdoor soccer in this country.
Clearly what I meant was purchase the league and all the rights, images,...etc. The league would change names form the USL to MLS first divison. USL is not single entity so this would be subject to approval of the USL team owners using what ever procedure they use to decide matters as a group.
I actually prefer single table. But until there are enough incentives/disincentives at the end of the season (i/e UEFA/CL/promotionrelegation etc...) and until travel gets even faster (it's a hell of a lot easier and cheaper to travel from one end of France to the other than from NY to LA), it is nowhere near practible. And you know, I'm fine with that. Make it four teams total I'm all for relegation. Some owners just should not be owning teams. We can start with Tom Benson and work from there. Unfortunately the US is a franchise driven top-down model instead of the more organic club-driven model prevalent in the UK at its forming. A cause not everyone is a 'Sconny cheesehead that can brave frozen tundra weather Yep - now if we were talking Baseball or any sporting event in Atlanta... Sadly true. It's market value. And not in a "Damon's worth 13 mil a year now so am I" way either Indifferent. I love seeing Packer fans in away stadiums. But hate having them at Lambeau. Each visiting team to Green Bay is guaranteed 500 tickets. They are just spread around the stadium to help with the home field advantage. FYP
For the top three or four clubs looking to win the league or promotion and the bottom 5 clubs or so trying to avoid relegation maybe. With no CONCACAF Champions League and CONCACAF Cup to speak of, the spots in the middle who are assured their place in next season but also out of reach of the points leaders, such a system would KILL their walk-up sales. While jersey sponsors chosen by each team may work, how hard is it to direct a sponsor who wants to be on a certain team's kit and direct them to the MLS office? And yes, Flawed business models fail. RRRRRRING RRRRRRING...Hello? Who is it?....OK, I'll tell him...It's the NASL. They want to talk to you. So teams can sign whoever they see fit, as long as they're not foreign? Yea, I agree. I live in Chicago, and walking to work today, I can tell you it's GREAT soccer weather this time of year, and I'd imagine it's much the same in Columbus, New Jersey, New England, or DC right now. Yea, that'll make MLS stop looking bush-league...implementing a playoff system common in Class A minor league baseball The MLS is quite different from the nfl, nba, nhl, or mlb. If that were not the case, we would NOT have single entity. Also keep in mind that MLS is trying to NOT be the NASL. That's a rational argument.
If you can sit outside for a football game in Dec you can sit outside for a soccer game. Cmon grow a pair. Let me post this question. Which game will be played at a faster pace? Chicago vs DC in 100 degree weather or Chicago vs. DC in 40 degree weather Yes this league should have a cap on foreign (excluding North America) players. Let's develop homegrown talent
The fan base for MLS is much different than that of the NFL. NFL fans are used to the weather and, because they actually care deeply about the teams, the weather seems a minor issue. MLS is selling tickets to a passive crowd and depends on walkups and group sales. You're not getting casual fans to come out to the stadium on a whim when its 40 degrees or worse outside. MLS is competing with a night at the movies, it isn't a must see event unfortunately. Look at what crusio wrote a few posts back. He pretty much hit the nail on the head. If MLS focuses on selling tickets alone. It does little to create actual fans and that's the real problem. Give people a reason to not just buy a ticket, but also support the team week to week and the format of the league is irrelevant. That said, I fail to see how a more risky league structure would increase the fan base and keep the league stable.
I wonder how great the "Homegrown Talent" is going to be in your 37th-60th teams in MLS2, seeing as people already complain about the talent level in MLS with only 12 teams and a foreign player cap already in place. And also let's not forget that jolly old England in Winter is helped out by this little thing called the Gulf Stream, which makes their winters on average 5 degrees warmer than they otherwise would be. Temperatures rarely drop below 14 degrees in England in the winter. I can tell you that in Chicago, there are MANY occasions where the temperature will drop below 14. I'm sure you're freezing your ass off in Seattle where 0 is the lowest temperature ever recorded. When any school up there is ever cancelled for three days not because of snow...errr....rain, but because of cold, like mine was in grade school when the windchill hit -30, you can talk to me about "growing a pair."
The business model has nothing to do with the playoff format. This is strange. So AEG has built stadiums in 3 of its cities for what reason? Hunt has built stadiums in 2 of his cities for what reason? Sounds like that is building a local organization. Did you also know they have reserve teams to develop young players etc? They should have just let them fold with no owner. Of course the fact that teams in England have moved means that all English soccer needs a new business model. Why are most of the teams in the Champions' League not champions? Why are there teams in the UE(urope)FA cup that are not from Europe? Is watching MunchiesinaGladBag vs Nurnberg at 30 degrees fun? Why do most of the teams get to stay up in the EPL when only about 8 have a realistic chance of even making a Champions League spot? Maybe they should relegate all the teams that do not make the UEFA cup and bring in an entire new slate of teams that did not fail in the previous year.
Just curious, what does the goings on in Europe have to do with playing games during the WC, playing in hot weather or the playoff format?
I take it you mean 14F not 14C. It's rare to have day temperatures here below 30F. It's actually warmer here (or less cold to be truthful) in winter than northern Italy.