It just reinforces the basic point that most of us keep trying to make: Winter climate on this continent is just too f****ng weird to insist that MLS should have a significant portion of its schedule during it.
Of course, summer isn't much better. Still, at least professional footballers can play well in extreme heat and humidity. A field covered in ice and two feet of snow tends to dull the cutting edges of the game. Of course, if we insist on good weather everywhere in the US and Canada around which to build a season, there's probably a couple weeks in Spring and Fall we could use. Maybe not, though. Just editing to expand on this thought: To build a perfect North American footie season, we need to build around the December through Feb extreme cold for the nothern and midwestern sides, the March through June tornado, violent Thunderstorm season of the midwest and south, the Western wildfire season of June through Sept. The southern hurricane and intense flooding season which is creeping into the June through November range... So that leaves, uhm...
Simple, just make all teams road teams, playing games only in regions which have good weather at that time of year.
With road teams, there's no such thing as a "home" game. All of their games are "away". And honestly, do you really think Chicago has a known 2-week window where they have nice weather? I don't ever remember one when growing up there. =D
Welp, FIFA's chief of global operations just suggested a switch to a MARCH - NOVEMBER calendar for football soooooooooo
Why was soccer a winter sport to begin with? Well cricket was the incumbent sport and you can't play cricket in the winter. So while that reasoning still applies it doesn't affect many of the 208 FIFA members.
In all honesty, this probably would make more sense for a good chunk of the world. Obviously, the Southern Hemisphere would have its winter during our summer months. But I think the winters in the Southern Hemisphere are more tolerable than the winters in places like Canada, the northern US, Scandinavia, and Russia. I was on a work assignment in Argentina back in 2000 that started in late July (so the equivalent of late January in the Northern Hemisphere). Let's just say that it was not winter weather as I'm used to it growing up and living in the Midwest! Here is a sample of June average high temperatures (so December equivalent) in some southern hemisphere cities. Bela Horizante, Brazil - 78 F Quito, Ecuador - 67F Melbourne, Australia (admittedly on the coast) - 58F Johannesburg, South Africa - 63F Rosario, Argentina (about three hours inland from the Argentine coast) - 63F I tried to find a major southern hemisphere city with winters like we have in Toronto or Minneapolis. I couldn't find one in the limited searching I did. I'm sure there are places that have rough winters south of the equator.
There is very little land in the southern hemisphere south of 40 degrees South other than Antarctica. Southern Argentina, southern Chile, New Zealand, and Tasmania. That's about it. All of those have a lot of sea coast. Cape Town, South Africa, basically the southern tip of Africa is all the way up at 34 South. That's the equivalent of Atlanta. All of Africa is closer to the equator than Atlanta. 40 North, on the other hand, runs through the middle of continental US and is south of most of Europe and a lot of Asia. And those land masses are less affected by the sea in most cases. Lots of the land mass of Earth is north of that line. Tilt a globe over and look at it from the South Pole. You mostly see ocean. Do the same for the North Pole. You see a lot of land and along the edges a lot of cities.
Not sure Greece or Turkey would be the best places to play summer soccer, though a lot of Mediterranean countries have an nighttime culture with some games not kicking off until 9pm. I know English rugby league teams struggle in the heat and humidity of the south of France.
This made me think of a post on this website from the 2006 World Cup when England were having trouble putting away WC debutants Trinidad & Tobago. One person said they were watching (or listening) to the Sky Sports broadcast of the game and the announcers kept talking about how hot the conditions were, which is how T & T were able to hang with the English, whose team was suffering in the sunny weather. One fellow responded with something like: "Too hot? My God, it was only 78 degrees!". Conditions like that in North America would be seen as perfect weather for just about any outdoor activity (well, except for ice fishing and snow skiing).
Similarly, I remember a report around the same time (maybe a year or two earlier) about an English player pulling out of negotiations with FC Dallas after hearing that temperatures in Dallas could exceed 28 degrees Celsius (82 degrees Fahrenheit) during the season. (Of course I also have to note that, less than 20 years later, England also regularly has temperatures above that during the season.)
Maybe the odd game but it certainly doesn't hit that temperature regularly. I checked peak temperatures in London in 2020 there was 1 day in late May, 4 days in early August and 1 day in September where the temperature broke 28 degrees.
Although I don't buy most of the arguments for a August-May season, this sudden interest in showing MLS matches on network TV makes a case, because we know one gridiron returns we'll be relegated to the "2" sports networks. Of course, the season would have to be split.
Interestingly USL appears to looking to make this change https://theathletic.com/2720583/2021/07/21/usl-promotion-relegation-calendar/. Will be interested to see how it works as I think we all know how difficult it is logistically. To the extent that it does, MLS could adopt it later based on the USL test run.
“Looking to make this change” may be excessive. It is just a proposal that, apparently, comes up from time to time. The seriousness of that proposal from a USL perspective is unclear.
https://theathletic.com/2725207/2021/07/23/usl-promotion-relegation-reaction/ The Athletic followed that up with reports based on talking to the owners: The schedule change looks a lot less likely than promotion/relegation and even that is going to be a hard sell.
It was not one USL owner but USL President Jake Edwards according to the article. Its clearly not happening overnight and not everyone is comfortable with the idea yet, but its definitely under serious consideration it seems.
USL has more warm weather teams than MLS but I don't think it will get anywhere. I don't see the point. How many players does USL sell to Europe anyway?
Jack needs to reset his priorities 1/ For all levels of USL, get crowds back and hopefully above pre-covid levels 2/ Deal with the very harsh reality of what the new MLS league is going to do 3/ Then and only after #1 & #2 addressed, consider pro-rel 4/ Then and only after #1, #2 & #3 are addressed, move the soccer season
I don't think #2 is a harsh reality. Most teams will be MLS reserve teams plus maybe stepping stone for non-MLS academies. Imagine if West Ham ran a pro academy team in the States. League One has 10 independent teams and the plan to get 26 to 32 by 2026 has not been affected (The Athletic).
Don't forget to add negotiating a CBA with the soon to be formed USL Players Association at around oh, the TOP priority.