How to Create a Better Major League Soccer


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Written by Written by Abe Asher | This article originally appeared on OregonSportsNews.com

We are near the start of the new Premier League season. Imagine this: With ten games to go in the league season, 13 teams are within ten points of the lead.

Eight teams are within six points of the league leaders, and each and every game is massive, impactful, intense, must-watch entertainment.

Now, of course, this would never happen in the Premier League. With no hard salary cap, and the general murkiness of Financial Fair Play, the financial gap between the teams at the top and bottom is decisively large.

Last season, league champion Manchester United finished 47 points above 13th placed Stoke City, and United’s financial outlay dwarfs Stoke. Forbes valued the Red Devils at $2.24 billion in April, while internet speculation puts Stoke’s worth at around $75 million. To put it simply, with ten games left to go in the Premier League season next March, Stoke will not be within ten points of United and 13 other teams.

The Premier League is the best league in the world, and we love it, but we also know that at the most, three teams will be in the title race with ten games to go. MLS is not the best league in the world. It’s not even close, but may very well be the most competitive league.

mls-cupIn the grand scheme of things, MLS doesn’t have a whole lot going for it in terms of intrigue into who wins the championship. But, with around ten games to go in the season, 13 teams are within ten points of league-leading Real Salt Lake. But the team who falls out of this all-mighty scramble on top on the last day of the season won’t win the championship. Instead, the team that finishes with the most points in the MLS regular season wins the Supporters’ Shield, a token trophy with little significance.

Winning the regular season in MLS means next to nothing. Major League Soccer was created at a time in America when soccer was a fringe sport, especially European soccer, and its original target audience was American football, baseball, and basketball fans. In all those mainstream American sports, there are conferences, trades, gimmicky team nicknames, and most importantly playoffs.

In 1996, MLS looked like every other American league. But as soccer has grown in America, especially with the popularity of the European game with young people, MLS’ audience and fan-base has changed. MLS doesn’t need to appease the average American baseball fan. Nowadays, playoffs are out-of-touch, as are conferences, and they negate the one great advantage MLS has. Parity.

While MLS isn’t a completely level playing field – the LAs and New Yorks of the world have an advantage when it comes to designated players – it’s as close as you can get to level in sports. Every team has a shot to win the title every year. This year, no team in the league has won more than half their games.

It’s true that there are no great teams in MLS. But the fact that the league is so balanced and competitive is a huge and unique advantage that the league isn’t taking advantage of.

If MLS was a single-table league in which the team with the most points won the championship, we’d have a thrilling title race on our hands. Ten teams, Salt Lake, New York, Sporting KC, Portland, Colorado, Seattle, Philadelphia, Montreal, Vancouver and the LA Galaxy would have a chance to win the championship.

It would be enthralling. The stadiums would be full, the national TV ratings would be up, and people would be riding on each result each weekend across the country. Instead, those ten, give or take a few, will make up the playoff teams, and they’ll play a much less exciting, much more random after-season tournament to determine a champion. The playoffs are good, but MLS without playoffs would be a combination of the first weekend of March Madness and the Masters on Sunday.

The playoff system rewards mediocrity and in reality, the tenth best regular season team has as good a chance to win MLS Cup as the best regular season team.

When Don Garber announced MLS would expand to 24 teams at the All-Star Game in Kansas City recently, you could see the pride and excitement on the commissioner’s face. But to gain respect and traction both worldwide and in the US, where the league, fairly or not, has many skeptics, MLS has to evolve. Going to a European style single-table league with no playoffs would be the best thing that could happen to the American league.

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