MLS Commissioner Don Garber on the possibility of a future MLS-Liga MX merger

From Kevin Baxter of the LA Times:
After All-Star game, is there a chance Liga MX and MLS will merge?

So they continue to talk.

 

...and we're just chatting, right?

What if the owners are considering the formation of a league similar to the BeNe League as proposed by the Eredivisie and Jupiler Pro League? Theirs isn't a complete merger, but an 18 team competition involving clubs from both leagues.

Using the 'Pan Am' moniker for inspiration, I'm going to refer to the Liga MX / MLS league as the North Am League, short for North American League.
Here's a possible structure for a 16 team North Am League:

• 8 clubs each from MLS and Liga MX.
• 30 match schedule
• 2 Conferences (i.e. MLS Conference & Liga MX Conference)

Both leagues would still exist as entities:

• Liga MX would still exist as a league with the remaining 10 teams playing against additional teams promoted from the Liga de Expansión.
• MLS would still exist as a two-conference 20 team league.

On the down side, it has the potential to halt some rivalries like the Cascadia Cup and El Súper Clásico.

On the plus side, teams with greater budgets and ambitions can set their sights higher while less ambitious teams can maintain the status quo if they choose.
And while this North Am League can be initially structured as a closed league, there's the potential for, you know, THIS thing to exist.

...and if something like this actually does come to fruition, this may be what it takes to make MLS adopt the traditional Fall - Spring schedule.
The thought of Monterrey traveling to Denver or Toronto in January,...

 

How about a merger in the sense of AFL - NFL back in the day, before the switch to just NFL. They continue as seperate leagues, but they continue this all-star, feel good thing (which the players seemed to like) and add expand the Campeones cup a bit, including the winners of both the East and West in a short playoff with the first and second season winners in LigaMX. Doesn't really change much, but makes the campeones cup more current and if MLS can manage to win it early on, might lead to it being a kind of super bowl, the in the original meaning. That ties the leagues together, while protecting the integrity of both leagues.

 

Well with the news of Leagues Cup being expanded I think it's just becoming clearer and clearer isn't it?

I will say this again, they will merge but it will not be a X number of teams of both countries playing round robin + playoffs. I think it will basically be a "Mexican Conference" versus "USA Conference", where teams will mostly play teams of their own country and then have come sort of "intra conference" games just so we can have those money printing machines like "Galaxy - Chivas" and "Houston - America". Then in playoffs each get a "conference" champion to represent Mexico and USA/CAN and they play the "super bowl". Sounds gimmick when you read it but I think it practice it will work great.

I don't get why some are still against it. As a Mexican living in the US this is really the most logical way forward. We are talking about the US here, the goal is not to be a farm league, or to be the best in CONCACAF. The end goal is to be the top league in the world or at least try to compete with Europe. In order for this to happen in our lifetimes, we have to take this big jump. LMX massive ratings and support + MLS economic growth and huge potential market. Bing bing, bring the cash in.

And honestly, besides cash, I really think this would really be a great thing to see. Everyone on social media will be against it at first I can gurantee, because people normally don't want change. But in the mid term this is the best that can happen to both MLS and LMX and even CONCACAF as a whole, as more money would begin flowing this side instead of Europe having a monopoly of top Soccer.

 

Hahaha and Honduras in 4th.

It will be a huge league, like no league ever before. So arguments of "this has not been seen anywhere" will not apply. But basically it will be what we will have next year. Mostly intra league + some games against the other in the middle.

I think Mexico will expand before that to maybe 20-22 teams. They are already heavily auditing ascenso teams

 

after ratings came for MLS (amazing) final and LMX final... it is just more obvious. This is meant to happen and it will be good.

 

This makes me think the path to pro/rel in the leauge's mind would be to promote our top clubs to some regional league that lies above MLS and Liga MX. You can convince the owners to go for that perhaps if there's more money in it verses splitting MLS into 2 leagues.

However, we already have CONCACAF Champions League so from a competitive standpoint, there's no need for this. The motivation behind this is that one of Garber's main focal points is, and always has been, selling Mexicans in America their Mexican teams, like he tried to do with Chivas USA. The fact that he didn't lose his job after settling the resulting discrimination lawsuit has always baffled me.

CONCACAF Champions League? Absolutely. Merge with Liga MX? Hard no.

 

I think Mexico is a wealthy league. MLS and Mexico would be powerful.
But what about Scottish sides in MLS?
I think they should have Glasgow Rangers, Glasgow Celtic, Aberdeen, Dundee United, Heart of Midlothian, Hibernian, Motherwell, and Dundee, in the MLS. They could play Eastern North American sides and develop.

 

I think the sides like Aberdeen, Hearts and Hibs would be big clubs in the MLS. Aberdeen has a population of 200,000 people. Aberdeen brought 40,000 fans to a cup final a few years ago. Edinburgh has about half a million people. The Edinburgh clubs would be big clubs by MLS standards.

 

As somebody who's actually a shareholder in a Scottish team and has watched more non-Old Firm Scottish matches than most, Scottish teams not named Rangers and Celtic would get run in MLS. And there have been times in the recent past where I'm not sure Rangers would boss MLS. Though they've gotten better since then and both would be a top team in the league.

 

Aberdeen, Hearts, and Hibs are big clubs by MLS standards. Aberdeen is a big city. The other Celtic nations could provide decent sized clubs for a Celtic conference in MLS. Maybe Shamrock Rovers and Linfield could grow. Wrexham, Newport County, Swansea City and Cardiff City are big clubs.

 

You do realize that Aberdeen would be BY FAR the smallest city a club is based in were they to be in MLS? It's not even close. Same with Edinburgh. Glasgow wouldn't even be in the top 20 cities in MLS either by population size.

This is not a realistic idea.

 

Look at the population of Green Bay in the NFL.
It is smaller than Aberdeen.
The Celtic conference would have some big cities. And even Aberdeen and Edinburgh are big sized cities.
Aberdeen have a 20,000 capacity stadium which is the same as some MLS sides. Hearts and Hibs have similar sized stadia.
I think it is a realistic idea. The Celtic conference would have some massive clubs with a few smaller clubs but all the clubs would be big enough to compete and travel to Eastern MLS sides.
Look at how clubs in the rugby union URC travel across Africa and Europe. In the URC Glasgow Warriors travel all the way to South Africa. So I think Aberdeen could travel to Miami and New York.

 

I was not suggesting a world league or 250 games a year. I was talking about something far easier than what is done in the URC which sees teams travel from Scotland to South Africa. I think Celtic nations club teams could easily travel to Eastern North America 6 to 7 times a year. And Eastern North American sides visiting Western Europe 6 to 7 times a year.

 

Aberdeen would be the 99th biggest city in the U.S., between Richmond, Virginia and Fremont, California. It is, by no means, a "big sized city" in U.S. terms. There are 22 states with a higher population than all of Scotland (and one city, NYC). Glasgow and Edinburgh might be big enough to support a single team each in this hypothetical league but that's it.

But that's not even getting to the point that Scottish teams, outside of the Old Firm, aren't good enough to play in MLS.

 

But Green Bay is smaller than Aberdeen and has a very big important NFL side. And the NFL is even bigger as a league than MLS.
Edinburgh can support two clubs and Aberdeen one club who would be big enough for the MLS.
I do not want to be too uppity about whether Aberdeen would be of the quality of an MLS side. But Polvara plays for Aberdeen. Aberdeen have Irish, Scottish, Cape Verde, Finnish and other internationals. Aberdeen have beaten Glasgow Rangers this season.
There are about 6 clubs in MLS in 2023 that at this point who got average crowds of over 25,000. So it is not as if the MLS has 50 clubs who get crowds of 50,000 every home game.
I think there are 8 clubs in Scotland that would not be out of place in the MLS.
Aberdeen, Hearts, and Hibs get average attendances that are about average for MLS franchises.

 

Green Bay has a team due to a historical quirk, they're the 300th largest city in the U.S. The next smallest city with a pro team (not counting a team playing in the suburb of a bigger metro area) is Salt Lake City at 117th. Pointing at Green Bay and saying "see, if they can do it any other small city can" shows a complete lack of understanding of how the NFL grew.

And again population and attendance doesn't mean the teams are good enough for MLS, which they aren't.