The thundering hooves of the NFL are approaching.

Early November might be okay. You might get lucky and have the high in the upper 50s, but you could also go below freezing. November or December would be a big risk.

 

Maybe you folks don't understand that it gets cold at the Cotton Bowl, too. That cold wind blows in off the plains from Canada and there's nothing to stop it but barbed wire.

Anyway, cut down the playoffs from eight teams to four, same best-to-five format. Start the season a couple weeks earlier. The early season attendance is higher than later and the playoffs don't draw anyway. When the league expands to critical mass, say sixteen teams, then the playoffs can go back to eight teams. Until then, less is more. Garber has done pretty well at marketing the game to soccer fans, a trend that should continue. Casual fans will never embrace the game if soccer fans diss MLS.

 

Okay, I promise not to try not to become a bore on this subject, but could somebody please, please explain to me how sending half your league to the playoffs is a good thing? Seriously, I would like to know.

If everyone is okay with 8 out of 16 teams making the playoffs, why are we all so negative about the current playoff situation? In both cases, bad teams are going to make it to the playoffs. In both cases, the regular season is marginalized. This is at least part of the root of the problem. If owners and commissioners know that American sports fans will accept 8 out of 16 teams making the playoffs, then why shouldn't they think that we would accept 8 out of 10?

Charlie in New Jersey

 

The All Star game is one of two opportunities for the league to really show off with a large crowd in front of a national television audience, with MLS Cup being the other. Remove this or even move it to Wednesday night and you remove this.

The All Star game isn't for the hardcore fan, it is for the common fan, and that is who MLS is trying to attract.

 

I have my doubts whether the All-Star game attracts many new fans to MLS.

It's hard to imagine a sloppily played 6-5 soccer exhibition match inspiring casual fans to watch more of MLS on ESPN2, let alone attend any matches.

I think airing one of MLS' regular season matches on ABC in place of the All-Star game would serve as a better advertisement for the league (as long as MLS used common sense and didn't pick a Chicago, KC, San Jose, or Dallas home game for their July/August showcase)

 

It's simple. Start in mid March, and have the Cup Final in the second week of November. The Open Cup Final Labor Day weekend.

Have all teams play every Saturday, every week. Have one Wednesday night game per week, and rotate it so that no team would have to play the Saturday-Wednesday-Saturday schedule more often than once a month. If you do this, you can play six games in the span of 5 weeks.

Playoffs should be 2-leg total goals, with the higher-seeded team winning the tie-breaker. If the season ends Oct 12, the first leg of playoffs starts the following Saturday, Oct 19. Second leg the following Wednesday, Oct 23. Second round first leg is the next Saturday, Oct 26, and the second leg a week later, Nov 3. Cup final is the following Sunday, November 10. MLS Cup final will be played 4 weeks after the last regular season game.

Tom

 

I like how you think. Works for me.

Of course, it goes against the point the original poster made about finishing the season before the NFL season starts, but I think that's unrealistic anyway.

 

And I like the way you think!

Charlie in South Jersey

 

I really hate the two leg play-off. I say best-of-three in the Semi's, Conf. Finals, and MLS Cup Finals.

 

Ditto, except they don't even have conference finals anymore now that they're employing their stupid, sort-of-single-table format.

 

Re: Re: The thundering hooves of the NFL are approaching.

Considering that the season already starts in mid-March, and that the northern half of this country -- where, thanx to team assasination, most of the teams now play -- has this little thing called "frigid cold", if they started any earlier they would have to play in parkas. Ask Mexico how Columbus in February felt ...

 

I blame this all on Canada. In the "golden years" of the original 6 NHL teams, 4 of 6 made the playoffs.

 

Playing in cold weather would have one significant advantage in that the standard of play should improve a bit, 110 degree heat isn't really the best of conditions for good football. For now though I suppose it would be suicidal from an attendance perspective, I know most of you here (well I hope anyway) would go out and support your team in temperatures 40 and below but the casual softies wouldn't dare. Maybe once the game is a bit more popular here, after all tons of people sit through 3+ hours of NFL in places like Green Bay and Chicago in December.

 

Sure. Actually, I think I understood you okay the first time. Your post just happened to touch on a topic that gets me wound up. Years of ever-expanding, ever more pointless baseball playoffs are one of the main things that finally drove me away from that sport. Over the past few years, soccer has come to be as important to me as baseball used to be and I hate the idea that MLS is taking this sport down the same stupid road. Thankfully, with soccer, there are alternatives to MLS if the league manages to self-destruct.

Charlie in South Jersey

 

I think there is some kind of College there or something. Not sure though.

 

It is Penn State, isn't it?

 

If MLS Cup was held in "sports dead time" (no baseball or ANYTHING else), would we get more coverage? Any shot of a Sports Illustrated cover? (BTW, I have those framed).

 

There is no sports dead time. Baseball overlaps with American Football, football overlaps with basketball and hockey, basketball and hockey overlap the beginning of the baseball season. Soccer's best bet is to continue doing what they're doing: carving their niche into the rotting corpse of Major League Baseball.

Charlie in South Jersey

 

Slightly off topic - Can I ask what the reason is for the soccer season in the States being held in the summer?

 

The fall is dominated by the MLB playoffs, NFL and college football and the winter by the NHL, NBA, and college basketball.

 

There's also the weather. Given a choice between playing in Texas in the summer and Boston in the winter, the guys wearing the shorts probably prefer the former.

I suspect that teams in Europe that play in places like Moscow and Copenhagen might have made the same choice if their season weren't tied so closely to the rest of Europe.

Charlie in South Jersey

 

Actually I think the Scandinavian leagues play in the summer (I know Norway does for sure.)