I saw that in Conference USA Men's Basketball, the last 4 out of 18 conference games will be determined by the standings. Some European leagues split into groups at the end, and have Europa League playoffs where clubs not in the top group can play clubs in the top group. I made up an idea for 26 clubs in 2 conferences of 13 with most of the regular season, the end of the regular season, and the playoffs: Most of the regular season: Play every opponent once for 25 games and one rival a second time to make 26 games. One club in each conference would have a rival in the other conference because the conferences have an unequal amount of clubs. End of the regular season: Each conference splits into the top six and the bottom seven. Clubs play every club in their group once. In the top group, clubs will play 5 games, and the top 3 could be rewarded with 3 home games with the bottom 3 having 2 home games. In the bottom, group, clubs will play 6 games, and every club will have one matchday off because there are an odd amount of clubs. It would take 7 matchdays, which makes 33 when you add in most of the regular season. The top group clubs would have 2 matchdays off. Having matchdays off could be useful to avoid national team games in October. If MLS doesn't need to avoid national team games, the top group could have each club play 2 of the first 3 matchdays, 2 of the next 3 matchdays, and the last matchday. Playoffs: 10 clubs would make the playoffs. That's 38.5 percent, but it goes up to 57.1 percent if you include the top group clubs that didn't make the playoffs. The Knockout Round would have fourth from the top group hosting the winner of the bottom group. This would keep clubs alive as long as they could win the bottom group. If bottom group clubs could not make the playoffs or be relegated, their games would be meaningless. The playoff seeds in each conference would be determined by the end of the regular season. The Conference Semifinals and on would use the current format. That may not be simple, but if MLS has too many clubs to play every club in your conference twice and every club in the other conference once, it could be hard to make a simple schedule format. The format could be adjusted to 2 conferences of 14, in which case the top groups would have 7 clubs and there would not be a second game against a rival.
Conference USA is going to this untried method because for years they have been boned by the peculiarities of the NCAA men's basketball tournament selection process. Much of the tournament field is literally chosen by a committee who pays attention to newfangled statistics that value wins against teams with good records and games against good teams, plus recent form. In a normally scheduled season, the C-USA only sends one team to the NCAA -- the conference tournament winner. Any other teams (including possibly the best team by W-L record) are typically left out of at-large consideration by the committee, because the better C-USA schools by and large have low strength of schedule via playing so many rump teams in a (roughly) balanced schedule format. They look unworthy by the committee's metrics. The 2019 process will segregate the good teams and not-good teams after 14 games. The good teams will schedule each other in a round-robin mini-tournament lasting 4 games. No one cares about the not-good teams because they aren't NCAA-capable, but they will also play amongst each other for 4 games. In a sense, the new C-USA scheduling is geared to game the formulas and make their top 2-4 schools stand out more when the committee looks at the stats for every school, especially those "on the bubble." With MLS you don't have a committee determining who gets into the MLS Playoffs and who doesn't. I don't see the applicability.
No. Enough with ridiculous “outside the box” formats, so people can pat themselves on the back for their own ingenuity. This is a professional sports league, not a Saturday night Euchre party.
Each group would be within a conference. There could be long trips, but as a Colorado fan you would never end most of the regular season at home and then fly to the northeast. How is this scheduling any harder than playoffs as is?
Well for one you need to figure out schedules for all 23 teams, not just the 12 playoff teams. Secondly you're leaving a variable schedule at the same part of the season when stadium availability becomes the trickiest (due to football in NE, SEA, POR, ATL, LAG, and playoff baseball in NYC). Thirdly you're also making it very difficult on TV partners, unless you're going to set the TV windows and shoehorn games into them, which leads to poor scheduling on the team's end. Just off the top of my head. To use your Colorado example, the Rapids have made one trip to the Eastern Conference since July (Columbus, a month ago). Not exactly a major issue that needs solving IMO.