What high horse do we speak of? Is it the high horse that has watched countless people bash Ed Hale on this site and facebook over and over because he is the devil and the league is fine. Now, your defending champions have pulled out because in their words the league "is in a situation of organizational and administrative instability." Vegas would be my front runner out West personally, and we saw where they played their most important game of the year last year. The East/Central would be up for grabs, Missouri would probably be my favorite, but a team like Rochester might surprise you. Either way, you could realistically see the MASL championship decided in a practice facility next year because people didn't want to see the writing on the wall. But hey it's cool, we love indoor soccer so playing in front of 200 people in a pavilion for the championship is no big deal. I'm sure any real sponsors or television networks are just salivating at the thoughts of getting the rights to that.
There is spin, and there is the truth. The league instability is a convenient excuse for Monterrey, but the truth is they reportedly lost $400K last year. Those are not the kind of losses you are sustain year to year and keep playing.
So why can't Monterrey join whatever Baltimore and Rochester are forming? Nice tidy three-team league?
Does anyone REALLY think Monterrey going away is a bad thing? Yes, they were very competitive on the field.. but the cost alone to fly into Mexico for 1 game has to push $10,000 at least Get your damn house in order here in the states before TRYING to sell yourself as an International League !
The MASL needs to hyper-regionalize and play as three independent divisions to cut down on travel costs. Something like this... Midwest: Missouri Comets, Milwaukee Wave, St. Louis Ambush, Chicago Mustangs, Cedar Rapids. Detroit. Mideast: Youngstown Nighthawks, Rochester Lancers, Syracuse Silver Knights, Harrisburg Heat, Baltimore Blast Southwest: Tulsa Revolution, Dallas Sidekicks, Oxford City, Wichita B52s, Barracudas of Brownsville, Saltillo, Sonora. Pacific Coast: Tacoma Stars, Sacramento Surge, Turlock Express, Ontario Fury, San Diego Sockers. No need for flights. Play each team in your division at least twice home, twice away. Top two in each division plays each other in divisional final series. Have a final four all in one night at one of the four finalists. Only one flight on the year, and for three of the four strongest teams.
Unless you went by bus, like the Blast used to. (For the uninitiated, there was a guy a few years back who insisted the Blast bussed to Monterrey - 1,941 miles - and he was sure there was a fan bus because he heard about it on the radio.) You could fly BWI to MTY two weeks from today and come back on Sunday for $404 per person, supposedly. You might be able to swing a group deal if you worked with an airline quite a bit (there are also Delta flights that cost $400 that literally take almost 24 hours to get there). But even a traveling party of 17 (14 players, 2 coaches, athletic trainer) would cost you $6800 just to fly IF you could get that same rate in the winter. And you'd still need ground transport and hotel and per diems and such.
This is your ticket cost from Baltimore to Monterey 16 Players Head coach ,Assistant coach , Trainer , Doctor 20 People X $722.00 ( $14,440.00 ) Per diem expenses for food for the players $30 A day X 20 people for 2 days $1,200.00 , Team Bus $2,000.00 , Hotel cost @$80.00 a night x 10 rooms $800.00 1 Trip to Mexico cost $18,400.00 United5h 20m+from $722 American6h 15m+from $750 US Airways6h 15m+from $750 Delta5h 55m+from $771 Other airlines6h 15m+from $772
I only think this will work if some type of tiebreaker situation is put into place . In Case the situation pops up . Like a Shoot out competition after a game or play a Minigame .
I highly doubt teams like Missouri, Baltimore and the likes would be willing to take way home field during the semis-and finals. I know this was acceptable when the PASL allowed teams to play in their backyard if they could pay the refs, but I don't think serious teams would allow the playoff format suggested. Regular season I could see going completely regional.
I understand the whole thing about Mexico not being important and any other Country for that matter because there is so much work to do here, but damn, we aren't that many months from seeing what I thought was one of the very best finals ever, top three maybe. Plus, it's just not cool to see the Champ-especially those asses-get rear ended! Oh well, Aussie Rules is starting-game on
Although it was perfectly fine in the "Major" league for Cleveland, Philadelphia, and Monterrey to play their home playoff games on the road. :eyeroll:
No, it was a mockery of a sport that mocking is starting to grow old. Can't point to past mistakes made by one group to argue for continuing on the same mistakes or making the same.