MLS Should Lose Post From Season
There probably are nights when Doug Logan lies awake and wonders whether his great-great- grandfather had as many people giving him advice.
That would have been Antonio Gonzalez de Mendoza, who in the 1870s was mayor of Havana, Cuba. Surely a mayor must get as many bits of unsolicited information tossed his way as the commissioner of Major League Soccer?
Well, at the risk of sounding like one of those New York cabbies who regularly tell Logan, 55, how to run his league, here’s some more fodder for thought.
Call it a blueprint for MLS’ future should John Kluge, Lamar Hunt, Philip Anschutz, Stuart Subotnick, Robert Kraft, Ken Horowitz and the rest of the MLS money men ever decide to throw the restraints out the window and go for broke.
To understand the solution, however, it is first necessary to comprehend the problem, which is this: MLS is competing for a small slice of a pie that by and large already has been dished out.
To get the attention of the American public, to get more of them than currently are doing so to part with their hard-earned dollars, to actually become the fifth major sport in the U.S., soccer needs to be radical.
Not radically different from the sport as it is played worldwide, radically different from the American sporting model.
To begin with, get rid of the conference system and put all MLS teams in one division. Twelve now, 14 later, preferably no more than 16.
Then have each team play the others home and away only once during the season. Award three points for an outright victory, two to the winner of a shootout (which sadly it appears impossible to abandon) and one to the loser.
Scrap the playoffs altogether. The league champion is the team that finishes atop the pile when it’s all over.
It’s a simple, fair and easily understandable arrangement, one that has worked for decades in the rest of the world.
What it solves, right away, is the problem of boredom as fans watch teams go through the motions of a largely meaningless regular season, knowing full well that if they miss seeing, say, the San Jose Clash this week, Ronald Cerritos and company will be back in town a few weeks later.
And if their team loses three or four or five games, so what? It has to be truly dreadful to miss the playoffs.
The weekly fight for points then becomes a focal point of interest, and because there’s only one chance to see Marco Etcheverry or Cobi Jones or Brian McBride come to town, attendance is more compulsory.
Such a system would, in the first few years, reduce the number of games, which is good because it means the season does not slop over into the frozen days of the New England winter, which is what will happen next year when MLS Cup ’99 will not be played until the snow is knee-deep in Boston and fans are asking, “Was it this March or the one before when the season began?”
It also will prevent the climax of the MLS season from clashing with the World Series, the NFL and college football seasons, the NBA, if it ever returns, the NHL and assorted other dreary events.
Fewer games also mean that most, if not all, can be played on weekends, when attendance is demonstrably better.
“But wait!” screams Sunil Gulati, MLS’ deputy commissioner. “What about the money we will lose by having fewer games? What about the excitement of the playoffs? What about . . . ?”
Again, the answer is simple.
Take the MLS teams out of the U.S. Open Cup and leave at least one national trophy for the A-League teams and other minor league sides to pursue. They deserve it.
Create a real MLS Cup by having the league teams compete in a single-elimination, blind-draw, knockout tournament after the league season ends.
It’s a way to offer two bits of silverware for the price of one.
There would be the existing Alan I. Rothenberg trophy for the league champion and, well, the Copa Gulati or, forgive me, the Logan Shield, for the cup winner.
Here’s how it all could work next season:
The 12 teams would each play 11 games at home and 11 on the road. No problem getting all those onto weekend dates.
After the league championship is won, say by the end of August, four weeks of cup play begins.
For the first year, the four A-League semifinalists (from the season before, if necessary) can take part in order to bring the number of participants to an even 16.
On the first weekend, there are eight games, the next weekend features four, the third has the semifinals and the fourth has the MLS Cup Final.
Simple, clean and exciting. Every cup match is a must-win game. Lose and your season is over. Much better than this best-of-three business. Lower travel costs, too.
Each MLS team would play a minimum of 23 games in the first year, with the two cup finalists playing a maximum of 26. When the league expands to 14 teams, the minimum goes to 27 and the maximum to 30. (Only the A-League finalists would then take part in the cup.)
At the optimum league size (by FIFA wish) of 16 teams, MLS clubs would be guaranteed 30 league games and still have from one to four cup matches. A-League teams no longer wouldbe involved.
Unless, of course, the MLS powers-that-be want to pursue a really radical course.
The dreaded relegation/promotion idea finally rears its--no, not ugly, interesting--head from the depths.
Why not?
Why not drop the worst MLS team into the A-League each year and promote the A-League champion? No one can tell me that the Rochester Raging Rhinos, ludicrous name and all, could not have cleaned the clock of, say, the New England Revolution this season.
And if the A-League’s top flight was limited to 16 teams, with a guarantee of no relegation, how could it hurt? What it does, in fact, is add spice to both ends of the MLS table, with teams at the top battling for the title and those at the bottom fighting to avoid relegation. It spices up the A-League too.
MLS is forever saying that its single-entity approach will never be abandoned, so it can’t claim to be financially harmed if one of its teams drops down a rung on the competition ladder.
Especially not if those same deep pockets who now fund MLS also were to invest in A-League teams, which could then become real minor-league affiliates charged with grooming players for the big time.
One other thought: If the reduction in games bothers teams that are knocked out of the cup early on, staging a few international matches would certainly make up for it.
Perhaps the mayor of Havana can arrange some. I’ll drop him a note.
