WEEKLY WHINE
As you are well aware, MLS is going gangbusters with expansion. It had just ten teams in 2004. By 2011, it will have eighteen, including the renovated Seattle Sounders, the renovated Portland Timbers, and next year’s team, the Philadelphia Gangbusters.
MLS wants to expand even more than that, but with a 20 team league, it would not be able to accommodate a 38 match regular season, playoffs, the Open Cup, the SuperLiga, the CONCACAF Champions League, the Pan Pacific Championship, and this year’s new tournament, the Tournament for Champions of Countries Whose Names Begin and End with A. [Watch out for Angolan champions Petro Luanda.] What to do?
The answer is obvious: get rid of all those foolish other tournaments.
But seeing as how that won’t happen, the next best solution is relegation. In fact, the GoobNet Special Projects Enhancement and Enforcement Division [SPEED], which until several years ago had been a vocal opponent of relegation [going so far as to organise a protest at Wembley in 2004, only to cancel it when they realised that Wembley was still under construction], has recently come around and is now forming a new commission, the GoobNet Relegatory Agency, to organise and implement promotion and relegation structures in North American sports leagues.
Note: We are currently working with them to find a name that is more fitting with the GoobNet naming scheme.
Here is MLS’s current expansion plan:
This year, each team plays 30 regular season matches [two against all other teams, plus a third match against each of two other teams]. MLS has not yet announced its competition plans for the following seasons, which is a horrible mistake, because the GoobNet Relegatory Agency is going to force plans onto it.
Each team plays 30 regular season matches [two against all other teams]. The playoff format is the same as the previous two seasons: three teams reach the playoffs from each conference, plus two wild cards.
To accommodate Portland and Vancouver, Houston and Dallas move to the Eastern Conference, while Kansas City moves to the Western Conference. Anyone who complains that Kansas City is further east than Dallas is to be relegated to the Angolan league. Each team plays 30 regular season matches [one each against four of the teams in the other conference, two each against all other teams]. The playoff format again remains the same. Furthermore, assuming two expansion teams are to be added in 2012, the last six teams overall [regardless of conference] are to be relegated.
In this year, MLS splits into a First Division and a Second Division. The Second Division contains the two new expansion teams and the six teams that were relegated the previous year. These teams each play 28 regular season matches [four against all other teams]. The Second Division is a single table, and there are no playoffs to determine the division championship.
The First Division contains the twelve teams that were not relegated in the previous year. The teams are still divided into an Eastern and Western Conference, and if the relegated teams were not evenly split between the conferences, one or more teams in the First Division will be moved to the other conference to ensure that there are six teams in each conference. Each team plays 32 regular season matches [four against each team in the same conference, two against each team in the other conference]. The playoff format remains the same.
Starting this season, two promotion playoff serieses will be played each season. One is between the first placed team in the Second Division and the last placed team in the First Division, and the other is between the second placed team in the Second Division and the second last placed team in the First Division. The First Division teams are selected regardless of conference. Each is a two leg series, with the First Division team hosting the second leg. The same rules apply as the first round of the First Division playoffs [aggregate goals, no away goals rule used]. The winner of each series plays in the First Division the following season, while the loser plays in the Second Division. First Division teams will be transferred between conferences as needed.
MLS is to remain at 20 teams through the 2015 season. During this time, the league will evaluate the level of play in each division and make changes to the competition format as it deems necessary.
If expansion resumes in 2016, the new teams are to be added to the Second Division, while the First Division remains at 12 teams. As the Second Division grows larger, the league will change the format as necessary.
When the Second Division reaches 12 teams, any further expansion will result in an increase in the First Division. At the end of the season before the expansion, the Second Division’s top teams, in equal number as the number of expansion teams to be added, are promoted automatically to the First Division. The promotion playoffs will instead involve the two Second Division teams who finished immediately behind the teams who were promoted automatically. For instance, if one team is being added, the Second Division winner is promoted automatically, and the second placed team plays off against the last placed team in the First Division.
When the First Division reaches 16 teams, it will change to a single table, with each team playing 30 regular season matches [two against all other teams]. The top eight teams reach the playoffs, in which the first round remains a two leg series and the semifinal remains a single match hosted by the higher seed. The number of promotion playoffs may be increased at the league’s discretion. At this point, the First Division will remain at 16 teams permanently.
Once the league has advanced this far, it will have 28 teams [16 in the First Division, 12 in the Second Division]. Further expansion will again result in an increase in the Second Division. When the Second Division reaches 20 teams, it will split and form a Third Division with eight teams. The ultimate end state will be three divisions with 16 teams each, promotion and relegation playoffs, and MLS Cup playoffs in the First Division.
One more rule: Under no circumstances will the league be permitted to attach sponsors’ names to the names of the leagues, or to give them names that do not correspond to their position in the ladder [eg, the Second Division may not be called “League One”, even if the First Division is changed to “Premier League”].
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