Wynalda wants MLS to change it's season to match rest of world...

Meh. Either way it's snow.

 

And those celebrations are muted a bit by the effort to come up with new reasons not to like and attend MLS games

 

But we might get to 60 tomorrow. Though Chicago seems to be heading back to fighting with the freezing line (32 F).

I would be real interested if MLS put out a survey which asks 3-5 questions.

1) Have you ever been to an MLS match?
...a) How many MLS games have you gone to in the past 3 years?
...b) Are you/ have you been a season ticket holder?
2) How far is the closest MLS market to where you currently live?
3) Do you want MLS to switch to a western european calendar?

They might have to hide the fact that it is MLS asking the questions and add superfluous questions because soccer surveys in this country tend to get co-opted by people with a cause. The Fire had a survey intended for local fans about the experience with the club and I heard from someone within the club that it essentially became useless because there were a significant amount responses from people out of town and they didn't know if they were Fire fans/customers or not.

I suspect those that answer no to question 1 and/or put less than 5 for 1a will say yes to question 3.

 

The survey could ask people for their zip code. People could hypothetically make up a zip code to make the survey inaccurate, but that's unlikely. Because traffic matters, how easy it is to get to an MLS game shouldn't measured just by distance. By asking for zip codes, teams could make their own estimates of travel time from each zip code. It's possible to have a person in Brooklyn living closer to Red Bull Arena than a person in New Jersey, but the person in Brooklyn would need two bridges and/or tunnels. Furthermore, if you ask a person how far he is from the nearest MLS market, he may guess the distance and be wrong, or he may go by the distance to the center of a city without realizing what suburb the club plays in. I can't prove this, but I'm guessing that people getting directions from their phones would make them make less accurate estimates of distances to places they go to regularly compared to how people would estimate ten years ago.

 

A survey like this most certainly came to me from MLS over the last 12+ months and it appeared to have been directed at verified season ticket holders.

 

The reason I think that survey would be interesting if it could go out to beyond MLS fans/season ticket holders is to see if opinions on how MLS should comply to western european calendar is based on how much or how little MLS someone attends. I don't think switching to a different calendar will make them go to any more games.

I think there are limitations based on people being able to afford to go to games or distance having to travel to see a game, but the data that you could gather would probably be constructive. I think the responses could differ significantly if you go to more than a handful of MLS matches a year or can't/won't go to a game.

I live in Northern VA and I went to 8 DC games last year, 1 Fire home game, and made it to Seattle game when I was traveling. My opinion is going to be different than someone living in Arizona or Carolina who doesn't have the same ease/ability to see a game.

 

Russia has a longer winter break than actual offseason right? No reason that couldn't work here

 

It hasn't worked in Russia with attendances a plummeting as a result. It's quite possible they will return to a summer schedule after the World Cup. See the link I posted earlier.

 

What's the point then?

 

This is why switching the calendar simply to say we switched is stupid.

 

Except that it's absurd. IMO, it destroys the integrity of a single season.

Ideally, most new signings should happen in the offseason. In odd-numbered years when there isn't a World Cup or European Championship extending the offseason, the Russian midseason break has been up to four months long, while the actual offseason is three or four weeks. The Danish league has a similar schedule. In those circumstances, a true preseason camp with a large number of new signings and trialists can only happen in the midseason break. Not surprisingly, a club's squad for the second half of each season almost always resembles the first half of the following season much more than it resembles the squad for the first half of the same season.

 

Well, there's *one* way you could make it work here. Two seasons like some leagues do. The final competition comes from the top placed teams in each half of the season. A number of the minor league baseball playoffs work that way. Don't play from bowl season (mid-Dec) through early March. Like now. Playoffs in June/July. Short break and pick up the new season in Early August.

I don't think we should do that--but it is feasible and fits with our market.

 

But then MLS won't be taken seriously until there's a single season

 

What? Another road block? First it's "MLS won't be taken seriously until we play a European schedule". Next, it's "MLS won't be taken seriously until we play a single season". What's next? MLS won't be taken seriously until all teams are within a 3- hour bus ride from each other? Or MLS won't be taken seriously until New York has 5 teams and LA has 5 teams in a 10 team league?

 

From the Deloitte report

'However, soccer is now full of examples of effective regulation controlling costs (as is common in US sports), such as UEFA’s Financial Fair Play regulations.'

The only real problem for MLS in not conforming to the mythical FIFA calendar, which is not used in most areas with extreme winters (and may be abandoned in Russia), is the international week in November that screws up the playoffs.

 

I like when MLS plays, but MLS playing during the World Cup (and other summer national team tournaments) is another negative.

 

Isn't it down to the teams to decide, as in the English Football League?

 

Yes, but if MLS didn't play during the World Cup (I'm not suggesting a season change, I'm just giving a hypothetical), clubs wouldn't have to decide between playing weekends during the World Cup or playing more midweek games.

 

The league does shut down for the group stage. The option is on other Fifa dates.

 

Most of the group stage this year. MLS has no league games from June 14-22 but the World Cup group stage goes until June 28. That is a change from 2014 when MLS shut down for the entire group stage.

 

Well, the main reason is that there is far less of a need to do so.... Sadly.

 

Out of curiosity, does anyone have a decent estimate of how many MLS players will be playing in the World Cup?

 

There's a list of 2017 call-ups at https://www.mlssoccer.com/international-call-ups/2017
You just have to map the players to qualified teams.