Interview with the DON

What are we to make of no mention of Seattle?: "Expansion continues to go strong. When you look at San Diego, Portland, Vancouver, Montreal, St. Louis, Philadelphia, Miami and a second team in New York, just to name a few, there are more serious prospects for expansion than we have available teams."

 

Most likely means he is already considering Seattle a done deal & is moving on to the 16th team.

Go Seattle AFC (Sounders) in 2009!!!

 

Where is this talk of Miami coming from? Any real substance to it?

 

Expansion continues to go strong. When you look at San Diego, Portland, Vancouver, Montreal, St. Louis, Philadelphia, Miami and a second team in New York, just to name a few

 

The Don is a MORON!

A reasonable question that I'm sure many of us have wondered.

So he talks about the American sports market, growing the TV draw of MLS, the playoffs, but really nothing on why they split into conferences...

So basically, can we assume that there is no good reason to not go to a single table?

And his argument contradicts his point. His point is that conferences help to have a compelling race to the playoffs. But the compelling match was not because of conferences. In fact, it was an intraconference match.

So isn't his point really that doing away with conferences would be better for MLS TV ratings and the league?

What's most frustrating is that he is getting paid to think about these things, and he doesn't even have a pat answer to go to on a question that he has to get all the time? Moron.

 

Part of the mentality is that you have two "Champions" of each division. Take sports like the NFL, NBA and NHL, where there are 8, 6, and 6 divisions. You are a second-place team in your division, and the perception is that you are a pretty good team, not all that far from first place. In a single table, that same team might be the 10th best team in the league. Now your team doesn't look so good anymore...

 

Maybe this is it. Maybe we're all too dumb to realize that the Eastern Conference of the NBA is crap. Maybe we can't tell that the NFC is just the AFC's whipping boy, that the NL is weak compared to the AL.

Of course if this is the case, why not say have two team divisions. Then no one ever finishes lower than second. Or maybe 3 at the max. So we'll have the NW division with Seattle, Portland & Vancouver. The Cali Division with SJ, LAG & CUSA. Etc, etc.

It's just ridiculous. If your 10th or 3rd and you don't make the playoffs, you still didn't make the playoffs. That's all that matters in the US.

And his point still didn't make any sense.

 

But I bet that they'd love the home/home single table better.

They'd play 58 games, ok so you add a few more teams say Oklahoma City, Kansas City, Las Vegas, London, Madrid, Rome & Berlin and get up to 72 or just keep expanding and get to 42 teams, 82 games. Then without conferences you play the best 16 teams in a playoff series. This way you get the best basketball in the Finals instead of having a representative for the Eastern Conference.

Or what if we got rid of conferences in football. Then we could have a Colts v Pats Super Bowl. Instead we're stuck with the Colts/Pats winner beating down whoever gets out of the NFC.

Conferences diminish the odds that the two best teams will play for the title. This lowers TV ratings and thus actually hurts the league, just like Cleveland in the Finals last year. Any basketball fan can tell you that the NBA Finals was between San Antonio & Phoenix. Any NFL fan can tell you that the Super Bowl is Colts/Pats.

Conferences need to die. The internet & cable has made them obsolete.

 

But is it easier to sell season tickets for a third-place team ("we're just a couple of players away") or a tenth-place team?

 

Does the group stage diminish the odds that the two best teams will play for the World Cup?

I like single-table, but I see the point of conferences, divisions, whatever. You have to beat out your closest rivals to move on. Rivalries build over years and decades. More regular-season games have more meaning for more teams, even when teams are out of contention (if the Cardinals can't make the playoffs, I want them to be spoilers for the Cubs, etc.).

As far as TV ratings go, I'm not sure how many more people would tune in to a Pats-Colts Super Bowl than the real one. A Red Sox-Indians World Series would probably have been more fun to watch, but again, not sure how many more people would've.

 

Only for a bad marketing department that would bring that up.

In the NBA I've seen many newspapers that display the standings as a single conference instead of by division, so you look like your in 10th place, so that people can see how close teams are to making the playoffs. It's a natural progression to just seed them like that.

And I'd say that either way, if you don't make the playoffs you just market it like this, we have new coach X and new players Y, come follow us as we make our way to the playoffs. No team focuses on their finish (we're number 3, we're number 3), especially when it's out of 5, unless it's number one.

 

Yes it does.

You often have semi-finals and quarter-finals that are better and more interesting than the final.

It's totally unfeasible to have a 32 team league play though, so you have to accept that.

But in pro-sports it's not that hard since almost every league plays too many games as is. If you contracted Florida & KC and went to a single table, you could play 6 games against each team and play the exact same number of games. The the playoffs would be the top 8 or top 12 and you'd hopefully have the two best teams playing in the World Series or NBA Finals or Super Bowl.

 

fixed your posts