This has been discussed many times before. MLS will play during the WC but at a reduced schedule.No the other leagues mentioned do not play during the WC.Most games played in germany will be on during morning and afternoon so MLS evening games won't be directly against WC games. Some teams won't have some of their best players for a few games.
I never understood that principle with this league. Nearly all of the leagues DO NOT play when there is a WC match (be it qualifier, friendly, etc) and this league continues. Thats one of the main reason why those weekends the games mainly suck because our top players are playing for the country!
You do have enough upstairs to understand that there are only so many weekend games that MLS teams are able to play during a given season, correct? You also do have the ability to realize that not every MLS team controls their own stadium scheduling for their entire season, correct? Or did I type too fast just now?
I understand the point of your thread, but I don't see why you compare MLS with the EPL, Serie A, or la Liga ??? It is better to compare MLS with foreign leagues that follows the same calendar (jan-dec instead of aug-may) There are many others league around the world, did you know it ??
Are there any other leagues in the world that are playing during the World Cup? I have a feeling that even the other leagues who play spring-fall seasons are taking a World Cup break.
Quick bit of searching shows that the Irish and Scandinavian leagues that normally play during this period do not interupt their schedule for the world cup. I think that the Russian league also maintains their schedule but I cannot find evidence of this. Besides taking over a month off for the world cup, there is little that MLS can do. Shifting the schedule would not work very well because of stadium and weather issues. Condensing the schedule would be bad for attendance and for competition reasons. I think MLS has done well. Also, I really don't think that most teams will be devistated by World Cup fixtures. New England (Dempsey, Ralston, and Twellman possibly) and LA (Donovan and Albroght) would probably lose the most, but Houston, RSL (Pope depending), Chivas, and Metrostars would probably be unaffected. Other teams would probably at most only lose one player. There should not be another situation where one team loses their team like the Chicago did for the last world cup (Armas, Wolff, Beasley at the same time that they had an injury crises.
Wrong. Scandinavia and Russia do take a World Cup break. To my knowledge MLS is the only league in the world that doesn't halt play...
http://www.rsssf.com/resultsp00.html#2002 Yes, you're right... After searching, in 2002 all the foreign leagues using the same spring-fall calendar have a break during the world cup In Argentina, they use the Clausura (February to June), and Apertura (August to December) system... So it gives a break for Argentinians to play the worldcup in June/July ... In Brazil, until 2003 they used to play around 25 games/per year and the season started in August, so it let brazilians play the wortd cup in June/July... But since 2003, the formula has been changed, now they play 42 games with a round-robin tournament, no playoffs... And the season starts in April... I don't know if there will be a break during the world cup... In Russia, there's a world cup break when in world cup's year or Euro's year (Euro or world cup) In 2002, the championship stopped in may 13, and re-started on the July 1st...
If you're actively worried about the greatest tournament in the world overshadowing just one league, then your priorites are in the wrong place. For just one summer in 4 years it's every football fan's duty to forget domestic woes and cheer your country on for all or nothing. Unless your country didn't qualify, in which case you can join the gaelic nations and piss and moan about the 24-hour England team blowj.. ahem hype.
Maybe for a few games. I for one, will watch WC action in the morning and afternoon but will be in the stands in the evening to watch my Fire play.
Go tell the Metrostars, DC United, KC Wizards, Real Salt Lake, and Houston to all rearrange their schedules. I'm sure it can be easily done for all of them. I personally glad MLS continues on during the world cup. It creates drama on teams, where the young or unused players step up to earn starting spots, teams are still duking it out, coaching techniques are changed and we see which coaches can get through it, and we get a full month of soccer on ESPN, ESPN2, and ABC. There are some bad things, like the NT members come back and play sluggishly, and the play is somewhat subpar during the tournamet (probably not a big problem this time around), but that much soccer on TV, how could anyone complain? My DVD recorder is going to burned out by July.
Actually, I expect the opposite effect. Most lay fans will get a bit turned on to the sport by watching the WC and there will be an increase in attendance. If US does well, then there may even be a sizeable increase.
The USL still plays during the WC . I'd be interested to see if any soccer game in NA clashes with the WC final...
I really don't see how the World Cup could hurt MLS much. If anything you can have people watching a world cup match in the afternoon or morning and thinking "holy crap that's pretty cool, I'll check out the mls game on tv/near me tonight." Sure would be nice if MLS could swing buying a halftime ad for some WC broadcasts to aid this sort of thing. (I don't mean to suggest that they won't) I bet you that, of the people that will be gone from MLS stadiums because they're actually at the World Cup in Germany, 95% of them will be season ticket holders anyway.
I may be wrong but I seem to remember that MLS attendance went up during the World Cup. Maybe Kenn Tomasch can come around and tell us.
half of the team will be MLS. I think that the national team having the best MLS players on it would incite for MLS to go and find good substitutes.
Things will work out just fine. If scheduling and competition were serious problems, MLS would've done anything to make changes long ago.