An Expansion Proposal for Major League Soccer

MLS is a strange league that deserves more respect. If I were Don Garber, here's what I'd do about it.

Let’s face it, Major League Soccer is on its way up, and it won’t be long before it’s one of the best leagues in the world if — and I stress the word IF - the league doesn’t do anything stupid, which I fear it is about to do with its expansion plans.

The league is currently in talks about expansion with two cities in the U.S.: Las Vegas and San Diego. Both cities would be terrible locations for a soccer team. San Diego has long been a death trap for professional sports teams, and Las Vegas is too kitschy for a league (and a sport) that is still hyperlocal and must sell itself on its authentic relationships to its fan base.

Instead, MLS should expand into four North American cities: Phoenix, Hermosillo, Albuquerque, and Mérida.

Boom. In one fell stroke, MLS could turn itself into a tri-country league, and it would begin to make inroads into a lucrative Mexican market. Mérida and Hermosillo are both small cities, like Austin, Columbus, or Salt Lake, and both lack a Liga MX franchise. Together with Albuquerque, another small market team, the three franchises would benefit from the current “parity-first” structure of the league, at least for the first three or four years of their existence (see more below on the necessity of dropping the “parity-first” strategy). Adding these four cities would give MLS 33 teams, which could easily be divided into three 11-club divisions: North, South, and West.

Here’s where my proposal gets really bold. I’d get rid of the playoffs. I’d get rid of them even on the heels of the most successful and exciting MLS Cup to date. The team at the top of the table at the end of the year gets the Supporter’s Shield. There’d be a U.S. Open Cup to compete for, and that’s it. Fans will probably create cups or shields for division winners, but these trophies will remain in the hands of clubs and their supporters rather than in the realm of official MLS business. Due to the structure of the domestic season (the details of which are below), fans of teams in the divisions that did not win the Shield could complain that the winner didn’t face tough competition. It’d be an endless debate (like college football before the CFP), which would be great for MLS.

I would simplify the domestic league in favor of complicating MLS’ international schedule, putting MLS teams (which would include teams from Mexico and Canada) in European and South American tournaments. Not only would MLS teams compete for the CONCACAF Champions League and the Liga MX/MLS Leagues Cup, but also for three of UEFA’s cups: the Champions League, Europa League, and Europa Conference, as well as CONMEBOL’s Copa Libertadores.

But the domestic league would also keep its quirky identity, via an intra-conference schedule that emphasizes rivalry and stresses “hate,” and domestic campaigns would still be international in scope, as you’d have clubs from three countries dueling it out with each other.

Domestic Competition

Domestically, the current set-up of mostly home-and-away matches along with some random non-conference games would be tossed aside in favor of 3-game intra-division matchups, home-and-aways against regional, non-division rivals, and then two random computer-generated matches against non-division opponents. This would give MLS teams a total of 42 domestic games played in the league per season, which is barely more than in England’s Premier League (38 games/season), but let’s remember: MLS would be a three-country, continent-wide league spanning four time zones, so an extra four games per season is not unreasonable.

Divisional Hate

The intra-division rivalry would help MLS develop its academies and its history. The divisional format would give each team well-known foes that would be competing with you not only on the field but also for eyeballs, loyalty, recruits, and money. Because home field advantage is such a big deal in MLS, the third game between the division rivals will be awarded to the team with the better head-to-head record the year before. So, for example, if LA Galaxy beat LAFC twice last year, then LAFC have to play in Carson twice this year, while the Galaxy only go to the Banc of California Stadium once.

Familiarity breeds contempt, and playing 30 games per season against the same 10 teams is just what MLS is looking for in terms of authentic rivalries.

Regional but Non-Divisional Hate

These games will eventually flower into actual hate, but they need a little help via consistent scheduling. Regional but non-divisional rivalries would also add to the quirkiness of MLS. Here I am thinking of FC Cincinnati, located in the North Division, playing Nashville, Charlotte, and Saint Louis in home-and-away games, as well as, say, Orlando and Real Salt Lake, which both have raw (non-metro area) populations roughly in line with that of Cincinnati. These non-divisional rivalries, based on geographic proximity, city size, or geographic similarity (i.e. the NY and LA clubs play each other as coast rivals), would flower into hate without the MLS marketing team trying to make it happen. Familiarity breeds contempt, after all.

Playing 10 games per season against the same 5 teams would breed the rivalry that MLS is looking for.

The Randos

Just to make things interesting, and to spread the love, each team will play two random, computer-generated games against non-divisional foes. The “randos” could be a party atmosphere for club supporters, games when it is appropriate to dress up, throw tailgate parties, leave the kids at home with a babysitter, and flood the streets of their cities with debauchery and drum beats.

Implications of a three division overhaul

This is going to make for a lot of familiarity between franchises, at the expense of spreading franchise presences from coast-to-coast. I think it’s a cost well worth it.

International Competition

As big as some of the domestic changes I’ve proposed are to the league’s current structure, none of those compare to my international proposals. The world is very well-connected economically, and it is becoming more so politically, too. A trans-Atlantic tournament incorporating both the U.S. and Canada makes much more sense than teams from Kazakhstan competing against those from Belgium (although I think it’s great – absolutely wonderful and a testament to the West’s strength of generosity - that countries like Kazakhstan, Israel, Armenia, etc. are able to compete in UEFA).

First off, I would have the North division – and the North division only - competing in UEFA’s three biggest tournaments: the Champions League, Europa League, and Europa Conference. The 11-club North division would get the same treatment as the Eredivisie: 5 spots, with the top spot getting to compete for a CL qualifier, spots 2 and 3 get to compete for Europa League spots, and 4 and 5 get to compete for Europa Conference spots.

This would no doubt help MLS cooperate with European leagues, but it would also counter the inevitable steps being taken by other American sports to incorporate Europe into their influence. MLS has world-class stadiums, plenty of money, and a passionate fan base. There’s no good reason why UEFA should say “no” to having MLS teams, representing both the U.S. and Canada, participating in European tournaments. If teams from England can fly to Kazakhstan to play games, they can fly to Montreal or Chicago, too, especially given the infrastructure of MLS clubs.

CONCACAF Champions League

While reaching into Europe is an important step for the league, MLS has to continue to be a major boon to the development of soccer in North America. As such, it must continue to push for a competitive and fun continental club championship, and the current iteration of the CONCACAF Champions League does just this, and it does it well. My proposal does not touch this very good model. I’d only alter it a bit from the MLS end, with the South and West divisions competing for places in the tournament while excluding the North.

So, just to be clear, the North division would only compete in UEFA tournaments, while the South and West divisions would focus exclusively on CONCACAF tournaments.

The Supporter’s Shield winner and the U.S. Open Cup winner would still go to the CONCACAF Champions League, unless those winners hail from the North division. If a North division team wins one of those trophies, then the next-best/top-ranked team (by points) in the West or South divisions gets to go to the CONCACAF Champions League.

Leagues Cup and the Copa Libertadores

Like the CCL, I’d keep the Leagues Cup as it is, with one adjustment: I’d keep the North division out and have the top 18 teams from the South and West divisions (9 from each) compete with the 18 LigaMX clubs. This would introduce a little bit of competition on the MLS side, as two clubs from each division would be excluded from the tournament.

The top 3 teams in the Leagues Cup would still get CCL spots, but the winner of the Leagues Cup would also get a spot in the Copa Libertadores.

I would place the Leagues Cup winner in the second stage of CONMEBOL’s Copa Libertadores, where the Leagues Cup champ would replace Brazil’s Serie A’s sixth place team. Of course, there’s no guarantee that an MLS side wins the Leagues Cup, especially early on, when LigaMX teams are likely to dominate. LigaMX sides, of course, are already familiar with CONMEBOL’s premier club tournament.

But why?

The MLS would have three divisions competing in three different continental tournaments, and the quality of these international competitions would reflect itself in the quality of play on the domestic front. Imagine an NYCFC that is competing for trophies in Europe playing an LAFC that is competing for trophies in Latin America, and points for the Supporter’s Shield are on the line.

The world is changing, it’s shrinking, despite the best efforts of bad people to halt this process. Adapting to this shrinking world will help MLS gain a competitive edge on its North American rival, but I think it would also help MLS make big, meaningful inroads against its European competition and especially the Big 5.

Slowly leaving the “parity-first” model behind

Parity has been great for the league, but every good sports league needs some bad guys; clubs that consistently win or compete for titles at the expense of everybody else. I’d keep the current parity-first model in place for four years while the new franchises get established, and then I’d begin easing up on some of the weird rules that are designed to keep franchises on an equal footing. MLS should continue to focus on home-grown academies and hyperlocal fandom, but let teams spend big if they want to spend big (within limits, of course; MLS doesn’t want to end up like NASL, or even top-heavy La Liga or Bundesliga). The league could certainly benefit if the consistently better teams were allowed to spend a little bit more, consistently. What’s so bad about everybody in Albuquerque, or Altoona, loving to hate on a soccer team from Los Angeles? Nothing, especially if people are tuning in to games to root against “the bad guy.”

Institutionalizing internationalism

Adding franchises in Mexico is just what MLS needs to show that it’s serious about developing soccer on the global level (I don’t know how happy expansion into Mexico would make LigaMX, but if the Mexican league’s top brass is unhappy about such an expansion, I’d pitch Las Vegas to them as an expansion site).

A three-country, continent-spanning soccer league would be well-positioned to challenge for trophies in Europe and South America, and in time, this arrangement would help MLS be well-positioned to lead global soccer and its provincial national leagues into a new era of competitive and fan-driven excitement.

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