A Big Game Needs Big Hype

By Steven Sandor The 11

Why a home-game MLS Cup is a bad, bad idea
Judging by the message boards, commentaries and blogs we have seen, fans have strong opinions about the radical redesigns being made to the MLS schedule and playoff format for 2012.

A lot of scorn has been aimed at the league office for a conference heavy schedule that cuts down on travel. And a lot of kudos are being aimed at the league office for approving a format which ensures that the highest remaining seed will host the MLS Cup, rather than have the game played at a neutral site.

Being the contrarians we are at The 11, we’ll take a different stand.

We don’t mind the new schedule. We understand that comparing MLS to tiny countries like England, Italy and the Netherlands (geography-wise) is even more extreme than apples to oranges. In England, Arsenal leaving London to head to Newcastle is long road trip.

Going between Montreal and Toronto — which is considered a puddle jump in North American terms — is about 15 km longer than a London-Newcastle trip.

So, one of Toronto FC’s shortest road trips would be pretty well equal to one of the longest road trips for Arsenal, Chelsea or Tottenham.

MLS needs to be compared with the so-called Big Four leagues in North America, and all use geography-based scheduling. Even the NFL is divided up into geographic chunks, even if the games happen just once a week.

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