2018 Schedule

I disagree that this is an existing thing in sports.
Not at all in the NFL.
Not at all in NHL.
Not at all in any college sport.
Minimally in MLB, but only because the Dodgers left Brooklyn, and Yankee fans (ie more than half of NYC) don't much care. The media would go crazy over a new Yankee/Dodgers World Series. I'm not sure average fans in either city would care at this point.
Minimally in the NBA, but based on little more than a single pair of championship series that are now 45-50 years gone. Since then, there is buzz in NY when the Lakers come to town but I'm not sure that has been consistently true in reverse. Due to quality Boston/LA has had more sustained heat than NY/LA since the 1950s.

This doesn't mean it can't work in MLS, but there's no real sports predecessor.

Outside of sports I agree there is a NY/LA rivalry in the larger culture. I think it is media driven -- and fascinating more to people within each industry rather than to the general public -- but I acknowledge it is real. Also, I suspect most people in between will yawn and tune out. They care much less about NY and LA than most people in those bubbles realize. The ones who care the most move to one of those cities. The ones who stay find the NY/LA stuff extremely tiresome.
This was a very Mertzian post!
 
With a wildcard every week like last year, it won't be a problem at all.
No, it won't be a problem, but it should result in more of a rotation of players selected. As I've noticed the last 2 years, by mid-season there ends up being around 3-5 guys that is on every fantasy team's roster. With more teams having bye weeks, and without diving too deep into the schedule, probably more of a rotation of mid-week games, I think there will be less of the same players on every roster (at least on a week-to-week basis).
 
One interesting observation on the schedule.

For both of our "rivalry" opponents, we play 2 games at home and only 1 on the road. This just continues the original rotation with Orlando and New Jersey - they both got the extra home game against us last year.

We make up these extra home games by playing 7 of the West teams on the road and only getting 5 of them at home.
 
You clearly missed this post.

View attachment 7825
Ha!
PS: At first I thought you were referring to that fact we don't play Atlanta on June 3. We play them at home June 9. My answer to that would be that the previous game is June 2, so June 3 is when we know if the team is undefeated and can start working on that tifo with confidence.
Which is pure after the fact BS, because I just got the date wrong.
 
  • Like
Reactions: SoupInNYC
One interesting observation on the schedule.

For both of our "rivalry" opponents, we play 2 games at home and only 1 on the road. This just continues the original rotation with Orlando and New Jersey - they both got the extra home game against us last year.

We make up these extra home games by playing 7 of the West teams on the road and only getting 5 of them at home.

I'd take more Eastern Conference games at home. They are always a six point swing in terms of playoff seeding.
 
https://www.mlssoccer.com/post/2018...share_button&utm_campaign=social_share_button

We have the 4th longest schedule of Eastern Conference teams in terms of travel. ~4K miles more than Red Bulls, ~9K more than Toronto.
Most of that likely due to NYC having 7 West Conference Away games while RB and TFC presumably have only 6. As you noted, we probably prefer the odd extra East conference Home game, but this is the price for that.

ETA: By "most" I mean the difference between NYC and RB. The extra 5k with Toronto is a puzzler and would take more investigation than I'm willing to give..
 
Last edited:
Most of that likely due to NYC having 7 West Conference Away games while RB and TFC presumably have only 6. As you noted, we probably prefer the odd extra East conference Home game, but this is the price for that.

ETA: By "most" I mean the difference between NYC and RB. The extra 5k with Toronto is a puzzler and would take more investigation than I'm willing to give..

Toronto is also a little more centrally located.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Kjbert
Toronto is also a little more centrally located.
I did some back of the envelope stuff and this could explain all of it. Toronto is 100-300 air miles closer than NYC to 5-6 MLS cities I tested. Take 200 miles as the average, which is 400 round trip, times 17 equals 6,800 miles. That's enough to explain the whole difference with our added West coast trip added in. Same seems true for Atlanta.
 
  • Like
Reactions: adam and Kjbert
Some of these teams/owners already own planes too. They're not allowed to use them.
 
BUT MUH PARITY
Two more seasons of incremental TAM/Cap increases and another collective bargaining agreement, and Parity will pretty much be out the door. It’s gonna be painfully obvious the difference between teams that use the discretionary TAM and those that don’t, and there’s gonna be no going back after that.

But also with that increase in use, and subsequent better TAM level signings, you’ll have those players demanding from the CBA better travel treatment and the lower wage players demanding some sort of perk/benefit. Charter flights are the easiest route that doesn’t increase overal wage spending but helps the product on the field. The cheap teams will probably balk at it and not use all opportunities, so another nail in parity’s coffin.
 
Two more seasons of incremental TAM/Cap increases and another collective bargaining agreement, and Parity will pretty much be out the door. It’s gonna be painfully obvious the difference between teams that use the discretionary TAM and those that don’t, and there’s gonna be no going back after that.

But also with that increase in use, and subsequent better TAM level signings, you’ll have those players demanding from the CBA better travel treatment and the lower wage players demanding some sort of perk/benefit. Charter flights are the easiest route that doesn’t increase overal wage spending but helps the product on the field. The cheap teams will probably balk at it and not use all opportunities, so another nail in parity’s coffin.
Totally agreed, and I bet within a couple of seasons we'll see Garber actively shopping the existing franchises with less capitalized ownership groups to wealthier interested parties.
 
Two more seasons of incremental TAM/Cap increases and another collective bargaining agreement, and Parity will pretty much be out the door. It’s gonna be painfully obvious the difference between teams that use the discretionary TAM and those that don’t, and there’s gonna be no going back after that.

But also with that increase in use, and subsequent better TAM level signings, you’ll have those players demanding from the CBA better travel treatment and the lower wage players demanding some sort of perk/benefit. Charter flights are the easiest route that doesn’t increase overal wage spending but helps the product on the field. The cheap teams will probably balk at it and not use all opportunities, so another nail in parity’s coffin.

Great points, you also have to think that newer ownership groups with more money will start outnumbering original MLS 1.0 owners. Maybe they get rid of the salary cap and impose some sort of luxury tax with revenue sharing.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Kjbert and adam