What Would a Fall to Spring Schedule w/ a winter Break Look Like?

From the first regular season weekend to MLS Cup, MLS used 40 weekends in 2014. That includes this weekend when the playoffs are off (which would be during the regular season if MLS played Fall to Spring) and the World Cup break (which would be during the offseason if MLS played Fall to Spring). Let's say MLS needs 38 weekends and there are 52 available, meaning that 14 don't have to be used. If the winter break is 8 weeks or long, it will be longer than the Summer offseason break. U.S. Open Cup games would need to be played during the Summer offseason break.

You could read http://forums.bigsoccer.com/threads/the-2017-2018-mls-ybtd-schedule-challenge.2000815/

 

Don't follow the lead of shitty Euro leagues. But if we were to switch, don't stop the league for internal dates. Let the teams that buy big name players have to play with depth. No reason to give the big spenders an extra advantage.

******** the EPL.

#HauptmanOut

 

Pretty straight forward ... 9 month season with January and February off and the summer break would shift around depending on what summer tournament or tournaments we're attempting to avoid (World Cup, Gold Cup, Youth World Cup, Confederation Cup, Olympics). We're not going to avoid 100% of all those tournaments perfectly but I think a 5 week summer break gets us pretty close

One positive step I think would be to go down to 32 games to alleviate some congestion. I'd also consider pretty much having an automatic midweek round for all clubs in any week where there isn't CL, US Open cup or FIFA dates scheduled. The biggest obstacle would be getting people on board with a handful of more cold weather weeks on the schedule ... especially December. The late winter/spring kick off would stay more or less the same as it is now.

The benefits would be that we would run parallel to CL which would avoid this weird 1 year lag between qualifying and actually playing. We would be better positioned to avoid conflicts with USMNT and CONCACAF dates in general. We would pull our playoffs out from under the shadow of football and into a much more favorable weather season. Aligned to the European transfer windows which integrates us better into the transfer market.

The downside would be like I said a few more cold dates per team. An awkward mid season break that may disrupt the season's momentum/fan interest. Our playoffs are still not entirely out of the shadows with NBA and NHL hanging over our heads.

 

Also noticeably lower attendance if you're increasing the number of midweek games.

 

A lot of orange ball soccer.

 

What would a fall to spring schedule look like? By January, like the sports analogue of the Battle of Stalingrad.

 

But the difference between midweek and weekend has been declining.

The first 10 years of the league, weekend (Fri-Sun) averages were about 31% higher than midweek averages. This year it was about 16%.

It's less of a concern than it once was. By a lot. (That may not hold as well in a late fall/winter/early spring scenario.)

 

Why is it that NBA/NHL/MLB/NFL can all play mid week games without huge attendance drops yet for some reason everyone assumes MLS can't get fans to a game on a Wednesday night?

 

Are you seriously asking that question?

 

Yes, it should not be a problem to get 20,000 people to a stadium on a Wednesday night.

If anything MLS has a huge edge compared to the other leagues. When I go to an MLS game that starts at 7:10 I know its going to be over by 9:10 as opposed to going to all of the other sports where the game goes till at least 9:30 and typically well past 10:00 (and in the case of the MLB could hypothetically go well past midnight).

It should not be difficult to get 20,000 soccer fans out to a game just because its a weeknight. I bet that if mid-week games were more common than now you'd see little difference in how many fans show up, hell it might even help with US Open Cup and Champions League attendance since fans would stop thinking of MLS has a 'weekend thing'

I know that most concerts are on weeknights and get plenty of people there, its not like people refuse to go out on weeknights. You need to give them a compelling reason to do so though. If MLS isn't compelling enough to get people out on a weeknight its future isn't very bright.

 

Is preferable to hot for professional soccer, it could be argued.

 

You can avoid most of the heat, most of the time. That MLS chooses not to is a different story, but 8pm July kickoffs in Texas could be the worst we'd have to deal with. That's significantly better than a lot of the winter weather we would have to deal with.

 

By people who think 20F is cold.

 

- Starts in mid Aug, and play until thrid week in December.
- Winter break till mid February
- MLS Cup in End of June.

 

He's back....

 

Where have you been?

 

That's one hell of a hot sports take

 

So every 4 years the MLS playoffs will be played without National team players. I like it, may benefit Chicago (if we ever make the playoffs again).

 

For the players, debatable. I've experienced Houston in July, and playing matches in the snow. I'll choose the orange ball.

As a spectator, however...

 

It's also interesting to point out that there are far, far more teams that have shitty Januaries than have shitty Julies

 

Can't say much other than that I'd like to have a switch. But even if you use some of the constructive suggestions here, there's a big problem lurking.....TV.

MLS already has enough trouble in the Summer when all it really has to deal with baseball and NASCAR. I think it needs to grow more before taking on the EPL along with the truckload of other sports on TV during the winter.

 

I think a switch would be a terrible idea for a lot of reasons, but I don't think TV is a big one. The EPL (and other Euro leagues) are on earlier than MLS games and the NBCSN TV ratings we have show that an EPL lead-in is actually helpful for MLS ratings. Besides that, MLS already plays through the NBA and NHL playoffs, most of the NFL and college football regular seasons, March madness, etc. As MLS would not play during the NFL playoffs even on a "winter" schedule, the TV competition would not be significantly different.