General MLS Discussion

messi renews through 2028. that means he'll be playing at etihad park potentially 2 times. how many pink fans will there be at those games, i wonder....
Assuming we go to a fall through spring calendar in 2027, Messi would be 41 years at the end of the 2027/2028 season. 42 is he plays in the 2028/2029 season.
 
I'm curious to know if anyone got an email today from MLS asking to take a survey?



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WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU!

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As a fan, your feedback is important to us and we kindly ask that you take a few minutes to provide your thoughts on the questions provided. We appreciate your time and thank you for your continued support of MLS!


And then get this when you clicked the link?

Thank you for your interest but you do not qualify to take this survey.

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MLS at it's finest!
 
Apparently quite a few people got that email. My son got it, several people on Bluesky and a few on a Discord chat that I participate in.
Reckon some intern must've jumped the gun.
 
I'm curious to know if anyone got an email today from MLS asking to take a survey?



[td width="640px"]

WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU!

[/td]​


As a fan, your feedback is important to us and we kindly ask that you take a few minutes to provide your thoughts on the questions provided. We appreciate your time and thank you for your continued support of MLS!


And then get this when you clicked the link?

Thank you for your interest but you do not qualify to take this survey.

-------------------
MLS at it's finest!
Screenshot 2025-10-23 at 7.06.52 PM.png
 
The Athletic says MLS could vote tomorrow on the schedule switch.


Some of the interesting pieces are below:

The plan is for the MLS regular season to span from mid-to-late July or August to April, with playoffs staged in May. The league would take a winter break in December and January. Games would likely pause from around the second week in December through the first or third week in February. MLS understandably is trying to avoid restarting the league on Super Bowl weekend.

MLS will also vote on changes to the regular season format.

The plan is to move the league to a single-table format, but that also includes five divisions, sources said. MLS currently plays with two conference tables. The divisions would be organized geographically, and teams would play home and away against divisional rivals. The divisions would essentially operate almost as a secondary competition and objective for teams, with no substantive impact on playoff seeding other than that division winners would be guaranteed a playoff spot. (Though it would be unlikely a team that wins the division wouldn’t already be qualified for the playoffs via the single table.)

Teams would then play the other 24 teams in the league once, either home or away, for 34 total games.

Owners are also currently still finalizing changes to the postseason format, but have not yet finalized plans for the change to the playoff structure. Several formats have been discussed, including one that runs similarly to the Australian Football League finals, where higher seeds play “qualifying games” against each other, which gives those higher seeds a second game against lower seeds if they lose the first match, while lower seeded teams play elimination games from the start.

Looking at those details, I'm softening on the plan a bit. If the season starts mid-late July and goes to April, we're really only losing June, which the leagues typically took a break for international cups anyway. The regular season going to early December is when the playoffs end now, and the season restarting in late February is when it starts now anyway. So maybe we wouldn't see as much change to our home game schedule as I was fearing. I still don't really want to go to regular season games in November and December, but at least we'll still have (hopefully) May, July, August, and September as nice weather games. Hopefully the league would let us play afternoon games October-December. Night games in December would be miserable.
 
The Athletic says MLS could vote tomorrow on the schedule switch.


Some of the interesting pieces are below:



Looking at those details, I'm softening on the plan a bit. If the season starts mid-late July and goes to April, we're really only losing June, which the leagues typically took a break for international cups anyway. The regular season going to early December is when the playoffs end now, and the season restarting in late February is when it starts now anyway. So maybe we wouldn't see as much change to our home game schedule as I was fearing. I still don't really want to go to regular season games in November and December, but at least we'll still have (hopefully) May, July, August, and September as nice weather games. Hopefully the league would let us play afternoon games October-December. Night games in December would be miserable.

that's quite a long winter break. performance will suffer if there isn't something to keep players engaged and sharp.
 
that's quite a long winter break. performance will suffer if there isn't something to keep players engaged and sharp.

bundesliga has similar month long break. they do a sort of mid season "preseason" in places like spain or they come to florida and play 2/3 games during that time.

Perhaps they can expand cochella tournament and move it to January to cover the time off.
 
bundesliga has similar month long break. they do a sort of mid season "preseason" in places like spain or they come to florida and play 2/3 games during that time.

Perhaps they can expand cochella tournament and move it to January to cover the time off.

bundesliga takes about 4 weeks off. though they have taken up to 6 weeks before. what's quoted from the articles sounds like 7-8 weeks. that's a good bit. I feel like they could easily shorten the break to a month and schedule more games in warmer climates for january into february before moving games back to colder areas.

it would definitely help if the SSS stadiums were retrofitted with field warming technology to keep the ground from freezing, like they have in minnesota. Add some general heating for fans and it would be a fine experience in those stadiums as well, even if it is super cold outside. most of these SSS are enclosed enough to keep the wind from whipping through and gives a reason to actually wear the scarves, hats, and coats they sell.
 
That does seem like too long of a break. After all, they also said they would move more winter games to the Southern states. How many cold weather games is it really saving to do 6-8 weeks vs. 3-4?

My bigger question is to wonder what they will do to provide product during the first half of 2027. I can't see them taking off from early December to late July, with some teams stopping play in October.

ETA: Maybe since they are taking off for the World Cup next summer, they'll just play an extended 2026-27 season that breaks at some point in November and returns in late February.
 
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That does seem like too long of a break. After all, they also said they would move more winter games to the Southern states. How many cold weather games is it really saving to do 6-8 weeks vs. 3-4?

My bigger question is to wonder what they will do to provide product during the first half of 2027. I can't see them taking off from early December to late July, with some teams stopping play in October.

ETA: Maybe since they are taking off for the World Cup next summer, they'll just play an extended 2026-27 season that breaks at some point in November and returns in late February.

It sounds like they are planning some sort of mini-tournament in the spring to bridge the gap. Maybe something like an MLS is Back Tournament that goes from March-May.
 
I am big fan of the divisions and single table, not playing some western conference team for years is really lame and focusing on on local rivals for home and away makes a lot of sense.

Curious who goes where I'm thinking
1. Northeast: NYCFC, NJ, Toronto, Montreal, Revs, Philly
2. Southeast: Miami, Orlando, Atlanta, Charlotte, Nashville, D.C.
3. Midwest: Cincy, Columbus, Chicago, Minnesota, St Louis, Kansas

Now the problem come with 4 and 5 because you would want all the texas teams together, all the Cali teams together, and all the cascadia teams together and you can't do that with 6 teams per division. Locked in teams per division

4. Texas and more: Austin, Dallas, Houston

5. Cali and more: lafc, la galaxy, San Diego, San Jose

That leaves RSL, Colorado, Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver. You could fit cascadia in texas with Rocky mountain going to California. But that makes no geographic sense, makes me see why don might be wanting to move Vancouver. What local rivalry do you break up to make this work?
 
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It will be interesting to see the horse trading that go on to break up a Texas or CA team. I assume John Fisher is so worried about the Athletics he will just rubber stamp the move for San Jose to the Cascadia Conference.
 
That leaves RSL, Colorado, Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver. You could fit cascadia in texas with Rocky mountain going to California. But that makes no geographic sense, makes me see why don might be wanting to move Vancouver. What local rivalry do you break up to make this work?
To put things another way, for a division to have geographic coherence, you need to sacrifice geographic coherence of certain local rivalries.

I’d sacrifice division-level coherence. Better to keep the local teams together even if it means the divisions seem silly.
 
To put things another way, for a division to have geographic coherence, you need to sacrifice geographic coherence of certain local rivalries.

I’d sacrifice division-level coherence. Better to keep the local teams together even if it means the divisions seem silly.
I'm not sure what you're saying. I think you're opting for the Cascadia plus Texas division but I'm not sure. If so I agree.
makes me see why don might be wanting to move Vancouver.
Is this a thing? I've read recently there are grumblings about their stadium issues, but am not aware of a move out of Vancouver being under serious consideration.
 
To put things another way, for a division to have geographic coherence, you need to sacrifice geographic coherence of certain local rivalries.

I’d sacrifice division-level coherence. Better to keep the local teams together even if it means the divisions seem silly.
Would you consider parity at all? I’m just thinking about a division with Portland, Seattle, Vancouver, LAG, LAFC and San Diego. (San Jose goes to Texas with RSL and the ‘pids) That division would chew itself up and spit itself back out. Although it would be great viewing for fans, all six of those teams are usually perennial contenders (making assumptions about SDFC). Seems a bit rough that half of them won’t make the playoffs. Versus Salt Lake, Colorado, Houston, Austin, Dallas, & San Jose doesn’t have a lot of perennial playoff contenders. Not everyone’s cup of tea when thinking about neutrals viewership. Plus some of those teams would potentially make the playoffs over the west coast division who may “deserve” that spot more. I don’t have an answer but it is something I’m thinking about.
 
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