As MLS approaches the postseason, it’s time to rethink the playoff format.
Jay Bell
Major League Soccer is in the home stretch of the regular season. Teams have 3-5 games left before the final playoff seeding is determined. You would hope the league would be better at managing that disparity by now, but that’s an issue for another day.
With a month remaining in the regular season, almost every team is still alive in the playoffs chase. Such is life in the parity model of MLS. The MLS Cup playoffs remain as forgiving and motivating as ever. Playoff seeds for the MLS Cup average lower than the NBA Finals and about the same as the Super Bowl and Stanley Cup despite fewer qualifying teams.
The NBA format appears to be very rewarding for top teams. Six of the last eight champions were top seeds. The average seed per champion is 1.6 over the last 10 years. The 20 finalists averaged a No. 2 seed. Only two teams seeded fourth made the finals.
Meanwhile, the NFL and NHL are pretty similar. The last 10 Super Bowl champions were seeded an average of 3.3. The finalists were seeded an average of 2.4. Ten top-seeded teams made it to the Super Bowl. The average seed of the past 10 Stanley Cup champions is 2.9. The finalists averaged 3.35.
The average seed per MLS Cup winner over the last 10 seasons is 2.5. The average seed per finalist is 2.45. Those numbers could rise as MLS adds more teams to the playoffs.
No. 2 seeds have had the most success. Four of the past 10 MLS Cup champions have been seeded No. 2 and nine of the 20 finalists. Only two No. 1 seeds have won the final during that time and only four made the final. Teams seeded fourth in the playoffs have won three titles in the last 10 years.
The promotion/relegation debate rages on in American soccer – though not with near the resonance nor reach as some of its most ardent proponents believe. The driving argument for its implementation is the motivation it provides late in the season. MLS has that with a playoff format that remains open to every single team, even as the calendar turns to autumn.
The inclusive nature of MLS playoffs is a league strength. Why not cater the format to that strength?
The Barclay’s Premier League, also known as Football Perfection by many in the U.S. (more so than in England, which I’ve always found weird) has a relegation battle every season. Each league down the English pyramid sees teams at the top and bottom of the table scramble for their desired positions.
The strength of MLS is that the playoffs provide the same motivation for teams throughout the standings. The highest-seeded teams battle for theoretical home field advantage through the playoffs. Basically every team knows that a not-so-far-fetched winning streak of 4 or 5 games can clinch a spot in the playoffs.
MLS has an exciting sprint to the finish line in the regular season, only to devolve into a bracket-style cup tournament with the official league championship up for grabs. The Men in Blazers (@MenInBlazers) might describe this as a “sub-optimal” format. Teams already play a cup-style competition during the season. American teams compete in the U.S. Open Cup and Canadian teams participate in the Voyageurs Cup.
Sports Illustrated’s Grant Wahl (@GrantWahl) and Brian Straus (@BrianStraus) and other great reporters have written before about a proposed group format for the playoffs reportedly under consideration by MLS owners. The league’s official response has been, and continues to be, that they are looking into every available format. We’ll see.
The format makes more and more sense every season. It is time for MLS to make the change.
Fans of college football’s SEC West suffer through the same type of competitive imbalance MLS fans do, come playoff time.
Competitive imbalance
I’m from Arkansas. I live in Arkansas. I graduated from the University of Arkansas. I have to go through the same miserable trials every fall as I suffer through the most unfair challenge in sports: the SEC West division in college football.
The Razorbacks have to play Alabama, Auburn, LSU, Mississippi State, Ole Miss and Texas A&M every single season. Only the Hogs and Bulldogs ever go on the road to *both* Alabama and LSU every two years. Meanwhile, Missouri can shame us all by losing to Indiana and waltzing through the East division that may only win 4-5 games per season against teams from the West.
Divisional superiority is inherent in American sports- just ask any SEC East fan from the 1990s, when the division won all but two conference championships. History/tradition and travel make it necessary to have conferences, leagues, divisions, etc. A competitive imbalance develops in most situations. MLS has had a notable disparity for so long and a group format could address the disparity in the playoffs.
The SEC West champion has won the SEC Championship Game the past six seasons and seven of the last eight, often by very large margins. It’s incredibly frustrating because every team in the West believes, however rightly or wrongly, it could have qualified for the game if it competed in the East. It’s a feeling shared by many fans of MLS’ Western Conference teams.
Western Conference teams have won five of the last six MLS Cup finals and eight of the last 10. The 2009 and 2010 finals both featured two finalists from the Western Conference facing each other. Seattle, Los Angeles and Real Salt Lake slogged through the dog fight a year ago to post the No. 1, 3, and 4 records in MLS.
Then the league added two of its most perennially competitive teams to the west because of the contraction of Chivas USA and addition of two new expansion clubs, New York City FC and Orlando City SC, to the east. Now, three of the top four teams in points per game and six of the top nine compete out west. Only one of the league’s bottom five teams in points per game is in the Western Conference.
It’s not a move that has to be made with a group stage format.
MLS could easily mix up playoff seeds with the bracket format, but it makes even more sense to draw teams from both conferences into two groups.
One group gets the No. 1 seed from one conference and the No. 2 seed from the other two. Teams 3-6 compete in play-in matches to round out the groups.
The competitive imbalance would be most resolved in the group stage format. Progression would not be determined by two games in a home and away series, but three games in the group stage. The semifinals and finals are one game each so teams would still be playing five or six games if they make it to MLS Cup.
A format where home-field advantage mattered more would showcase great soccer cities like Seattle as well.
Actual home field advantage
Nowhere does “home field advantage” seem more obsolete than MLS. The NBA has had 3x as many top-seeded champions just in the last 10 years. The NFL has seen 2.5x more No. 1 seeds make it to the championship game than MLS.
The current format still sends the top-seeded teams on the road. Teams can either lose momentum on the road or rely on strength at home depending on if you see the glass half full or empty.
The home-and-away format does not reward the top seeds as much as the group format would. A No. 1 seed could play all five playoff games at home. They would deserve it, right? The Supporters Shield winners grind through the ups and downs of the arduous regular season, why should they go on the road to face anyone? Play-in games make sure that 10 out of 12 playoff teams get at least one home game.
Moar playoffs!
Major League Soccer and specifically Don Garber have repeatedly said the playoffs are going nowhere. They are the driving force of the MLS season. Attendance and television ratings go up in the postseason. A group stage would allow for more games against more opponents, especially in the future.
The league has 20 teams right now, will definitely grow to 22 teams within three years and will get to 24 teams if Miami and Minnesota ever get their respective acts together. We all know MLS isn’t stopping there. There are too many more interested groups and markets in Sacramento, Indianapolis, San Antonio, Austin, St. Louis, Charlotte, etc. MLS will have 28 teams at the very least.
At that point, teams could be grouped in four divisions with or without conferences. I disagreed with my pal Adam Swift (@AdamTheRed) at first, but he’s right that a 16-team group format works best when the league reaches 28 teams.
@JayBellHS So it ends up being like a 16 team Euro essentially, 31 games in total, what a way to end the season, and higher seeds matter
— Adam Swift (@AdamTheRed) August 24, 2015
The move just feels imminent. The league can roll out the format now to let the public adjust as the league grows. A group format is the best long-term solution and there is no reason to delay the switch any longer.
A true World Cup bump
MLS is still at least a decade or two away from reaching the public presence it desires. The mythical “World Cup bump” is hardly a thing anymore. Fans who are fans continue to show up to MLS matches before and after every World Cup.
What a group stage can offer is a format the American public only enjoys once every four years, or two out of every four now that everyone loves the U.S. Women’s National Team as much as we do. MLS wants something to set it apart from other leagues and other sports. Making the switch would immediately make waves in domestic and international media.
Give the public a World Cup group format and interest is likely to grow every postseason, even more than it already does.
Jay Bell is a frequent contributor to The Yanks Are Coming. He’s a journalist living in Arkansas. Follow him on Twitter @jaybellhs.