Grizzly Posted August 9, 2013 Share Posted August 9, 2013 Garber is now planning a 24 team league by 2020. http://www.mlssoccer.com/news/article/2013/07/31/major-league-soccer-expand-24-teams-2020-season-says-commissioner-don-garber Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Unnamed Trialist Posted August 9, 2013 Share Posted August 9, 2013 Garber is now planning a 24 team league by 2020. http://www.mlssoccer.com/news/article/2013/07/31/major-league-soccer-expand-24-teams-2020-season-says-commissioner-don-garber Thanks for the link. Like many here I have mixed feelings about this. 20 is ideal for a balanced schedule, which I feel is pretty important. And two even divisions, if we have to have them. With 24 pretty well any combination is a real mess for scheduling a proper season. With more respect for FIFA dates and ConcaChampions, Open and Voyageurs Cups, you don't have that many more free dates in the season to add more games to a full 38 game schedule. Second, before anything they should probably look at longstanding poor attendance and shuffle franchises around before adding more. Chivas does not add much, in retrospect, in geographic or ethnographic terms, so move it before adding more teams. The contrasting opinion says that we want the league to expand so that the sport will grow, awry schedules do not matter too much. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
narduch Posted August 9, 2013 Share Posted August 9, 2013 I actually don't mind if they expand, even as high as 30, as long as there are markets that can support teams and that the talent level can still continue to improve. The play in this league is way better today than it was in 2007 when TFC joined, and the league has gone from 13 to 19 teams in that time span. As for a balanced schedule, I think that is dead. The league seems to be married to a 34 game regular season schedule. My guess is when they hit 24 teams you will play each team in your conference 2 times (22 games) and each team in the other conference once (12 games). That makes a 34 game schedule. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ivan Posted August 9, 2013 Share Posted August 9, 2013 ^ Agree with most of this except I think it should stop at 24 (I had the same schedule idea). Wish one of the new teams were to be Canadian, but can't see it happening unless Calgary can get their **** together. Too bad Ottawa gave their support to the CFL guys and not Melnyk. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trillium Posted August 9, 2013 Share Posted August 9, 2013 ^ Agree with most of this except I think it should stop at 24 (I had the same schedule idea). Wish one of the new teams were to be Canadian, but can't see it happening unless Calgary can get their **** together. Too bad Ottawa gave their support to the CFL guys and not Melnyk. Ottawa will have a MLS quality stadium, if the CFL franchise does not light up the city it will be gone by 2017 ( after four years ) leaving the only Ottawa summer professional sport a NASL league soccer club, which if they draw 4k to 6k average attendance a move to MLS with a Melnyk ownership group or some other combination of ownership etc. would give a solid base to brining in MLS soccer. Montreal used to average 8k or so in NASL with occasionaly sell outs in a 12k stadia, the move to MLS brought the numbers up by double, Ottawa is a better per capita income market that might be able to sustain ticket pricing a touch higher then Montreal making the number of fans at games be less by a factor of 10 or 15% ( although I would rather see them price to full sell outs and have lots of lower priced seating ). Ottawa's big challenge will be if the current OSEG ownership group can figure out who they want to market the game to and then look and see if anyone else in North America has been successfull marketing pro soccer at the NASL to the identified demographic. With an open tryout ...annouced for November 20 and 21 .. it should be interesting to see who the Fury look to sign. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oranje Posted August 9, 2013 Share Posted August 9, 2013 I was thinking more of an NHL setup with divisions and conferences. Assuming the 4 teams go to Orlando, Miami, Atlanta and NYC III that would give the MLS 5 in the south (6 if they moved Chivas to San Antonio?) 5 on the West, 5 Centrally, but 8 on the East. All hypothetical based on who the expansion teams are, however focusing the majority of the games inter-devision would limit travel expenses (save for those in the central division) and ware on players and naturally build rivalries. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
youllneverwalkalone Posted August 9, 2013 Share Posted August 9, 2013 Thanks for the link. Like many here I have mixed feelings about this. 20 is ideal for a balanced schedule, which I feel is pretty important. And two even divisions, if we have to have them. With 24 pretty well any combination is a real mess for scheduling a proper season. With more respect for FIFA dates and ConcaChampions, Open and Voyageurs Cups, you don't have that many more free dates in the season to add more games to a full 38 game schedule. Second, before anything they should probably look at longstanding poor attendance and shuffle franchises around before adding more. Chivas does not add much, in retrospect, in geographic or ethnographic terms, so move it before adding more teams. The contrasting opinion says that we want the league to expand so that the sport will grow, awry schedules do not matter too much. I think 24 will work quite well for the league, and the Caps. 12 clubs in each conference gives you 22 conference matches, home and away. That leaves 12 matches against the other conference, for our current 34 match schedule. The inequity in the Cascadia Cup will be eliminated and we'll have 1500 travelling supporters to all matches, as it should be. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Macksam Posted August 9, 2013 Share Posted August 9, 2013 Garber is now planning a 24 team league by 2020. http://www.mlssoccer.com/news/article/2013/07/31/major-league-soccer-expand-24-teams-2020-season-says-commissioner-don-garber He's said 24 teams for some time now by that year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Unnamed Trialist Posted August 9, 2013 Share Posted August 9, 2013 Hey narduch and YNWA, you are missing one thing. I did the math on exactly that kind of schedule too, home and away in your division, only once in the other, 34 games. Like now, only that now it is NOT balanced. Makes no sense to say that hey, in 7 years it will make sense, because they don't give a damn about it making sense now. When there are 20 teams what will you play, home and away, balanced, 38 games? How about when there are 21 ,or 22, 23, what kind of schedule? Unbalanced just like now most likely. No, get the logic: we are going to stay with our totally incoherent commitment to 34 games a season for now and for the rest of the decade, so we can do it in a "sensible" way in 2020. Sensible meaning fans don't see half of those teams. Meaning its a crap shoot as some teams will get the easy ones at home and others will get the hard ones away. Sensible meaning if the best team or the player fans most want to see happens to be in the other division and you don't get them at home that season, well just tough luck. Better luck in 2021. As David Byrne wrote in Girlfriend is Better (Stop Making Sense): "we're being taken for a ride again" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tmcmurph Posted August 9, 2013 Share Posted August 9, 2013 As I've said in the past they are going the NFL route. They will use the geography of North America as the reason (and it is a reasonable justification). With 2 leagues (conferences, whatever you want to call it) you can get a lot more teams and if you think they are going to leave a half billion in franchise fees on the table you are crazy. They will have 2 leagues with 1 game against each team in the other league and 2 against each team in their league. That will give them the same amount as now just dropping from 3 a year to 2 a year against same league opponents. I don't think they will ever do more than lip service to FIFA dates. I've always preferred a fully interlocking schedule but no way are they walking away from that type of money. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Unnamed Trialist Posted August 9, 2013 Share Posted August 9, 2013 As I've said in the past they are going the NFL route. They will use the geography of North America as the reason (and it is a reasonable justification). With 2 leagues (conferences, whatever you want to call it) you can get a lot more teams and if you think they are going to leave a half billion in franchise fees on the table you are crazy. They will have 2 leagues with 1 game against each team in the other league and 2 against each team in their league. That will give them the same amount as now just dropping from 3 a year to 2 a year against same league opponents. I don't think they will ever do more than lip service to FIFA dates. I've always preferred a fully interlocking schedule but no way are they walking away from that type of money. No, for sure you are right, both the franchise money and the expansion of tv rights, greater merchandising, more regional rivalries, all of it. Expanding soccer in North America, why hold back? All I am saying is this: stop with the talk of the schedule making sense. It does not. On top of that, who wants to bet me that by 2020 the MLS will not be talking about MORE than 24 teams? I'll put money on that. By the very logic of expansion as you describe it they will push for more if they can, fine. But enough of this "reasoning" 24 teams as "logical" for a certain scheduling formula, since when it does come it will probably last 2 or 3 seasons tops anyways. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
youllneverwalkalone Posted August 9, 2013 Share Posted August 9, 2013 Hey narduch and YNWA, you are missing one thing. I did the math on exactly that kind of schedule too, home and away in your division, only once in the other, 34 games. Like now, only that now it is NOT balanced. Makes no sense to say that hey, in 7 years it will make sense, because they don't give a damn about it making sense now. When there are 20 teams what will you play, home and away, balanced, 38 games? How about when there are 21 ,or 22, 23, what kind of schedule? Unbalanced just like now most likely. No, get the logic: we are going to stay with our totally incoherent commitment to 34 games a season for now and for the rest of the decade, so we can do it in a "sensible" way in 2020. Sensible meaning fans don't see half of those teams. Meaning its a crap shoot as some teams will get the easy ones at home and others will get the hard ones away. Sensible meaning if the best team or the player fans most want to see happens to be in the other division and you don't get them at home that season, well just tough luck. Better luck in 2021. As David Byrne wrote in Girlfriend is Better (Stop Making Sense): "we're being taken for a ride again" Personally, I'm not too worried about it. The balanced schedule was only in place for one season that I can recall -2011- and there still wasn't a single table. There's no way it's coming back, certainly not with 24 clubs. We have a great chance to see one or both of our Eastern rivals in the Vs Cup, so that's taken care of. I don't care about NYCFC. The MLS Cup is the still the trophy that the league is shooting for, so the future format will also ensure that playoff qualification is fair. Currently, we could draw two away matches against the top 2-3 sides in the West and we'd be in trouble. As such, I'd like to think of it as a balance schedule -at least for competitive purposes. If you're saying we should cap the league at 20 clubs and play a single table well, yes, I suppose that would be ideal. Might as well add promotion/relegation while we're at it. But these options were never on the table with Garber. He's pursuing an NFL/NHL/NBA model to maximize TV revenue. Given that the lowly NHL is getting around $300m annually, MLS could really start to get competitive with this kind of cash. I think the BPL deal is "only" about $1-1.5b, with Euro leagues surely far behind this. TV is going to dictate that we'll end up with something pretty wonky by European standards for the table. In the end, a two conference single table might not look so bad! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Redcoatsforever Posted August 10, 2013 Share Posted August 10, 2013 The end game for MLS ought to be 32 clubs with 16 in each conference. Then they can have a balanced schedule with no inter-conference play, they can give the Eastern and Western Championships to the conference table winners, and having the east and west conferences play off to be the overall league champions in the postseason will actually make sense. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Macksam Posted August 10, 2013 Share Posted August 10, 2013 The end game for MLS ought to be 32 clubs with 16 in each conference. Then they can have a balanced schedule with no inter-conference play, they can give the Eastern and Western Championships to the conference table winners, and having the east and west conferences play off to be the overall league champions in the postseason will actually make sense. QFT. Possibly 36 teams if they want to keep a 34 game regular season. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Redcoatsforever Posted August 14, 2013 Share Posted August 14, 2013 QFT. Possibly 36 teams if they want to keep a 34 game regular season. I figured dropping two regular season matches would make sense, because with 32 clubs, at least 16 will be in the playoffs, meaning they'll be running longer than now. A smaller schedule also allows more room for expanding US Open and Voyageur's Cups as the second division in both countries expands, too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
youllneverwalkalone Posted August 14, 2013 Share Posted August 14, 2013 32 clubs would mean 30 games in the scenario discussed above. I'm fine with that, particularly if the playoffs were a Euro style 4 groups of 4 tourney. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Unnamed Trialist Posted August 14, 2013 Share Posted August 14, 2013 So many teams, you guys are screwin with my mind. But hey, I'll go with it. What is the playoff set up going to be with 24, 28 and 32 teams and will it increase or decrease TFC's chance of making them? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
narduch Posted August 14, 2013 Share Posted August 14, 2013 So many teams, you guys are screwin with my mind. But hey, I'll go with it. What is the playoff set up going to be with 24, 28 and 32 teams and will it increase or decrease TFC's chance of making them? I predict they will go to a 16 team playoff eventually when the league gets big enough (like the NHL and NBA). This use to be a leauge where 8 of 12 teams make the playoffs. Right now only 10 of 19 do (and I assume 10 of 20 when NYCFC joins). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Macksam Posted August 14, 2013 Share Posted August 14, 2013 I figured dropping two regular season matches would make sense, because with 32 clubs, at least 16 will be in the playoffs, meaning they'll be running longer than now. A smaller schedule also allows more room for expanding US Open and Voyageur's Cups as the second division in both countries expands, too. Yeah, it would make sense to drop the number of games to accommodate a 16 team, home and home playoff like the UEFA CL. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ironcub14 Posted August 30, 2013 Share Posted August 30, 2013 24 teams max please. Any more, and MLS will turn into a global laughingstock. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
youllneverwalkalone Posted August 30, 2013 Share Posted August 30, 2013 Or Europe will need to form their long discussed Super League to compete. Gordon Strachan predicts 38 clubs. What a wanker! http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/celtic/9985432/Celtic-and-Rangers-will-join-European-super-league-says-Scotland-manager-Gordon-Strachan.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BringBackTheBlizzard Posted September 1, 2013 Share Posted September 1, 2013 Much the same was being predicted 10 years ago. I seriously doubt anything radical will happen on that timescale. What do the top English, Spanish, Italian and German clubs have to gain financially by moving away from the current setup, which is very much rigged in their favour? Clubs like Celtic and Ajax, who at one time could aspire to winning the European Cup at the start of the season, are just going to have to get used to being second or third rate in European competition terms with qualification from the group stages being the realistic glass ceiling. Whatever MLS does in future I hope they try to keep the playing field level in financial terms, so that the gross distortions that you see in Europe, that make some leagues close to a foregone conclusion never happen in North America (not referring to Mexico with this). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
youllneverwalkalone Posted September 1, 2013 Share Posted September 1, 2013 A Euro Super League could have some even distribution of television revenues akin to the NFL. MLS will need to grow beyond 24 clubs to reach the optimum coverage of the continent, which will be one step toward a $200-300m per season TV contract. That would be about half what La Liga, Budesliga, and Ligue 1. If that contract goes well, who knows? The NFL does $3b per season, which is more than the BPL and Serie A combined. http://soccerlens.com/premier-league-tv-rights/94662/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Macksam Posted September 2, 2013 Share Posted September 2, 2013 24 teams max please. Any more, and MLS will turn into a global laughingstock. Disregard this post. A Euro Super League could have some even distribution of television revenues akin to the NFL. MLS will need to grow beyond 24 clubs to reach the optimum coverage of the continent, which will be one step toward a $200-300m per season TV contract. That would be about half what La Liga, Budesliga, and Ligue 1. If that contract goes well, who knows? The NFL does $3b per season, which is more than the BPL and Serie A combined. http://soccerlens.com/premier-league-tv-rights/94662/ I have a theory that when MLS becomes a top 10/top 5 league, it will become the top league in the world 10 years after that point. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
narduch Posted September 3, 2013 Share Posted September 3, 2013 Sounds like MLS is considering switching to a 28 game schedule. http://prosoccertalk.nbcsports.com/2013/09/03/a-reduced-28-game-mls-season-may-be-around-the-corner/ Get ready for playing the teams in the other conference every couple of years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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