"1. Retain separate conferences, but award postseason berths to the top eight point-getters in the league.
2. Go to a single-game knockout format throughout the playoffs, with matches hosted by the higher seeds.
3. The higher seed needs only a tie to advance."
One part of this, I like: the higher seed should always host the game in question. Having the final at a neutral venue, in spite of giving the top seed one hell of a leg-up, sucks too much enthusiasm out of the occasion; you need not only warm bodies, but engaged ones. After that, as I said, he is (or, again, they are) trying too hard.
Here's my solution: fewer teams. I'm not too bothered about the number, so long as it's six teams or fewer; I'd also be fine with four teams, but accept that six at least offers hope of keeping more people interested in the regular season longer. After that, single elimination, home-and-home, first-to-five - do whatever the hell you like (within reason). Just limit the teams and go forward from there.
One last point: a few people in the thread argue that there's no point in tinkering with the playoffs because it "won't help the league," a phrase I take to mean that it won't generate more interest or enthusiasm in people heretofore not enraptured with it all. I don't doubt those folks are correct. But that's not the reason for a change. It's about improving the competition during the summer and giving not just the fans, but the players more to get excited about with each game.
UPDATE: In the course of some research for a related project, I bumped into a very good defense of MLS's playoff system. Written by scaryice over on Climbing the Ladder he takes a solid shot at my central argument: e.g. lowering the number of teams who make the playoffs. Here's his passage on that:
"There's another big reason to stay with 8 teams in the playoffs: Tradition. MLS has had 8 teams in the playoffs every single season. Yes, it's too many with only 12 teams. But we already suffered through having only 2 teams miss out previously, and it will only get better as the years go on. In 2007, we'll have 8 of 14, which is pretty decent. If you change it now, then you'll just have to change it back in 5 or 10 years, and that's stupid."
So long as you accept the argument that "you'll just have to change it back," scaryice is 100% correct. That would be stupid. He also dispatches fairly quickly with arguments against the home-and-home series rewarding the lower-seeded team, as well as the fairly popular idea that tweaking the playoff format will somehow boost attendance. Tempting as that last argument is, in particular, the people claiming it has more to do with the short window for marketing (ticket give-aways, corporate promotions) and advertising make the more compelling case for that unfortunate situation.
For all that, I stand by my upper limit of six teams. A lot of that grows from a personal resistance to rewarding mediocrity; there's just something wrong with sub-.500 teams making any kind of post-season. And though I can't remotely back it up - hell, I'm not even sure how one would quantify this - I also believe that fewer spots in the post-season would generally raise the intensity of regular season play. Higher intensity could result in more defensive games, but I'm guessing that someone, somewhere would have to figure out how to win under those circumstances, just to guarantee their own post-season prospects if nothing else.
Still, hats off to mr. scaryice for making a good case for the status quo.
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