Why is the A-League shortening it's season? 2003 will finish on September 20th, 8 days earlier than this year. Why is the season so short? You'd think that they'd try to at least keep pace with MLS, whose MLS Cup is on October 20th! Almost a month later! Hell, when the Impact won it in 1994, it was October 15th. Why is the A-League season so short when it could be extended?
First I heard about it? What's your source? The only thing I can think of is since most of the teams play in high school and college stadiums, a shortened season would not interfer with pointy ball as much.
A-League 2003 Season Until their new website is up, the USL has been posting press releases on "www.a-league.com", a fan-run website. The USL announced that the 2003 A-League season will consist of 28 games for each team, running from April 25, 2003 through August 30, 2003. The playoffs, which will be reduced from 12 to 8 teams, will be two-leg aggregate score series with the A-League single-game Championship slated for September 20, 2003. I can think of a few reasons why the A-League would look to consolidate it's season. 1. First and foremost, a shortened season will REDUCE THE PLAYER PAYROLLS! This is a major portion of most team's operating budgets, so by reducing the length of the season AND number of playoff teams it will help the franchises bottom line. On a related note - While this does "reward" teams for their regular season efforts, giving a "bye" to division champions does not greatly impact their playoff ticket sales, it only extends the season & payrolls! 2. As previously mentioned, facility availability becomes a tougher issue the further into the fall you go. Most (not all) A-League clubs share their home field with other teams and activities which make scheduling very tough. Along with that, A-League playoff games face increased competition for the entertainment dollar from other sports (baseball pennant races/playoffs, start of football season) as well as the start of fall school sports and other school-related activities. This is a business, and the teams are concerned about their cash-flow, like any other BUSINESS. That said, I have a few related concerns: 1) What happens to a team's gate receipts once it has dropped out of the playoff race? I'm not holding my breath that many fans would continue to come out to late season games in certain markets! Granted, last season had a few good exceptions with games covered on FSW (Indiana, for example) - but where are those fans the rest of the season? 2) Turning to the players, will we see teams dumping salary (which HAS been done in the past) once they've been knocked out? It could make for some very lopsided late season results. I can see both sides of this issue, but until there are thriving, well-supported franchises across the A-League, the teams must find ways to survive while minimizing their losses.
Some of the players play indoor during the late fall/winter -- due to the meager salaries much of the A-League players make. This may have something to do with it as well.
Re: Re: What's with the short-ass season??? And the award for getting the point goes to... Nacional! What I'm saying is that the A-League finishes a whole month earlier than MLS and is just shortening its season. In 1994, the APSL played until October 15th.
In 1999, the A-League went even later. So in 4 years they will have moved the final up almost a month: http://www.a-league.com/1999alc.shtml
Re: Re: Re: What's with the short-ass season??? Maybe that's one reason A-League clubs lose less money than MLS.
I think finishing the season a little earlier is better from a coverage standpoint. The NFL and the World Series is not sucking all of the media oxygen out. The geniuses at MLS have managed to make their big day coincide with the World Series and against NFL broadcasts.
And the million dollar question is... What coverage??? Beyond the competing teams' markets, I doubt that anything more than a blurb or simply the score was put in the other A-League city media outlets. MLS DOES go up against WS and NFL, but the A-League can't consider itself even in the same (whatever's bigger than ballpark - cricket oval?). So if there's no coverage anyways (and that local coverage is pretty much guaranteed (at least to remain constant), then this can't be why the season finishes early.
Local coverage does not remain constant. The Richmond Kickers will be booted to the bottom of the sports headlines (and sometimes ignored completely) when the Washington Redskins play (or practice) or it's a High School/College football night or the Atlanta Braves are doing well or NASCAR is in town or Tiger Woods wins... It's easy to see how a few of these headline events can be eliminated by finishing the season early (particually with US football).