State of the League + Me in a New Space

I didn't intend on posting today, but a couple things have come up since this morning.

First, I was alerted to the existence of a site called ArmchairGM, which looks to be kind of a "Wiki" sports outfit. Random people - like me - get to write in whatever they see fit. It seems an interesting enough concept: people click and comment on what the registered users post and some combination of views and comments does something....still not really clear on this, but it seemed like enough fun that I thought I'd give it a go.

And that brings me to the second item. MLS Commissioner Don Garber did his State of the League address today. I didn't listen to it, but, inspired by a really bitchin' commentary on the announcement of "vertical player development," I felt compelled to post something somewhere. With the existence of ArmchairGM in the back of my mind, I posted a basic news item over there on my second-hand reading of the State of the League. (For what it's worth, I'm a fan of that site's decision to separate news and opinion content).

Returning to the State of the League, things are looking pretty rosy these days. Sure, there's the TV deal with ESPN (looks pretty decent), but the bigger news comes with the apparent establishment of youth academies attached to the clubs. But it's even better than that: according to a very good post on a blog called From College to the Pros, there's more good news:

"What does vertical development mean in soccer? Youth academys. For the first time, MLS clubs will be allowed to sign players to professional contracts without the player being subject to the MLS SuperDraft and strange back room draft processes."

What you don't see here, you can find (some of) in the chat MLS's site hosted with Commissioner Garber.

Have good weekend. Go Timbers (even if it's just going to be more painful in the end.) And go check out that ArmchairGM site...well, if you wanna.

UPDATE: Going through some of the other posts, I'm reminded that Garber didn't cover one issue near and dear to me: the league's current, bloated playoff structure. That one seems like one of the easier things to fix...so, what gives? There's a discussion on this subject under way over at Big Soccer. I don't know whether the guy who kicked off the post is the Peter Wilt, but hope it is. He's big cheese in that world.

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