Wait, MLS is not stopping at 28? Shocking. Just shocking. AND they are raising the price. They are not stopping at 30 either. 32 by 2026. Likely more after the WC.
Well, good news for Sacramento & St. Louis. Bully for them. St. Louis has been a college soccer hotbed for decades and now that they have legit owners + a stadium plan, they deserve to be in. Ditto for Sac. Deep pockets was the missing piece. Great support for Republic FC. Deservedly in.
Remember when people here were convinced expansion would stop at 18 (a balanced schedule!), and 20 (like the rest of the world!), and 24, and then 28? Does expansion stop before 40? I could see MLS East with 20 and MLS West with 20, eventually, almost like the old MLB where the two only play each other until the postseason... The most likely number is 36 (17 teams per conference playing each other twice = 34 games), or 40, or 32, imo. 40 puts MLS in pretty much all of the top 36 metropolitan areas, everything with a population over 2 million (LA and NY doubled up, plus 3 in Canada, and SLC below the line): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_metropolitan_statistical_areas In any case, there's no way they stop at 30 and ignore serious bids from top 20 markets like Phoenix (11th), Detroit (14th), San Diego (17th), etc. For 30 here are my predictions: 25-27: (Nashville, Miami, Austin) 28: Sacramento, they're the closest to a stadium, and it will be easier if the next team is in the west 29: St Louis 30: Phoenix, largest metropolitan area in the west without a team. Detroit blew it when they pulled a bait and switch and replaced their $1.5 billion stadium complex with a few million to renovate the NFL stadium. I have been saying this for a decade, and believe it more strongly now than ever. They barely have it now (see Queretaro), getting rid of it altogether would just be a formality... I wonder if that was part of the reason for suggesting a unified league with MLS.
North American pro sports leagues do seem to tap out in the low 30s in terms of team numbers, so thats one reason to think 32 might be as far as MLS goes. If you have four divisions where you play everybody in that division twice and then everyone else outside of it once, you get a 38 game schedule, which is (ironically?) identical to the most 4 of the 5 big European leagues.
When was the last year MLS didn't have a 34 game regular season schedule? And how many years has that been the case, in recent memory? I think 34 games is here to stay, whatever the total number of teams.
But if they are in all of the top 36 markets, where will they threaten to move when they want a new stadium? Artificial scarcity of franchises is a key part of their business model, in my opinion.
Yeah, definitely not a perfect solution, nor am I proposing this as the "solution". An alternative would be to opt for a schedule where you play home and away against your division, guaranteed to play all teams one from the the other division in your conference (East/West split I presume) and then play some, but not all teams from the other Conference. This could mean you play all teams in one division in the other conference one year and half of the other division, and then it flips the next year. That means you'd only skip a team in the other conference every third year. That gives you a 34 game schedule and lets the playoff situation continue unchanged or with some more minor tweaks. The worst thing about this is that you'd potentially only have a home game against other conference foes once every three years potentially. You could definitely limit them to the bare minimum. I'd be fine with 4 division winners in a home and away semi format and a one off or two legged final. I doubt MLS would have much interest in such an abbreviated playoff format though.
Are you thinking of some other league, maybe the NFL? How is that a "key part" of their business model when it's happened once (SJ -> Houston) where both ended up with teams and didn't get new stadiums for years, and been threatened once (Columbus -> Austin) where both will have teams and new stadiums. Meanwhile MLS seems hell-bent on eliminating many such threats by rapidly expanding from 10 to 24 to 27 and soon 30. Why are they simply expanding to all those markets instead of threatening to move existing teams there in an effort to build new stadiums in those existing markets? And what about the existing teams that don't have soccer stadiums and need them? New England and NYCFC are not threatening to move to other markets at all, what a waste of a blackmail opportunity! What about Vancouver? Wait, what about ANY team? Which ones are threatening to move? Currently zero are. But don't let facts get in the way of your lazy ripped off from other sports leagues conspiracy theory...
I think MLS stops at either 30-32. Then they want places like Indy and Louisville and others to build nice USL stadiums so they can use them as pawns for the under performing MLS franchises.
This is such a lazy post. Which underperforming teams? Honestly. Market size is a big deal. You're not moving a Chicago, Philly, NE, etc to Louisville or Indy. It's just not a trade you make nor is it one you take seriously.
Regular season MLS games: 2011-2019: 34 games 2007-2010: 30 games 2005-2006: 32 games 2003-2004: 30 games 2001*-2002: 28 games 1996-2000: 32 games *2001 was shortened after 9/11 but was originally scheduled for 28 games.
I'm actually excited to see StL in the league, though mostly because it's the city I now spend more time in than anywhere else than my own thanks to the in-laws. I find it amusing though that their ownership group found the money after getting their ridiculous ballot proposal for a stadium rejected. (I'll avoid making a joke about the StL stadium having better transit access to downtown Chicago than Bridgeview).
They've been discussing doing away with Pro/Rel. I believe they've put relegation and promotion on hold for a time, or will be in order to allow the lower division clubs time to build. It wouldn't be a surprise if LigaMX just expands to 20 or possibly 22 teams and becomes a closed league within the next 5 years.
A couple different ways. MLS or that teams operator going to a city and wanting some financial concessions for updating an existing stadium or building a new stadium. In much the same way MLB used St Pete and the NFL often touted Las Vegas or LA as possible destinations. Or going to an owner just treading water, like a Precourt or Saputo type, and saying they want significant investment from that owner or they could go to the bylaws of MLS and talk about kicking them to the curb or forcing them to join another ownership group in another city. Like in the other leagues here in the U.S. those would be unlikely to actually happen, but they could threaten those options.