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LionNYC said I think you go to single game elimination. I think there is some value starting the season earlier to avoid playing on international breaks. It could also help our CCL teams get into the swing of things earlier. We have enough teams in warm weather cities and/or domes to play in February.
I also wonder how much of the MLS schedule snafus are self inflicited due to inefficiency. Maybe MLS needs invest some money on a quant genius to figure this out.
If we look at 2019 calendar with the intentions of ending the regular season Oct 7th, we have 28 playable weeks by excluding the 3 intl breaks which would mean 6 midweek games. Two weeks of February decreases that to 4 midweek games. This season we have had 7 midweek games.
I count 35 weeks from the first weekend in Feb 2019 to October 7. But, there are more than just 3 1-week breaks. There is also a solid 3 weeks in the middle of the summer for the Copa America and Gold Cup in 2019 (and in 2020 it will be the Euros, 2021 the GC again, then the WC in 2022). That's 6 weeks lost leaving 29. That means a minimum of 5 midweek games for every team. But these are not just midweek games like we have now. They are midweek games bookended with a game on both neighboring weekends. Triple game weeks. For all the midweek games NYCFC played this year, the club only had 2 triple game weeks. The rest were games shifted from either the preceding or following weekend due to YS conflicts.
So this would increase the number of triple game weeks from 2 to a minimum of 5 just for regular season games. I think the union might have something to say about that. Plus USOC. Plus CCL for the clubs lucky enough to get in. This will require much more squad rotation than most MLS teams can handle without a seriously lowered quality of play. So maybe you relax some salary cap rules.
Counting Nashville and Miami, there will be only 4 warm weather East Conference teams to play in February. That means not only a schedule lopsided to certain cities in February, but also using up a large number of interconference games hosted by West teams in the first month. By itself, that's not a big deal, but all of these schedule requirements leave very limited flexibility for special circumstances, like the uneven schedules for Atlanta last year or DC this year. When you start with 34 games cammed into 29 weeks it gets a lot harder to schedule around mid-season stadium renovations or openings. It probably also stops the practice of CCL teams deferring games into later in the season, because the rest of the year is already filled with triple game weeks.
And this could never happen while NYC is still at Yankee Stadium. We played 3-4 home games during international breaks this year solely because the Yankee schedule required it. If the whole point of this schedule adjustment is to shut down play during international breaks, and if you enforce that, then NYCFC cannot manage 17 home games (and no we're not playing them in Citi Field).
Plus fans do nothing but complain about midweek games. Under this plan there will be more, in a shorter time period, and many will be right next to a game the weekend before or after.
Plus, most teams don't play 6-7 midweek games right now like NYCFC did. Most play only 3-4, and these midweek games exist for a reason. Whatever those reasons are they are not going away. Which means adding all these new midweek games on top of the existing midweek games. They don't just replace them. Some teams might very well end up with 8-9 midweek games.
Midweek games get lower attendance. NYCFC midweek games average more than 4k lower attendance than weekend games. The article posted a few days ago about Montreal made clear that gameday revenue is vital for MLS teams. Plus I expect TV pays less for Wednesday night than Saturday. So you need a plan to pay players more in the next contract renewal when the union seeks compensation for more triple game weeks, plus to pay for the squad improvement necessitated by tighter schedules, while taking in lower revenues because of midweek games.
The tight schedule probably forces a relaxation of the charter flight limitation. That's a good thing. But again, higher costs on multiple fronts, and lower revenues.
