MLS Playoffs and the progressively non-existent home field advantage

MLS is like Homer Simpson designing a car.

They want so many things put into it, they don't care about the final product as long as it has the things they put into it.

The wild card was for the clubs, whose fans might have tuned out much earlier otherwise.

The second home match was for the fans of the teams who did make the playoffs.

The single match conference final has to be a one-of to get on the cable TV schedule and save money on travel.

The finals location has to be in the warm climate (and the more the Galaxy benefits from that warm climate, the better).

You add everything up and it's the dumbest, most idiotic system ever invented.

 

Unak78 says that the regular season and playoff series have different tiebreakers. The wins tiebreaker used in the regular season wouldn't help in the playoffs because if the aggregate was equal the wins must be equal also (either 1 each or 0 each with both games being draws). The away goals tiebreaker used in the playoffs could hypothetically be used as a regular season tiebreaker but it would be strange to use away goals scored before goal differential or total goals scored.

 

Of the two of you, the bolded you is the one who is being reasonable.

IMO, people worry too much about what MLS says. If you'd like a different system, by all means, make a case. But they end up here for good reasons.

1) The final at home of the higher ranked team makes a lot of sense. It's probably too much of an advantage to that team but the alternatives of best of three or a neutral site are worse.

2) For the middle rounds, you want home and home. Whoever goes second has the advantage so you give that to the higher ranked team. I can take or leave away goals, personally I kind of like it, but not a big deal to me.

3) The wild card gets a couple of more teams into the playoffs, which is valuable, and putting them on a short week seems fair since they are the wild card and also you don't want to add an extra week to the playoffs just for a wild card.


I guess I'm not sure what you're really objecting to since this seems like a reasonable compromise.

 

Is there any hard math on this "non-existent advantage"? Oh, there's not? Because the sample size is too small!?

Damn. I guess now we'll need to have this conversation based entirely on speculation and gut feeling, instead of facts and logic. Too bad.

 

I was going to start a thread called, does MLS have the worst playoff system in US pro sports? And my answer was going to be yes.

Now I don't have to do it.

As a DC fan, I absolutely don't care AT ALL whether we came in 1st, 2nd, or 3rd wrt the playoffs. I honestly don't see any advantage. The only reason to come in first is to make the CCL and get extra allocation money.

To me, playoffs should accomplish two things. They should be interesting to fans, and legitimate. Of the NHL playoffs were a one game knockout like the NFL, that would be interesting, but people would say a single game doesn't mean much in hockey so the format wouldn't be legitimate. I think that's a weakness with baseball; all of the off days change the nature of baseball from a sport where starting pitching is important to one where relief pitching is what matters.

MLS' playoffs fail on both counts. It's not exciting because in the 2nd and 3rd rounds, what the first match is really just the first half of an extended game. MLS playoffs have 11 matches, and 4 of them lack resolution, and 4 of them have the potential to be dead rubbers. That's an awful ratio.

At the same time, as unak pointed out, the compulsion to kill off any advantage accruing from a superior regular season enhances random results, which seems illegitimate. Until the final, the MOST important match, where the best record gets HFA in a single match.

Do away goals serve as a tiebreaker in extra time? Cuz I'm going to completely lose my shit if DC gets to extra time, scores a goal, then gives one up and loses on the away goals tiebreaker.

 

I would say that a "home field advantage" is more of a priori argument rather than a posteriori.

Fortunately, in this case, both provide the same answer.

 

You don't see the 1 seed having more rest than their Conference Semifinal first leg opponent as an advantage?
MLS playoffs have 15 matches, 3 in one game, 6 first legs, and 6 second legs. I agree with you about baseball. To make the MLB playoffs more like the regular season I would make a rule that in any four consecutive games of one playoff series, four different pitchers must start. The last time my favorite team, the Yankees, won the World Series, they used only three starters in the playoffs.

 

If a player from the 4-5 winner gets injured or a red card, then there's an advantage. Otherwise, in my view, "rest" helps but "momentum" hurts. My gut instinct is that they balance out.

They just need to get rid of one of the off days within each series.

 

BTW, the original poster didn't bring it up but the total number of games designed to determined a winner is laughable as well.

By comparison, Liga MX champ needs to play at least 8 matches to win, which is ~ 50% of its regular round-robin total.

A MLS Cup can play as few as 4 out of 34.

The worst playoff system in history?

You betcha and darn tooting right.

 

5 actually (2 legged conference semis, 2 legged conference finals, 1 game MLS Cup).

 

2+ 2+ 1 ?

The conference finals are home and away this year?

 

Yes.

 

I posted this in the other thread but I think this should happen to encourage seeding during the regular season:
...
I say do away with the play-in game. Then they could add a third game at the higher seed home in the event that is tied during the 2 leg series. This could be a better way to determine winners than the home-away format that I've never liked. Game "3" would be incredible spectacle compared to.... "and NY goes through on the away goals rule."

 

The NFL doesn't have a 50% playoff participation rate, so the "short playoffs" are among the top teams. The same is true of the MLB.

The NBA and the NHL, which both have a high percentage of its teams making the playoffs, have a much longer playoff system.

You can have either/or but not both.

At some point, marketing has to take a back seat to the sporting causes and the problem with the MLS playoff system is precisely this - every cause has been added in to dilute the main one.

As to what system I would prefer - home&away for every series (if you let the wild-card play-in, then let it be the best of two also) including the final, with the higher seed getting the goal tiebreaker. In other words, make it like the Mexican league. With the split seasons, to reduce the random nature of the outcomes.

PS. That would be the only thing I'd borrow from the Mexican soccer. I don't find the South of the Border soccer very appealing in general but their playoff set-up makes perfect sense.

 

Why is the magic number for a regular season 34 games anyway? Go with 32 and add more playoff games. Even more incentive for clubs to make the playoffs. You get more games to sell and the regular season becomes more valuable. NFL only has 16 games and they are doing well because its about quality, not quantity in terms of games.

 

You don't actually get more games to sell. If you cut two regular season games, every team loses a game at home. If you add two playoff games, only some teams gain. The regular season pays the bills. The playoffs are something tacked on at the end to decide a winner.

Pretty soon we're going to be in a situation of 24 teams with 10 making the playoffs. It's a pretty reasonable percentage and you don't save any time cutting it to 8 since the bottom 4 teams play midweek anyway.

8 teams, best of 3 would be fairer, but it has problems too. To not extend the season, you're going to have to play weekend-weekday-weekend twice in a row, which is not conducive to producing the highest quality. And if the third game isn't required, then you've got this gap there and you've traded a weekend game for a weekday game.

I'm not arguing that this is the fairest system of determining the champion (that would probably be the supporters shield) I'm arguing that this is a compromise that probably maximizes revenue for the league. That's important since the more money the league has, the more competitive it will be.

 

NFL has twice the revenue that NBA has and they play 16 games compared to 82. Its not all about how many games you have that determines monetary success. Again, quality over quantity brings more fans to the game and the television.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_professional_sports_leagues_by_revenue

 

Besides which, I'd argue that Liga MX is the league whose playoffs are unusual and in a bad way. The Liga MX setup makes half the teams idle for a third of the season. And a team that makes the finals in both split seasons plays 50 league matches in a year, not even counting Copa MX and international competitions.

 

Which one was the best?

• Best of 3 (1996-1999)
• First to 5 (2000-2002)

 

I think that's wishful thinking. I'd give it a 10/1 odds that, as the number of teams go up, so will the number of the playoff teams

At some point, the league will have to put sporting reasons as superior to the mere financial. If they try to squeeze every last buck out of the game, it won't do anything to help its image.

And we know that Garber is very keen on these images.