All-Purpose, Never-Ending Soccer Thread

Alright, I took a quick look over what the schedule is and the ideas proposed here today. (Noting to myself I have zero authority to change a damn thing and would probably be placated with head nodding and "sure" until I left the office of Garber.)

With 32-games on the schedule, you can start the league the final full week of February. With this, the opening games must be in the warmer climates. The same would go for weekend 2. After this, you can look into which sections are historically still cold and possibly keep those games out of those areas.

I know I said the final week of February and we want to end the season in September. So, I have added one weeknight game per month to every team's schedule. This weeknight game can occur on a Thursday, thus providing the Soccer Thursday, and the teams that play on Thursday should be set to play on the Sunday following to allow for ample time off.

Setting it like this, I ran through week after week and found that the regular season would end in early August allowing the league to run its playoffs and MLS Cup into September.

 

Living in Manhattan is great, but they won't allow us to do Direct TV in our apartment building. No idea why.

 

Not sure if the Setanta broadband package includes the Prem. I'm debating whether to get it, but I'm not entirely impressed with the broadband schedule they have displayed for the next few weeks.

 

They picked up the French league from FSC, too. The production values for the games and the highlight show were fantastic. Also keep in mind that Setanta has the non-ESPN Champions League matches (read: the good ones) and some Euro 2008 qualifiers.

The bad part? They're jacking up the monthly cost from $11.99 to (I think) $14.99 in mid-September.

 

Crass, if you were to finish the MLS sked in September, when would hold MLS Cup?
A Thursday, and put it on ESPN?
Or would you stick with being overwhelmed on ABC on an NFL Sunday?

 

Well, I guess I would have the MLS Cup on a Saturday.

I realize that the NFL is around then, but there is no real way around it. You can't start the season too early because this just means more road games for the colder climate areas causing many of those locations to have slower starts. If you start too late, you finish the season when MLB is having their playoffs and the NFL is getting going.

I figure that if the season ends in September, you are only competing with the start of the NFL at the most. October 3rd is when the MLB Division Series begins. Just avoid the MLB playoffs and you'll at least have one less thing to worry about.

 

Ways to improve the perception of MLS:

1) Fixing the season schedule is a start. Kinda liked the Pastor's plan... Though if MLS wants to have 16 clubs, they'd be best off not playing a 32 match schedule - you'll see why in a second.
2) Don't worry about the warm climate issue. The greatest match I've ever attended was the WC qualifier in 2001 between the USA and Mexico at Crew Stadium on Feb. 28.
3) Single table format, 30-match schedule. Play everyone home-and-home. Michigan/Ohio State college football is a far, far better rivalry than Yankees/Red Sox because they only meet once a year. Playing 17 times a season kinda kills the importance of each match in a rivalry.
4) Screw the typical American "post-season" bullshit. You've got the Lamar Hunt Open Cup, play a first-division, home-and-home knockout tournament among all teams in your division (the new MLS Cup). This way, you replicate the English system and have the opportunity to win the treble (LHOC, MLS Cup, and regular season titles). Schedule's not a problem, you play the tournament matches mid-week and can have the MLS Cup done in August before the NFL season begins.
5) No more all-star games.

MLS needs to realize that it is alienating the soccer fan in this country by trying to make it like every other American league, while also falling victim to the fact the general public can't stand the sport. They're cutting off their nose to save their face, only the face is gangrenous and rotting off.

Facts are facts. Soccer's a niche sport (albeit with a fairly good sized niche). Same with NASCAR and the NHL. There's nothing wrong with that. The worst thing that happened to hockey (pre-lockout) was the damn Fox Glo-Puck. It pissed off the die-hards and failed to bring in the masses.

I think if you emulated the other leagues around the world, you'd find the true soccer fan in this country more freely embracing it (myself included) and you'd find a greater acceptance of MLS in other nations. I mean, yes, Chelsea offered up excuses for why they lost to the MLS stars, but they neglected the biggest actual reason why they got spanked: their players don't take the MLS seriously and gave a half-hearted effort. It happens, it's called playing to the level of your opponent.

Whatever.... I'll go back to disappearing for another month now.

 

Zizz, are you seriously telling me that you watch less of MLS than you would because they have divisions and playoffs? No offense, but why would that make a difference to you?

 

Playoffs = cash. They are not giving away that increased revenue.

I don't care about 1 table vs. 2 tables, because a 30 game schedule is manageable for each team in a 16 team league. Ideally, only the top two teams from each conference make the playoffs in a two-leg match with the away goals rule in effect. The following week, the MLS Cup is played.

 

I have a few comments on this:

Well, it's my plan, so I like it .

While that was a fun game, you just can't do that to teams. It isn't fair to the fans either. Right now, we know that NFL and College Football fans will come out for winter games. Soccer doesn't have that yet. End of February should be the start with the first weekend in warm climates and the second weekend moving back in the other direction.

Now, this I am opposed to. I think, in theory, a single table is fine, but it can't work here.

The reason for the two divisions is cost. The US isn't the size of England, Germany or Italy where the farthest away game is a really long bus ride or a short flight away. For NY to play in LA, we're talking about a 6-hour flight at minimum. Not only is the travel time long but it is very costly (especially so with the rising gas prices).

You play the closer teams more because it costs less to travel to and from them. Less overhead means less losses.

If you look at MLB, when teams go on road trips across the coast, they will play more than one road series at a time. The Yankees are playing Chicago after which they will go to LA. They will be back home after that, but will then travel to Boston and then fly out to Seattle and then fly to LA. So, you see that if you are going on the road, you can cut up the travel costs by throwing a stop in the middle.

The point is, the league is still growing and they don't have the type of capital that may be required to do cross country hops every week. They need to play more games at home or close by in order to keep their finances in check.

Europe has a post-season as well. They just refer to it with different names.

I don't think it is terrible to conjure up multiple cups so that there will be something to play for if you eliminate the multiple round playoffs.

Like Webster said, there is too much money in the playoffs to just have them dropped. The general fan won't grasp the idea of having multiple cups and tournaments to obtain them. The American fan understands having a "top prize" in sports, not necessarily multiple prizes.

Why? There is nothing wrong with them. They generate revenue and it enables fans to watch some of the better players.

Two things are here:
1) I don't see any reason why the "true soccer fan," as you describe here, would embrace MLS simply because it began emulating other leagues. When team names were changed, all that was repeated was how stupid MLS was for emulating other leagues and now you are saying that it will bring legitimacy. All signs point to no.

2) Chelsea didn't take MLS too lightly, they just weren't too fit and they hadn't played together enough. They took enough shots. I'm sure they didn't think the game would be as difficult as it was, but adjustments would have been made at half-time and they could have came out with new players that would shut the team down. They didn't. They lost.

 

Yes. Soccer just doesn't feel right to me under those pretenses. Right now, damn near every team makes the playoffs, so what's the point of regular season then?

While that was a fun game, you just can't do that to teams. It isn't fair to the fans either. Right now, we know that NFL and College Football fans will come out for winter games. Soccer doesn't have that yet. End of February should be the start with the first weekend in warm climates and the second weekend moving back in the other direction. Bet me. Fans in Foxboro would come out. Fans in Columbus would come out. Fans in Chicago would come out. Players are professionals, if they can't play in that type of climate, then that's their problem.

Divisional play and unbalanced schedules blow goats. The way it's set up now, Kansas City plays its geographically closest opponent (Dallas) fewer times than they play New England, while Dallas has to make two trips to LA. Do you realize everyone currently plays a home-and-home against other division teams already? You're not adding any additional cost. You're not adding a cross-country trip every week. You have four of them spaced over a seven month season. And you've got teams for the most part near major airports. It doesn't cost all that much to go from Boston to LA. That's a cop-out answer. Russia's a bigger country, and they don't use divisional play. Plus, you're travelling for one game a week. Deal with the six-hour flight.

Hence why I said "screw the typical American 'post-season' bullshit." And did you completely ignore where I said to stop catering to the American fan? Cater to the soccer fans. There's more than enough of us around.

I'm not paying a shitload of money to watch Chelsea come in and not give a rat's ass about the match. I don't want to watch guys who don't play together all year long knock a ball around. I like watching a TEAM, not individuals.

The true fan didn't flinch at naming DC United, or at FC Dallas, or at Chivas USA. The true soccer fan loathes the dopey nicknames the league first came out with (Kansas City Wiz? Dallas Burn?? WTF??? Tampa Bay Mutiny and Miami Fusion??? ARRRGGGHHH!!!!)

Look, if Joe Sixpack can't get into soccer for what it is, why should the game change for him? Be content with what you are.

 

Fans in Columbus would come out?
So what you're saying, Zizz, is that fans in Columbus don't want to attend on a 75-degree summer night, but they'll come if it's 32 degrees and snowing?
There are some things that need to be fixed about the MLS playoff structure. But having too many teams in there isn't the biggest problem. It's that there's not a sufficient reward for the team that finishes higher.
How about this: 2/3 play a home-and-away aggregate match to advance.
but 1/4 play both legs at the pitch of the division winner.

So your fourth place team gets in, but gets no home game unless it advances to the conference finals. That puts a great incentive on winning the division and treats that weakling team as it should be treated. It still gets in, but it gets no greater reward than that.
Any takers?