* moves the MLS onto the international calendar (or a close approximation thereof)
* allows for a split season (a la the South American leagues)
* creates a Supporters Shield that’s determined in the same way and manner as other league titles
* preserves the MLS Cup’s primacy

How can all of these features be implemented?

I will first address the calendar. The MLS Cup, the conclusion of the football year, would be played on roughly the second Wednesday in July, in prime time. Why? Because that is the single deadest day of the American sports calendar: it’s the one day from April through September where there’s nothing baseball related on, thanks to the All-Star Game being the day before. By that evening, after all the All-Star hoopla has passed through the news cycle, there’s a gaping hole in the sports news that needs to be filled. Being the only sporting event on American TV that night will attract a certain amount of interest, not least from degenerate gamblers and guarantee coverage in newspapers, TV, and radio the next day.

Falling as it does in the midst of the overseas friendly season, we could also have a more interesting replacement for the MLS All-Star Game: have the MLS Cup final be one of the semifinals of a tournament, with the other semifinal (played, perhaps on Tuesday night in the same city) featuring a major European power vs. a major South American power. Last year, I would have tried to cut a sponsorship deal with AIG to call it the American International Cup, but I suspect that’s a nonstarter. Have the final for that cup, MLS Champions vs. a top club in the world, be on the subsequent weekend (in the same city that hosts MLS Cup).

Working back, you’d keep the 8 club MLS Cup playoff format running through June and early July. On Memorial Day, you’d have the MLS “clausura” end. The clausura would have MLS divided into Eastern and Western Leagues with no interleague play, just home and away with every club in your conference (so a 20-club MLS would have an 18 game clausura)… the clausura would start in late February or early March, before which there would be a winter break for December, January, and February.

The “apertura” would run from August through to right before Thanksgiving. For this, MLS splits into two or more nationwide divisions, with clubs being promoted and relegated based on their performance the previous year. Each division plays a global-standard home and away schedule, and the Supporters Shield is awarded to the winner of the MLS Premier Division.

Some further wrinkles that might be controversial:

* for determining MLS Cup qualification, apertura points are added to the clausura points (if the divisions in the apertura are of unequal size, then clubs from smaller divisions would have 1 point per missing game added to their tally to even things out)
* in the hierarchy of honors, for the purpose of CONCACAF Champions League qualification, the order is:
– MLS Cup winner
– Supporters Shield winner
– (2) Conference winners
– US Open Cup winner
– MLS Cup runner-up
– 2nd in Premier Division
– 2nd in Conference that won MLS Cup
– 2nd in other Conference
By giving the MLS Cup primacy over the Supporters Shield, you reduce the temptation of a club that wins the Shield to phone it in for the rest of the season

* Promotion and relegation are as follows:
– winners of each lower division at the end of the apertura are automatically promoted
– bottom of each higher division at the end of the apertura are automatically relegated
– another club is promoted from each lower division based on apertura+clausura points
– another club is relegated from each higher division based on apertura+clausura points

* SuperLiga qualification is based on the apertura results: the four best clubs in the Premier Division that are not eligible for the CONCACAF Champions League as of the conclusion of the first round of the MLS Cup playoffs go to the SuperLiga.

* In dividing MLS into divisions for the apertura, the maximum division size is 10 clubs and the minimum is 6. Additionally, each division should be at least of equal size as the one below it (this allows for greater seasonal variation in scheduling for the lower divisions, since a lower-division game in unfavorable weather is unlikely to draw a crowd!). For a 16-club MLS, I would prefer 10-6; for 18, 10-8; for 20: 10-10; for 22: 10-6-6; for 24: 10-8-6; for 26: 10-8-8; for 28: 10-6-6-6, etc.

This structure has the added benefit of potentially allowing MLS to expand far beyond the 32 club limit (though expansion beyond 26 might require splitting into three or more leagues for the clausura). This would obviously allow MLS to create derbies in more cities or expand to markets that are otherwise not served by the NBA/NHL/MLB/NFL. There’s some evidence historically that being the first league to establish in a given territory helps a sport establish itself in that territory’s sports fans: being the league in which Hartford gets to battle New York and Boston brings mindshare among Connecticut fans, for example.

Since no team plays the exact same schedule,even within its own division, strength of varying opponents does remain a factor as to who advances, much like a group of death can eliminate a favorite, but it is universally agreed in North America that playoffs are great and upsets are part of the triumph and tragedy of the sports.

The one negative of playoff systems is that most often TOO MANY clubs are allowed to get thru to the postseason tournaments, thus diminishing the importance of each regular season game or match, and allowing the possibility for lesser or unworthy clubs to ride the lightning to a title.

Baseball is best in the ratio, only allowing 8 out of 30 teams to advance, gridiron is at 12 from 32, but four top clubs get a first round bye into the single-elimination tourney as reward for regular season excellence . Pro basketball and hockey, on the other hand, let half the teams advance, with four rounds of best of seven matchups to follow,and it is common for clubs with losing records to sqeek in and fill the brackets. Usually these weak sisters get bounced quickly by the second round.

MLS has always allowed for 8 clubs to play in its playoffs, and the current field is 8 out of 15. There have been occasions where a bad regular season club had gotten hot and went all the way, and fans of the league have always debated the weaknesses of the system, especially in regards to the Supporter’s Shield, which has definately gotten short shrift from the media, fans and players a like as really not a “championship.”

However, the league is expanding rapidly, and by 2011 it will have 18 teams, making the playoff percentage much more palatable, with 8 out of 22 clubs down the line a real possibility and one that will make the MLS playoffs much more a tournament featuring all elite clubs.

Now, detractors of the playoff system could certainly point to this as a good example of why playoff systems are wrong. They made it into the playoffs by sheer luck and happenstance. They were barely a top 10 team before the postseason. But to deny them a shot would have made the post-season much less special. American’s love an underdog and to watch the Cardinals scrap and fight their way through to the Super Bowl was extremely fun and entertaining, especially for those of us who support a team that didn’t make the playoffs. By the way, this super bowl was one of the most enjoyable I’ve seen in a very long time and I’m sure I’m not alone in this sentiment.

The playoffs are magical. Anything can happen. That’s precisely the reason why American’s love it. It’s true that you can be an amazing team, probably even the best team, for an entire season only to watch it slip away in the dying seconds of a final or a semifinal etc, but the emotions and hype that surround those games far exceed anything you see during a regular season outside of rivalries. It’s as hard for me to imagine one of the popular American sports without playoffs as it is for the rest of the world to imagine Football with playoffs I imagine.

Originally, there were no provisions by the league to recognize the team with the best “regular season” record, so the supporters took matters into their own hands.