Brazil to follow Euro Calendar in 2007?

Clearly we would need to break January through February. It is simply too cold at that time from DC north, and that takes out Metro, NE, Columbus, Chicago, KC, Rapids, and RSL.

Could we have a season from late Aug to Christmas - break - March to July 4th -- in essence, and 8-month season?

 

Why would you want to compete with football, straight-up, for the length of their season? Of the "four majors", it's the only one that competes at the same time (weekly games, on weekends) and in the same stadia. And of the "four majors", it's the strongest.

Further, media coverage gets sent in 100 different directions at the start of the fall. At least MLS has the most competitive part of its season going for it while everything else is getting geared up. Starting the season in August is just a good excuse for the first half of the season to be completely ignored.

And besides, Americans won't go for the split season. You play one season and you have a winner. End of story.

 

I don't think he's saying have two seasons, just a break in the middle.

Is it better to compete against football at the beginning of the season or at the end?

 

Our season is fine, just play summer games at night, break for international weekends and the Gold Cup, and try to coeherse FIFA into a more favorable transfer window.

Playing during the winter months (Dec-Mar) is suicide. There is no compelling reason to do this, not at this stage our the sports development here.

 

IMHO, this is just pie in the sky stuff. There's no way you're going to get enough fans out to open air stadiums that are located north of the Mason-Dixon Line during the winter months. And, it would be exceptionally foolish for MLS to even think about going head-to-head with the NBA, the NHL, the NFL playoffs & last half of the NFL regular season and college basketball. Forgetaboutit. MLS is probably always going to be a spring, summer and fall league -- with a break in the summer during World Cup years.

 

ditto

 

just as there is no compelling need for Dec-Mar games, there is no compelling need for July-Aug games for MLS. That's just when they have been for the last 10 years.

there are of course decent arguments on each side of the issue, and for every "we shouldn't compete directly with NFL for the length of their season" argument, there is a "we shouldn't compete directly with MLB for the length of their season" arguement.

weather-wise, the US is so big that there are months in both the Winter and Summer when outdoor sports are not the best option for players and fans. but of course night games in summer are far better than anytime games in Jan-Feb in a majority of MLS markets.

the problem with the good suggestions of breaking for international weekends and mid-week games, there is this little thing call the WC that comes along every 4 years that is an international month which MLS really should be breaking for. or the other option is to set the league schedule to start in the fall and end in the spring so the season doesn't run during the summer at all.

as a member of Fifa, it makes sense I think for US Soccer for MLS to one day operate on a calendar more similar to most of the other successful leagues around the world. it is not a currently a significant issue to have such a young and growing league play through the WC, but as that league grows, there are less and less excuses valid for continuing the practice of summer league games. a Sept-May season (with however long a winter break needed) seems likely at some point, IMHO.

don't know when/if that day will come, or if it will have an impact one way or the other on attendance and visibility/popularity of the sport, but I see it as a reality that will happen, maybe even before season 20.

 

If it is too cold to play up North than have the Spring schedule start with home games in the South and California, that's 4 outta 12 clubs that can host matches in late Feb.

As far as competing against the NFL, I suspect that what the media would want is for U.S. soccer to get its own sh!t together before worrying about going head to head with the most followed/commercial successful sport in the U.S.
Moreover is that the U.S. soccer culture lacks in this stage of our developement is a coherent format. It is tough enough for the beautiful game to grow when the sport itself is segmented into several versions like High School rules, College rules and then FIFA rules. One knock by the so called "sports experts" is the lack of tradition, even though college soccer dates back many decades of continuous play....well if the "sports experts" say so right! Thus why not then have both the college and MLS seasons begin in September and end at the same time in December like the College Cup already does. The College season is over and MLS can take the winter break till after the Super Bowl. That way it is gridiron/hoops and hockey that carries the sports culture through the winter and is given its full spotlight as they always command. After the Super Bowl is when MLS players and coaches report for Spring Training in warm weatehr locations like Florida around Feb 1st like they have done for the past 10 seasons.
Thus MLS sides can play Southern/Cali clubs starting in Late Feb. I.E. Revs @ LA, Chicago @ Dallas, MetroStars @ Houston. The U.S. Open Cup can get under way when the USL sides start up in April like they normally do. And MLS ends around Memorial Day Weekend which is the last weekend in May traditionally.

The Pros are alignment with the FIFA calendar just like the Kings, Brazil have decided to do. CONCACAF Champions Cup matches for LA or DCU and the like are not forced on the squad suffering in preseason fitness and form. Sigi Shmid a few months ago wrote about the coaches and players needing a "Summer Break" to get away from each other and get their heads clear and bodies fully recharged/fit for the Fall run. This philosophy can be had with a Winter Break from mid Dec. to the end of January.
Of course the most important is that the Summer tournaments are able to get their full attention they deserve. So in a sense MLS will continue to run in the Summers as MLS players from many nations compete in U.S. stadiums or on T.V. in the Gold Cup, World Cup or Copa America.

The cons are what to do with the MLS Cup as it has a new tradition of a Fall closing Title Crown. IMHO I would have the last round of Fall action in mid November be a play in match for all MLS sides. O sea, Garber is always going on and on about the need for playoffs to get home crowds involved. Well have the MLS Cup be a Leage Cup trophy that closes the Fall leg. That way the attendance numbers that are seen for MLS playoff games will remain steady since it is a very die ahrd crowd that shows up to them as we have seen in the first 10 seasons of MLS playoff competition.

 

We have media coverage??

Starting the season in August would be a nono unless we split it to 2 seasons. BUT this whole paranoia about lining up against the NFL is old. Our season basically goes through the NBA playoffs, MLB and MLB playoffs,College football,1st half of the NFL season and NASCAR. We pretty much avoid matching up with the NFL on Sundays except maybe 1 match so I don't see the issue on that. My only issue is lining up against College Football during the thick of the MLS season.

As much as I would a split season it's basically impossible to do in the US. I would love for MLS to NOT play in July though. Our schedule is Hell for Ny,Boston and Chicago for January and Feb. November and December are also toss up months. The problem with the MLS is theirs only 12 teams right now and stretching a 8+ month season with just league games and boring US Open cup games won't cut it. The only thing im gonna be looking forward to this upcoming MLS season is the Galaxy playing in CCC and Copa Sudamerica. I don't know what would be the perfect solution to make league play more interesting. Maybe we need more tournaments going around. It works brilliantly in the EPL.

 

I will knit pick here in that FIFA did not dictate to MLS or the USSF what the transfer window should be. As per FIFA statutes the USSF as the FIFA sanctioned body was required to submit to FIFA what it's transfer windows would be as long as they conformed to the guidelines FIFA established which are: "The first Registration Period shall begin after the completion of the
Season and shall normally end before the new Season starts. This
period may not exceed twelve weeks. The second Registration Period
shall normally occur in the middle of the Season and may not exceed
four weeks. The two Registration Periods for the Season shall be communicated to FIFA at least 12 months before they come into force.
FIFA shall determine the dates for any Association that fails to communicate
them on time."

So based on that they came up with January 1 – March 31 (Primary Window)
August 15 - September 15 (Secondary Window)

Without changing the start and end of the season you can't really change these dates, although I think they could have moved the second window up a few weeks, I think it's too close to the end of the season and the way it straddles the euro window I think makes it harder to pick up some of those players.

 

2 points:

1) Brazil will now play during the 'SUMMER' (in the southern hemisphere, winter is summer and vice versa).

2) This was in November. If anyone seen that playoff game, you would remember the "SNOW."

Imagine Dec, Jan, Feb.

 

I think eventually we'll be playing a Euro schedule. There's no reason we couldn't get by with a one month break, from the middle of December to the middle of January. Once the sport is popular enough, people will show up even if it's cold. We just don't have the hardcore fans now. That's the main issue, not the quality of play. Cold weather would be much better to play in than the heat that MLS plays in now. Besides, the schedule could be set up so the teams from cold cities only have one home game a month in December/January/February. I love all the people who say it will never happen, like you guys actually know anything.

 

Only if all stadiums north of the Mason Dixon line have retractable roofs that fully enclose the stadium. Footyball in late January or early February in D.C. --- brrrrrrrrrr!

 

My personal opinion: keep it a spring - fall season.

There's no reason to play over the winter or break up the season for two months.

I'll restate what some others have said. The fall/winter is very congested already with sports. You have full seasons of college football, pro football, college basketball, pro basketball, and hocky all going at once. That's 30+ teams playing games all at once in the pro leagues, 6 majors college conferences with 10+ teams in addition to non-BCS conferences. That's a lot of games, a lot of people covering those games, a lot of highlights to show, etc, for MLS to try to squeeze in with it's 12 teams.

But for the Spring and especially summer, as far as leagues go it's realy just MLB and MLS (and WNBA). Yes there's NASCAR but they're only in one city once a week. It's not like multiple teams in multiple cities playing on the same day at differents times. And the NASCAR season is so long it's not really like a traditional season. it just kinda keeps going. Yes, you're also running into the NBA and NHL playoffs, but by that point you've whittled the number of games down from like 10-15 every other night in the NBA to 4 or so (I know this may not be exact but it illustrates my point). Sure they may be important but still only 4 games worth of highlight to show. Plus if your teams out of it, chances are so are you and looking to other things.

As for starting the CCC early, if MLS can become as good if not a better league than the MFL as a whole, then I think you'll find CONCACAF being a little more accomodating to MLS.

As for the heat of summer, play night games. seriously. heat with the sun beating down on you is a lot different than heat when it's dark or the sun is setting. At this point there are just not enough (if ever) people willing to go see a 2 hour soccer game when it's 36 degrees and windy outside. Yes you have fans doing it in Green Bay and Chicago and NE, etc. but I'll bet its a lot easier to find 60,000 passionate, do whatever it takes, fans of long established, tradition bound teams than you will in the anywhere near future in MLS. Doesn't meant it won't get there some day, but again, not anytime soon.

I don't think there's anything wrong with taking a two-week or so hiatus (perhaps a month during WC years). Getting rid of the AS game would help.

Soon enough it'll get to the point where in the national conscience it'll be "Summer? That's baseball and soccer time" "Fall/Winter, that's football and basketball and hockey time."

 

For argument's sake, you could start the season the third week of August, go on break the week before Christmas, come back around St. Patrick's Day, and play through Memorial Day. Of course, you'd have to have half season champions. It could work like Mexico or Argentina. But for the record, I prefer our season as is. Choose your battles, I say. And I still don't understand why so many American soccer fans want to align with the European model. As it is, MLS provides us with year-round soccer. If we followed Europe's lead, there'd be nothing to watch in June and July except lame off-year tournaments and preseason tours. And you don't even have to freeze your ass off to attend a live match.

 

I've yet to hear one.....ONE good, solid, compelling argument as to why MLS should change what works just fine right now. The only argument that could be somewhat strong is the CCC argument, and Wallydrag already commented on that too.


I seriously just don't understand why it is so important for people here at bigsoccer to have a league that "follows the Euro calendar"......just because. The MLS season is fine the way it is, leave it be.

 

What I liked about that espn article about Brazil changing seasons is how, for no apparent reason, it ended with "Brazil are the world chamions." If the US wins the World Cup, will every single article about soccer in the US- club or national- be required to end with the line "USA are the world champions?"

Anyway, back on topic,

I remember a Crew-Galaxy match on a WCQ weekend in late 2004 where something like 7-8 Galaxy starters were gone on international duty for various countries. When that sort of thing happens, I wouldn't say that the schedule is "fine the way it is." That's great for the Crew, but terrible for MLS. If MLS took major international weekends off, I would have no problem with that.

Extreme heat does suck, but it doesn't keep people away like extreme cold. Take the Crew's 2005 home opener. It was cold, windy, and we got like 3-4 inches of snow that morning, (though the field was nicely cleaned up by kickoff.) Paid attendance was 14,358, but I guarantee there were no more than 4k in the stadium.

The NFL is not what would concern me if MLS moved to winters. As already pointed out, college football would be the big concern. I'd say about 9,999 out of 10,000 people in Columbus would pick Ohio State football over the Crew. Even some of the die-hard Crew faithful happen to be even more die-hard OSU faithful (not me, however ).

MLS just isn't popular enough to draw fans in the freezing cold. I certainly don't think that MLS should change to match Europe "just because," but it would be nice if internationlas playing in MLS could go play in tournaments and qualifiers without missing club matches or coming back injured and missing even more matches. When it comes to moving to a fall-thru-spring schedule, I'd say not now, but I wouldn't say not ever.

 

I don't know if the weather is like it is this week not too bad, the problem is places like Boston that got about a foot of snow last night. I don't see a big problem with the current MLS schedule. I do wish it was slightly shorter, it just seems to drag towards the end. Because of the size of the country we have a problem somewhere due to weather no matter when the season would be. I think avoiding the winter is the smarter move.

 

i do not think anyone is saying it doesn't work fine/acceptably now (although there are many instances were summer matches are too hot for the players to actually perform to their best abilities), or that changing the season schedule to run from fall-spring over two calendar years is the best and only option.

nor do i think that the current spring-fall schedule within one calendar year is the worst option ever thought of, but the argument that a top flight professional soccer league shouldn't be conducting regular season games during the World Cup, which comes along rather predictably for a month in the summer ever 4th year, seems like a rather fine argument. don't know if it is compelling in your book at this point, but it very well could be a compelling argument at some point in the minds of those who actually do set the season schedule for MLS.

 

You have to pick your poison somewhere. The best solution for this is for ESPN to move their weekly game to Friday nights to avoid Saturday afternoon games.

It is an excellent argument (and also applies for the Gold Cup, especially once that gets on English language television). It can be addressed by a one month break from around Memorial Day to Independence Day. It might require starting the season a bit earlier and ending a bit later, but isn't impossible.

 

and if they were to make these changes and have a summer break, and keep the current spring-fall schedule with a winter-off season, it wouldn't take much for them to switch again somewhere down the road by designating winter as the shorter break, and summer as the longer off-season.

where in reality both the break and off-season could be from 5-10 weeks, depending on weather and scheduling needs.

IMHO, MLS should not have regular season games during the NCAA college bowl season and NFL playoff period, nor should they play regular season games from mid-June to mid-August. although i would miss all of those delightful july 4th fireworks attendance draws. for MLS, May into June seems like a better playoff period than the currect Oct into November.

and yes, a Friday night game of the week on ESPN would be ideal, but i had that idea 4 years ago, and nobody ever listens to me and tv contracts are too long and inflexible.

 

Well, I do have to admit that I've attended Baltimore Ravens regular season games in December and all the January playoff games that the Ravens have played in. In fact, I was at the Ravens MNF game vs. the Packers two weeks ago last Monday -- It was darn cold, but still fun all things considered.

However, right now and for the foreseeable future, MLS just doesn't have the diehard fan-base to merit playing games in below freezing weather. Maybe it will 10 or 20 years from now (I certainly hope that MLS becomes one of the major US sports leagues), but maybe not.

I think that, for the foreseeable future, MLS ought to remain a spring, summer, fall league. But, during World Cup years, why couldn't MLS and the USSF agree to halt MLS games for a month or so during WC play and, instead, fill that void with a concentrated version of the U.S. Open Cup tournament?

 

Because then the USSF is saying our tournament doesn't matter.

 

just as the current MLS-regular-season scheduled during the WC month (and even during WCQ weekends) is an example of MLS saying their regular season doesn't matter all that much, if at all.

I'm a believer in building the MLS fanbase by respecting the Fifa calendar and not playing league games during major Fifa events and international weekends and Wednesdays.