There’s DC cold and hot, and then there’s Dallas cold and hot, and finally there’s Minnesota cold and hot. 3 different questions.
That's why for the league the status quo would be the best because you already have fans coming out to stadiums with the temperatures being as they are. There is no way that they are going to get better attendances with a change and if there are tv revenue increases because of this (which I'm doubtful of) they are not going to make up for decreased attendances.
If ticket revenue goes down X, but the savings from lower transfer payments for acquiring players plus high transfer receipts is 2X, then the league comes out ahead in the deal by X. Based on all the reporting, that’s the biggest drive for this; a majority of owners voted for it, and the biggest factor was the financial aspects of aligning transfer windows.
The transfers aren't that big of a thing for most of the teams and just because the owners made the calculation doesnt mean they are right. I remember the owners of a long defuct football league voting to move from spring/summer to fall/winter. Just because they are rich doesn't mean they are smart.
How much more money would LAFC and Vancouver gotten from Son and Mueller for a full season instead of a half season? Gotta be 8 digits combined. And that’s just two players. Imagine Levien sells the team to a good owner. And let’s say the new owner wants to do a complete rebuild, focusing on acquiring young players, not old guys with minimal or zero transfer fees. Doing that in line with the European windows could save millions, just for one club, and also make available a higher caliber of player. And then add in that this will be good for attendance in Dallas and Houston and some other markets. It’s possible you’re right, but man, my guess is that it’s the right overall move, financially. Whether it’s the right move in terms of the league’s weakest links, there you might be right. But for the collective, I’ll bet this makes the league money. One last thing…aligning the windows makes player development more important because it’s more profitable. Let’s see if the league also adds rules to incentivize player development. That’s a bet on the long run.
if this was such a sure thing then no European leagues would play through the summer despite the weather and we know this isn't so Sweden being the most obvious example. And Stockholm's temperatures are no colder than New York's and certainly warmer than Montreal and Minneapolis.
I understand and even appreciate this line of thinking. But I've played soccer in the middle of a New York winter, unlike every single one of the owners, and I don't think they appreciate how much playing in the freezing cold affects the game. The ball feels like a rock. You can't defend on ice. You can't dribble in snow. You can't grow grass in Montreal until April. I think that's going to make a lot of younger players look shittier than they actually are. And I don't think as many older players are going to want to come to MLS once they've seen the likes of Christian Benteke playing before 500 people in a polar ice vortex in Minnesota or a white-out blizzard in New England. I think that re-aligning the schedule will ultimately hurt the MLS transfer market more than it helps.
My response is America has 330,000,000 people and Sweden has 10,600,000, so the US has 30 times as many males in the relevant age group and therefore 30 times the prospective transfer fees. Granted, that’s spread over more clubs in MLS, but not 30 times as many clubs.
No. The only males that matter are those on perspective rosters. Those are the transfers that will go up or down in value. Now the total population (really the population per club) can potentially matter but only indirectly as a function of how much revenue a club brings and and can use on development in the first place.
If you offer enough in a transfer fee, a guy will go play at Bodo Glimt which is above the Arctic Circle.
Butts-in-Seats (BiS) is an important source of revenue, but not the most important source. "Broadcast" revenue is the most important. And we can see this because of the very small size of most recent MLS team-built stadia. The initial Apple deal was $250M over 10 years (I dont know how much MLS is paying for production, but it surely cant be $50m/yr) so that is mostly net revenue. It will take the league almost forever to net $200m/yr in butt-in-seat revenue. Actual attendance is a secondary concern. Therefore this new schedule is more than just fine. People who would have watched in person but for the weather will watch on TV - and become actually more valuable to the league.
I can understand some of the sentiment coming from DC supporters. We never play in November and December as it stands now, so it must sound unusual.
Whom do we prefer loses more, nyc or filthy? Alternatively, which team has the better chance of beating messi?
Nyc is in your bracket so you want them to lose? Maybe because of the SOBs I feel better for filthy, but then again we get humiliated by them regularly so I dont want them to be rewarded.
Watched the first half of Vancouver/San Diego last night. Vancouver put on the best half of football I have seen in a very long time. The sight of a GK actually good with his feet and distributing the ball like a field player was something I haven't seen since the days of Nick Rimando.
that would be awesome - then we can yell at him, "You only got this job because of your Dad" like we did back in the day when he played in the Sunday morning reserve team games.
most of the time it was REALLY difficult to chew enough aspirin to make it out there in time. I made the mistake one time of bringing a keg of bloody mary's for a game.... that wasnt the hair of the dog, that was the entire dog!
Since it is not totally up to date you can go on Google Maps and it still has pictures of the auxiliary field where the reserve games were played. Your thinking was in the right place since hangovers aren't caused by drinking but by stopping drinking.