For this first season, there are 20 teams, broken up into a first and a second division. The 20 teams are the teams that played in MLS in 1996 and in 1997. These were the first two years for the new American league and DC United were the first powers of the league, winning both MLS Cups. Tampa Bay and Los Angeles were also very good teams with Tampa Bay winning the Supporter's Shield in 1996 for having the best regular season (DC United won the "double" in 1997 by winning the regular season in addition to the MLS Cup that year).
The league will be "seeded" by pairing a 1996 team with a 1997 team and playing a two-legged home-and-home series between them. The winner of the series is placed in Division 1 and the loser is placed in Division 2. The pairings are determined by order of finish in the regular season standings with the best team from 1996 (Tampa Bay) being paired against the worst team from 1997 (?) and on down the line until the worst team from 1996 (?) plays the best team from 1997 (DC United).
This produced the following set of pairings:
1996 Tampa Bay vs 1997 San Jose
1996 Los Angeles vs 1997 New York/New Jersey
1996 DC United vs 1997 New England
1996 Dallas vs 1997 Colorado
1996 Kansas City vs 1997 Columbus
1996 San Jose vs 1997 Dallas
1996 New York/New Jersey vs 1997 Los Angeles
1996 Columbus vs 1997 Tampa Bay
1996 New England vs 1997 Kansas City
1996 Colorado vs 1997 DC United
This will be the only year to do division placement this way. In future years there will be promotion and relegation (some automatic, some done by playoffs) to handle team placement.
The regular season will be 18 games long and played out on Saturdays, starting on May 2, 1998 with a one week break at midseason. (As an aside, this midseason break will occur every year on 4th of July week for no good reason other than I'm an American and I want a midseason break on 4th of July week
).
At the end of the season, the top eight teams in Division 1 will go on to play in the MLS Cup playoffs (this eight-team format will be true every year even as Division 1 grows to 16 teams). The quarters and semis will be home-and-home two-legged matchups while the MLS Cup final will be a single neutral-site game.
The bottom two teams will be relegated to Division 2 for 1999 and replaced by the two best teams from Division 2, along with 1998 MLS Cup winners Chicago and 1998 Supporter's Shield winners Los Angeles to create a 12-team Division 1 for 1999. (Each new season that comes into the league will automatically promote their MLS Cup and Supporter's Shield winners--or runners-up in the event of a "double" winner-- will gain automatic promotion to Division 1.)