I love MLS. I watch atleast 3 games a week. I do it cause i like watching ball. With the playoff system is like it is now though; the regualar season is virtually meaningless. Playing 30 games to eliminate only 2 teams is ludicris and definetley affects the game from attendance to intensity and quality. I'll probably still continue to watch lots of regular season games, but how many others outthere dont feel the sense of urgency to go to for whats all intense and purpose, a series exhibition games.. exageration, possibly, but only by a little....
from what i've heard, they aren't adding anymore playoff slots when they expand. garber said that he wants this to be a 20 team league, and with 8 playoff slots, thats a pretty good percentage of teams moving into the post-season
Agreed ... but do we really need all 8 spots now when the league is 10 teams??? There is no home field advantage to play for either. Makes it hard to get juiced up for a regular season thats void of any meaningful games.. Lots of reasons to watch the other leagues around the world, very litte reason to watch MLS till late October
The idea is that they've been changing the playoff structure almost every year, and Garber wants to stabilize it and keep the same structure for a long time, as the league grows. It's also been speculated that Lamar Hunt is afraid of his teams not making the playoffs, so he pushed for all or at least nearly all teams to make the playoffs.
I've always thought that the playoffs should be just 6 teams, even if the league does expand to twelve next year. Maybe when they go to 14 they can push it back to 8, but I agree that 8 out of 10 is too many. With a six-team format you could give each regular season conference champ a first round bye and homefield for the single-game conference final. The four wild card teams would play a home and home aggregate goal series; that way all playoff teams get one home playoff game. (Unless of course one of the team's in the MLS Cup Final happens to be hosting it like the Revs two years ago)
I thought the payoff structure was the the MetroStars took as much money as they wanted firts, then everyone else fought over the rest. Oh, playoff structure. Never mind.
I think 8 is too many teams for now. I think that 6 would be good. Have 2 groups of 3 play a round robin with the conference or division winner playing both matches at home. the #3 team plays both on the road with the 2 group winners meeting in the final.
Who the hell does it like that? The round robin part of the play off's is sometimes call the "regular season".