Ideas for MLS League Design [Superthread]

Discussion in 'MLS: Expansion' started by trip76, Feb 4, 2008.

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  1. profit89

    profit89 New Member

    May 5, 2008
  2. chapka

    chapka Member+

    May 18, 2004
    Haverford, PA
    Club:
    Philadelphia Union
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Actually, I made the opposite point. In American sports, bubble teams always have something to play for, and m

    Same with the American system, of course. Losing teams don't draw good crowds. The Clippers (who by the way made the playoffs just a couple of years ago) charge less for tickets than other NBA teams, and still don't sell out.

    Sorry, but I just don't see it. Newly promoted teams are seen as having a successful season if they just don't get relegated back right away--in other words, mediocrity is the goal. Teams bounce back and forth between the Premiership and the Championship without ever making a serious Premiership run. Teams sit at the lower middle of the league for years without doing anything noteworthy -- see Middlesborough or Sunderland.

    The only difference is that the teams who stop trying are the teams who know they aren't likely to be relegated and don't have a shot at the Intertoto Cup. As far as I can tell, it just shifts the laziness and mediocrity farther up the table.
     
  3. Domenico from Chieti

    Jun 3, 2008
    Sorry guys,
    i was looking to the MLS PUB SECTION of mls site...look at the map

    http://web.mlsnet.com/mls/fans/pubs/default.jsp

    add Seattle and Philly and that's it! That is what they are doing:

    PACIFIC DIVISION ...................... MIDWEST DIVISION
    LA Galaxy ................................. Salt Lake
    Chivas...................................... Colorado
    San Jose................................... Dallas
    Seattle..................................... Houston
    ---------------------------------------------------------------
    GREAT LAKES DIVISION ...............ATLANTIC DIVISION
    Kansas City............................... New England
    Chicago.................................... New York
    Columbus.................................. Washington
    Toronto.................................... Philadelphia

    According to this criterium the next 4 exp teams will be choose 1 per division, and I think they will adopt this table when they reach 20
     
  4. JoeTerp

    JoeTerp Member

    Jul 9, 2007
    USA
    Well under this thinking, there are a lot more bubble teams in the single table, pro/rel format because there are teams on the league title bubble, the Champions Leauge bubble, the UEFA/Intertoto Cup bubble, and the relegation bubble. Like I said the gap of teams between 11-14 or so are for most of the season either trying to avoid falling into the relegation bubble or trying to get themselves into the UEFA Cup bubble. And the still have domestic cup games that make their season important. There are very few regular season league games at the end of the season where the result is "meaningless" and even so like has been said before there is a difference in shared money rewarded between the 11th placed team and the 12th placed team. This is NOT how the money is distributed in franchise based systems, where the shared revenue generated by the big markets is displaced to all the smaller markets, and since the tv revenue is sooo big, it doesn't really matter if your team is competitive or not, you will make money, and you will make even more money if you spend less on players.

    Again, you are comparing apples to carrots with the team expectations. Most countries do not have the all or nothing mentality of successful seasons. Yes a newly promoted, smaller market team's goal in ITS FIRST SEASON is just to stay up. that is quite an accomplishment for them. That is probably the goal of the second season as well (to avoid the sophomore slump). Then the goal is top half. Then UEFA Cup. With the UEFA cup comes more money to improve the team, then after you are an established year in year out UEFA Cup team you can challenge for the Champions League. Change is possible it just takes steady sustained progress which is hard, AND IT SHOULD BE HARD.

    One thing that F.cuks up the system is unlimited investements from owners, who can buy the best players regardless of how much money the team earns in revenue, and then becomes a Billionaire's plaything. I think that owner investment into players should be in someway limited, but ONLY if it is directly tied to how much revenue the team earns. This protects both against becoming a Billionaire's plaything and clubs going into debt trying to keep up. But once again, this would HAVE to be a FIFA rule or else we would be putting our own clubs at a disadvantage.
     
  5. City Dave

    City Dave Member

    Jan 26, 2007
    Cleveland, OH
    Club:
    Cleveland C. S.
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Yup, I said that when the 16th team was announced. I even started a thread about it; it's around here somewhere. They'll also most likely use that format for 24 teams if we ever get there as well.

    It's easy to do several different schedules.

    Of course, they could always go single table, round-robin. The only thing that would really piss me off is if they do home-away round-robin scheduling and keep the divisions/conferences. That's just not fair. Conferences/divisions should only exist if they effect the scheduling.
     
  6. blazindw

    blazindw Moderator
    Staff Member

    Jul 30, 2007
    Washington, DC
    Club:
    Real Madrid
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    That article also discusses a new FIFA rule saying that pro/rel in leagues cannot occur due to monetary issues, but merely on sporting achievements. If this is the case, then MLS could not pro/rel based on stadium requirements, paying an expansion fee, etc, but solely on how they do on the field over the course of a season (or in Mexico's case, over 3 seasons)
     
  7. JoeTerp

    JoeTerp Member

    Jul 9, 2007
    USA
     
  8. chapka

    chapka Member+

    May 18, 2004
    Haverford, PA
    Club:
    Philadelphia Union
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    In the EPL last year, six of the twenty teams qualified for Europe on league play, and three were relegated. In the NBA and NHL, sixteen of the thirty teams qualified for the playoffs, and each one had an incentive to move up in the standings to improve their seeding. On pure numbers, the systems are more or less equal. And remember, MLS teams don't get to play in UEFA tournaments, so unless CONCACAF significanltly expands the CCL (or unless people actually care about the SuperLiga), MLS teams will be at some disadvantage in this regard.
     
  9. Sport Billy

    Sport Billy Moderator
    Staff Member

    May 25, 2006
    Once the league hits 18-24 teams, single table is the only way to go.

    20 - play everyone twice = 38 games.

    Divisions are pointless and unfair.
    The only positive on divisions is it would cut down on travel time. But, once you do that, you are playing an uneven schedule.

    Uneven schedules lead to playing certain teams only once or not playing certain teams at all. Both of which are incredibly unfair.

    All owners are going to want all of the league "stars" coming through their stadiums.

    Additionally, as set up above, will Toronto's owner allow his team to be put into a division where he his playing predominately Kansas City AND Columbus and their low gates - never.

    Single table is the answer. You could adjust it so that travel is limited by having say LA play at Redbulls on Saturday and playing at DC on Tuesday.
     
  10. profit89

    profit89 New Member

    May 5, 2008
    Same with the American system?.. Wrong. No system demotes to a lower league as punishment for mismanagement. They, in fact, reward teams for finishing at the bottom; the league certainly doesn't punish them in any way. Please no more analogies to North American leagues like the NBA. You cannot compare the american sports/leagues systems to the greatest leagues in the world, which play the greatest sport on planet earth, soccer.

    "It shifts the laziness"... Wrong. Who says Sunderland is even playing for the championship; there focused on other things. Every team, from top to bottom, is fighting for something, playing hard for every single point, from start to finish. What a beautiful system! Nothing compares to it.

    You must get out of the North American mindset that is so engrained in you that you dont even notice it. The only thing the North American system does is make rich owners richer (shared wealth among a few elite), totally keeping the consumer ignorant of what is happening, and totally ignoring the true meaning of competitive sports.
     
  11. profit89

    profit89 New Member

    May 5, 2008
    Agree.
     
  12. JoeTerp

    JoeTerp Member

    Jul 9, 2007
    USA
    Yes, the CONCACAF Champions League is very much NOT in the same "league" as the UEFA Champions League. But I hope it will be better then the ole CCC. And yes Superliga is not much right now but who knows what that could become, and there is always Copa Sudamericana and the odd chance that like Mexican teams, we will one day be invited to Libertadores (because with US money, that tournament would have the chance of really challenging UEFA and then teams like Boca and River COULD have a better chance of holding onto their player for a little while longer. But in the meantime you got to play with the hand that is dealt ya.

    And there is a BIG difference between the 8th seed in the West and making the UEFA Cup. and a MUCH bigger difference between the 4th seed in the Eastern conference and the champions league. Playoffs just make your regular season efforts seem nearly meaningless. ALLLLL those EIGHT TWO games worth of hard work just for the right to play games of infinite more value. The existence of playoffs THAT DETERMINE LEAGUE CHAMPIONS, in my opinion, have more of an affect of making a large majority of the regular season boring, than they do to ensuring an exciting money making ending (which they do do). I would rather have a consistent and meaningful regular season (consists of many more games than playoffs do), coupled with a seperate exciting knockout domestic cup that included ALL teams to allow for the greatest of upset opportunities (think NCAA basketball tournament on steroids)
     
  13. SheffWedFan

    SheffWedFan Member

    Dec 23, 2005
    Thousand Oaks, CA
    Club:
    Sheffield Wednesday FC
    Nat'l Team:
    England
    This exists already. It's called the US Open Cup. Unfortunately no-one - including most MLS teams - seem to care about it, with exception of everyone in the USL, who care about it quite a bit.
     
  14. chapka

    chapka Member+

    May 18, 2004
    Haverford, PA
    Club:
    Philadelphia Union
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Divisions have another positive: they help build rivalries. They also help manage the number of games each team plays. MLS has never played 38 games in a season, and I don't see them extending the season by a couple of months to allow it.

    As for the unbalanced schedule, I don't think it's necessarily unfair. Consider a league of 18 teams divided into three 6-team divisions.

    Each team plays:

    Their division opponents four times (20 games)
    Every other team once (12 games)

    Each division is at "home" against one of the other three divisions it plays, and "away" against the other. So if Philly plays Seattle at home, New York will also play them at home. Top 3 from each division make the playoffs, and the #3 seeds play a wild card round consisting of the "return leg" of their regular-season meetup.

    20 teams: 4 5-team divisions. Play teams in your division 4 times (16 games) and other teams once (15 games) for a total of 31 games. Top 2 in each division make the playoffs.

    Over 20 it gets less elegant, but it can still be done, either by certain divisions not meeting each other in the regular season or by going to a league/division structure as other American sports leagues have.

    Basically, if you're competing for a playoff spot with the other teams in your division, and you play a certain team "only" away, or don't play them at all, I disagree that it's unfair as long as the other teams in your division have the same teams and locations in their schedule.
     
  15. JoeTerp

    JoeTerp Member

    Jul 9, 2007
    USA

    I love this comment because it is so true of SOOOOO many sports fans in America. And Guess what? there are LOTs of teams around the world that are owned by their fans. In Germany there is a LAW that says that the majority of the club has to be controlled by its fans, and Real Madrid and Barca are both run and "owned" by its members, just like the Green Bay Packers. I would love to see 2nd or 3rd division teams in the American soccer set up have this type of ownership. It would just take a couple of areas to do it first for people to get the idea that it is real and possible and then I think it would take off across the country with every mid major and even the bigger small cities in America (as well as the big neighborhoods of the big cities) create their own profesional or semi-pro clubs that they run themselves and exist within the soccer pyramid and have the ability to rise to the top.
     
  16. JoeTerp

    JoeTerp Member

    Jul 9, 2007
    USA
    The US Open Cup is undermined by the MLS Cup. and because (I think) that SUM doesn't own its rights it is being undermarketed, and hence nobody cares.
     
  17. soyinocente

    soyinocente Member

    Nov 26, 2003
    I think giving the winner a entry into the CCL definitely is a step in the right direction about the USOC. I think teams took it more seriously, with the exception of the Revs in the semis, but they are facing a brutal schedule, so they had to balance concerns. Hopefully, in a few years, the USOC will have more prestige.
     
  18. profit89

    profit89 New Member

    May 5, 2008
    Not quite. What Fifa says is that pro/rel cannot be based on monetary issues ALONE. Certificates of promotion can be provided to teams who meet certain "administrative" requirements of the top flight (ala the Mexican league), but that does not guarantee promotion. You need both to meet the administrative requirements of the top flight and win the lower division. If the winner of division 2 doesn't meet the administrative requirements of division 1, then there is no promotion for that team and that team's promotion cannot be passed on to a more "qualified" team. The J-Legaue works in similar fashion whereby the number of teams promoted varies from 0-3. This is fine with Fifa.

    Basically, you cant buy your way into topflight, you have to win on the pitch!
     
  19. chapka

    chapka Member+

    May 18, 2004
    Haverford, PA
    Club:
    Philadelphia Union
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Teams that finish at the bottom of the league in American sports: (1) don't make the playoffs; (2) lose good players and are unable to sign new ones; and (3) make a hell of a lot less money than teams at the top. The Lakers and the Clippers play at the same arena, but Lakers tickets cost twice as much. That's a reward for the Lakers' success and a punishment for the Clippers' failure.

    There's a lot of draft-pick bashing around here. The fact is, a team most likely "tanked" a season in the NBA once, in 1984. Once. The NBA then instituted a new lottery system, that has been around for more than 20 years, that greatly reduces the effectiveness, and therefore the incentive, to "tank" your season.

    What the NBA system does do is help underperforming teams by giving them a chance to rebuild and compete in the next few years, instead of simply punishing them and replacing them with another team that probably isn't in any shape to compete either--meaning that a handful of teams will always be clustered at the top of the table. There is no Manchester United in the NBA.

    The MLS is, it may shock you to hear, a North American league. It seems silly to say that it can't be compared to other North American leagues.

    Why not? They're all sports leagues.

    This may shock you, but like many other American soccer fans, I also enjoy watching baseball, football, hockey, and on occasion basketball. This is exactly the sort of thing I've been complaining about: the idea that "this is how other countries do things and we can't question it."

    They're "focused on other things"? What, exactly? Finishing twelfth or fourteenth again?

    Professional athletes generally want to win games. Coaches and managers want to win games. I see no evidence that those people are going to want to finish twelfth rather than fourteenth any more in a promotion/relegation system than they do in a playoff system.

    Goodness! I suppose we should just aspire, then, to have a worker's paradise of a league like the EPL. Perhaps Malcolm Glazer, Roman Abramovich, and Danny Fizsman can stop by and lecture us all on our money-grubbing ways, with our "shared wealth among a few elite." After all, promotion and relegation means any of their teams could be relegated at any time if they forget "the true meaning of competitive sports," right?
     
  20. profit89

    profit89 New Member

    May 5, 2008
    Exactly. There is nothing the league itself does to punish them.


    Correct.
     
  21. drSoFlaFan

    drSoFlaFan DEFEND THE FORT!

    Feb 25, 2008
    Plantation, FL
    Club:
    Ft Lauderdale Strikers
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I'm down with a 20 team, single table first division, with the top 8 making the playoffs. I'd have a similar setup in division 2, with the top and bottom teams(regular season) being promoted/relegated respectively. Only having the very best or very worst club promoted/relegated would give that system a better shot of working in the US. I personally love promotion/relegation, because it gives the bottom teams something to fight for, and gives a super bonus to the div 2 team with the best record. I especially like it because if USL1 ever does become MLS2, Miami FC has a shot at MLS if we don't get an expansion team before then.
     

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