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

I think soccer has become a summer sport in the US and I don't see people in Nashville and Charlotte turning out in 30 degree weather because they're considered to be in a warmer clime.

 

1. Soccer is nicer to watch in pleasant weather, cool evenings after warm days are my favorite times to go to games.
2. I don't see why we have to be in sync with other leagues.
3. I like not being in sync. Just as the Euro leagues start to drag, we are hitting play-offs. Just as our league starts to settle in, they are in Champions League finals and cup finals, etc... I like the contrast.
4. I do agree, competing with football is a problem, and so is deteriorating weather for the most important games, but this is not worth changing on it's own. For one thing, if you have your final in early June, you are giving up the best weather for attending games for the 26 teams that are not in the final.

 

I agree (although this really could be said about any sport). That is why I have pointed out games would continue to be played from Mar-Dec, as they are now. The weather should not be a factor at all.

I don't think this is a big point but I think there are two obvious benefits. First, a large number of soccer fans are expecting finals to be in May/June. I know you prefer it the other way, but there are still more people watching Euro soccer in the US than MLS, it's important to try to get them invested as well. No one is thinking about soccer finals in October but the already converted, even most US soccer fans are probably focused on football. For casual fans or non-MLS fans who tune into CL finals, they will be 100% more likely to tune to MLS finals if its the same day or shortly after, not 6 months later in October at the same time as 6 NFL games. The second point is with respect to transfers and the summer tournaments. Just look at Martinez, bouncing to Saudi Arabia in the middle of the season. The league doesn't seem serious when its normal for transfers to happen in the middle of the season and when all the best international players are out for a month in the middle of the season. I'm sure we could buy cheaper and sell higher if our regular business window was summer - its a bigger market, more buyers and sellers. On their own I agree these may not merit shifting the entire schedule, but they are big benefits while there are basically none for being unaligned with the worlds major soccer markets.

I'm not sure what your basis for this statement is. In fact, I would think ensuring we do not compete with the largest sport in the country for air time during the most important part of the season should be the primary consideration for scheduling. With SSS now common, scheduling is dictated by TV and when the most viewers are likely to tune in. That is not in the fall during CFB and NFL.

I don't think this is correct. That is the point of the summer tournament featuring all teams in the US soccer pyramid. You can make this tournament as big or as extensive as you want in order to game fill slots. I would think the early stages start in line with the MLS playoffs and then goes through the rest of June. More games than usual in fact in May and June and I think this would be a big boost for the lower league clubs who get to take part. Keep in mind there is plenty of soccer on in May and June, the point of the tournament would just be to have teams playing here so fans have matches to attend. It will be easy to have these games back world cup/gold cup/ nations league etc games going on during the summer. I think this is a standalone idea and should be implanted even without switching from spring/fall to fall/spring.

So in summary:

• All matches between Mar and Dec for weather related reasons.
• A fall to spring schedule to avoid NFL/CFB during playoff time
• A summer domestic cup to ensure local games for fans throughout summer offseason

 

I have been reading this a lot lately. Did I miss a decade of MLS clubs building domed stadiums? The two domed fields I can think of under ownership control are Vancouver and Atlanta - you can play outdoors in December in both those regions.

A Fall-Spring schedule only works from a competitive balance and attendance perspective if your winter break is all of Dec/Jan and the first three weeks of February.

 

Which is pretty much identical to the offseason break the league already takes. Again, every plan seems to be really "call the middle of the season the beginning of the season and the beginning of the season the end of the season". Then magic happens and all of a sudden MLS is better....

 

No, there aren't many domed stadiums, just Vancouver and Atlanta. Didn't realise VC was playable in winter so I guess the domed thing is mostly meaningless.

On your second point, so you are looking at a 11 week break in winter. I think my proposal was all of Jan and Feb off, so 8 weeks. I don't think the 3 weeks is a big gap and that's why I mentioned warm climates and domed teams would have relatively more games at the end and the beginning of the calendar year, while colder climates would have their home games loaded more toward summer and fall. For an extra 3 weeks of play in cold climates, you would need half the teams to be able to play say 3 weeks straight at home in Dec or Feb. I don't think that will end up being a big issue, Feb or Dec is actually preferable in some really warm markets and the point isn't to avoid the cold entirely, just a massive snowstorm or desperate conditions that put off attendance.

I do not think the winter break needs to come at the exact midpoint of the season though. I think its acceptable to have say 2/3 of regular season done by the break, with 1/3rd and playoffs (plus summer tournament) in the next year.

 

It's not magic, the point has been explained several times and you just waive them away as no big deal.

1. Do not have the playoffs competing against CFB/NFL. Period. This is probably the number one thing that can be done to improve interest in the league. Every North American league, the playoffs is the time to shine. Yet the vast majority of sports fans, even soccer fans, are not going to bump their CFB/NFL game for an MLS playoff game. That's the truth. The schedule must accommodate this fact and this is the primary reason for the change. You want better players, you need better TV deals, better ratings, and more people interested in the game. The league does itself no favours by forcing people to choose between its playoffs and CFB/NFL and then MLB playoffs on top of that.

2. Transfer business should be done during the summer, when the league is not playing and in between seasons. This is when the market is most active, with more buyers and sellers and as a result the ability to get better deals in the market. International breaks, including the month in summer for WC, etc. should be respected. It's a joke playing league games when internationals are out, or trying to do big transfer business in the middle of the season. This isn't a huge benefit, and along should not shift the schedule, but its a real benefit. Better alignment with the FIFA windows is always going to be a positive as well for the national team.

3. Summer tournament I think is a great idea and this makes room for one. This is a bit separate from the scheduling thing through.

4. Yes, the offseason would be nearly identical to what we do now. The problem with the current system is not the break in winter.

 

Yes, I think they will be. Every soccer fan knows come may or april all of the big games are being played in Europe. It's a great time for soccer fans, Champions league games at 3pm, CL final on the weekend. If you put MLS playoff games backing those games, you would absolutely get a lot more soccer fans to tune in. You think my dad goes looking for random leagues to watch? No, the champions league match finishes and he hits the guide button to see what other soccer is on. But in the fall he is watching American Football, not checking the guide for soccer games.

The NBA Playoffs and the Stanley Cup playoffs are fine, you can schedule around them! That's the thing about playoffs, there are not games every single night, and even in the early rounds there are entire weekend days where no basketball or hockey before 3pm. With football, you are competing against the regular season. Games all day saturday and sunday, and monday and thursday nights. This is much much harder to schedule around and football draws a much larger audience than basketball or hockey, so you are loosing a lot more potential fans to the conflict. Neither will be perfect, but you will have the occasional conflict with a much smaller sport in a revised schedule, rather than having almost every game with a conflict (except friday nights) if the playoffs are in fall.

The point is to get more eyes on the playoffs and also to ensure fans can follow the playoffs, this is the most important time of the year and its when you can get the city and casual bandwagon fans on board. Don't make them choose between MLS and football. I do not think the current scheduling does anything to drive attendance and really hurts TV ratings and interest in the playoffs and as a result the league as a whole. It's entirely driven by trying to get games into a summer window when nothing else is on, ignoring that you can have a tournament at the same time in the summer which will probably draw ratings equivalent or better to regular season games and will give fans plenty of matches to attend (also a huge boost for lower league teams but thats a separate topic).

 

I do in fact watch the Stanley Cup Playoffs (my team is still in!) and if you read my post you would see I said no games on weekends before 3pm. Yes there are some nooners in there, but those are the unavoidable conflicts I mentioned. NBA is similar, most weekend playoff games start kicking off around 2/3 if they are early, I do not recall any recent nooners.

Not to mention, it's MUCH more preferable to have to compete against Hockey, or even Basketball, than the NFL. Look at viewership numbers, even the playoffs don't approach regular season NFL game numbers. If we do have to compete with one (and I don't think that's the case, there is plenty of time to schedule in between NFL and NBA playoff games, particularly if you have 1pm kickoffs on weekends. It won't be perfect, but its way better than fall where 2 week nights and every single weekend from noon you are competing against the most popular sport in the country.

I agree, the idea is more eyes period. But you have things fundamentally backward, in north American sports the draw is the playoffs (thats why MLS has them) not the regular season. In fact, you want the playoffs to be the time of the year with most exposure, not the regular season. Every league broadcasts this vocally, its common knowledge among fans of just about every major sport, the playoffs are the time you want attention on your league, so put that when it gets the most attention.

This also seems like a tacit admission that most attention will come to the MLS in spring and summer. Which is the exactly point I'm making above.

I agree they should play on Friday nights but trying to run a whole playoffs shoehorning games into Friday and Tuesday nights is not serious. At least in the spring you have all weekend before about 3pm, and if you must compete with other sports, they are much less popular sports. What is the business model in the scheduling? The only point of the schedule is to have domestic soccer during the summer when nothing else is on. That can be done outside of the season with a domestic tournament , and will ensure the biggest games (playoffs and finals) are also in the best time of the year for soccer viewing. Quantity and Quality.

Sure, but this will be fewer conflicts because games can be played both weekend days before 3 with no conflicts, and because there are fewer playoff games (by nature) in NHL and NBA than there are football games during its regular season (games from noon to midnight, both days, plus media). So yes there will still be conflicts but this will do a lot to reduce them, there are many more conflict free windows in fact. Second point is its obviously better to compete with less popular sports than more popular sports, obviously. I can get most of my friends to ditch the NHL finals for a good soccer game. But they aren't ditching NFL for ANY soccer game. This is the reality of most Americans, the priority should clearly be avoiding football, not hockey or basketball.

I think this is my point. There are some people like that, prefer Hockey or BB playoffs to soccer. They are much much fewer in number than people who prefer football to soccer. Again, its andedotal but among all my friends, there are a few who would certainly ditch MLS to see NBA finals (and one or two who would do it for NHL). All of them would do it for CFB or NFL though. That's the issue.

In fact, my non-soccer friends who get into soccer almost always get into Euro soccer. Not because they are hipsters or they want to watch the best, but because the games are on in the morning so they can easily watch when they have nothing else to do. MLS? Well when I can get non-soccer fans to MLS games they are usually meaningless games in the spring and we go to drink, they have no interest in the team and even other fans will tell them the game isn't that important. Fun time but that's not what gets new people invested. When our MLS team goes on a good playoff run its not covered, because Pro/College and HIGH SCHOOL football will dominate all media, except baseball playoffs.

You have to give sports fans in this country a chance to get into MLS, and that doesn't happen when people need to stop watching the most popular sport in the country to watch your playoffs. I'll also note that at least in my area (lots of hispanics), hockey and even basketball are literally not competition. It's football and to a much lesser extent baseball.

COVID has changed everything. The MLS really needs to look at picking up its TV revenues and this would actually be one of the easier and cheaper ways to get some positive movement there. The MLS just ran an entire summer tournament, MLS is Back, so a domestic one over the summer should be much more appealing. The calendar is already screwed up so in fact its the first time for a change. I usually let this issue lie because I agree, we shouldn't be making big adjustments to format every few years or on a whim. But this is an unprecedented time and quite frankly the best time for the league to do this.

 

I totally agree man, but the proposed fall to spring switch would not put games in Jan or Feb, so it's really no different than the current format in terms of dealing with the weather.

I'm a huge soccer fan but I'm not missing gameday for my college team because the MLS playoffs are on. Even when tempted, the idea of sitting at home alone watching (because everyone else is at football) ensures I will just go to the football game with friends. I would bet this is the case for the vast majority of American sports fans between 18 and 40. In all seriousness, I could get most of my friends to sit in the snow for a soccer game before I could get them to miss a game for our CFB team.

 

Never mind January and February, you can't play in December either. Remember the MLS Cup final in Toronto?

You could have a split season but with 26-30 teams its difficult to come up with anything sensible.

 

Maybe not in Toronto, which is why we wouldn't schedule Toronto (or New England, or Montreal or Minnesota) in December. I think at least half the teams are in playable climes in December. Even if there is a blizzard, Minnesota still had 30k fans in the door so the assumption that cold weather will destroy attendance isn't as solid as many think. It's not going to be perfect of course, there will be cold crappy weather at a lot of Nov/Dec games, but it beats having your final in cold crappy weather (imagine working all season to play the final game in those conditions). Personally, there are a number of teams that are probably more appealing in December than say July (Miami, Houston, Orlando).

 

College football has games on Friday night.

 

I don't think they would. These Friday night "low-interest" college games get 500k-800k viewers, almost twice what a MLS playoff game would expect (400k). Compare that to the first round of the NHL playoffs which averaged 630k per game. ESPN and Fox run CFB on Friday night on FS1 and ESPN2, in addition to MLB playoffs which will also conflict with Friday nights in October. Fall is just not a good time.

https://www.sportsmediawatch.com/college-football-tv-ratings/

And yes, there is still a conflict with NHL and Basketball in the spring, but look at the numbers. OSU-Mich drew 12 million viewers, Bama-LSU 16 million... a good NHL playoff game will be 1.5 million. Every person watching another sport is someone who won't be watching the MLS... you absolutely do not want to compete in the fall where almost every weekend you have multiple CFB games pulling 5-10 million viewers, and then the NFL even more all day Sunday. Even a friday night game between Fresno State and SDSU is probably more competition for soccer than your average early NHL playoff game.

 

Except it is a big issue. You would be asking cold weather teams to play 3 matches on the road then off on an 8 week hiatus then another 2-3 weeks on the road - All so Montreal, Toronto, New England, Philly etc don’t play regular season home matches in Nov, Dec, Jan and Feb.
First the Technical Director’s, GM’s and coaches would never go for it. Secondly, and most importantly, the fans would end the experiment after year 1. I’ve been a season ticket holder for Toronto FC since the beginning. If they ever switched to Fall-Spring I would cease to be one. Same goes for most supporters that I know in Section 109.

 

Happy second week in November!

 

Indeed, it is now the first week of December and MLS is still playing, in cold climates. Not only that, it is playing its most important games of the year, in the first week in December, in cold climates. Which would suggest that in fact, soccer can be played through the first week of December. So there is really nothing radical about switching the calendar here, in both calendars, games are played in the first week of December!

Now look at the TV ratings. You know, what will actually drive the sort of revenue that will enable the league to improve in quality. Competing against football this year, not great. The best game was, surprise, a Thursday night game when there was no football on and MLS filled the time slot. It's suicide to have a playoff competing against football on Saturday and Sunday.

Have them in May and June, when there are fewer competing events on tv every weekend and the weather is better than in November and December.

 

Of course what's different about 2020, something that's rather significant to this argument, that you're just willingly leaving out to try to make your point? There's something...I can't quite put my finger on it....

Oh, right. No fans allowed (or minimal fans at most). Because that's the big problem with playing through the winter, getting people to sit out in cold climate for mid-season games and not playoff matches.

 

That's right. Because of games being played in Orlando, Columbus, KC and Seattle in 2020, we can extrapolate that the whole country will be playable in December ad infinitum.

Never mind that we've just gone through one the warmest November's on record and that's continued into December.

 

Of course its playable in December, soccer can be played in the snow. I agree its not the preference, but the argument here isn't about playing in November or December. The argument is that playing in November and December sucks, because of the weather and because it competes against football on TV, so put regular season games in November and December and not the playoffs.

I also pointed out you can easily schedule to minimise (not completely avoid obviously but minimise) the number of cold climates games in colder months. Most of the warmer regions would probably prefer games in the colder months than in August and Sept.

 

Yea I agree and that is why I think you try to schedule around this as much as possible, there are enough warmer league teams that would probably prefer to play in Mar and Nov at home and let New England etc have the bulk of their home games during the middle of summer.

I do see your point about minimising the number of games in cold months for fans by sticking the playoffs during the cold months, but this is also football season. MLS playoffs have been hit by terrible weather before, it doesn't air well when football is in full swing. Why have playoffs in that case? They aren't even getting much better ratings than regular season games? For the league to grow it needs a huge TV deal, and that is much easier when you have your playoffs in places with airtime to fill and not on sundays during football season.