Their is a lot of discussion on which night would be better for MLS to draw better ratings. What night would you think would be better than Sunday nights.
If You Could Chose Another Night For Mls To Have Their National Night What Night Would U Pick & Why?
- Thread starter franchise646
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The sad thing is that I do not believe there is a better night. Sunday works just fine outside of the NFL season. Saturday would not be better ratings wise and weekdays are not popular with fans. Perhaps a regular prime-time slot on Thursday night could do well, especially if it's replacing the crappy 5pm Sunday slot. Fans would not like it, but I think most markets are now strong enough at the gate where they can still put a good crowd together on a Thursday. If the benefit from increased ratings, and potentially more money down the road outweighs the cost of whatever level of unhappiness the fans have with a Thursday, then I can see it happening.
I wouldn't mind a Thursday match on ESPN, Friday on UniMas, Saturday regionals, and Sunday night FS1.
I wouldn't mind a Thursday match on ESPN, Friday on UniMas, Saturday regionals, and Sunday night FS1.
I think having a consistent night is more important that what specific night. Hard to watch things you don't know are on.
Exactly why MLS made the national broadcasts on Sunday. It was so fans would get used to knowing where and when games were going to be aired. Before the new contract kicked in last season, nationally broadcast games were all over the map.
Thursday or Friday.
Might get better attendance on Fridays, might get better TV ratings on Thursday.
Might get better attendance on Fridays, might get better TV ratings on Thursday.
The problem with Tuesday is that it breaks too much away from the weekend and could cause complications with scheduling. The teams stuck playing on Tuesday will either be part of the prior weekend or the next weekend. If they played Saturday or Sunday, Tuesday would suck. When they play the next weekend they will be on a short week which would give an unfair advantage to the opposing team. Basically, playing on Tuesday would be a competitive disadvantage moreso than playing on Thursday, and having that be your match for the match weekend. It would also not force MLS schedulers, who already have a massively difficult job balancing all of the scheduling constraints as it is, to try to schedule a Tuesday night match in either Seattle, Portland, LA, LA2, NYC, ATL, Orl, MIa, SKC etc. every week. They sure as hell won't be putting Chicago, NE, Columbus, Dallas, Colorado or any of the Canadian teams in their prime slot.
Yes I know, MLS does not do a very good job of having "match weeks" like the EPL does, and some teams may have 5 matches in hand on other, but ideally this problem will be mitigated somewhat once expansion is done and all teams have stadium control. Tuesday may work for now because they need to play some midweek matches anyway to fit it in the schedule, but in that case I think Wednesday gives the best balance to teams as far as playing too many matches in short sequence.
You play Friday then Tuesday then Saturday/Sunday. It's just like having to play Wednesday then Saturday/Sunday. If a couple in New England could plan the entire MLB schedule for years, then a computer can come up with 34 games for every team.
Tuesday is Champions League day.
Don't see MLS going against CCL with a featured night.
Counter-productive
Don't see MLS going against CCL with a featured night.
Counter-productive
But those Wednesday matches are not ideal and only a result of scheduling constraints. Adding another constraint, a weekly one at that, makes things too complicated. Also as a result, teams would play back-to-back national tv matches in the Friday/Tuesday scenario. With only 1 normal game on Fridays, that would mean that the same two teams would typically play each other twice in a row.
Basically, let's not add any constraints that dramatically impact the scheduling issues. Thursday is manageable with little impact to the rest of the league.
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