hmmm, let's see here, the format and structure works in the rest of the world but we americans want to change it because it's not american, okaay that works. If it's not broken don't fix it, sure it might not be the best system but it's better than a playoff, where 8th place team that cruises through the whole season gets hot for a couple of games in the playoffs and actually wins MLS cup, if that's the case then why play the season, why not just have your playoffs and be done with it? The rich teams in Europe might be the same from year to year, but it wasn't like that in the old First Division in England. Football didn't start with the Premiership, and it wouldn't be the case in the MLS either because we have a salary cap. But go ahead and have your little arrogant poll it just goes to show how ignorant you really are and don't know anything about football pre 1993
Except, of course, for all those places in the world that still don't use the format and structure. And, of course, those places (like Brazil) that have officially co-equal, parallel state leagues, and a growing dislike of the end of national playoffs... I'll ask the mod to officially change your vote to "unable to distinguish dogma from fact." And I'll ask you not to take any notice of the Dutch leagues, which have recently expanded the use of playoffs to cure the major flaw of single-table leagues: too many meaningless games - especially at the end of the season when "meaning" should be at it's climax.
Thread's only three posts old and someone's already taken the bait and got caught in the trap. Repped.
Let's make it more interesting, and ask that you vote for your favorite one. In which case, I'd change my vote to the dogma option.
What a clever thread. I'm by no means a hardcore single table supporter, but damn I hope it happens so people that make these kind of threads will feel so stupid. The same people 10 years ago were probably 100% sure Beckham would never come. The same people 20 years ago were probably 100% we'd never have a league as successful as we have now. You never know what will happen in the future so stop acting like you have some magical crystal ball.
Actually, I think you are quite wrong. The vast majority of people here who rail against single table (or whatever Eurosnob beef of the day -- pro/reg, draft, fall to spring, etc.) are not arguing against the specific change. But are rather arguing the idea that MLS is somehow wrong/inferior/bad because they have conferences or playoffs or play in summer, whatever. There's certainly been some very reasonable discussions on here about the benefits and drawbacks of various potential changes to MLS. As long as people come with an open mind and debate and support their point, they aren't mocked. When people say "how can you watch that crap where you play different teams a different amount of times" that you find people quick to ridicule. The orginal mocking of this thread is (sadly) quite on target -- most of the people who come on here complaining that MLS "needs to" do this or that aren't arguing from a standpoint of what might actually be good for the league, but rather wanting to be identicle to European leagues just because that's "how it should be". And that's simply idiotic. There's no "right" or "wrong" -- there's what's best for MLS to grow and prosper and draw in fans. If that's a single table, great. If that conferences with more games against local rivals, great. In fact, I'd suggest it's because people want MLS to be successful that they mock these ideas.
its so typically american its actually funny - its not exciting so change the rules. there is no such thing as a meaningless game. the dutch league has its playoffs to decide the intertoto spot, hardly the same as deciding the entire championship that way.
Yeah, God forbid we model our league like most European leagues that are the most successful in the world. We're different, and we're proud of it. Who cares if it's to our league's detriment. Let's have stadiums that feel like morgues, make the beginning and to some degree middle of the season practically meaningless. Sounds great. I might as well get out of this thread, because nobody that will post here is likely to be open minded enough to consider it. The 'eurosnob' and 'mlsnob' perspectives are like politics in this forum. What a shame.
i'm surprised that during these arguments no one ever brings up the fact that mexico plays with groups and has playoffs and are a well respected soccer nation somehow, us being like europe makes us 'credible' when the nation just to the south of us has a 'credible' league and we get flamed for being just like them not to mention, australia's a-league opened up quite well and hasn't been so hounded by eurosnobs and the like, they have a playoff do non-mls fans and eurosnobs realize american economics? pro/rel won't work, having teams sitting mid-table for most of a season can kill attendance, single entity saves teams from going under, and a salary cap keeps losses to a minimum now go home
it has, in every thread of this type ive read today since when is the mexican league credible? australia has a league? in other words, havent tried, wont try. of course, its silly to say america should try to format its competitions exactly the same way as europe, because america is trying to fast track in a few profitable franchises, rather than actually organically allowing clubs to develop.
Silly poll. And all of MLS' marketing underestimates the intelligence of the anti-soccer fan. There was a time when I ranted against folks like Jim Rome because I thought once they sat down and watched the game, they'd become fans. Truth is, they won't. I used to think the haters of the Game were uninformed. They ain't. They aren't stupid. No matter what MLS does, the haters will always know it's an international game. It's the internationalism that repels them, and they won't be fooled by a few strategically placed stars and stripes. Instead of altering a perfectly good environment to attract people that will still refuse to show, why not keep the environment and trappings of the Game for people who are secure enough about themselves not to need their own culture's brand stamped onto the backside of everything they own or love? I mean, it's too late now -the die's been cast- but that line of marketing will fail to fool anyone. It's still the World's Game. I love the NFL. I watch the MLB World Series when a team I'm interested in is playing. Same with the NBA. I almost always watch the last three games of the NCAA basketball tournament. But I don't need for football to take on the characteristics of those sports. Why did MLS think they'd convert anyone by forcing American culture on a foreign game?
Well, damn right they're trying to develop actual profitable teams. Because such teams would actually be, uh, sustainable. I think a league with flaws that has staying power is much better than some "ideal" league that folds. I'm sorry, but I'd prefer that MLS doesn't follow a "recklessly spend money and then abruptly fold" model of the NASL. I'd rather have a league that actually grows and expands sensibly. If that means that they have to operate in some ways that soccer purists demean, well so be it.
And thus we have the exact reason these ideas are mocked. You have offered zero reason that the MLS way of doing things is "to the league's detriment". I'm every open to ideas for improving MLS. If it's single table, for example, that's fine. But I want to hear a good rationale for such things -- a rationale that indicates that MLS with grow or prosper with such changes and will limit and downside to them. Basically, I want a good completion of this sentence: "Single Table will benefit MLS because..." and the answer can't be "...Europe does it". That's not a reason. I want to see a well thought out explaination of why such changes would be beneficial to MLS. And, I'm sorry to say, you almost never see that. And that's why anyone coming on and yelling about "pro/reg" without any actual thought in their post deserves to be mocked.
im not saying thats a bad thing, im just saying its not the way i would go about it. true sustainability comes from a team being independant and sustainable based upon its support and success. the growth of clubs, rather than franchises, is how that is done. of course, the MLS is not interested in developing clubs the way the rest of the world has, they want the david beckhams and they want them now, so they're throwing money on traditional american formats rather than allowing a recognisable version of the same game played abroad to infiltrate the nation the same way it did everywhere.
Is there any reason for choosing playoffs over single table other than because "Europe doesn't do it" or "That's how American sports championships are decided"? Maybe- some have said that fan support will wane once their team is out of the running (translation: American sports fans aren't mature enough to continue supporting their team after they know it won't win anything). But once they DO mature, there won't be any way to go back and redo what's being done now. I prefer single-table to a playoff for this sport, but I don't care that Europe has it, nor do I care that Mexico and Brasil do not. I'm not in favor of an apertura/clausura season. I like my playoffs only in NFL and American sports. It seems to me that many of the differences in the early MLS were designed to attract haters who wouldn't attend unless they could see something they're familiar with, and some of those things have remained. But how many true fans has MLS lost by catering to the haters? We'll never know. I know the best thing MLS could do for me is to put a team in the Deep South, and do so without tying it in with anything related to the Civil War or Southern heritage. Fair enough- there aren't enough teams for that, and there won't be for many years to come. But one of the reasons I've heard for never having it is the same as my translation above.
We waited over 100 years for that to happen, and it never did, so some people decided to try something different.
I actually think you make valid points here and I don't disagree. It's certainly possible that if MLS has done single table from the start that they'd have drawn more people or different/more passionate fans. I think that's it's valid to conjecture about that. And it's valid to conjecture about what might be if we look into such changes. What pisses me off is people who assert that MLS is de facto bad becuase it lacks certain qualities that are present in most Euro leagues. And that's crap. It's a freaking sports league and there's no "right" or "wrong". There's no "ideal". Some things might work well and other might not, but there's no damn "Platonic Form" of association football that is perfection embodied. Personally, I don't think those things make a hill of beans difference anyway. The biggest thing holding back MLS IMO is money. And due to the (relative) lack of money, superior global talent. But superficial changes to the league like single table or pro/reg or fall to spring, etc. aren't going to bring in any sudden massive influx of revence. So, as far as I'm concerned, those things as best are cosmetic and at worse potentially harmful. So, while they can make for nice message board disscussion, I don't think they really are key to MLS becoming a global product. Being in a position to acuire players like Ronaldo, Ronaldhino, Henry, Zidane, etc. is what will make MLS into a global product. Anyhow, I think your last point is probably incorrect, though. At first, MLS was probably concerned with the "average American sports fan" and some of the setup did cater to that. But that's largely gone away IMHO. What remains is of course different from Euro leagues, but is not IMHO present to cater to anyway, but really around to ensure league survival. Things like the playoffs and the draft and a salary cap, while the bane of some Euro fans, are present to encourage parity which is probably pretty essential to maintain fans here -- fans of all types. I think Klaus EuroFan is just as likely to abandon a crappy MLS team for his Euro squads as American Joe Sixpack is to write off the sport. Either way, it's a lost fan from MLS. Right now, MLS is still in a precarious enough position that it needs to have a number of sustainable clubs that are progressing towards profitability and that the "good of the many outweigh the good of the few". Once MLS as a whole is in a stronger position, some of the things holding back some teams can be loosened (I'm thinking in particular of a raising of the salary cap). But I don't think you'll ever see an abolishment of all of the parity-inducing mechanisms and personally I hope we don't. I find the uncompetativeness of Euro leagues to be distasteful and a turnoff myself and I doubt I'd be alone in that here in the US. YMMV.
There's really no way to describe this paragraph other than lazy. Creating a league with a traditional "European-style" format probably isn't going to spread soccer in this country any faster than a two-conference system with a playoff will. You want good reasons why MLS may not have spread as fast as it could have? Go find that photo with players showing off the uniforms of the original ten MLS teams. Or think about Andrew Shue actually getting minutes for the LA Galaxy. Or look at photos of teams drawing fifteen thousand spectators while while playing in stadiums that seat four times as many and imagine the cavernous atmosphere. Or think about the Southlake fiasco for FC Dallas. Or think about the fact that after 2001 people weren't sure if the league would continue to exist. You want the league to infiltrate America? Quality of play and stadium atmosphere will probably do more than a move to single-table ever could.