Often, people complain about the league not being around right now. Top reasons why MLS should start one month earlier: 1. Yes, it's cold in March - and it's also cold in October. 2. Instead of having to deal with NFL stadiums (the lines, scheduling and all that) for a little more than 2 months, it's down to one. 3. It would help the teams in the Champions Cup, as they would be already in season (even if it is only a game or 2), instead of still in preseason form. This year - it runs from April 2 to November 13. 33 weeks. They could have started (should have started) on February 26 and ended on October 9th. That's one month less of football lines, no portion of the playoffs going on at the same time as the World Series - plus, something to be talking about at this time.
One simple answer March Madness. MLS doesn't want to compete and rightfully so. Coverage on TV would be limited or non existant because ESPN shows many of the NCAA tourney games and coverage print wise would be small.
I'm looking out my window now and could give you a few pretty good reasons why we can wait until April.
1. NCAA basketball. 2. Snow is not unusual in Chicago and much of the Northeast in March. 3. The season is already seven months long.
I think starting in March would be a good thing. Honestly, the weather in the States during Dec,Jan,Feb makes it impossible to get on the 'world schedule' (although many keep insisting we need to play a Fall-Spring calendar anyway). At least by starting in March we would, as you point out, be into the season before the Champions Cup, which (for the time being) should be the international competition supreme for MLS. As far as March weather in the northern U.S., it's not great, but why can't we load the first 4 weeks of the season with southern home games (at least once more SSS's allow us more control of scheduling?) That way, bad weather shouldn't keep many fans away or affect early-season play. Finally, a season starting in late Feb/ early March would have to compete with March madness, but a season with playoffs in late October/November is contending with the baseball playoffs and NFL games with playoff significance. Either way, part of the season is screwed as far as coverage - why do we want it to be the end (playoffs & cup) rather than the first few games? It seems to me we'd want more focus on the playoffs and Cup, but even if some disagree with me it still wouldn't make THAT big of a difference. So yeah, basically I agree with you. Ideally I'd like to see us make the playoffs true one-ofs and shave a week that way, (and maybe shave another week with the all-star game too), but those are two totally different subjects - a late February/early March through late September/early October schedule would be the same length and make a lot of sense to me.
Well, April 2, MLS Opening Day, is the same day as the national semifinals. So they seem to be competing pretty heavily. Every weekend has something to compete with. So you may as well schedule what works best for you. Why start two weeks earlier (avoid snow that way) and cut back one round of Wednesday games (since they do worse than weekend games) and take one week off on an international week (like for this year, U.S.-Mexico). Leave MLS Cup where it is.
It almost never snows in October. Looking out my window right now on March 8, we have white out conditions. Andy
At that point, there are only 4 NCAA mens DIV 1 teams playing. Early March, and the number goes to 300.
Correct, that's why I said start two weeks earlier (say March 19) when there's a lot less playing and very minimal threat of snow. I'm not sure if the Women's Tournament would interfere with time slots on ESPN2 or not (the Men's Tournament is completely on CBS so that's not an issue), but if it does than it does. Maybe get the first two games on ABC in that case instead of just one (if that's possible). We schedule our championship game against the NFL, so is that not as bad as putting the first game or two against basketball? Maybe it's just because I like the NFL and could care less about college sports.
As we get more MLS teams with their own stadiums we will probably have more pressure to conform with the international calendar. But when I see the weather in NYC today, I have to say "not without a roof!" I suppose teams in Europe face days like today at this time of year, but we'd have to be well on the way to being established as a sport with a large and devoted fanbase before we played through a snow storm. Re: the oft-mentioned international calendar -- what about Norway, Sweden, Russia? Don't they play during the summer as we do? I have to admit, I would prefer a July-August break. The intense heat just destroys the game.
Hmmmm....on February 26 I was still digging out from under 12 inches of snow dumped the Sunday before. There are options around that. One is to schedule a winter break like many of the northern European leagues (Holland, Germany, Denmark, etc.) do. Another would be to borrow the concept of a split season from the Latin Americans. I'm not necessarily advocating for either one, but they are options.
I have to say: "You cannot underestimate the impact of March Madness." The first weekend is the mid-major tournaments and the season-ending rivalry matches, i.e. Kansas/Missouri, North Carolina/Duke. Second weekend? Major conference tournaments. Third weekend? First week of NCAA - coverage Thursday-Sunday with teams from all regions playing in all regions. The difference between the first weekend of the NCAA tournament and the last weekend is that at most, four markets in an 11 market league will be impacted. Let's look at the opening weekend this year and see how many markets have college teams in the tournament. In addition to the issues with television coverage, putting games against these events puts attendance in competition with them. It also makes the competition for media coverage - p.r., column inches in newspaper, time on TV - more difficult to come by. The other point that hasn't been mention: If you consider the "family market" an important demographic for the league to be targeting, there's the small matter of Spring Break, which means that families travelling at that time could be out of town for two weekends and very likely miss at least one home game. Plus, an April start is more aligned with the beginning of outdoor seasons in the U.S. It's difficult to build soccer's presence in parents minds when the kids are playing winter basketball or hockey. Another consideration is what impact moving the season start up would have on marketing sales operations. We'd have to turn to some of the team sales reps to see how effective they think they could be selling earlier in the year. There's also the matter of timing season ticket drives and communications, plus moving up the draft and training camps.
I'd like to see MLS start its season in mid-March and have MLS Cup in late September before the NFL gets into full swing and baseball has its playoffs. Whatever effect March Madness might have on MLS attendance and publicity, it pales in comparison to the extent MLS is overshadowed by the NFL in October & November. Starting MLS play in March would certainly not be anything new. In its first 10 years, MLS has started regular season play in March five times: Year....Opening Day 1996.....April 6 1997.....March 22 1998.....March 15 1999.....March 20 2000.....March 18 2001.....April 7 2002.....March 23 2003.....April 5 2004.....April 3 2005.....April 2
So start in February? How many deaths have been reported due to soccer being played after/during it snowing. I could have swore I saw snow in both English and French games this weekend. Escaping the shadow of NCAA & NFL football is my biggest wish whatever the cost. The league going dark on ESPN2 each fall and getting only a couple of standard cable playoff telecasts is a big problem. It's the time when exposure needs to be the greatest IMO. It'll be some time before MLS can challenge football in much of any way. I'd rather go up against baseball. But no easy answer here. Getting teams their own venues is the first step in getting the flexibility to find a better way.
And Brazil's national leagues play from April through November. (Of course, that's the Southern Hempishere, so most of the national season avoids the hottest months of the year. But the state leagues are usually played during part of the summer.)
The international calendar is simply a list of dates on which national teams can call up players for international games. It says nothing about playing a fall-spring schedule, that's just a big myth. I'd prefer a world-wide June break, which in even years would have World Cups and continental championships, and in odd years have a group of international games (which should reduce the number of in-season Wednesday internationals, which are especially tough for U.S. internationals playing in Europe).
Taking out the snow factor, NCAA basketball pales in comparison to the NFL, doesn't it? I would much rather see white snow on the field than gridiron lines that make everything hard to see, which is in yellow. Second, I wasn't talking about making the season longer. I was talking about shifting the calendar up by about five weeks.
There'll be snow on the ground for tonight's DC United vs Harbour View CCC match. (Unless they've cleared it, I have no idea.) Tune in to FSC if you want to see how playing in March would pan out. Frankly, I don't know. As a fan it might be fun, like NFL playoffs.
Yes, we do have an opposite season compared to the rest of Europe. But then again, we do have a summer break.
It's not simply average temperature. The weather conditions are simply harsher in late winter/early spring than in late fall in many MLS cities. Virtually no one will attend an MLS match in snow. There aren't enough season ticket holders in most cities and the tickets are relatively inexpensive enough and games plentiful enough that even if you have to eat one game's worth, it isn't the end of the world. And walkup would be virtually nonexistant. I'm sure somebody would attend. But the league has enough problems on nice-weather Wednesday nights. A Saturday that is cold and wet or snowing (or all three) would be nothing but miserable for all involved, and would not be worthy of attending, worthy of putting on television, or worthy of playing in. But, hey, don't let the facts and common sense stop ya.