OK, let's say it's 2026. The United World Cup is nigh, and MLS and Liga MX are officially mergering into one league (and let's toss in the Canadian Premier League, just for fun). What would a combined league really look like? Let's see...MX has 18 teams in their top division these days, the CPL is claiming they'll have an even dozen by '26, and MLS has...30, maybe? 32? More? So, a combined North American soccer league (ahem) would be looking at about 60 teams all told. Or maybe it would be more than one league, with the evil twin sisters pr*m*tion and r*l*g*tion? Or would it contain only the top teams from each country? Would the Cosmos be involved somehow, destroying yet another league? Thoughts?
Since they would probably be the only US team between the Midwest and the west coast, I would think so. Part of the problem is that it wouldn't be a merger of equals from a tradition standpoint. The MX teams have been around since God was in junior high school, while MLS is barely a generation old. (And the CSL is little more than vaporware at the moment.) Would, say, Club America fans follow their team to Minnesota or Edmonton?
I don't think this is going to happen. But if it did, one way to go would be parallel regional leagues with no promotion/relegation. Teams would mostly play within their league except for a multi-tiered Cup competition during the season and a combined playoff system at the end of the year. Let's say four 14-16 teams leagues. Play your league opponents twice for the base regular season. The top 1 or 2 teams from each league advance to season ending playoffs. The in-season Cup league could be three or four teams from each league in each of A, B, C, D, and E levels with 12 or so total teams in each. The level would be determined by the previous year standings. That tournament would have a group stage and then knockouts to determine a champion of each level. With this system, teams would mostly be playing local opponents but also have games against teams from across the entire organization during the season. My local team, Houston, for instance would be in a Northern Mexico/Southern USA league for the regular season. But they would also be in the League Cup competition with teams from the Southern Mexico, Eastern US/Canada, and Western US/Canada leagues. Just an idea.
If some merger went down, does our nation's sports media still hang on to calling pro sports the "Big 4"? Continuing to ignore this new 50+pro soccer league???
Liga MX was supposed to do away with relegation and go to 20-24 teams, but I have not heard about it for a while, so maybe they dropped that plan.
Nah, by then Rugby will be bigger than the NFL and it will be the big 3, Rugby, Lacross and the NFL a distant 3rd. https://globalsportmatters.com/yout...wing-sport-in-the-u-s-also-one-of-the-oldest/ Does anyone want some of what I am smoking?