Front Office Football Central - View Single Post - All-Time MLS Year 1 (1998)

Wolfpack · 07-11-2011, 10:05 PM

Time for some thread necromancy.....

Yeah, I let this one go not too long after starting it, but I never let it completely slip from my mind. I always had intentions of returning to it, but the time away gave me some time to re-think how I wanted to set the world up. Ultimately, I've decided to scrap the original structure, though not the promotion/relegation idea. That was an essential component of the project and so it stays. It's just the league structure that has been re-thought.

So, the new form is this: for this first year, there will be two co-equal "first" divisions of ten teams. Each division will feature one member of each franchise and the divisions should roughly be equal in overall strength (though the stratification will be different). Each division will also have an equal number of teams (five each) from 1996 and 1997. So, here is our new division structure for 1998:

Division A
1996 Colorado Rapids
1996 Dallas Burn
1996 LA Galaxy
1996 New England Revolution
1996 San Jose Clash
1997 Columbus Crew
1997 DC United
1997 Kansas City Wizards
1997 New York/New Jersey MetroStars
1997 Tampa Bay Mutiny

Division B
1996 Columbus Crew
1996 DC United
1996 Kansas City Wizards
1996 New York/New Jersey MetroStars
1996 Tampa Bay Mutiny
1997 Colorado Rapids
1997 Dallas Burn
1997 LA Galaxy
1997 New England Revolution
1997 San Jose Clash

The 18-game regular season remains, as does the MLS Open Cup and the MLS Champions League. The playoffs will still have eight teams, but now it's the first four of each division that qualify.

The future league structure will also be changing. Initially, I was going to have a two-tiered structure with three levels (the second level being split into two divisions) of 16 teams each as the final structure. I've changed the approach to a bigger pyramid of three levels and six divisions, split 1/2/3 with 11 teams each. It's more teams, but the shorter round-robin will translate into fewer total games to play. Also, there will be no grace period for the worst teams in the early years of the league. Previously, I was letting teams stay until the full structure could be built. Now, teams will be dropped into oblivion from the first season. The expectation is that after the 1998 season that the table-footers in both Division A and Division B will be dropped, and then the 12 teams that played the 1998 MLS season in real life will be added and the structure re-organized to three levels with a 10-team division in each level. Future years will fill out the pyramid and once that is complete, the number of teams that are dropped and added will balance each other to maintain the pyramid at the same size. This will mean heavy attrition from the third level by the latter part of the 2000s as more than half the level will have to be kicked out to make room for each year's newcomers. The structural changes will also mean changes to the structures of each of the trophy playoffs over time, but the essential notion of qualification for them will remain unchanged (MLS Cup taking the best regular season performers, Open Cup involving every team that ever played to that point regardless of whether they're part of the league pyramid anymore, and Champions League taking trophy winners as the primary qualifiers).

So, there you have it. It is now time to kick off the All-Time MLS 1998 regular season!

07-11-2011, 10:05 PM	#7
Wolfpack Pro Rookie Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: Raleigh, NC	Time for some thread necromancy..... Yeah, I let this one go not too long after starting it, but I never let it completely slip from my mind. I always had intentions of returning to it, but the time away gave me some time to re-think how I wanted to set the world up. Ultimately, I've decided to scrap the original structure, though not the promotion/relegation idea. That was an essential component of the project and so it stays. It's just the league structure that has been re-thought. So, the new form is this: for this first year, there will be two co-equal "first" divisions of ten teams. Each division will feature one member of each franchise and the divisions should roughly be equal in overall strength (though the stratification will be different). Each division will also have an equal number of teams (five each) from 1996 and 1997. So, here is our new division structure for 1998: Division A 1996 Colorado Rapids 1996 Dallas Burn 1996 LA Galaxy 1996 New England Revolution 1996 San Jose Clash 1997 Columbus Crew 1997 DC United 1997 Kansas City Wizards 1997 New York/New Jersey MetroStars 1997 Tampa Bay Mutiny Division B 1996 Columbus Crew 1996 DC United 1996 Kansas City Wizards 1996 New York/New Jersey MetroStars 1996 Tampa Bay Mutiny 1997 Colorado Rapids 1997 Dallas Burn 1997 LA Galaxy 1997 New England Revolution 1997 San Jose Clash The 18-game regular season remains, as does the MLS Open Cup and the MLS Champions League. The playoffs will still have eight teams, but now it's the first four of each division that qualify. The future league structure will also be changing. Initially, I was going to have a two-tiered structure with three levels (the second level being split into two divisions) of 16 teams each as the final structure. I've changed the approach to a bigger pyramid of three levels and six divisions, split 1/2/3 with 11 teams each. It's more teams, but the shorter round-robin will translate into fewer total games to play. Also, there will be no grace period for the worst teams in the early years of the league. Previously, I was letting teams stay until the full structure could be built. Now, teams will be dropped into oblivion from the first season. The expectation is that after the 1998 season that the table-footers in both Division A and Division B will be dropped, and then the 12 teams that played the 1998 MLS season in real life will be added and the structure re-organized to three levels with a 10-team division in each level. Future years will fill out the pyramid and once that is complete, the number of teams that are dropped and added will balance each other to maintain the pyramid at the same size. This will mean heavy attrition from the third level by the latter part of the 2000s as more than half the level will have to be kicked out to make room for each year's newcomers. The structural changes will also mean changes to the structures of each of the trophy playoffs over time, but the essential notion of qualification for them will remain unchanged (MLS Cup taking the best regular season performers, Open Cup involving every team that ever played to that point regardless of whether they're part of the league pyramid anymore, and Champions League taking trophy winners as the primary qualifiers). So, there you have it. It is now time to kick off the All-Time MLS 1998 regular season!