Posts Tagged ‘winter’

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MLS Single Table and Relegation


2010
11.03

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I was just listening to today’s MLS Talk podcast and I had to say something about the relegation topic. This is going to be brief because I don’t have much time at the moment.

If the MLS is going to expand beyond relegation/promotion solves a lot of problems.

1) It gives teams at the bottom (and the top of the “2nd division”) something to play for at the end of the season.  Now, I think these should both be “top divisions”.  The NCAA has Division I for all sports except American football.  the MLS could do something similar. MLS Premier could be the top or MLS Championship could be the 2nd or something.  As far as TV rights go, MLS Championship would be under the same Fox Soccer/ESPN/Versus(!??!) contracts.  Did Newcastle lose it’s history when they went to the English Championship last year?  Is Leeds United still a name that carries a lot of weight in English football? YES! If the LA Galaxy gets relegated, they will still be the team of Beckham and Donovan.

2) True cup competition.  The MLS Cup as it stands can go away.  Allow the “minnows” play the big boys every year in a (Carling) League Cup each year.

3) This isn’t such a problem, as a bonus, but it allows the MLS to bump all the way up to 40 teams if they like.  Let Cincinnati and Charlotte both have teams…or Charlotte and Raleigh if it makes more sense.  There are plenty of markets out there that have a major sport (NHL in Raleigh) and then nothing else (NBA in San Antonio).  ”Everyone” can get in on this.  MLS’ market is local at the moment.  Build the league around that.  The national draw teams are going to rise out of that.  Does the local nature of English football keep Chelsea and Manchester United from being hugely interesting teams on a national basis?  No.  Not at all.

4) This solves the scheduling issue.  Everyone gets 38 regular season games.  If there aren’t that many teams, you could go the German route with 18 teams.  16 teams is how the Allsvenskan does it and I quite liked the 30-game MLS season this year.  Now, it’s a World Cup year, so that filled in the schedule a bit more, but keeping the schedule with fewer games would allow the US Open Cup and CONCACAF Champions League to at least maintain the minimal coverage they have now.  I suspect those competitions would become even more irrelevant if the MLS had 8 more games in the season.

The problems and how to resolve them.

1) The main problem with relegation is that “owners will not stand for it.”  First off, make the “minnows” pay the same entrance fee.  Also, allow expansion teams in the top division and relegate 4 instead of 3 (if there is the standard relegation #) and if there is more than one expansion team, up the number of relegated teams.  Perhaps expansion teams get a 3-year grace period of relegation or something.  The MLS CBA would apply to this “2nd division” as would any other MLS rules.  The MLS “2nd division” owners would have the same votes as the MLS Premier division.

2) Americans won’t understand.  Who cares? “Americans” don’t like soccer.  Stop trying to cater to a non-existent market. Maybe people like me would care a little more if I didn’t have to drive 3 hours to a game.  Maybe I’d go to local Madison matches if one day Madison United could get promoted to the USL or to the MLS or something. I am *not* proposing the USL get involved in this, I’d just making a point about local football.

What this doesn’t address is the scheduling.  Personally, I’m fine with the summer games.  The World Cup* is difficult, but until the US consistently gets past the round of 16, playing through the latter changes isn’t that big of a deal.  If it is a bigger deal, start the season earlier every 4 years. It’s not that big of a deal.  I know personally I’d probably end up watching less MLS if it was always competing with Bundesliga, UCL, La Liga, EPL, SPL, NHL, NBA and NCAA hockey/basketball.  Right now it fights those to a certain extent but during the summer it’s main competition for me is the Allsvenskan and for most Americans, it would be MLB (I’d watch more MLB – and MLS for that matter – if there weren’t so many blackouts on DirecTV).

*There’s also the Gold Cup, but my feeling is it could be played every four years the year before the Confederations Cup so that it “means something”.

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NFL Pre-Season and “Winter Break”


2010
08.24

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I’m still officially on hiatus, but I couldn’t help but comment on this NY Times article about the NFL. As you know, I’m not an NFL guy, but I’ve been interested in this move to the 18-game season.

Let me talk about something first to set the stage for my discussion on the NFL. Skip to the end if you don’t want to read my soccer mumbo-jumbo. :)

The EPL (English Premier League), or BPL (Barclay’s Premier League) as I’ve been hearing it called for the first times recently, has this type of discussion all the time. The next few sentences here are simply back-story, but stick with me. The German League has 18 teams in it, which cuts out 4 games. The Spanish League has 20 teams, but has only one domestic cup. The Italian League has two domestic cups and 20 teams in the league. The French League also is a 20 and 2. I’m not going to pretend to know if there is talk of shortening the season in France or Italy, but the argument against Italy could certainly be that the weather is better there than in the English (and Wales*…which is probably why BPL is catching on). The same could be said for France, though not to the degree of Italy.

The Germans have a winter break with their four games and one cup removed from the schedule. Many want a winter break in England (and Wales, let’s not forget them). I’m not sure about other leagues with winter breaks. Some leagues, such as my beloved Fotbollsallsvenskan take off the entire winter, but that’s not what we are talking about here. We’re talking about taking December off, or something like that.

Here’s where we bring it all back to the NFL…the EPL/BPL has the same problem the NFL does. Christmas games are a big deal in England, and doing away with that would destroy traditions.

I realize people are resistant to change, but there’s no reason change has to destroy *important* traditions. I’d claim there’s a difference in “the way things have always been done” and a true tradition. True tradition has emotional value and not just stick-in-the-mud resistance to change.

Let’s assume we stick with 16 games in the NFL. If you don’t see where I’m going yet – the NFL could have some sort of winter break. I’d suggest in between Thanksgiving and Christmas for both the EPL and NFL. That way Christmas and Thanksgiving games could be held. Maybe between Black Friday and Christmas Eve. Let everyone do their shopping, watch basketball and hockey, spend time with their family, study for exams and anything else that a human might do when it’s not NFL season. Give the players some time to rest and come back refreshed so we can watch the best of the best battle it out for the playoff spots. No one likes it when their team is put out because of an injury…except the team that takes their place and even then there’s always that nagging “well if Joe Montana [or whoever] hadn’t gotten hurt…” The same, of course, is true of the EPL, though their season extends to May and not the first weekend in February. The EPL has the additional problem of having to deal with the World Cup every four years (and continental competitions every 2), but that’s neither here nor there. What the EPL does only moderately affects us in the US as there are only a handful of US internationals playing in the league and game times are early enough on Saturdays as to be a royal pain and the others are during the work day.

The NFL would have to work out at what week to start the break. This year Thanksgiving is week 12. That seems a little late. I’m not going to go into the options in detail, but the season could be moved into August to give the southern teams the advantage the northern teams have in the winter. Then the break could be between the playoffs and the season. This is essentially what happens in college football (well, division I-AA conferences without a conference championship, anyway). The other option is to move it to week 10. Both of those have advantages and disadvantages. If there’s a lot of feedback, maybe I’ll spend some time going through those, but for now, it’s just something to ponder.

When it’s all said and done, what could be better than a Super Bowl in late February, followed by March Madness, followed by NBA and NHL playoff pushes and then playoffs? All this and you still get to see Thanksgiving and Christmas games and spend some time with your family.

*Scotland has it’s own, well-respected league. Northern Ireland has a less-respected league (to be honest, I wasn’t even sure they had a league until doing a little research!).

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Thoughts on US Chances with ~3 days to go


2010
06.08

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First off, join my World Cup bracket group.

I got the following excerpt from someone that will remain unnamed:

Oh now I understand why you are heading there for the early rounds and not the finals. Sorry to hurt your feelings, but the teams you are supporting aren’t going to get past the first rounds. Except maybe for England – but I don’t expect them to get near the semis.

I second you on the French though. Hate em and want to see them head back asap. Same goes with Brazil – except that I’ll miss their samba chicks on TV.

I’ve been supporting Argentina and Italy since 98. Hoping that Messi will do great this year and I’m also looking forward to seeing Milito repeat his champions league performance (if they let him play). At least he seems to be in the squad.

The following was my response:

Really, you don’t have the US getting out of the group stage?  Who do you think is going to go ahead?  I could see Algeria winning the group or not getting a point.  They are the most inconsistent side I’ve ever seen.

To be clear, I think the US will go out against Germany in the 2nd round, but it’s really a tough call…

The US’ road could be pretty easy *should they win the group*.  They could see a weakened Ghana side in the 2nd round and then potentially Uruguay in the Quarters.  In the semis they’d play Brazil, which they proved last summer they can play with, but ultimately they’ll lose that match I think.  The US proved last summer they can play in the altitude and the cold of South Africa.  Now, I’m not predicting that will happen, but whoever wins Group C might have an easy road to the semis.  Even if the US finishes 2nd in the group, Germany has tons of injury problems and Maradona hasn’t proven himself to be a great manager, so even if the US comes 2nd in the group, they could be looking at semi –finals.

There are three x-factors: 1) how do teams play in the cold (the old MLS players have done that in Chicago, New York and New England in the past) and 2) how do they play at altitude (Salt Lake City and Denver for the former MLS players…which is basically everyone on the US squad). 3) How will being in Africa work for the African nations.  With injuries, the African nations are looking pretty weak at the moment.

England has looked pretty bad in the warmups and the US has looked pretty good.  Now, what to take from friendlies is hard to say but with Buddle and Findley added to the team the US may have found a strike partnership like they’ve never had before.  Gomez has been on fine form as well.  The defense has been shaky, but hopefully they learned some lessons against Turkey.

It’s pretty exciting that there are no teams without questions.  Brazil has no plan B and Spain has injury concerns, despite being the clear favorites.

Please let me know how you feel about this assessment.  I’d love to get some good conversation going in the comments!

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