Thought this was a really interesting concept. Also thought it was interesting that an MLS official didn't dismiss it.

ESPN reports:

Quote:A combined North American football league between Canada, Mexico and the United States could be the main legacy of the 2026 World Cup, the president of the Mexican top-flight division Enrique Bonilla said on Wednesday.

Quote:Reached by ESPN FC for comment, MLS Executive Vice President of Communications Dan Courtemanche said the league is excited to further its partnership with Liga MX.

"In March, Major League Soccer entered into a formal partnership with Liga MX, and last month we held our inaugural Campeones Cup between Toronto FC and Tigres," Courtemanche said.

"We have been discussing with Liga MX additional ways we can collaborate on and off the field, and we are excited about the future opportunities that exist between our two leagues."

The idea is great, but I don't know how the bureaucrats would make it work.

Most obvious difficult questions:

1) MLS already has too many teams, and a combined league would have way too many teams for a single league -- close to 50.

2) How do you manage the rules about a minimum number of nationals on each team? Liga MX, for example, has a 9/9 rule, which requires that at least 9 of the players out of the 18 that suit up on a match day have to be Mexican nationals. For a North American league, do you just require that 9 (or however many) on each squad be a national of one of the three countries? Or do teams from each country have 9 of their own country's nationals suit up? The latter would be a slight disadvantage for US based teams and a huge disadvantage for teams based in Canada.

3) MLS and Liga MX have different seasons. MLS plays in the summer and has offseason in the winter, Liga MX has offseason in the summer and plays in the winter for obvious reasons -- it's extremely hot in many of the Mexican league cities in the summer. A combined league would have to play an August/May schedule like the European leagues do. Are the MLS clubs willing to play in the winter? Are US soccer fans too "weather wimpy" to attend games in winter weather, and how much would that hurt attendance?

If these questions are too difficult to overcome, a more workable option is for the leagues to remain separate with reduced league schedules, and to play a combined MLS/Liga MX tournament throughout the year that might replace CONCACAF Champions League and become a bigger deal than the league season in either league. For example, have a group stage with 16 teams from each league, 8 groups of 4, leading into a 16 team knockout stage. (Or if that hurts the MLS egos too much, 14 Liga MX teams and 18 MLS teams. Whatever.)

I’m sure FIFA would want to see a combined MLS-Liga MX play in the winter, and set up those 50 or so teams into a promotion/relegation system. Leagues like USL Pro would then become the new third tier.

Given the size of North America, there would have to be an American conference and a Mexican conference. US TV will pay for Los Angeles-Atlanta, not so much for Los Angeles-Guadalajara. Each conference could then use promotion/relegation separately with the remnant from MLS or the remnant from Liga MX. Schedules could even be done differently within each conference around the weather.

The bigger problem is that there isn’t as much space on US TV during the winter. Even Mexico probably suffers from that somewhat given American football tends to be televised around the globe. FIFA should be moving the World Cup to the winter - aside from Mexico and perhaps a few African and Middle Eastern countries, playing soccer in the summer works in more places around the globe.

(10-11-2018 12:46 AM)Wedge Wrote:  The idea is great, but I don't know how the bureaucrats would make it work.

Most obvious difficult questions:

1) MLS already has too many teams, and a combined league would have way too many teams for a single league -- close to 50.

2) How do you manage the rules about a minimum number of nationals on each team? Liga MX, for example, has a 9/9 rule, which requires that at least 9 of the players out of the 18 that suit up on a match day have to be Mexican nationals. For a North American league, do you just require that 9 (or however many) on each squad be a national of one of the three countries? Or do teams from each country have 9 of their own country's nationals suit up? The latter would be a slight disadvantage for US based teams and a huge disadvantage for teams based in Canada.

3) MLS and Liga MX have different seasons. MLS plays in the summer and has offseason in the winter, Liga MX has offseason in the summer and plays in the winter for obvious reasons -- it's extremely hot in many of the Mexican league cities in the summer. A combined league would have to play an August/May schedule like the European leagues do. Are the MLS clubs willing to play in the winter? Are US soccer fans too "weather wimpy" to attend games in winter weather, and how much would that hurt attendance?

If these questions are too difficult to overcome, a more workable option is for the leagues to remain separate with reduced league schedules, and to play a combined MLS/Liga MX tournament throughout the year that might replace CONCACAF Champions League and become a bigger deal than the league season in either league. For example, have a group stage with 16 teams from each league, 8 groups of 4, leading into a 16 team knockout stage. (Or if that hurts the MLS egos too much, 14 Liga MX teams and 18 MLS teams. Whatever.)

There's also the pro/rel question.

Mexico already uses it. I think MLS will use it one day, but the lower divisions of US soccer are even more under-developed than MLS itself so is everyone thrown into one big pot? Do you have nation-based conferences where only domestic clubs get the opportunity to move up into a select few spots?

There's a lot of interesting questions and maybe that's relevant to the timeline. We're talking maybe 8 years away so if they can work something out then maybe they need that time to integrate?

I don't see how the travel would work in this set up for scheduling period.

(10-11-2018 10:07 AM)AllTideUp Wrote:  

(10-11-2018 12:46 AM)Wedge Wrote:  The idea is great, but I don't know how the bureaucrats would make it work.

Most obvious difficult questions:

1) MLS already has too many teams, and a combined league would have way too many teams for a single league -- close to 50.

2) How do you manage the rules about a minimum number of nationals on each team? Liga MX, for example, has a 9/9 rule, which requires that at least 9 of the players out of the 18 that suit up on a match day have to be Mexican nationals. For a North American league, do you just require that 9 (or however many) on each squad be a national of one of the three countries? Or do teams from each country have 9 of their own country's nationals suit up? The latter would be a slight disadvantage for US based teams and a huge disadvantage for teams based in Canada.

3) MLS and Liga MX have different seasons. MLS plays in the summer and has offseason in the winter, Liga MX has offseason in the summer and plays in the winter for obvious reasons -- it's extremely hot in many of the Mexican league cities in the summer. A combined league would have to play an August/May schedule like the European leagues do. Are the MLS clubs willing to play in the winter? Are US soccer fans too "weather wimpy" to attend games in winter weather, and how much would that hurt attendance?

If these questions are too difficult to overcome, a more workable option is for the leagues to remain separate with reduced league schedules, and to play a combined MLS/Liga MX tournament throughout the year that might replace CONCACAF Champions League and become a bigger deal than the league season in either league. For example, have a group stage with 16 teams from each league, 8 groups of 4, leading into a 16 team knockout stage. (Or if that hurts the MLS egos too much, 14 Liga MX teams and 18 MLS teams. Whatever.)

There's also the pro/rel question.

Mexico already uses it. I think MLS will use it one day, but the lower divisions of US soccer are even more under-developed than MLS itself so is everyone thrown into one big pot? Do you have nation-based conferences where only domestic clubs get the opportunity to move up into a select few spots?

There's a lot of interesting questions and maybe that's relevant to the timeline. We're talking maybe 8 years away so if they can work something out then maybe they need that time to integrate?

Promotion/relegation isn't going to be accepted by MLS because newer MLS owners have paid $100 million or more into the MLS ponzi scheme and wouldn't put up with being in the second division. US team owners, unlike those in European countries, have an entitled ownership mentality, because they all envision being like NFL or MLB owners who rake in huge profits even if their teams are incompetently managed and never win.

Another thing that would have to be taken care of before any integration between the leagues is that MLS teams have to spend more money to build better squads. MLS teams won't catch up to the average Liga MX talent level, especially in depth, unless they spend more on players from top to bottom. The current MLS structure of paying two or three name players well and paying peanuts for the other 20 guys on the team isn't going to get them up to the overall roster quality of the average Liga MX team.