Today, MLS commissioner, Don Garber, had a live chat with USA Today about MLS as a whole and what's coming in the future. He talked about capitalizing on the big World Cup crowds around the country and increasing attendance, along with the addition of designated players during the summer window. He also talked about the upcoming CONCACAF Champion's League games for LA, Toronto, and Seattle and the plan to bring in the 20th team some time around or after the 2013 season.
The thing he said that I'm going to focus on tonight is his talk about the way the league will look next season when both Portland and Vancouver enter the league. Obviously these two teams are going to be entering the Western Conference, giving them 10 teams while the East will have 8. Garber has said that 2 teams will move to the Eastern Conference next season. Two teams moving East though doesn't make complete sense, because that then puts 10 East and 8 West. So what is likely to happen is 2 to the East, one moving back West. The two teams moving to the East seem likely to be Dallas and Houston as the league will likely want to keep the Texas rivalry going. So who moves West to replace them? Most likely the Wizards one would guess. After Dallas and Houston, KC is the next furthest West and have a history in the Western Conference so it would seem likely that KC would be the ones that would move back to the West.
Again the Wizards would get the short end of the stick having to switch conferences. Garber has focused on creating regional rivalries, and that's one of the reasons why the league keeps conferences. But KC hasn't gotten that chance. They were in the Western Conference until the 2005 season when they were forced to move to the East to accommodate Salt Lake and Chivas. Now KC will likely see themselves moving back to the West losing, at least in part, the rivalries they'd started to create in the Eastern Conference. It's just frustrating to think that the Wizards will once again be switching conferences.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
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4 comments:
I don't think having Houston and Dallas in seperate conferences hurts their rivalry. Each team still plays each other twice. Also, it's time to do away with the conferences. It doesn't matter anyway now. The league would be more exciting if it didn't have a 2conference league.
But next season we aren't going to have a balanced schedule unless MLS adds 4 games, which I don't see happening so the unbalanced schedule will be back.
Moving two east and one west becomes even more important in 2012 because the Montreal Impact join then and you would have 11 east and 8 west.
Well @ least the Wizards had a rivalry with AC STL this year come on 2013? jus prayin to da socker gawds
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