According to club and league sources, Major League Soccer is exploring a significant overhaul to its playoff system for 2023.
According to the sources, the league, which will expand to 29 clubs next season with the addition of expansion club St. Louis City SC, may boost the total number of playoff matches from 13 to about 30 next year. The move to 30 postseason games is also outlined in a memo issued to clubs during the summer and acquired by The Athletic on Tuesday.
The league is thinking of expanding its playoff structure in order to increase its entire inventory of postseason matches in the first year of its new media rights deal with Apple.
The current playoff format in Major League Soccer involves seven clubs from each conference. Because all playoff games are single-elimination, the league only has a total of 13 postseason matches, including the MLS Cup.
In order to get to 30 post season matches, A “World Cup” style tournament could be introduced, with the new structure potentially looking like this:
- The top eight teams from each conference would qualify for the postseason
- Those teams would be split into four groups of four teams each
- Groups would be segregated by conference; Western Conference teams would only be grouped with fellow Western Conference teams and Eastern Conference teams would only be grouped with fellow Eastern Conference teams
- As is the case in the World Cup, each team would play three group stage matches, one each against the other three teams in the group
- The top two seeds in each group would host two group-stage games; the bottom two seeds would host one group-stage game
- The top two teams from each group would advance to an eight-team, single-elimination knockout stage
- Like the group stage, the knockout stage would also be divided by conference
- Higher seeds would host the knockout-stage matches, with the Western Conference champion advancing to MLS Cup against the Eastern Conference champion
According to the same source who described this hypothetical new format, MLS might build such a tournament so that it plays multiple group-stage matches every night for nearly two weeks. The league’s current playoff system makes it difficult to develop narratives; blink and the entire playoffs is done. Extending the playoffs and scheduling games on successive evenings for a few weeks may conceivably allow the league to garner a larger mainstream following. Changing to a playoff structure that is unique to both soccer and the North American sports scene, on the other hand, may confound casual spectators or newcomers to the league.
Again, the changes aren’t yet complete. According to the sources, a committee of high-ranking MLS owners and executives considered the World Cup-style structure this summer, and the suggested shift was well-received. The complete MLS board of governors, which is slated to convene in mid-November in Brooklyn, would have to approve such a move.
Stay tuned for more updates
