i don't think 20 teams should be the goal for the mls, i honestly think 16 teams should be the goal and there should be a national round robin type thing where every team plays everyone else home and away once, 30 weeks.
16 teams would likely be great for many years but if the league does have the great success we hope for there will be pressure to expand beyond 16 as this is a very large country with many major cities. Relegation will never be a part of soccer here. IMO.
honestly, i feel that the league will land somewhere between 16 to 20 clubs. but if the league is pressured to expand to more cities, that might necessitate a promotion/relegation system. i think the main reason why promotion/relegation would not work is that it is completely foreign to the average sportsfan in the u.s.
It's much deeper than that IMO.. Imagine if London had only one pro team and that team was sent down. The reasons religation is accepted in other countries are many and even if we get past the fact that no one would invest in a team here that might be relegated the next season, the size of the nation is a major factor. If Fulham is relegated there is still Premier League Footy in London. There are many reasons that people can add but relegation here where there is not 100 years of generational support for each team would likely mean death for those teams in some cases.
I agree with Wolves. There is also the incredible competition with other establised professional sports. If casual Metros fans saw that they got relegated, they have 11 or 12 other MAJOR teams to watch all year. I wouldn't say 'never', but at least not for another 20 years. I've been of the opinion that Baseball should go to regulation. The Tigers should have been Triple-AAA a long time ago. 18 teams WEST- LA SJ KC COLO DALLAS SEATTLE SAN ANTONIO SAN DIEGO EAST- NE NJ/NY CHI COLUMBUS DC NY#2 (somewhere in the state) PHILADELPHIA MIAMI/TAMPA, etc. Charleston
Calexico77 ... we need 1 more team in the west conference. About the eastern, why didn't you put in Rochester? actually many look at them as a future franchise into the mls.
About the whole new league system ... I think that, til mls has a number of team between 14 and 18, the 2 conferences schedule would be the best system to follow (with 26 to 34 games to play, if possible). But, as someone told before, US are a big country, so why not - in the future - have 25 30 teams as in other sports? in this case, having 4 conference (as nba) would be useful to make the system nearest to systems Americans are already used to. (I say this, however I'm a lover of the single table ...) About the pro/rel, a championship with 25/30 teams could work even without pro/rel, that's true, however this system makes more more intresting the end of the season even in the bottom of the ladder, where teams need to make points to avoid relegation. In a future, when soccer will be in American minds more thasn now, I think there will be place in mls for pro/rel too.
the only way Pro/Rel would EVER work in the USA is if there was a healthy TV contract. and the league shared revenues between the top level and the 2nd level. You would have to guarentee just as many televised games for the top 2 leagues, and guarentee the same abount, or simular amount of money to come in. If say KC was relegated, they would loose only 20% of their tv money so the team would not be forced to sell off all their best players. They would just be forced to spend carefully for a season while they are down. Or hope they can break even, instead of making big money. and hope to hell to come back up. If a team played at the bottom of league 2 for a while they would likely not be making money and would end up getting moved anyways. or sold or whatever. and once sold, or moved they may be able to get better players and make it back to top flight and make money with new fans.
Let us not forget Baseball only had 18 teams for well over 80 years, and some how it became the most popular sport in the country. Not Surprisingly once the expansions pushed the quality of the play down the level of popularity went down with it.
My ideal league would be 2 confence- USC- and NSC 3 divisions 4 teams each confrence 24 teams total 12 home and away confrence twice 16 division games home and away 8 gamescoresponding conference home and way Div1 east plays Div 2 east 36 games total Playoff structure 3 division winners and 1 wild card spot. 4 teams play each other round robin Division winner gets 3 home games-A 2nd gets 2 home games-B 3rd gets 1 home game-C Wild card gets 0 home games-D 2 teams advance from the confrence round robins to single elimination. it takes 5 weeks all together here is how the games will be played Week 1 A vs. D B vs. C Week 2 A vs C B vs D Week 3 A vs B C vs D Week 4 USC-1 vs. NSC-2 Game A NSC-1 vs. USC-2 Game B Week 5 (neutral site) Game A winner vs Game B winner
MLS 1 (18) WEST: Los Angeles, San Jose, San Diego, Seattle, Portland, Colorado, Dallas, Kansas City, Houston EAST: New Jersey, New England, DC, Philadelphia, Columbus, Miami, Chicago, NYC, Detroit MLS 2 (22) WEST: Sacramento, Arizona, Minnesota, St.Louis, San Antonio, Tulsa, Iowa, Oklahoma City, Milwaukee, Austin EAST: Rochester, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Syracuse, Indianapolis, Connecticut, Tampa Bay, Atlanta, Carolina, Charleston, Memphis Promotion and relegation (1 up, 1 down) in each conference.
I'm no baseball expert, but I'm pretty sure it was 16 teams- 8 in the AL, 8 in the NL. AL - Orioles, Red Sox, White Sox, Indians, Tigers, Senators, Yankees, Athletics NL - Braves, Cubs, Reds, Dodgers, Phillies, Pirates, Cardinals, Giants Garber has stated that MLS' immediate goal (i.e. over the next decade) is to have anywhere from 16 to 20 teams. If I were determining the league format, 16 teams would allow for a single table home and away 30 game regular season. Top 8 in single table make playoffs. 20 teams could utilize a two conference east/west system with 10 teams in each conference, playing the other 9 teams in your own conference home and away (18 games) and the 10 teams in the other conference once (10 games) for a total of 28 games in the regular season. Top 4 from each conference make playoffs.
Right now, the league is so small that each team plays a lot of the same teams too many times. However, in an above post, someone is suggesting a schedule where there are some teams in the league that never play each other at all in the regular season. This is much worse. I hope the league doesn't get so large that this is the case. And I don't think convoluted conferences and divisions and unbalanced schedules are necessary to make the league fun and interesting. They usually result in unfair schedules, which means the meaning of fair competition is screwed up, and this is not fun or interesting to me. - Paul
I'm going to echo a radical theme and propose this: If FIFA does impose the sixteen team limit, it's really with countries like England, Italy, Spain, Germany, etc. in mind. Countries with populations one-third of ours that are in a single time zone. I propose that when the demand is sufficient, we divide our first division into two sixteen team leagues: the Eastern Soccer League and the Western Soccer League. Each league will span two time zones and play a balanced schedule. In my opinion, this is the only system that can equilibrate the travel demands implicit in a national first division. Playing every opponent twice is a lot easier when the league is in a single time zone and you can bus or train to every match. Teams in the WSL would still have to fly a lot, but it would be a lot less burdensome. Also, it would make more fundamental sense of the name "Major League Soccer." I've always loved the dynamic between the American League and the National League. In that spirit, the champions of each league will play each other the Anschutz Cup Championship on ABC TeleNet Presented by Exxon/Mobil Asteroid Mining. Because I'm talking about years from now.
I don't know. I mostly believe that a national league should be truly national, because as a fan I wouldn't want to be arbitrarily limited by geography in which teams and players I would get to see my home team play against. However, the more I think about it, the more I like this idea. First of all, it provides for a true single-table champion. The winners of the two leagues would be considered true champions and no one could deny this. It would be worthy enough for teams to strive for and make the regular season very meaningful. Second of all, in order for the national champion to be determined, a national league cup such as MLS Cup could still take place, and this Cup competition would suddenly takes on a life of its own unlike the current playoff structure. Really, it becomes more like the World Series used to be. A number of teams from each league could qualify, let's say the top 4-8 from each league. So you could have a post-season competition with 8-16 teams played over the course of a month or so. This competition would be my chance to see the Eastern teams, granted that my team makes the playoffs. The nature of the two single-table leagues creates the distinction between the league the playoffs, and in turn would make both competitions special in their own rights. Actually, this is a lot like the way Brazil used to run things, with state leagues and a national cup competition. - Paul
Down the road, I picture - MLS with 20 teams. East and West conferences Play home AND away in conference Play home OR away out of conference 28 game schedule. In this world, MLS teams are involved in more extensive cup and international club competitions, which is why I dont' mind a tidy 28 game schedule.
That's what I'm talking about. You could have one national first division but, with the geography of the United States, conferences and/or divisions are only fair for scheduling. Thus, we should probably use the NFL model, but with regional alignments. However, I'd prefer around thirty teams for our top flight, like the Big Four. Better for our TV footprint.
I think the MLS could make the season more intersting by doing one simple thing, Crown a season champion. Go to a single table format and the team with the most points wins the MLS Season Championship.(DUH) Then keep playoffs as is, with the top 8 making the playoffs playing for the MLS Cup. This gives the league clubs more honors to shoot for with out realy changing anything except naming the the season champ.
as far as general structure goes. wich is what alot of people are posting about. I would say that 20 teams is just about the maximum we should have at the top level. Every team should have a home and away meeting with every other team in the league. 38 game scheduel 19 home 19 away. playoff position determined by aggregate/home goals. i suppose 21 teams would work, but no more than 20 home games a year. Tournements would add another 10 games for maybe 50 total, so you really gotta keep the league below, or close to 20 teams
I think MLS will eventually reach a maximum number that it just really can't beyond, for competitive reasons. If we have too many teams, the quality will suffer and, unlike other American sports, there are other leagues and national teams to compete against and this will mandate a certain level of quality in our national league. So if a theoretical maximum of 16 or 18 or 20 is reached (whatever the number is) there may still be a demand for top-quality soccer in more cities. Because of that (and for that reason only) I can foresee a system of promotion/relegation evolving in this country. But we're talking 15, 20, 25 years here. Not before.
So you mean the MLS Supporter's Sheild? they do have that. MLS Season Championship = Supporter's Sheild. Now maybe if you said they rename it and pump more hype into it, yeah....
Interesting theory of reaching critical mass on quality of play. I would argue the exact opposite. Since there are so many more players world wide than there are in the other big 4 sports the critical mass would be alot higher. National team call ups would be less of a point since the majority of the players will be american but at most only 23 players will be called up at once. The larger the national tv footprint the larger the rights fee is, which in turn will lead to better player signings. Conferences, IMO, are critical to building rivalries in the US. You need some teams to meet more than others to build rivalries. Look at almost every rivalry in any sports here in the US and you will see that they play them more often. I am a big supporter of the SS but honestly I don't think it is going to be the focus in the media and to the american sports fan as the champion. The Cup on the other hand is a post season tournament that people will be looking to to crown the champion, and to make that more sucsesful an emphasis should be put on conferences for playoff spots as well as limited wild cards.