Major League Soccer is on the precipice of their 20th season. The upcoming season will kick off with the most teams ever in the league’s history (20) with the introduction of NYCFC and Orlando City. The league has decided to keep the 34 league game schedule despite the change in number of teams, leading to an unbalanced schedule. The unbalanced schedule will have teams play 24 games against conference opponents, some teams will meet only twice while others will meet three times, and the remaining 10 games split against the opposite conference.
The unbalanced schedule creates advantages and disadvantages for different teams; for example, the LA Galaxy will play Eastern Conference champions New England Revolution in New England in their lone matchup of the season, while the Seattle Sounders get to avoid that trip and will host the Revolution in Seattle in their lone matchup of the season instead. On the same conference front, Columbus Crew play the Revolution twice, home and away this season, however, Toronto FC plays the Revolution three times, two of those in Foxboro, not to mention that Toronto and Columbus play each other three times, two of those in Columbus.
That said this writer believes that MLS missed a chance to balance the schedule this year and by not going for a straight single table, 38 game season. There are different takes, for and against, on whether a single table is right for MLS, let’s explore some of those reasons:
Pros
Balanced Schedule
One of the biggest gripes about the current schedules in MLS is that they are unbalanced. Teams can play some teams up to three times in a season, whereas another team may not see that same team at all in a season. The example cited above shows just some of the irregularities the current 34 game schedule presents and potentially provides an advantage for some teams over others. The single table, 38 games season, would eliminate the unbalanced schedule and assure that every team plays a home and away game against every team in the league. There would no longer be arguments that a team made or missed the playoffs because of strength of schedule or the fact that they avoided one team while having to play a much tougher team three times. It would add four games to the current schedule, however, teams around the world play those types of schedules so it wouldn’t be outside of the realm of possibility to ask players to make this adjustment, plus teams would get an extra two home games per season to generate revenue.
Must See TV
The single table provides the opportunity for a team to host every team in the league one time in the season, meaning that they only play one given team twice in a season, home and away. This means that a savory in season matchup between LA and Seattle or an all New York/New Jersey matchup between NYCFC and the Red Bulls would only occur twice in a season providing MLS and their television rights partners the opportunity to market those big ticket matchups. For instance, a rematch of New England Revolution at LA Galaxy can be promoted in advance, as the rematch of the 2014 final, knowing this would be the only time all season the two teams would meet in LA. Another instance is, if a team pulls off an upset early in the season, the second game could become must watch television to see if the first game was a fluke or if it was a legitimate result. The fact remains that removing the over saturation of seeing the same teams play multiple times per season, each game hosted or each visit during the season becomes an event in it of itself. Real Salt Lake’s only visit to Seattle or Colorado “this season” becomes a bigger game than knowing that they will play two more times in the season.
Playoffs can still exist
Just because there is a single table doesn’t mean that the playoffs should be scrapped, this is America after all and Americans love playoffs. There is room for a 38 game schedule followed by playoffs in the calendar. The playoff format could remain the same or modified. Ideally, the top eight teams in the league would make the playoffs, similar to the way Liga MX does, where the top 8 teams at the end of the season are seeded one through eight. Since there are no conferences, there would be no need to “balance” the playoffs by having equal amounts of east and west teams, the top eight qualify regardless of geographic location. This assures that the best eight teams qualify and keeps the regular season honest by not rewarding the majority of the league’s teams with a post season appearance, as the current format presently does by allowing 12 teams to qualify.
Cons
Travel
Single tables work in other countries because they don’t have as much ground to cover to get from one end of the country to the other. England’s EPL only has 50,000 square miles to cover, while MLS in the US and Canada has 3.8 million square miles. Russia has the most square miles, 6.6 million; however, their premier league is strictly played in the Western end of the country. Russia’s premier league would be like the MLS cutting the country in half and only using the Western conference territory or Eastern conference territory. Unfortunately, MLS can’t do that and cross country matchups of up to 3,000 miles one way are real predicaments that the league currently manages and would have more to manage with a single table. In a single table format, Montreal would be forced to travel close to 81,000 miles per season, with four trips per season of over 9,000 miles roundtrip, each, to the northwest teams and San Jose. Seattle, San Jose and Vancouver would also be burdened with more than 80,000 miles of travel per season, with Portland just below that mark at 79,000 miles. The argument could be made that teams in the NBA and NHL make it work, however, those sports don’t require players to run five to ten miles per game, requiring more recovery time between games. However, two games in a week from time to time is more probable and with some astute schedule making Montreal’s trip to the upper northwest could include a Saturday game in Vancouver followed by a mid-week game in Portland ending with a dip down to San Jose for a Saturday game, all the while keeping Montreal on the west coast for the week and cutting down on the number of trips to the west coast.
League expansion
The 38 game schedule would work well until 2017 when the league expands to 22 teams and eventually to 24. If single table scheduling continues, this would increase the 2017 season to 42 games and eventually to 46 games when the league reaches its goal of 24 teams. Seasons that include 42 and 46 regular season games, plus playoffs would be quite taxing on the player and saturate the schedule with very limited amount of wiggle room to account for potential cancellations, CONCACAF Champions League schedule, and summer international tournaments such as Gold Cup or the World Cup when the league tends to thin out the schedule or outright provide a break for a couple of weeks. On the other hand, there are leagues that have more than 20 teams and play more than 38 games per season, England’s Championship league has 24 teams and they play a 46 game season. The Championship teams also compete in two-cup competitions in England each season, which could serve as the “playoff games” on top of the 46 game season. An even wilder example is Argentina’s new 30-team top division that begins play this year for the first time. The league will run from February through November and each team will play each other twice, meaning a 58 game regular season. So while league expansion would be a threat to a single table, it certainly wouldn’t be a new problem.
Will Never Work Without Promotion/Relegation
Single table leagues become more intriguing by the fact that the race at the bottom of the table can become as exciting as the race at the top. This provides fans with two races at the end of the season, one for the league championship and one to avoid relegation. The promotion and relegation races each year keep fans interested in teams they normally would not pay much attention to, unless they are a die-hard fan of one of the teams. There is no more bitter feeling in sports than seeing your team get relegated. Having a bad year in any sport stings, but gets better by the “there is always next year” motto, unfortunately when your team is relegated, next year means playing in a lower division and having to finish at the top of the table to return to the top league. A single MLS table would not provide these types of end of season races since promotion/relegation does not currently exist. Also, since I recommend that playoffs should still exist in the single table format, the race at the end of the season would be for playoff positioning with the real race being for the final playoff spots. While these races would be exciting for the teams involved and their fans, it still doesn’t beat a race to the championship or a race to avoid relegation. The counter to this argument however, would be the example of the NBA, NHL and MLB where every team plays each other and the race for the playoffs becomes a captivating run to the end of the season. There is no promotion or relegation in those leagues and yet there is still high fan interest as the playoffs draw near.
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