A number of things. But, specifically, in this case, since NFL fans will tolerate brutal weather, they think that MLS fans will too.
I imagine they have some numbers to back up the move from a business side, probably from tv execs and advertising sales people that were willing to back up this move. From an attendance side, they probably got mixed results in the focus group, and they believe most will come around (like so many already had). However, I am not sure they are prepared to do the work to do this right. When they first tried to vote on it earlier this year, the lawyers were like hey we should probably check with our sponsors and the union first. They were very over zealous. They will need to hire back ticket reps to sell these games, more investment into facilities, and a more spread out roster investment (for players 5-14). This will not work if the thinking only was if you switch the schedule they will watch.
"They're rich. Doesn't mean they're smart." is definitely true. So is the saying that times change. When I graduated from college in 1984, my starting salary was $270 a week. I had no PTO/Vacation time for the first year. After the first year, I had 2 weeks of PTO/Vacation. After 5 years, it went to 3 weeks. If you made that offer to recent college graduates today, you would be out of business, because no one would come to work for you. Times change. What people want, expect and will accept change. Yes, MLS is a for profit entity that wants to make as much money as humanly possible. So the owners can share it amongst themselves collectively. To think and expect anything else is borderline delusional. Will it work? Only time will tell. Do I like it? No. But it is what it is and my options are pretty much 1 Continue to support The Crew (and by extension MLS) as a Full STM. 2 Scale back my support to a partial STM. 3 Scale back my support and buy tickets on the secondary market the week of the games that I want to attend. 4 Stop following The Crew and MLS all together. At this point, I have not decided what I am going to do.
I don't think the weather is what makes NFL fans turn out for games in winter. Also, looking at the list of NFL teams, half play in warm weather markets or domes, so the idea that all NFL fans go and sit in a foot of snow every week post Thanksgiving or whatever is simply false. They have warm weather markets as well, believe it or not.
The point was that the northern team fans will tolerate it. Not that it makes them want to turn out. It remains to be seen if MLS fans will turn out. MLS thinks they will because NFL fans will.
This. It's one thing to get bundled up and suffer like a diehard for a team that only plays 8 home games a year, and it's late in the season. Or the playoffs. It's another thing to do it for MLS Matchday 12.
Maybe it’s not so much they’ll tolerate it, as there are vastly more NFL fans out there and, in general, such strong ticket demand, that there are almost always going to be enough fans willing to sit through difficult conditions and fill the stadium. Even if a decent percentage of fans won’t tolerate it, they can watch at home while others fill the stadium. The pool of MLS fans is minuscule compared to the NFL. There is no vast pool of fans who’d love to go to games, if only there were available tickets. If there were, MLS TV ratings wouldn't be so abysmal.
You don't understand how the ultra wealthy think and function. They are the worst offenders with making decisions based on overconfidence and confirmation bias. It starts with someone pointing out that the big European leagues operate on a winter calendar. These NFL billionaires hear that and assume based on the success of the NFL that they can have MLS competing with and eventually overtaking those big 5 leagues, and aligning the calendar is a step in the process. The decision has already been made there. The rest of the process involves the yes men in their orbit inventing justification. They inevitably write a 7-figure check to McKinsey and Co to create projected financials using the rosiest possible assumptions to support the decision they already made to switch. In the current landscape, those assumptions are going to be centered on the belief that there will be more Messi and Son types of signings; even if they're concentrated on the glamour teams it will elevate interest and revenue across the board.
Yeah, but you gotta have fans tuning in on TV in order to get those rights. With that said, it would be interesting to see the ratings for the out-of-market Sunday afternoon games. Not the Browns, Bengals and Steelers in Columbus, of course, but the other teams. As an example, today in Columbus, we're getting: Cincinnati @ Pittsburgh Baltimore @ Cleveland Seattle @ LA Rams I'm sure Seattle @ LA Rams game is drawing flies in Columbus. In Philadelphia, it's: Cincinnati @ Pittsburgh KC @ Denver GB @ NYG I can't imagine any of those games getting huge ratings there. The NHL is the same way in that fans care about their local/favorite team, but they don't really get a lot of viewers for games not involving that team. (There's not a whole lot of people in Ohio tuning into Vancouver @ Dallas or Tampa @ Boston.)
I'm obviously not in favor of the change. But JasonMa, one of the smartest people I get to read in the at-large forums, made a point that I hadn't thought about which makes a lot of sense. Why the hell, if they were so sure this was the right thing to do, didn't they get it in gear soon enough to implement it in 2026, the year of the Home World Cup? Think about it. They could have announced that the 2026 season would be where they do the quickie season they're actually going to do in 2027, interrupted the season for two months while the World Cup will be played, so as a result, the calendar for the regular season matches would very closely resemble what we'd see in the new format. They'd have gotten virtually no pushback, and then when fall of 2026 rolled around people would already be somewhat desensitized. Or still had a spring-fall season for 2026 but played all the matches in the window of the year that the new format would have, and had people already partially adjusted by the time the 2027 Lightning Round or whatever they call it started. The World Cup seems like such a natural help to make this case, but they're waiting until it's in the past?
The NFL carries a national audience. People will tune in and watch no matter who is playing. Out-of-market games with no real rooting interest, like Seahawks at Rams today, will still blow away local ratings of every other pro sport. It will be higher than most CFB games. That's why TNF continues to get great ratings as a streaming exclusive with mostly junk matchups. It's without equal. Even major college football is a significant step down in terms of appeal and ratings.
Yeah, that makes sense. There's a bunch of markets, Columbus being one, that'll get a non-local/regional game based on players of local interest. If there's three or four former OSU guys scheduled to play in a particular game, then CBS or Fox might get that one if the Browns, Bengals, Steelers or even Ravens aren't an option. (There may be an occasional time that Central Ohio viewers get a Ravens game due to them being in the AFC North.) A quick glance indicates there's four former OSU guys on the LA and Seattle rosters, so that might have been a factor.
No, each network designates a national game for each time slot and that gets broadcast everywhere that doesn't have a local market game occurring at the same time on the same network. Seattle and LA were both 7-2 and were the national game for Fox at 4pm. Chiefs at Broncos is CBS' national game for 4pm today which got preempted in AFC North territory by the Browns-Ravens game. It has nothing to do with individual players. The NFL and 90% of its audience don't care where their players went to college.
It's weird to call Seattle/LA the national game, based on how few got to see it. Look how far west the red area extends. Of course, some of that *might* be because of those areas getting a local/regional game at 1pm, but the Cardinals played at 4, so wouldn't it have made some sense for New Mexico to get a different game? Utah is also a curious decision. https://506sports.com/ Note the red dot in Zanesville. I'm not saying it's true in all cases, but the "player/s of local interest" has been true in the past. There were a few times when Browns games were on TV in Norman, Oklahoma when such normally wouldn't have made sense. If some people in Zanesville can get both WSYX 6.2 and WHIZ, wouldn't it make sense for both of those affiliates to carry the same game? (The FCC was trying to get rid of "dual affiliates" although I'm not sure if they ever did.) It made no sense to give us a west coast game when the "single-header" game not involving an AFC North team usually seems to be at 1pm.
Seattle vs Rams was a first place matchup with both teams vying for a top seed in the NFC. It should have been a national game regardless, but it doesn’t hurt that JSN, former Buckeye, is the leading receiver in the NFL.
Hey guys.. wanted to discuss this new announcement from the MLS to change its schedule to match most leagues starting in Fall to Spring. I just had a meeting with Logan at Lower.com to discuss season tickets and had an interesting chat about this new change. There will be a holiday break from before Christmas to mid January. We both agreed that it will be very uncomfortable for fans to endure games in January and February as games could reach below freezing temps. He stated that there will only be one home game in January and one in February with all the rest away in warmer climate cities. It was the owners he said that pushed for this change. I told him that handing out hand warmers as they do in Green Bay would be helpful. He said the field does have heat coils under the grass which will come in handy. I also mentioned that the space heaters must be installed throughout. Also.. we discussed Nancy's possible move to Ireland and he said that our coach loves Columbus and probably would stay here.
We're all well aware of these things and are talking about it here: https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/mls-schedule-change-discussion.2134809/page-11
All: That's just one reason to avoid Reddit. There's umpteen threads there about the Wilfried Nancy situation nestled in amongst the ads and other redundant threads. /Rant