Expansion Rumors Megathread
- Thread starter MagnusPax
- Start date
I think the Indy 11 are going to be that last eastern conference spot over Carolina.
Ah yes totally forgot about them... Good fan base and all depends how loyal they are to NASL and "the cause" of grassroots, organic, or whatever the hell they are calling it.
I mean on Twitter they went full force against all of San Antonios fans after the USL announcement from the Spurs plus they are starting to heavily dislike Minnesota since they are next to leave to MLS
We'll see how loyal they are when their ownership begs MLS to be let in and NASL is going down in flames around them.
I feel that is already a "problem" seeing some of the players we had this past year, quality on the end of the bench for some teams must not be that good, I assume it must be the same for lower leagues (with exception to any college or recently graduated ones) or worse.
To me it stems of from poor coaching at young ages, coaching needs to be improved greatly based on what I read about youth coaching here in the US.
And what's a 32 team league schedule and playoffs going to look like? Would 32 teams make MLS the largest top flight league in the world?
I think it would, there's 30 in Argentina but they plan on going back to 20 in the next few years.
Real legs in San Diego: http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/2015/dec/28/soccer-mls-san-diego-john-moores/
Next round of expansion is going to be extremely competitive, I think, because all these cities have 1-4 years to get their proposals in perfect shape.
Next round of expansion is going to be extremely competitive, I think, because all these cities have 1-4 years to get their proposals in perfect shape.
Four conferences of eight. Top 16 teams qualify for the postseason. My preferred format is a group stage with one team from each conference, for a true national competition feel.
I think this works better considering the structure we already have. 32 teams in four divisions of eight. Divisions are within the conferences for playoff and all-star purposes. Top team from each division get that 1st round bye. 2 and 3 seeds from each conference go a the one game playoff. Then the home/away conference semi-final then home/away conference final. Then MLS Cup.
The problem with this is that a terrible division can have three teams going to the playoffs when looking at the full conference standings, only 2 or even 1 should be going through.
I'm more concerned with how many teams we face in a single year? If you play every team in your division home/away then everyone else either home or away that's 38 games.
I don't think the league will ever play less than 34 games each season, and probably won't play more either.
So if they split into four divisions, they'll probably do this:
28 teams - 12 divisional games, 21 non-divisional games, 1 extra game v. set divisional rival
32 teams - 14 divisional games, 20 non-divisional games, missing four non-divisional opponents each year on a rotating basis
For the postseason, they have steadily qualified close to 50% of teams. Like it or not, I think that continues. At 32 teams, I think they go with 16 postseason qualifiers.
I like having a group stage for a number of reasons, but one is that it acts as a stage to effectively and efficiently determine the "wildcard" qualifiers. I do not like when teams are judged against each other for a "wildcard" spot despite playing much different schedules. Teams from two separate divisions only have about 75% the same schedule. Therefore, I would just qualify the top four teams from each division, where each team would have between 88% and 100% of the same schedule. In other words, the regular season is purely a regional competition.
In a mixed-division group stage, the non-division winners have to travel to the teams that finished better than them in their own division. Basically, it pits divisions against each other head-to-head. If a 4th place team in one division with 50 points thinks they're better than a 3rd place team in another division with 40 points, they have to go visit that 3rd place team and prove it, rather than deciding on paper (despite drastically different schedules) which team ranks higher.
Put another way, a mixed-divisional group stage among half the league determines which 8 teams deserve to be in the actual playoffs (the knock-out rounds), by kicking the ball rather than comparing the in-season results which don't directly compare. You could have 4 teams from one division, the other 3 divisional winners, and one more team - but decided on the field instead of on paper.
I'd vote for them to open up 1-2 more international slots to address this. In the long run more pro soccer in the country is better for our future. At some later date they could rescind those slots or give them an expiration date.
I know you've been high on the group stage idea and I like elements of it. But I think there are issues here that pose a significant challenge to adoption.
1. By making the groups up of teams from each division you are placing a very high travel burden on the teams. The US is a big country. In a compressed schedule which group stage would almost certainly be that is a tough ask.
2. If home team is determined by seed that is a massive advantage gap from top to bottom seed. #1 stays home for 3 games. #4 hits the road three times. Huge competitive imbalance.
3. Related to point #2 is the revenue imbalance. Teams want home games for revenue when they make the playoffs.
4. Which brings us to the age old problem of the owners. CFG, LAG et al would love this structure. They know they will be a top seed often enough. (Or at least they believe they will.) The current playoffs give a team who qualifies as a bottom seed some hope. I think your structure, while fun, might create too much advantage for the top and be unappealing to the cheaper owners.
If you think it's too drastic, you could just have 1st and 2nd play two home games and one away game, and the opposite for 3rd and 4th. You can also share gate revenue for postseason games.
That said, I think the imbalance in postseason schedule is half the point. It really drives some importance into your regular season finish, both from an ease of postseason schedule perspective and a revenue perspective.
For travel, if you switch to single-leg knockout rounds, the entire postseason is only six matchdays long, same as it is currently. Each matchday can be spaced out a week.
Don't get me wrong. I like the idea. I just wonder about the political hurdles of getting the owners to go with it.
My two cents, as a pre-requisite for MLS, I would like to see new teams have the following:
1) An approved and funded stadium plan
2) An Academy from day one
3) A USL affiliate from day one
If you are worried about the depth of the league, you need to invest in the Academy programs. NYCFC is unique, but I would like to see Atlanta and LAFC come in with Academies from day one - even if it is U-12.
1) An approved and funded stadium plan
2) An Academy from day one
3) A USL affiliate from day one
If you are worried about the depth of the league, you need to invest in the Academy programs. NYCFC is unique, but I would like to see Atlanta and LAFC come in with Academies from day one - even if it is U-12.
Some say downtown Raleigh sports arena could be good fit for professional soccer
http://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/counties/wake-county/article51945445.html
http://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/counties/wake-county/article51945445.html
Agree that 32 teams means 4 divisions of 8 each, and I agree with the suggestion (repeated below) from that lays out the likely interdivisional play.
I do wonder about 2 things.
First, would the league stop at 30 and do 3 divisions of 10 teams or 6 divisions of 5 teams? With the former, you'd have to go to a 38-game schedule, which would have home-away against the division and one game each against the rest of the league. With the later, you would have a 33-game schedule under the same rules.
Second, when considering playoff format, remember that if the league adds more teams to the playoffs, that means more games, which in turn means more time on the calendar devoted to playoffs at the expense of the regular season. I'm not sure of the economics of that. It's a tradeoff of the increased national TV viewership of playoffs against the fact that you are taking ticket revenue and local TV viewership away from teams that don't make the playoffs (or get eliminated early). That's an oversimplification, surely, but captures most of it. I suspect that the addition of early round playoff games featuring teams that aren't top flight won't draw enough national viewers to offset the loss of ticket revenue across the league.
Regarding playoffs, I think group stage games are both unnecessary and unworkable.
We don't need a group stage in the playoffs because the regular season already acts as a big group stage. The teams are divided into groups that play each other twice, and the top half or so advance to the knockout round. What's missing?
A group stage would also be unworkable because it would appear to require extra weeks in the playoff season to complete, thereby shortening the regular season (which is already too short in my opinion).
We don't need a group stage in the playoffs because the regular season already acts as a big group stage. The teams are divided into groups that play each other twice, and the top half or so advance to the knockout round. What's missing?
A group stage would also be unworkable because it would appear to require extra weeks in the playoff season to complete, thereby shortening the regular season (which is already too short in my opinion).
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