Sunday, November 21, 2010

Major League Soccer Can Improve It's Product! Part 2

Just watched the MLS Cup on ESPN. Colorado won 2-1 in overtime on an own goal by FC Dallas. Match was a little ugly by soccer standards, but very exciting!

ESPN did a good job covering the match. The best move they made was bringing in Ian Darke for match play-by-play.

Building on my previous post, here are some additional recommendations for MLS:

Play the MLS Cup Championship at the home field of the team with the best seed coming into the MLS Cup Playoffs. It is obviously nice to reward BMO Field with the Championship match, but the neutral crowd is taking away from the atmosphere that would be much better in one of the team's home field.

Also, Don Garber, MLS Commissioner, announced at half time that the MLS would play a balanced schedule next year (18 team league with the addition of Vancouver and Portland). This means that each team will play a home-and-home against every other team for 34 matches total. Good move.

Now the bad news. Mr. Garber also announced ten teams would make the MLS Cup playoffs next year, further diluting the regular season. Bad move.

I still would advocate for a single table, rather than two divisions. Top 8 make the MLS Cup Playoffs.

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