A Case for the Supporters Shield
by malcontentjake on Feb 10, 2011 3:00 PM PST
in Sounders: MLS Regular Season
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PrintThe red-headed step-child of MLS trophies, the Supporters Shield, has never been as meaningful, and probably never will be as meaningful, as it will be this year.
Now that we know the Sounders full "schedule", or, as the proper term may actually be, "fixture list" (since this will be subject to slight changes and corrections during the season) we can begin to digest the task at hand in 2011.
I have already certainly heard and read enough about the MLS Cup already, as the "MLS Cup or bust" mentality I wondered about a couple weeks ago seems to have taken hold of Sounders training camp. Yesterday, an excellent article on AOL Fanhouse pointed out that we still don't know the playoff format - which according to Garber's MLS Cup halftime announcement was due at some point in December.
I don't want to turn this piece into another anti-playoffs screed. There has been plenty written on this site and others about the egregious shortcomings of the MLS playoffs in recent years (a good place to start is a couple of the articles linked to in the Fanhouse piece). It is not that I am anti-playoffs. What I am is pro-regular season, Particularly a regular season as thorough as the MLS's.
The Supporters Shield is basically a 18-team, 34-match, double round-robin, 7-month long marathon to determine the best team in the MLS. It is blessedly free of the schedule imbalances and inconsistencies which pollute other League's regular season competitions. (Yes, there are Conferences, which serve NO purpose to scheduling). We are, in fact, in the short-lived "balanced schedule" era of the MLS, which started in 2009 (When schedules were certainly so close to being balanced as to be passable by my standards) and may end this year. In 2009 and 2010 the competitions were smaller and marginally shorter, with 15, then 16 teams, and 30-match schedules.
It's important to remember that next year we know there will 19 teams, and by 2013 we can be pretty certain there will be 20; and Don Garber has kept the Conferences around for a reason (at least one would assume so). If nothing else they have remained to serve as placeholders for when the MLS returns to a scheduling system based on conferences, and perhaps even subdivides further into divisions. It seems to me that it is highly likely that in the near future the Supporters Shield competition will be obfuscated by the scheduling and competitive imbalances inherent in conference and divisional scheduling which infects the other Leagues.
All this points to 2011 being one of the Glory Years for the Supporters Shield... if not THE glory year.
If I were given the choice of one trophy for my Sounders to win this year, I will take the Shield, hands down. I may be very much in the minority, but I think it is the most meaningful trophy to be won by an MLS team this year.
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Not meaningless but...
…all it does at is give the team home field advantage if they make it out of the first round. The SS winner does not get recorded in the MLS annals. I, too am pro regular season but am confused why MLS decided to further devalue it by adding two more teams. Why not crown conference champs at the end of the regular season and since schedules are balanced, seed teams by points. There should only be 1/3 to .40 teams in the playoffs. Remember 2009 in the last month with the top teams in the west jockeying for position and most of the rest of the league trying to get into the playoffs? I watched more non-Sounders games because of their importance. I wasn’t too surprised that the eastern team won the past few years since the groups of four in the west were so close in terms of quality and would beat up each other.
My goals for the team competitions this season using last season’s rules: win MLS cup by getting into the eastern playoff bracket > win MLS cup by getting in the playoffs >advance past CCL group stage > win USOC
It will be easier to get into the playoffs with two extra spots and two new teams as fresh meat so I don’t mind using a B team for a regular season game if a key CCL game or USOC semifinal or final game uses the A team because of schedule congestion. I’ll root for MLS teams to win in Mexico but I’d absolutely love it if getting a win down there was a Seattle invention. This is a pipe dream but if the Sounders ever got into Copa Libertadores, I’d be happy if they’d treat the regular season as B games.
The day the supporters shield means something to me will come when it crowns the champions or when the perks are significant. The MLS hasn’t always had balanced or near balanced schedules and will soon be too large to keep them.
SS winner does go in the history books
The trophy is awarded by the league to the team, and the supporters. It also gets a slot to the group stage of CCL.
I am not a Supporter | I am not a Fan | I am a Sounder
Sounder At Heart
I'd point out that teams
probably didn’t find the Sounders a push-over their first season, so what makes you think Portland and Vancouver will be? I DO think we were farther ahead of the arc than either Port or Van, but who’s to say how the season might shake out? So while I don’t utterly disagree with you, I’d say that you’re making an assumption that might not be the reality once the season starts.
You’re also making one hell of an argument for a single-table format! ; )
I did mention the two additional teams first
The two new teams still are finalizing their rosters and this probably won’t end until the summer but until they use their cap space and their new franchise extra money, I think it’ll be a successful year for them to get out of the bottom third. In 2009, I was really hoping for .500 knowing how bad MLS expansion teams were. Even in this city, it took forever to get the Seahawks and the M’s going and would always compare them to the Bucs/BJays. I never thought they would be Salt Lake/ChivasLA bad but I bet Ben Olsen’s looking at the schedule and thinking we’ve got to get points out of those games. If they get into the top half, color me impressed.
You're definitely preachin' to the choir
on this one. At least to my one-man choir. I’ve felt this way about every sport my entire life. Long-time NBA fan and, while it is a far more equitable system (than MLS), I never appreciated the playoff/Championship mentality as opposed to just doing it over an 82-game schedule. But I’ve also accepted that I’m in a minority. Americans have really been brainwashed to believe that somehow winning over the course of three weeks is far more important than doing it over a 7-month season. Why? “Because it really counts.” Cripes. I ain’t buying it, never have, never will. I want the Sounders to be the best team in MLS at the end of the regular season. If we get to the MLS cup and win that….. gravy. But you’re right, this one would be particularly special.
I'm with you on the Supporter's Shield, and I rec'd this post
But as for the average fan’s love of playoffs, I totally understand it. Yes, I remember the first round exit of the ‘93-’94 Sonics after they achieved the best regular season record in the NBA and the heartbreak that accompanied it.
Yet it is this very unpredictability that so many fans relish as the very essence of Fandom. Look at the thrill of March Madness, the one and done of NCAA tournament basketball. Two teams enter, one team leaves. There’s something truly great, however cliched, in the “Cinderella” team that slays their betters, something that speaks to the human spirit.
I remember being 10 and so assured that the ‘88 Athletics were going to take the World Series that I would’ve bet my allowance on it. I could rattle off all the stats and break down their glorious roster. My father just said “never underestimate the human factor.” I laughed him off as an uninformed rube. After Kirk Gibson’s walk-off heroics and Orel Hershiser’s pitching lifted the lowly Dodgers I was forced to acknowledge the glory that is known as the playoffs, flawed as they may be.
I appreciate the value of winning the regular season as it establishes the best team with the least capriciousness, but do not begrudge the average sports fan their love of playoffs; it is their very love of sport that bequeaths them such.
by BrooklynPreacher on Feb 10, 2011 7:21 PM PST up reply actions
Unpredictability, though, should not be confused with randomness and that's the directoin MLS playoffs seem to be going
Editor/writer at Sounder at Heart, North American soccer editor SB Nation and of course follow me on Twitter
by Jeremiah Oshan on Feb 11, 2011 12:37 AM PST up reply actions
I agree
I was trying to address playoffs in general, not MLS specifically. I think you’re absolutely right.
by BrooklynPreacher on Feb 11, 2011 3:28 AM PST up reply actions
So you think winning the most games
in an unbalanced schedule in a league like the NBA or MLB should earn you a championship?
This makes even less sense when you factor in that playoffs are played in series and not one and done scenarios.
by B-Lot tailgater on Feb 11, 2011 8:48 AM PST up reply actions
Sigh....
It’s hard to educate fans about a trophy when our own players, coach, owners, and league commishiner never mention a word about it. When the trophy is not given to the captian of the team that clinches it, on the field, after the game. When national broadcasters don’t fight over the rights to games where a trophy may be awarded. When the only way you will ever see the trophy is if you watch some live pre mls-cup confrence screening on the MLS website.
Don Garber says MLS needs to give their teams "more special moments." Don Garber says the league cares about CCL. USSF seems to care about the Supporter Shield winner enough to grant them an automatic spot in the CCL. It’s confusing that awarding a SS trophy isn’t something that could be considred a special moment for a team.
It wouldn’t always be possible to award the Shield to the team after the game since sometimes it would be clinched by another team losing rather than your team winning. Plus they might have to follow a team around for a few weeks waiting for the right combination of events.
All that to say, I value the SS over the MLS Cup any day.
If they changed the schedule so all teams played their last games at the same time there always would be a way to present the trophy at the last match of the team who won it. Even if they had already won it by some team loosing a match earlier.
Except they might need like 4 copies of the trophy.
If it was a close race.
You could have a flag or something to represent the trophy on the field
something showy and appropriate that would look good in a ceremony, then award the actual trophy later at some stage.
I think the Crew supporter that got handed the trophy at SS'09 loved it
That was an awesome moment.
I am not a Supporter | I am not a Fan | I am a Sounder
Sounder At Heart
I think the captain of the team is the embodyment of every supporter for that club. I’m sure it means a whole lot to the guys who attend those confrences to be given the supporter shield, but for everyone to live the experience of winning the trophy it should be the captian that raises it.
It is also awarded to the team, just not at a game
again, because it could be clinched on an offday with three weeks to go
I am not a Supporter | I am not a Fan | I am a Sounder
Sounder At Heart
How do they do it in the Prem?
I seriously have no idea, but I vaguely recall seeing the trophy getting a lot of camera time when one team or another is close to clinching. I think it’s at the matches.
Nos Audietis
It could be a fun storyline
League officials chasing around the country with the Shield as the race goes down to the wire. Just present the hardware to the team as soon as possible when it’s clinched, then have a ceremony at the next home game.
by lemonverbena on Feb 10, 2011 8:57 PM PST up reply actions
You can get from one place to another in England much faster than you can in the States.
by Graham MacAree on Feb 11, 2011 8:17 AM PST up reply actions
It's just a piece of metal
No reason they couldn’t make a few knockoff trophies and have them follow more than one team who may clinch.
For me, it comes down to this:
Seattle Mariners, 2001: 116 regular season wins (tying the 1906 Cubs record for most wins ever in a single season)
New England Patriots, 2007: 16-0 during the regular season.
And yet the most memorable aspect of both those seasons is the crushing disappointment in the post season; the Patriots getting ruined by Eli and David Tyree, and the Mariners not even making the World Series. Hell, I could have cared less that the Seahawks finished 7-9 if they had somehow managed to bring home the Lombardi.
I agree that the season has to be more meaningful. Personally, I think there are too many playoff teams (the 6/16 ratio that the NFL employees is about my favorite), and I think that fixing that would make the grind of the season worth a lot more. But I do love the playoffs as well – a close penant race in baseball is exciting, but for me nothing compares to watching two teams battle it out in a single game or short series for advancement vs. elimination.
So while I’m all for winning the SS, and increasing it’s value (and the value of the regular season as a whole), it still is a distant second place for me.
by J Sep on Feb 10, 2011 4:12 PM PST reply actions 1 recs
I see your point
Colorado Rapids, 2010: 7th place in the league12-8-10
Real Salt Lake, 2009: 8th place in the league 11-12-7
The problem with the other leagues is you don’t get shit (well you get a little bit) for doing good during the season. The parity of those leagues is less though, so normally better teams make it to the final and/or win. But in the MLS, it is anyones Cup if they can string like 4-5 good games together and don’t have one bad day at the office.
And then with the crappy playoff system we have, you get some Western Conference teams that get somewhat of an easier road into the final.
When you win the Supporter’s Shield, you get to say that you were the best team for the whole season. Then you get to go into the playoffs with your home field advantage and an auto berth in the group stage of the Champions League.
Best playoff option
I like the idea of having the 4th and 5th teams from each conference playing each other in a one off mid-week game right after the end of the season. Then the winner of that game plays the top team from their conference. This handicaps the lower teams and gives an advantage to the best team. It also keeps us from pushing back the MLS cup any later. The only trick is that you’d have to schedule games immediately after the end of the season with maybe only a few days of turn-around time.
Hadn't seen rugby playoffs before
This is a cool format. It allows 8 teams in, but gives the advantage to the best teams. It would be very unlikely to see two low seeded teams in the final and there would be exciting/important matches every weekend. If you didn’t see the link from yuniform’s first post, here it is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_League_play-offs
by Sounder Abroad on Feb 11, 2011 9:10 AM PST up reply actions
This is a very creative idea
I like the balance of this system. Very cool. Unfortunately, I think it would confuse (and therefore lose) a lot of casual fans.
I expect that there will be 4 Wild Cards this year
Who meet each other in a midweek single game round.
7 v 10, 8 v 9 regardless of conference.
Winner of each goes to the W or E to face the #1
I am not a Supporter | I am not a Fan | I am a Sounder
Sounder At Heart
would hit playoff attendance hard
to give teams so little time to market that game
Win or lose, we will always be here for you.
by johnjahafanclub on Feb 10, 2011 6:53 PM PST up reply actions
My solution to the playoffs
Home and home series for the first round AND the conference finals. Then a winner take all final match.
I hate the fact that they currently do home/home for the first round then one and done for the conference finals.
by B-Lot tailgater on Feb 11, 2011 8:52 AM PST up reply actions
Compare 2011 Sounders with 2001 Mariners
The very first thing I thought of while reading the article was the 2001 Mariners. You’re right, that season did end in crushing disappointment, but when I think about it now, I just as often remember how awesome it was and the feeling that the Mariners were winning every night.
I would absolutely take that feeling and a Supporter’s Shield for the 2011 Sounders, even if they are knocked out in the first round of playoffs.
24 is clearly the most perfect of numbers.
“You have a game like this and we win, and maybe if we play UCLA 100 times, they would win 99 times, but tonight, we did.” – Princeton coach Pete Carill, 1996 NCAA Tournament
Those are the kind of “moments” that Garber is talking about, and more often than not playoffs will provide that, even though it’s not as mathematically “fair.”
Win or lose, we will always be here for you.
by johnjahafanclub on Feb 10, 2011 6:44 PM PST up reply actions 1 recs
only problem is
MLS playoffs have hardly managed to capture the attention of the sports world. Even for soccer fans the MLS Cup seems anticlimactic…
and since you bring it up, the NCAA tournament usually strikes me as anticlimactic. What seem to make ti exciting is the sheer volume of games. By the time its gets to the elite 8 I have generally tuned it out…
...that's MISTER Keller to you!!!
by malcontentjake on Feb 10, 2011 9:09 PM PST up reply actions
I just don't see how NOT having playoffs is supposed to capture the attention of the sports world.
There will be more teams fighting for playoff spots at the end of the season than for the Supporter’s Shield, which means that more fans will have something to root for. Heck, last season I was way more interested in our playoff seed than whether LA or RSL won the Supporter’s Shield.
by quacker27 on Feb 10, 2011 11:02 PM PST up reply actions 2 recs
I've never said we should get rid of the playoffs
I am not anti-playoffs. Now, this doesn’t mean I think the MLS playoffs are great, as in fact it should be quite clear they are quite flawed. Even though I didn;t mean for this to be a piece about whether or not playoffs are good or bad or should exist, ti has taken that direction, and some proposals are being floated. here is another one: two groups of 4, seeds 1,4,5,8 in “A”, seed 2,3,6,7 in “B”. Single round-robin, 3 matches over a week, higher seed hosts. This means seeds 1 and 2 get 3 home matches, seeds 7 and 8 get NONE. This formula would keep teams fighting for position TO THE VERY END!. “A” group winner hosts “B” group runner up in semifinal 1, “B” group winner hosts “A” group runner-up in 2nd semifinal. Winners proceed on to MLS cup
This would add 1 game to the format used last year.
the REAL discussion begins with how you seed teams, however…
...that's MISTER Keller to you!!!
by malcontentjake on Feb 11, 2011 9:22 AM PST up reply actions 2 recs
I really like the idea of the round-robin series…but
I see the leauge keeping there major focus on divisions (my hope just the one, 24 teams, 12 in east and west) and "rivalries." So I don’t see the league ever giving playoff births in a 1 through 10 best record matter. I can see a top three from each division then the next four with the best record playing a one game wildcard to see who rounds off the final spot in each group. The group is played through and the club which did the best in the group hosts the club which did second best in a confrence championship. The two confrence champions play the in the mls cup much in the same way it works now. The advantages this has in my mind are: like you mentioned the higher seed gets more home games in the group phase, providing an advantage for doing better in the regular season, plus clubs would play more rivalry games in the playoffs.
Say instead of just playing LA twice we would have played LA, Dallas, and RSL once. I kno this doesn’t sound very exciting, but think of a group which was comprised of LA, Seatte, Chivas and Portland, where we got to play each once. In the current format it may work out that LA plays Portland and Seattle plays Chivas, LA and Seattle advance to the confrence championship and a LA v Chivas and Seattle v Portland matchup never occurs.
Currently with a balanced schedual and one confrence being possibly much stronger than the other it makes much more sense for seeding 1 through 10 or having a bunch of wild cards, say having the top two in each confrence qualify automatically then the next 6 be wildcards, which is silly, but when mls reaches 24 teams an inbalanced schedual will make it much more fair to seed more teams from the same confrence in the same group, hopefuly.
well, it's provided me with a lot of good moments over the years
the Quakes’ big upset win over the juggernaut Fusion team in 2001, the historic comeback victory from a 4-0 deficit against LA in 2003, the overtime win over KC in the 2003 conference final, the big upset over the Henry-led NYRB last season. Those memories far outweigh missing out on the cup in 2005 even though we won the supporters shield that year.
Win or lose, we will always be here for you.
by johnjahafanclub on Feb 11, 2011 11:28 PM PST up reply actions
things to keep in mind
it is not so much about parity, as it is about schedule imbalance. The reason having the best regular season record is meaningless in the NFL (beyond seeding, of course) is that schedules are so dissimilar across the NFL. This is also true, although to a slightly lesser extent, for MLB and the NHL. The NBA actually has very high schedule balance within conferences, but there is a tradition of disparity between the two conferences (one is Usually notably stronger than the other).
It is VERY hard to objectively say that a certain team in MLB, the NFL or the NHL is “the best” even if they finish with the best record, because in many cases the fate of team is so tied to which division they are in. The Seahawks were categorically a bottom-3rd NFL team, and yet managed to “win” their division by being better than three other bottom-3rd teams they happened to be lumped with.
This is what is so remarkable about the MLS right now. We just don’t see this in American sports, with Completely balanced schedules Across the Board! And yet, instead of this being a marketing point for the League, an opportunity for them to say “THIS is why you should watch!” they seem intent on actually Diminishing it.
This is troubling to me…
...that's MISTER Keller to you!!!
in my mind
I hope I don’t come off as a smart ass about this but is it a legitimate supporters shield if schedules aren’t balanced or pretty close to balanced, making it difficult to truly determine best regular season performance?. At first I thought it was some sort of fan award when I first heard of it.
Thanks peeps for reminding me of some of my worst sports memories ever for baseball and hoops. Right now, I have Mutombo on his back holding the ball with his outstretched hands, screaming unnaturally towards the ceiling in my head and remembering the sinking feeling I had experienced back then.
After being up 2-0 in the series, no less
I’ll never get over it.
by lemonverbena on Feb 10, 2011 9:01 PM PST up reply actions
Not just that
The guy above wrote 93’ so it made me think of the infamous Phoenix free throw fest first.
I don't think they want to brag about
balanced schedules because they know they won’t last. It’s like “Catch the Supporter’s Shield fever before it become more and more meaningless!”
They are growing the league steadily. But eventually they WILL get up there at 30 or so teams. And the schedules will become less and less balanced.
As should be the case in a country the size of America.
true
although I don’t see the MLS as remaining sustainable with as many as 30 teams. In fact, if you ask me, 30 teams is too many for MLB, NBA, and far too many for NHL…
...that's MISTER Keller to you!!!
by malcontentjake on Feb 10, 2011 9:06 PM PST up reply actions
my thoughts exactly
I think the NHL needs to shrink back to 24, frankly, and baseball should get rid of 2 teams and go back to 4 divisions of 7 teams each… but I digress…
...that's MISTER Keller to you!!!
by malcontentjake on Feb 11, 2011 9:26 AM PST up reply actions
On an opposite and only partly related note
I actually think the NFL would benefit from expanding to 40 teams.
by B-Lot tailgater on Feb 11, 2011 10:37 AM PST up reply actions
Oh please
There is no basis on which to claim there are too many teams in baseball. In 1927, there were 16 teams in the league, none of them west of St. Louis, the US population was roughly 1/3rd of what it is today, segregation was the rule, and there was no significant impact from foreign players. Today there are 30 teams, the population of the US is larger, there is no more segregation, and players are drawn from Central America, South America, and East Asia.
If anything, relocation has done some of the worst damage to baseball, not expansion. There should always have been three teams in New York, and when they wanted to put teams in California, they should have just expanded. Keeping three teams in New York could have done a lot to stem the dominance of the Yankees. As it stands now, if anything, they should bring baseball back to Brooklyn and back to Montreal. Since they moved them out before, it would take some time to build back a fanbase in Brooklyn, but it would be a prudent long-term move. And as long as they don’t give the new team to Jeffrey Loria, there’s no reason baseball can’t succeed in Montreal.
Last year, baseball averaged 30K fans per game and has the highest aggregate attendance of any sports league in the world. Eurosnobbery’s beloved Premier League averages barely more, around 34-35K/game, despite having many fewer games.
Taking baseball out of additional markets would only serve to cut off access to paying customers.
My take on this has changed somewhat recently
My belief now is that we shouldn’t think of MLS as a league competing with, say, the English Premier League. England has 1/6th the population of the US and maybe 1/8th the GDP of the US.
What MLS should really aspire to be is the UEFA Champions League. Now, first off, I know that CONCACAF has its own Champions League, but in the long run, CCL will be dominated by the US and Mexico, with some rare champions from other countries. CCL is just not going to be like UCL with a variety of nations putting forth legitimate contenders. It can still be great fun, it will just be different.
I’d argue that the US is closer to being comparable to the EU than it is to England. The US has 60% the population of the EU, as opposed to 600% the population of England. The US also has a GDP within roughly 10% of the EU.
Now consider the setup of UCL. There are 32 teams in the group stage. They play through some groups to determine 16 teams which then enter into a home-and-home elimination bracket to determine the champion.
In the long run, it’s not hard to imagine MLS having 32 teams, divided into 2 conferences with 4 divisions, and 16 teams in a playoff to determine the MLS Cup champion. Instead of thinking that MLS would be better with a balanced schedule, how much better would UCL be if all of the teams played each other in a 38-game “regular season” before they went to the “playoffs.”
From a parity standpoint, UCL has had more distinct champions over the last 15 years than MLS has had. And it’s still been awfully popular despite (or because of) that parity.
After thinking about this a couple of days now, calls for MLS to be more like the EPL or La Liga just seem a little silly to me. If the United States had been settled differently, and today consisted of 6-7 countries instead of just one, would anyone be pushing for those 6-7 countries to have just one professional league with a single table and promotion/relegation? There’s just no good reason I can think of for the US to act like it is a smaller European nation.
by ubelmann on Feb 10, 2011 6:28 PM PST reply actions 2 recs
This
Funny thing is, I was just thinking that it is only a matter of time before the top teams in Europe break away from their domestic leagues and form a closed league that more resembles this anyways.
by B-Lot tailgater on Feb 11, 2011 8:57 AM PST up reply actions
They've talked about it.
Or some people have.
I think the SS is as meaningless ...
as having the best record in any other American sport. The main reasons are that it isn’t everyone’s top goal and we don’t relegate.
In order to have it matter you need every team trying desperately to win every week. We don’t. Anyone think Colorado wanted to win their final regular season game? Anyone think DC was going all out at the end of the year (as opposed to using the dregs of a lost season to build for the future?)? Heck, due to our salary cap issues, it wouldn’t shock me to see a team get blown up mid season once it appears a team is out of contention. It happens in other American sports all the time.
You don’t want to put too much credence into something where WHEN you play a team can be as important as who you are playing. Once a team is locked into a seed, coaches sometimes rest star players. So though the season is balanced, the incentives are not in place to guarantee a meaningful competition every week from every team.
by Jack Brando on Feb 10, 2011 7:42 PM PST reply actions 1 recs
I completely agree with you
and what I am saying is that I would much rather have teams desperately trying to win every week. I would rather have teams trying to win their final regular season game. I want the incentives to be in place. I want the season to matter, and I want the SS to be meaningful.
...that's MISTER Keller to you!!!
by malcontentjake on Feb 10, 2011 9:04 PM PST up reply actions
The problem is implementation
I think, in order to guarantee sincere effort from all teams all year, you need to have a system of promotion and relegation.
You need those bottom teams scraping for any win they can get. That’s what keeps the points race pure in the EPL. There is simply no good reason to lose a game in the EPL. There is no salary cap to consider. No draft to get seeded into. And if you lose enough games, you get dropped to the minor leagues so there is basically never a good time to let up.
I just don’t see it happening in any American sport. Relegation is so foreign to us and requires there be preexisting minor league teams waiting in the wings with the cash, facilities, and fan bases to compete with the big boys. We don’t have that in any sport. Not even in Baseball, where minor leagues are probably the biggest deal.
The only American sport which could, in theory, create a top league and then relegate teams up and down would be College Football.
At the pro level we have these entrenched business models of revenue sharing, and franchise fees. We’d have to dump all that and just go with pure open market capitalism. Otherwise you’d have real problems.
Suppose two years ago RBNY gets relegated. So no NY team in MLS? And in it’s place you’d have, who, Charleston Battery (in their 5000 person stadium?) Dayton Dutch Lions? And what happens to NYRB with their payroll when they are suddenly playing in USL Pro? Are 20,000 going to turn out to watch the Harrisburg City Islanders stroll into RBA? Are they going to follow them in their (likely untelevised) games at Wilmington, Richmond, and Antiqua? They might, but probably not.
And with the current system, the season IS meaningful. Just not necessarily at the top (and bottom). The race is in the middle for the at large playoff berths. We were part of that race last year. It was fun.
by Jack Brando on Feb 11, 2011 11:11 AM PST up reply actions
This would never actually work, but...
You know what I’d like to see? The Shield winner hosts the MLS Cup. The MLS Cup is:
Supporters Shield winner vs playoff tournament winner.
The rest of the teams in the playoffs are battling for the right to play the Shield winner in the MLS Cup. The Shield winner gets a month off to wait for their opponent to be determined. How’s that for making it meaningful?
You may now all start posting the 800 completely valid reasons why it shouldn’t really be that way. But I’d still like to see it just the same.
by central_scrutinizer on Feb 10, 2011 10:37 PM PST reply actions 1 recs
I was thinking about this
The biggest problem is that the SS winner has like three weeks off, which is actually too long and probably puts them at a disadvantage.
Editor/writer at Sounder at Heart, North American soccer editor SB Nation and of course follow me on Twitter
by Jeremiah Oshan on Feb 11, 2011 12:41 AM PST up reply actions
You're crazy
like a fox.
You will hear us on Brougham, you will hear us on Occidental, you will hear us on King. We are all around you, there is no escape.
something like this COULD work
The Rugby playoffs have been mentioned, and the AFL (as in Aussie rules football) does something similar (as does the A-league if I am not mistaken).
You’d have to drastically reduce the number of teams in the playoffs. I’m thinking 5. First round is 2v3 and 4v5, and 1 gets a bye. 4v5 loser is out, and that winner plays 2v3 loser, lets call that match “B”. the 2v3 winner plays 1 in match “A”. “A” winner is though to the final. “B” winner plays “A” loser" in match “C”. Match “C” winner advances to final.
The problem with all these proposals is how you seed the teams. Right now it seems pretty obvious, just use the overall table. But when the MLS goes back to unbalanced schedules with TRUE conference standings, then what.
Let’s remember that a major beef with the current MLS playoffs is seeding. the League insists on using shadow conferences and meaningless conference tables to determine seedings, and a lot of us have a real issue with that…
How you seed teams is as important as the actual format! Look at the NFL, where the Seahawks, a bottom-3rd team by any objective yardstick, was seeded higher than New Orleans – a top 3rd team by any objective yardstick. Even though it certainly worked out for us Seahawks fans, that is pretty ridiculous…
...that's MISTER Keller to you!!!
by malcontentjake on Feb 11, 2011 9:39 AM PST up reply actions
I like the play off system,
I just do not think the way the MLS does it is logical. The two conference winners should get an automatic birth and top seeds in the first round. Then reseed the rest based on record. I would like to see a home and away in each round, except the final.
I wonder what everyone’s thoughts on college football? Should there be a playoff’s or not? I am in the minority in that I like the bowl system. With only 12 games in a schedule, I feel a playoffs would really devalue the season.
Money is the only reason the bowl system will stick around
Teams make too much money off the bowls (mainly the major ones) for the NCAA to give that up in favor of a playoff (like there is in every other level of NCAA football.)
I think that with only 12 games in the regular season, and highly unbalanced schedules, the current system overvalues the regular season. With 6 major conferences, let the conference champs all go into the playoff, and let the runners-up play mid-majors for the last two spots. That still places enough emphasis on the regular season and provides for a more meaningful end to the season.
How does it overvalue the regular season? Every game means something, which is good
There is a lot of money with bowls. There would be a lot of money with a playoff system. I do not see that as a true argument. The players of certain teams would be playing 15-16 games a year in college and would get none of the spoils.
Number of games
An 8-team playoff would only be 7 games. There are way more bowl games than that now. That’s how the NCAA would lose money.
The players of certain teams would be playing 15-16 games a year in college and would get none of the spoils.
This is an extremely lame argument. First off, the players “get none of the spoils” as it is. If you’re interested in fair compensation for work put in, you should look somewhere other than college football, where the only way players get anywhere close to their market value is through under-the-table money from boosters or agents.
Second, every other level of NCAA football has a playoff. Every one. There’s no reason that the D-IA guys can’t have a playoff when the D-IAA, D-II, and D-III guys do have a playoff. And if playing that many games is such a hazard, perhaps they shouldn’t be playing the sport at all. After all, it’s supposed to be fun to play the games, right? Shouldn’t the players want to play more games?
How does it overvalue the regular season?
The regular season in college football is the exact opposite of a single table. The differences in strength of schedule are drastic, and as a result, it is nearly impossible to compare records between teams. There’s no reason to think, just by their records, that a no-loss team would be any better than a two-loss team, especially if that no-loss team played few, or no, top ten opponents, and the two-loss team lost two games to top ten teams on the road. The season is simply not balanced enough for records to be meaningful, which is why the current system overvalues the regular season.
Now, if they switched to a system where conference winners advanced to a playoff, you would have a much more meaningful regular season in that teams could at least fathom a round-robin conference schedule which would give everyone in the conference an equal shot at earning a playoff spot.
Furthermore, the current state of affairs encourages top teams to schedule games against tiny/terrible programs for any non-conference games, because any loss—even a loss on the road to the number one team in the country—will hurt their ranking, and could quite possibly end their chance of a national championship. So teams don’t take those chances. If only conference games counted for playoff advancement, then teams might actually challenge themselves in the non-conference games to prepare for a difficult conference season.
by ubelmann on Feb 12, 2011 2:35 PM PST up reply actions 1 recs
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