Small Things That Would Make Mls Better

4 teams/conference playoffs? No way.

I have no problem with ~50% of the league making the playoffs. The upsides of allowing the top 50% in far outweigh the downsides, to me.

You'll still get an elite 8 round. You just have to wait/survive one more round. Big deal.

-Playoffs generate bigger ratings which turn into bigger TV money, which means better players and a better league

-The top 6 in the West, right now, would all finish above 2nd place in the East. You're telling me two of them shouldn't be allowed in the playoffs for no particular reason? They're quality, let them in.

-The East's playoff chase is shaping up to be a barnburner down the stretch thanks to the enlarged playoff picture. Even Chicago in 1oth is right in the thick of it with their two games in hand. Meanwhile, in the comparatively lopsided West, Colorado is only 3 games back from 6th place with 13 games to go. They're still very much alive. If you make it 4 teams a conference, they might as well pack it in already.

I really believe that part of the reason for the wild game today is both teams are starting to feel the heat. They're looking at the standings and they know every game counts so much at this point. Aside for DC United, no team is even remotely close to being out of the playoffs or locked into the playoffs. Essentially, every team is feeling the same pressure still and the season is 60% over. That, to me, is fascinating.

Arguments resting on the Western Conference being stronger than the Eastern Conference just don't make sense at all. This phenomenon is cyclical, and will even out over time. More fundamentally, if you are going to ask "why should teams from one conference be denied if they are better than teams of the other conference?", that is an argument for a single table. MLS will always have conferences; so we have to accept this inherent feature.

Furthermore, without a balanced schedule, there is no way to say, based solely on the records, that a team from one conference is better than a team from the other, because the teams in question will have played vastly different schedules.

Let us realise that here are two problems with the MLS playoffs:

1) with greater than half the league qualifying, a losing team is very likely to make it every year

2) the two-legged ties reduce the advantage of the higher seed.

Factor no. 1 would be less of a problem if not for factor no. 2. If there were no two-legged ties, then the top seeds would play at home, and the lower seeds would play on the road, thereby creating significant differences between the finishing places.

But, as it stands, there is no real difference in the finishing places; so a team that is in the playoff group has no reason to strive for finishing, let's say, third as opposed to fifth.

And if the no.1 seed got a bye, as would happen if three teams from each conference made the playoffs, then that spot would be highly prized indeed.

(You could do a version of this with six teams: #1 and #2 get byes in the first round; #3 hosts #6, #4 hosts #5; higher remaining seed plays at #2; lower remaining seed plays at #1.)

Playoffs in themselves are not necessarily bad; but, if you are going to have playoffs, then they ought not to rob meaning from the regular season. MLS playoffs use two-legged ties only to give each playoff team a home game, despite the fact that this format devalues the whole competition.
 
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Small things that would make MLS better…
 
The key to make regular season games matter more is differentiation of the reward for each rank. In fact, because there's no relegation, it actually makes more sense to qualify more teams for the post-season, because otherwise you have a large chunk of teams at the bottom of the standings that aren't playing for anything.

You have to think of the conferences as separate leagues, and the MLS Playoffs as a separate competition, similarly positioned as the CCL, but taking place over a two-month period. In this way, qualification for these competitions serves as reward differentiators for different places in the standings.

I'd also like to see the first round of the MLS Playoffs converted into a group stage. More games between the top teams in the country in a more exciting competition format.
 
Another vote for a balanced schedule. Home and away against every team in the league.