If the higher seed hosts each group stage game, that's a pretty hefty reward. You could also still do a play-in game if you want to give the top few seeds a bye into the group stage.
Mls Scheduling Ideas
- Thread starter Gotham Gator
- Start date
If the higher seed hosts each group stage game, that's a pretty hefty reward. You could also still do a play-in game if you want to give the top few seeds a bye into the group stage.
Interesting. Except that this would give games on Friday and Monday and again would eliminate a weekend of games on TV.
Sure Sat/Sun wouldn't have games, but Friday games aren't bad, and July 4th is technically a weekend-type day.
the 2 game playoff series used to be weekday/weekend but fans hated it and attendance and viewers for the Wednesday games were really low. thus the switch to weekends only
I would expect pretty low viewership on July 4. I like the idea but I think that's a significant hitch.
That's an advantage Boxing Day has over the 4th of July. Boxing Day is a day-after holiday, when you're likely to just be doing nothing at home. But no one has mentioned that both are holidays that move through all days of the week. Everyone is discussing this as if the 4th of July is always a Monday because that's how Arias discussed it (presumably it was the year he made the proposal). So how would this play out?
If Independence Day is on a
Monday Games Friday/Monday
Tuesday Games Friday/Monday (could move to Tuesday but viewership might be higher on Monday the non-holiday)
Wednesday Games Friday or Saturday and Wednesday (or maybe better Tuesday night)
Thursday - I'd suggest the extra game be Wednesday night and pickem for weekends before/after
Friday Games Thursday night and Sunday night
Weekend follow the plan for Friday or Monday depending on where the day off is scheduled
Last edited:
I like this idea a lot, but I agree with those who've pointed out that July 4 is not like Boxing Day. People are a lot more likely to have social plans on Boxing Day, which could keep some away from the stadium.
This makes total sense now, but I wonder how long before fans will attend and watch on a Wednesday because the game will be considered a big enough event.
marketing is key i think for that to happen.
in NYC, now. In NJ, never.
I guess my big question with this is why does July 4 matter in this equation? It's essentially a strategy to get a second game into one specific week of the season. But this could be done with any week. And it could be done with more control if it doesn't revolve around a floating holiday.
We could make the first week of August rivalry week and run a home and home on Wednesday/Sunday. Or it doesn't have to be specific rivalries. I just don't understand why revolving around a holiday makes this better.
I was just running with someone else's idea so idea so I'm not sure. You're right it doesn't have to be. I think the concept is it becomes a holiday-related tradition the way the Boxing Day thing is in the PL or like the Lions and Cowboys every in the NFLThanksgiving . Of course, MLS has a ways to go before it reaches that level of cultural relevance.
It's a low-key British holiday held the day after Christmas. The Premiere League always plays on that day, which usually leads to a week where everyone plays Sat/Sun, then midweek, then Sat/Sun again. Apparently Bruce Arias once suggested that MLS do a similar thing for the 4th of July.
One advantage to a July 4 special over the usual midweek game is that the games on July 4 can be played during the daytime. Of course some of that is mitigated if the schedule leads to the weekend games being played on Friday.
Aside from the timeline, when the league has 26 teams (LAFC, Atlanta, Minneapolis, Miami, Sacramento, ?) what will the schedule look like? 13 teams per conference play home and away in conference and then one game versus the opposite conference? That's 37 games, 3 more than currently played in the season. There will have to be some changes to the playoffs. Or maybe the league abandons the fact that each team has to play each other.
Assuming a fixed 34 game season, 24 teams in two conferences is the perfect number. Each team plays their conference twice and the other once. Looks like we won't be at 24 for very long though.
I think at 28 teams they should split into four conferences of 7 each. That would result in 12 conference games and 22 games against the 21 teams outside the conference. This is also naturally expandable to 32 (or more) teams, with 14 conference games and 20 games against the 24 teams outside the conference, playing every team 5 out of 6 years.
How about a slightly different approach? Keep the current MLS as it is for now, then make a second league for the new teams coming in. The leagues could be called something like the MLS Premier League (or maybe MLS League 1 or something) and the MLS Competition League (MLS League 2). You could maybe pay extra to get into the top league right away or pay less to add a team to the new lower league.
For 28 teams you could have 20 in the top and 8 in the second league, leaving tons of room for more teams to be added. Promote and relegate the top one and the bottom one (and increase that number as enough teams are added). And to make this work here in America you could have as much interleague play as you needed to both balance the schedule, keep up interest for those lower league teams, promote intercity rivalries, etc. You could have half of the lower league's schedule be against upper league teams so they'd still be involved even if relegated (and so they'd be able to draw larger crowds when the big teams came in).
New teams would like it because it would cost less to join the real MLS as opposed to going nowhere into the NASL. Existing crappy teams would like the interleague play because it would soften the blow of getting relegated as they could still play the same teams on occasion. The league could also compensate a relegated team by temporarily increasing their cap or allocation money or something. Or reward a promoted team the same way, whichever works better.
Just a thought. There's probably a million ramifications that haven't occurred to me yet but this might be a way to get more teams, pro/rel, league growth, etc.
For 28 teams you could have 20 in the top and 8 in the second league, leaving tons of room for more teams to be added. Promote and relegate the top one and the bottom one (and increase that number as enough teams are added). And to make this work here in America you could have as much interleague play as you needed to both balance the schedule, keep up interest for those lower league teams, promote intercity rivalries, etc. You could have half of the lower league's schedule be against upper league teams so they'd still be involved even if relegated (and so they'd be able to draw larger crowds when the big teams came in).
New teams would like it because it would cost less to join the real MLS as opposed to going nowhere into the NASL. Existing crappy teams would like the interleague play because it would soften the blow of getting relegated as they could still play the same teams on occasion. The league could also compensate a relegated team by temporarily increasing their cap or allocation money or something. Or reward a promoted team the same way, whichever works better.
Just a thought. There's probably a million ramifications that haven't occurred to me yet but this might be a way to get more teams, pro/rel, league growth, etc.
It's pro/reg for pro/reg's sake, which is the wrong reason to do it. It simply isn't required just because the league is getting bigger.
In my opinion, the entire point of pro/reg is to create open access to the top league. To let anyone in any town start a team and have the potential to be promoted all the way to the top. If you just split MLS into two, you just have this weird, closed off, pro/reg theme park.
Pro/reg will never happen in MLS willingly. Pro/reg proponents only hope is the NASL catching fire and forcing MLS's hand, but they're already short on time. Good luck challenging MLS for legitimacy once they're 28+ teams.
I don't think it's pro/rel for pro/rel's sake. It's almost like there's two different viewpoints on this and they may or may not ever meet. I'm pro-relegation and pro-Supporters Shield, but you're probably pro-playoffs. Nothing wrong with either position, it's just that they're different and likely not compatible.
For me, the beauty of pro/rel is that winning matters for the whole season. With playoffs winning or losing makes no difference as long as you get that last playoff spot. You could totally suck and still make the playoffs, and from there it's only a few wins to the championship. To me that cheapens the whole thing. With playoffs you could lose every game and still keep your spot in the league. But with pro/rel you maybe have to fight for your life to stay up. So instead of everything sucking for the whole season there's excitement to the very end. And it's even better in the league below, as every single point matters as the league winner gets promoted. (That's why the NASL doesn't matter at all, because there's no hope of getting promoted into importance.)
So there's drama at the bottom of the top league and matching drama at the top of the bottom league. And there's also drama at the top of the top league with pro/rel as well. With playoffs it doesn't matter who wins the league at all as long as you're in. No real benefit to winning, and to me that's a shame.
Not trying to convince you or change your mind on this. I'm just pro two leagues and pro pro/rel.
