ITT: We try to guess the 2012 MLS Regular Season format

I think what you suggest is probably pretty accurate. I think even your groupings are accurate with an NY2 joining East- Group 2 eventually.

I think the wiggle room will be in the games against the other conference. So those other 12 games. I also think those are some of the big tv games. Do we have enough of those good east/west tv matchups? With a team like KC, kind of closer to some west teams...How do we keep those going?

Then, I think, similar to college football, what about next year? Do those same teams play against each other because it is better for tv? Or do they rotate? Does a team get mad because they don't get to go to a market. Or do they just try and buck up all in the name of building tv ratings.

But I think your schedule is very similar to what will come out.

 

thats good except i would do playoffs different

division winners plus top team in conf after that = top 3 x 2 conf

4 wild cards.

 

I don't think they're gonna change the playoff format again just for one new team coming in. It will remain top 3 in each conference plus 4 wildcards. The groups you created might happen, but I don't think they will be officially recognized as groups or divisions within each conference. I think the standings will remain "Eastern" and "Western." The groups you described will only be for scheduling purposes.

 

Honestly, my guess is we will in fact see divisions and teams playing an odd number of games against some teams, both of which I absolutely despise. However, since the only other solution when you're working with a prime number of franchises (19) is a balanced schedule of 36 games that they don't want to go to (and travel issues in that format are undeniable, even if they start using charter flights across the league), it's a necessity. I tried to come up with a format that just had two conferences with no divisions, but couldn't.


Western Conference (10)
Northwest (5)
Vancouver
Seattle
Portland
Salt Lake
Colorado

Southwest (5)
San Jose
Los Angeles1
Los Angeles2
Dallas
Houston


Eastern Conference (9)
Central (5)
Kansas City
Chicago
Columbus
Toronto
Montreal

Atlantic (4)
New England
New Jersey
Philadelphia
D.C.


Reports are they want to stick with 34 games. My guess is a plurality of games against your division opponent, 2 games against non-division conference opponents, the rest filled up by non-conference opponents.

Western Conference teams
4*4 division opponents = 16 games (18 games left)
2*5 conference opponents = 10 games (8 games left)
Play all Eastern Conference teams once except one Atlantic team (8; 4 home, 4 away)

Central Division teams
4*4 division opponents = 16 games (18 games left)
2*4 conference opponents = 8 games (10 games left)
Play all Western Conference teams once (10; 5 home, 5 away)

Atlantic Division teams
(4*2 division opponents) + (6 games against designated division opponent) = 16 games (18 games left) -- You can determine that 'designated' opponent by previous season's record; best record plays worst, 2nd best plays 2nd worst
2*5 conference opponents = 10 games (8 games left)
Play all Western Conference teams once (10; 5 home, 5 away)


That 20th team being in New York or the Southeast will even things out when they add it.

I really can't wait until we have enough franchises to split the two conferences into leagues of their own with balanced schedules, and east/west matchups reserved for the playoffs and Open Cup. Obviously that's a long way away, but at least with 20-24 teams we'll be able to make a balanced conference schedule with non-conference opponents played an even number of times determined by record so that there's fairness and reason to the schedule. With 19 that's just impossible. I can't stand this geographic imbalance, but hey, compromises must be made when you're trying to grow a league. I'll still tune in to as many games as I can.

As for the playoff format, who knows. Top 3 from the divisions of 5 with the division winner getting byes, Top 2 from the division of 4? How would you hand out the CL berths?

What a mess.

 

Why so many divisions? Theres a much easier way with two conferences.

I remember posting this idea in another thread, so if it seems like I'm repeating myself, its probably because I am.

The east would have 9 members, while the west would have 10. (presumbly with houston moving back to the west)

Each team in the east would face one another 3 times, leading to 24 games being played in conference. Meanwhile 1 game would be played against each of the western teams, thus theres your 34 games

The west is slightly less neat in its alignment. About 25 games would be played against other teams in conference, while the other 9 would be against eastern conference sides. However this means that a western con ference team, lets say LA, would only face 7 of the other teams in their conference 3 times and would only play two teams twice. But that all equals 34 so its not such a big loss.

Though I'd hope that with the sudden boost in inconfence play that the wild card match only has the 4th and 5th place teams from each conference play one another, and the whole "regardless of conference pool" thing comes to an end.

 

Yeah, and a facet of the league's business model would have to change to make them consider it; ie, as long as the league believes that some clubs are significantly better road draws than others, they're probably not going to do away with teams' ability to host high road draws. In the schedule models above, teams won't host one of either LA or NY every year, and you can bet there's someone at league HQ crying about it (even though I think it'll happen anyway). It's a lot worse if you can't host them ever.

 

Play each team twice except two. Play one of the remaining teams once home and the other once away.

Doesn't devalue my season ticket by making me pay (in advance) for seeing some opponent twice and others not at all. Only one team loses their "Beckham bump" and one other team their "Henry bump". Teams "missing" from schedules could be determined randomly (for fairness) or by fiat for marketing... I think we know which may they'd go!

It's not perfect and would work better with a single table because some teams will not be able to play every conference opponent home and away but I'm not the one who decided to go with 19 teams!

 

But the balanced minus two schedule. The schedule is going more conference or tv based. I dont see that being accomplished with that schedule.

 

This is why:

I hate, hate, hate the idea of arbitrarily giving one team an extra home game over the other. I want as much balance to the schedule as possible, but I'm not naive; I know that the size of the country will forbid a true balanced schedule and single table. With that said, if we're going to have conferences, lets at least handle them with some rhyme and reason.

 

As I said, it could be done randomly - still emphasizing conferences though - or simply by fiat to protect sought after inter-conference fixtures (for marketing purposes) like NY v LA or Tor v Van.

It's pretty simple though. To illustrate: just set up a 19 by 19 matrix. In a spreadsheet use cells B2 to B20 vertically and B2 to T2 horizontally. Now we need to populate cells A2 to A20 and B1 to T1 with teams. To give the minimum number of teams who do not play conference opponents both home and away you can do this by conference: so from cells A2 to A10 fill randomly select all the Eastern Conference teams (plus Montreal) and from cells A11 to A20 randomly select all the Western Conference teams (plus Houston). Then fill those teams in in the same order from cells B1 to T1.

In my random draw the order I got was: Phil, Tor, DC, NY, Chi, Mont, NE, KC, Clb, LA, Chv, RSL, Van, Dal, Col, Por, SJ, Hou, Sea.

Now, teams along the vertical axis (down the side) represent the home team and teams along the horizontal axis (across the top) represent the away team. Since a team can't host itself place an "X" along the diagonal from cell B2 to T20. Those are games that don't exist. Then to drop out the "missing" home game for each team in a way that minimizes teams not hosting conference opponents start a second diagonal of "X"s from the first non-Conference home game for Philly in cell K2 (versus LA). This diagonal extends from K2 to T11 and then moves across to B12 to J20.

So, for my random draw:

Philly doesn't host LA and play away at Chivas.
Toronto doesn't host Chivas and play away at Salt Lake.
DC doesn't host Salt Lake and play away at Vancouver.
New York doesn't host Vancouver and play away at Dallas.
Chicago doesn't host Dallas and play away Colorado.
Montreal doesn't host Colorado and play away at Portland.
New England doesn't host Portland and play away at San Jose.
KC doesn't host San Jose and play away at Houston.
Columbus doesn't host Houston and play away at Seattle.
LA doesn't host Seattle and play away at Philly.
Chivas doesn't host Philly and play away at Toronto.
Salt Lake doesn't host Toronto and play away at DC.
Vancouver doesn't host DC and play away at New York.
Dallas doesn't host New York and play away at Chicago.
Colorado doesn't host Chicago and play away at Montreal.
Portland doesn't host Montreal and play away at New England.
San Jose doesn't host New England and play away at KC.
Houston doesn't host KC and play away at Columbus.
Seattle doesn't host Columbus and play away at LA.

So, only ONE fixture of the "play each conference opponent home and away" concept is missing: Seattle at LA. Every other team plays each of their conference opponents once home and once away but loses one home game and one away game against a non-conference opponent. Seems reasonable to me and WAAAAAAAYYYYY better for season ticket buyers at each club. That's my main point: my preference as a season ticket buyer is to see my home team play as many DIFFERENT opponents as possible. I presume most other fans are the same way (but can't be sure). This format isn't perfect but given the restrictions seems like the best deal to season ticket holders to me. I really, really, really hope the league doesn't go divisionmania because this is a perfectly viable solution IMHO.

 

fair enough. But I still think things balance themselves out with a schedule like this.

Sure, lets say the Red Bulls might have had to have played in DC twice, but then they have two home games against philly to compensate for that.

But i get what you're saying.

 

Last year's record, maybe. Best team doesn't play two against the worst, second-best doesn't play twice against second-worst, etc.

 

Should be play each team home and away, with trips designed to minimize travel distances.

But, since it's MLS, that means you'll play "rivals" 4 times out of a terrible attempt to make things less boring, killing the magic of htose games, and only seeing some teams once...

 

MLS should be well advised not to take self-conflicting advice.

 

playing toronto a potential 6 games in a year kills magic. It'll end up nearly as boring every other MLS game.

Playing them twice a year was special. Possibly playing them 4 in league, and 2 in canadian play, is not special.

what?

 

With the conferences (and I didn't read the entire thread so I don't know if anyone else has said), why not just do East, Central, West like what was done before?

 

1. It doesnt make sense to design trips to minimize travel distance, ex: not having MTL go to vancouver, then to whatever team is furthest south east, then fly to play portland?

2. That's why I said possibly. And no, making some games boring, doesnt all of a sudden mean Montreal- Chivas is going to be awesome.


How on earth are people suggesting shit similar to college games, unbalanced schedules, etc, with a straight face?

 

This is how they do things in Russia, whose League Championship (or 2nd division) features teams all way in between Kaliningrad and Vladivostok, or along the 6000 mi distance. (check the map on russian wiki.)

To reduce traveling costs they have divided all the teams to "neighbouring" pairs (i.e. Vladivostok pairs w/ Khabarovsk, Novosibirsk w/ Krasnoyarsk and so on). All road games are scheduled accordingly: you play the "neighbours" in sequence, and do not return home in between. This increases accommodation costs (for you have to pay the hotels) but seriously decreases traveling costs, jetlags fatigue and so on.

It has (well, had) 20 teams, too, and it has been for decades, so the experience might be worth looking at.

 

My preference for the future going forward is a balanced conference schedule and a non-conference schedule determined by previous season's records.

Don't think that's unreasonable.