Interesting ideas. Expand it or contract it? I think some of the CFU countries (TRI, JAM and PUR) should be able to fly on their own. They have had some success. CONCACAF needs more transparency in the draw. Certainly a preliminary stage might put some minnows up against some bigger clubs. Does this competition help clubs or hinder? Make money or cost money?
It gives them exposure for sure, but costs are bigger than money they get. I don't know if CONCACAF subsidize travelling costs like AFC does http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AFC_Champions_League#Prize_money would be great if they do. Profit would have been bigger if competition was more competitive and interesting, it would gather more fans both at the stadiums and in front of TV. No one wants to watch games played at cricket field or one like Bayamon's three goals trail after 10 minutes. Preliminary stage is a must, cutting down number of teams participating is a must.
From what I understand, CONCACAF does not give out prize money, but does provide teams travel subsidiaries. As per 2014/15, article 4.4 states: "CONCACAF will pay each traveling team a lump-sum, of an amount advised separately, per away game as a contribution to the travel costs. CONCACAF will also reimburse home teams for specific expenses paid on behalf of CONCACAF to match officials for their expenses. Details regarding the specific expenses reimbursable to the home team will be advised separately" How much this is I dont believe has been released. Additionally, home teams have to give 5% (minimum $500) of ticket revenues to CONCACAF (article 4.13). I think that CONCACAF prefers the preliminary round - 4 groups of 4 format, but couldnt afford the travel subsidiaries for 78 matches. Hence the current format of 62 matches. I would like to see a return of the preliminary round, and if CONCACAF dont want to help pay for travel... dont!! Let teams pay for their own travel in this round, but let them keep all ticket revenue. If a team cant afford this, dont enter. Of course, this is open to abuse, a team who gets hammered at home in the first leg might decided not to travel at all in the second leg, saving them some money. I would rather see a 4x4 group format preceded by a depleted preliminary round where all the teams want to play, then the current where the some teams are just making up the numbers.
This is why I believe this contest needs more Mexican and MLS teams meetings in the tournament. Mexican teams are clearly the class of CONCACAF and both Mexican and MLS teams have the ability to draw fans from Mexico, US, and Canada to TV sets and bring some money to this tournament. Once it becomes profitable you can begin to look at increasing the size of the tournament and add more teams from smaller countries but you need the profit first. Give access to smaller countries but you need a large Mexican/MLS presence to grow the tournament IMO.
There is already a possible 5 MLS teams (minimum of 3) and 4 LMX teams. Maybe add the rule that the champion gets in automatically and you can have 5 LMX teams every year.
Yes, but they can't meet till after group play....That is poor design. Ideally you'd have an MLS and a Mexican team in each group. Group play should be designed to allow this.
Yeah, something like UEFA did when it started it's "league" format competition. 8 teams in group stage in early begginings and it later grew up to 32 teams. 8 teams, 2 groups in first 3 seasons followed by 16 teams, 4 groups in next 3 seasons followed by 24 teams, 6 groups in next seasons followed by 32 teams, 8 groups in next 15+ seasons. 4 groups of 4 teams each with half of them from MLS and Mexico would bring (with country-protection draw rule) 4 MLS/LMX match-ups in group stage along with games against best teams from remaining countries of the confederation - more games against tough opposition and more chance to progress.
Thirty-two teams, with eight Mexican teams, six American teams, two Canadian teams, and 16 from the Caribbean and Central. Played as eight four-team mini-tournaments (eight teams host). This preliminary round would certainly be followed, and the travel would be reduced. Eight group winners advance. Slight alteration: 29 teams, with the title-holders getting a direct bid to the quarterfinals, and 28 teams in mini-groups as above.
My proposed new format: 32 teams. Home-home series involving all teams to get to 16 teams. (Or any other method to get to 16 teams.) At 16 teams, four groups of four teams. Top 4 or 8 advance to knockout rounds.
I like it. How would you divide the 32 into two groups of 16? Personally, I hate hate hate the current method of pot allocation, and would really like it to be based on that individual club's performance instead of what country they're coming from.
You've basically went back to the older format, that was already rejected (and too expensive, and not followed by many people), and got rid of the first-round byes. How does this "spruce up" ("spice up," whatever) the tournament?
The old format was rejected by CONCACAF, and it's not like the new format is drawing that many eyes anyway. What the full 32-team knockout round would (likely) do is eliminate most of the bad teams. Under the old format, you had the Honduran, Guatemalan, and Panamanian champions qualify directly to the group stage and, under the current one, you have the god-awful teams like Bayamon, Alpha United, failing Panamanian champions, etc., in the groups. Under the format laid out above, you could theoretically have a group stage with 5 MLS teams, 4 Liga MX teams, 3 from Costa Rica (if Belize continues to miss the tournament/CRC gets allocated an extra berth), and then 4 teams who played their way in through competitive continental fixtures. Also, I don't think you'll find many observers who would argue that the current group stage format leads to better, more interesting soccer than the old format did. The 4-team groups were superior to the current setup in every competitive way imaginable.
But why have a direct knock out from 32 to 16? Wouldn't it make more sense to put 8 teams directly into the 16, have a 2nd 8 play one knockout game to get there, and the final 16 play 2 games to get there? Granting byes adds to the tournament in my opinion. You win the MLS Cup or Supporters Shield you go straight to the round of 16 You win one of the Liga seasons you go straight to the round of 16 It adds to value to qualify at a higher place. Plus it can be used to guarantee some 'cinderellas' get their shot at the big boys and the money a group stage could bring if the tournament gets popular.
At least Revolt is open to alternative ways to get to sixteen. (So that would include my four-team mini-group proposal.) How about a single-elimination game? At least that wouldn't drag out. And it would create an NCAA-style single-out excitement. And would create at least some buzz for the sixteen winners. (Again, this thread is how to "jazz-up" the CCL, but without bankrupting Concacaf in the process.) I'll give A-Metro some credit for defending the "conventional" proposal, but instead of "eliminating bad teams" a h+h round would just be a bad round of soccer. And again, nobody wanted to watch this previously. I'm still open on what could be the best format (in terms of both on-field-play and marketability), but I'm pretty sure that a R-32 h+h series isn't the best.
If I read this correctly, he would start with seeds #17 to #32 play a single knock-out game; the eight winners play against seeds #9 to #16 in another singleton; and those eight winners join the top eight seeds. This is an interesting way to put some interest into the front-end of the tournament.
That is exactly how I'd do it. I'd be fine with 2 legs in both rounds (or even just the first round) in order to ensure each team gets to host at least 1 game if that made more sense.
No, it doesn't make sense. Again, nobody watched the old first round. It lost a lot of money. Stop trying to make the front-end two-legs. I'm open to any other suggestions except that.
I am not trying to do anything. I am a guy on a message board talking about soccer. But if I were part of the process and was in charge of the Panama soccer federation I'd damn well want to make sure the team(s) I send to the event get the opportunity to host a game as opposed to simply being sent to Mexico or America to be slaughtered. Which was a my point, 2 legs may not mean a damn thing to you and may not draw tons of fans (the prelim rounds wouldn't anyway) but to that small club in Panama that is the draw to even enter the event. From their perspective it sure as hell makes sense.
In 2008/09, Pumas got more people to their prelim match against Harbour View than they did any of their group matches. The same was true for Montreal. In 2009/10, Toronto's prelim match was the most-attended match in the entire tournament before the semifinals. In 2010/11, Toronto's prelim match was their best-attended match, Seattle's was their second-best, and Puerto Rico drew 12,993, which was their best-attended match in club history, including their semifinal in 2009. 2011/12, Seattle's prelim match was the best-attended match of the tournament until the quarterfinals. So...try again?
Also, to show that I'm not cherry-picking, below is the comparison between average preliminary round attendance vs. average group stage attendance for the years where those numbers are available: 2008/09: Prelim - 3,242 Group - 6,034 2009/10: Prelim - 5,367 Group - 5,086 2010/11: Prelim - 6,121 Group - 6,265 2011/12: Prelim - 6,101 Group - 6,294 Besides the first year, the difference is negligible.
That's the hard part. Ideally, I would rank teams 1-32, and have the 16 groups as 1 vs 32, 2 vs 31, etc. Move a club up or down a slot to keep teams from the same country playing each other. I've been also thinking about giving the top 8 teams (those representing the countries that made it the quarterfinals from the previous year) a bye - but that inevitably creates a couple of initial rounds. (Which could be okay - it would be lower-level teams knocking each other off in the first round.)
My thoughts to this point have leaned more towards going with six groups of four, and having the group winners joined by the two best runners-up - as suggested by an earlier poster. However, what if an alternative was to go with the same 6 groups of four, but allow the top two finishers to be joined by the four best third-place teams into a new round of 16? (Basically the setup that was used in Italia '90.) That might give a little more leeway for teams from a broader range of federations to make it into the knockout round, while opening the floor once again to having US and Mexican teams potentially being drawn together in the same groups beforehand.
Of those two, I would prefer the 6 winners + 2 best runners-up, because I don't much see the point of a group stage if all you're going to do is cut the field from 24 to 16. You can do that with a preliminary round. Though I don't think we'll go back to the groups of 4 anytime soon due to costs, which is sad.
OK, try this on for size, for "spicing up the CCL" Play matches on the weekend. Before anyone jumps up and screams, "but that would mean the domestic matches would have to be moved the midweek..." yes, yes it would, for a few teams (and their opponents) for four matchweeks (group stage), and up to six more (knockout stage). This falls into the "crack a few eggs to make the omelet" mode. Just try it; you might be surprised on how well it works.