Something to think about on a cold, cold winter day
by Steve Davis on Jan 8, 2010 11:21 AM EST
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How would you like to be at a game in
Brrrr.
It’s about the same in
What’s the point? Plenty of people still believe Major League Soccer – and the lower tier leagues, too, I suppose – should adopt the FIFA calendar. That means starting league play in August or September and finishing in May, emulating many of the leagues around the world. That also means playing a significant portion of league matches in cold and occasionally nasty weather.
This is one of FIFA president Sepp Blatter’s favorite
Blatter is an expert on MLS survival the way I’m an expert on lost languages of the Mayan culture. On the list of elements MLS needs for long-term growth and survival, migration to a fall-winter-spring calendar is waaaaay down the list. (In fact, it’s really not on that list at all.)
There are all kinds of reasons it may not ever be a good idea. But that’s a longer debate.
For today, just focus on this one itty-bitty problem: it’s dangerously cold today in many MLS markets. Getting to the matches would be problematic, even if fans made the decision to sit idle in the bitter cold for two hours.
I mean, we’re talking about temperatures that will freeze that unnaturally orange nacho cheese substance right to the stale chip!
I know the argument here: that fans go sit in the bitter cold to watch NFL contests. True dat.
But NFL isn’t MLS – and we’re reminded of that daily. Fans will take the hit in pro football because the games in NFL are generally important, equaling 1 / 16th of the regular season. Or, as is the case now, they are critical playoff games.
That’s a lot different than a mid-season MLS match, nowhere near playoff crunch time, one that equals 1 / 30th of the regular season.
Bad weather keeps fans and followers away from events every day in this country – believe it. People simply choose to stay home with the comfort factor dips disproportionately to the perceived event significance.
Also, because of the cultural significance of NFL, fans plan entire weekends around big games. If they have to bundle up to participate, so be it. The decision processes here are a world apart from MLS matches, which are still too often marketed as informal, Saturday night entertainment.
Yes, a few soccer fans are sufficiently emotionally invested to bundle up and go see their MLS club, regardless of the weenie-shrink factor. But the number remains relatively small.
When that number reaches a certain, critical mass, moving to a winter calendar may be more feasible. Only then will the dynamics of the debate shift. MLS commissioner Don Garber says it will happen – someday. Just don’t look for that day to be anytime soon.
And if you’re in the 60 percent of the country today where temperatures are in the “dangerously low” zone, be especially thankful that day isn’t today.
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In Kansas
where the high today is…..2…. Yes 2, no one seems to be talking about KC nationally today but it is one of hte worst in the country cold wise.
Totally agree with your points. I think moving to the Fifa calendar would be a good thing but not at this moment, the following has to become bigger and although it could benefit the MLS to have a few months in Feb. through April where Baseball isn’t king of the country, I think the bitter cold would deter fans away from games.
by I need more Esteban on Jan 8, 2010 11:35 AM EST reply actions
This made me laugh
Yes, a few soccer fans are sufficiently emotionally invested to bundle up and go see their MLS club, regardless of the weenie-shrink factor. But the number remains relatively small.
Hahaha, weenie-shrink factor. I would not count myself in that number (though with the arrival of a Philly team, the day that I might draws closer) and I totally agree that it is just to early in the development of the league and the fan base to entertain a scheduling change as drastic as this.
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Being in Toronto, I can tell you there is no way in Hell you could play soccer in our winters! I think I’ve heard suggestions of playing indoors for part of the season. But would FIFA like that any better than playing in the summer?
One aspect of the FIFA calendar I don’t understand why MLS doesn’t respect are the international dates. It’s really frustrating seeing half your best players miss important club matches to play WC qualifying. Or have the Canadian teem missing stars (such as they are) becuase they can’t schedule around their club commitments.
That's the key right there
the International Dates. Just give us those.
Having your clubs’ players play on the national team should be an honor, not a disadvantage.
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yeah, for sure ...
… the international dates complicates the situation. as you indicate, that’s the big boon to aligning with the FIFA calendar. so it is all complicated and interwoven. and truly, there are no easy answers. it’s just an issue that always deserves study and calculation.
It's bastard freezing
in the UK at the moment & 4 EPL games have already been called off.
Having said that, football should be played in the cold – that’s when it was INVENTED. :-)
Nah, as touched upon above it’s all about the internationals. Does the MLS league not build in natural pauses for the now-set-in-stone weeks/fortnights when players fly off to play for their countries?
Anyhoo, ignore Blatter, hes a fecking idiot; the African Nations seem to enjoy the annoyance caused by plonking their international tournament right in the middle of most European teams’ seasons and why the hell shouldn’t they?
Not just bout the fans
In the NFL it is possible to play on a field of snow. The ball is controlled in the air and in players hands. You cant play soccer on a field of snow, because the action takes place on the ground.
The guy with Persistent Infringement blog on BigSoccer proposed the idea of using the common Plant Hardiness maps (average coldest temperatures) in order to get the point across that its TOO cold for MLS. After all, picture is worth a thousand words, a map is worth a million
http://www.aroid.org/horticulture/zonemap/index.php
Notice that at least MLS 4 teams are in very cold zones Zones 4 and 5 which dont occur anywhere in western Europe. Only around 5 teams are in the more temperate Zone 8 or 9 which are the Zones of the UK.
by GeoJock on Jan 8, 2010 3:01 PM EST reply actions 1 recs
great point
i shoulda said that, too. have you seen some of the grounds the NFL is playing on right now? think that would be good for the MLS games? no way.
It may be cold in CO right now...
… but this Mexican Lottery ad starring Landon is good enough to help me forget about the cold (for a moment)…
Pansies
Slightly off the subject, but I do think they need to figure out a way to get the season done so that the playoffs and the MLS Cup are not such significant afterthoughts in the sports lanscape. August, or September at the latest would be good, so that you’re not competing with the NFL, College Football, Baseball playoffs, etc…
That would mean you either have to compress the season, or start ealier. So either front load some games in the South (I think some Dallas and Houston players would gladly trade a home game in July for an away game in Seattle or Toronto when its 100 degrees at sunset), or get space heaters every 10 yards along the sidelines.
Sir Alex likes the current weather so much
That he wants to train in Dubai
Yep, and its colder here.
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MLS has to fit in where it can
Unlike Europe, MLS is not top dog and doesn’t get to eat first. Going against NFL, NBA, NHL, and then finishing off by going against MLB would not be smart.
Summer makes the most sense, but it is pretty lame having a thin league having its only really good players taken out for internationals, plus the season is too incoherent with the Spring to fall set-up.
I would think the league should start day 1 after the Superbowl and then wrap up at the end of Summer and break for inernationals.
If Northern weather is an issue just play matches in the South until March. I don’t think 70 degrees in Carson today would be a problem for soccer. Again although Europe has a little more milder winters than the Midwest, there is little difference to Europe and the East and West Coasts, and weather really isn’t much of a factor in the viability of the games.
Also come to think of it
Were the US ever able to build a soccer league that could rival the powers of Europe, how cool would it be to have Europeans jonesing for some soccer after their season was over tuning in to US games? More revenue, better players.
Dare to dream.
If the season
reached its climax during the Summer though you’d lose all your best players for the big Tournaments (and the qualifiers for them), surely?
Football’s regularly played in the snow in Europe (the reason orange balls were invented, after all); the games have been called off here in the UK not due to the pitches but because the travel infrastrructure’s gone haywire over the past week. The snow comes down pretty hard across large portions of Europe, after all (last game I saw in Germany was played in a blizzard); those Scandinavian countries would never play if they let snow be a problem, after all!
Here are some pics for you to enjoy:
Recheck your cancelations
Serie A lost some to frozen pitch, SPL lost some to frozen pitch, in England the non-EPL cancelations have been to pitch issues as well. In Scottish League play many lost to frozen pitch.
And, yes, the weather in the midwest and northeast is much worse in the winter than in England/France.
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Serie A
lost two games due to unheated pitches; I would assume any modern stadiums wouldn’t suffer from this and the games I’ve seen from the US seem to be played in pretty sweet stadiums. I’m more than happy to be told I’m wrong. The SPL games were largely cancelled due to the conditions getting to the grounds
and, it must be remembered, the UK is suffering conditions not seen in over 30 years. Truly freakish levels of ice forming everywhere. I’ve certainly not seen anything like it in my (oh so!) many years.
So, yeah, if pitches aren’t heated then you’re absolutely right to say there’s no chance of Winter games; I was a) assuming MLS pitches were heated (and the places that get snow are certainly more able to deal with the conditions I’d imagine) and b) that a bit of snow is no reason to bar football being played – it’s currently coming down during the Arse/Everton game, after all. And the temperature should rarely be regarded as an issue.
I can imagine it being not exactly fun attempting a sliding tackle in Wisconsin during December; I’m just offering an alternative opinion seeing as the location of the season is seen as a ‘problem’. Frankly the US shouldn’t worry what Blatter thinks/wants and should plonk the season wherever it suits the domestic audience best. That then leads you back to the question: do you place the season in the best months for the game to be played in or do you fit the season around the already established sports/TV schedules? I’m certainly never sure which approach is the healthiest.
by rudi on Jan 9, 2010 11:39 AM EST up reply actions 1 recs
Gah!
Forgot to mention that the pitch at The Emirates Stadium before kick-off was measured at 14C. Undersoil heating is essential, frankly.
Burnley got caught with frozen pitch
but yes, the undersoil heating is the primary issue.
And while this is rare in England, it is common in Denver, Salt Lake, Toronto, Chicago, Boston, Columbus and Kansas City for many weeks every year.
Personally I wan the season moved up to the first weekend of March ending at the same time so that more international dates could be missed. But this would likely lead to half the league starting on the road for a few weeks every year.
As for attendance it is generally highest during the summer months.
I know that TFC’s new pitch will have the undersoil, but I think that Rio Tinto does not in Salt Lake.
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Fair enough.
A day’s not wasted when I’ve learned something. :-)
most of the stadia
were built with a Spr/Sum/Fal schedule in mind, and in this league there isn’t a ton of extra cash around, so I’m betting that they didn’t spend the extra money.
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Rudi,
the point is that the midwest winter is worse than England/France/Spain/Italy. So even if England/France/Spain are playing through it, that doesn’t mean we can do it in the USA.
Cust is the new Jaha.
by johnjahafanclub on Jan 9, 2010 3:32 PM EST up reply actions
Right, I forgot about Scandanavia
They’ve got about the same weather as Midwest and Canada.
I can even see Midwesterners and Canadians making it out to winter games.
Summer Schedule
Runs in Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia, Iceland, Japan, China, South Korea
So what was your point?
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Scandinavian football
…is mostly played March to October. I don’t think anyone is giving them a hard time about it.
by Patrick_M on Jan 9, 2010 6:12 PM EST up reply actions 1 recs
Well,
their fans believe this is a major reason why their clubs regularly fail in European competitions and also why their best players play abroad. Add to this the fact the leagues will lose pretty much any decent player every two years for the Euros/the World Cup and you can immediately see a reason why the leagues have never produced regularly competitive teams (and why their stars play abroad).
Sweden’s season ends in November, as does Norway’s. No Scandinavian season starts until March which obviously affects the teams negatively when the CL hits its late Nov and Jan/Feb rounds.
This is by the by though, really as it’s still not the pitch condition that has driven these decisions. These countries go fucking mental for their winter alpine sports and have no culture of going to outdoor stadiums for football and the like in the winter whereas the US obviously puts on outdoor sports right through the year.
Just to be clear here, I’m not saying football SHOULD be played in the winter in the US, just that it’s not as impossible as you may think. It just takes willing and decent infrastructure married to decent pitch management.
How many fans would show up in the cold
going up against NFL Playoffs?
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That certainly needs to be considered,
hence my question above:
“That then leads you back to the question: do you place the season in the best months for the game to be played in or do you fit the season around the already established sports/TV schedules? I’m certainly never sure which approach is the healthiest.”
I stand corrected. Didn’t realize it was that controversial in Scandinavia too.
I always thought Swedish and Norwegen teams got dominated by the bigger nations for the same reasons as Belgian, Danish or even Portugese teams. Cause their from low profile leagues in small countries. To use a slightly forced hockey analogy: Winnipeg and Minnesota love their hockey but have always lacked the money to field championship quality teams (or even to maintain a franchise at the top level).
And
I’m still chuckling at the phrase “the weenie-shrink factor”. Isn’t that what the hot pies sold at stadiums are for? They certainly weren’t designed for eating…
Scheduling around the international dates a bit if possible makes sense, but there’s no way a winter schedule could possibly work for teams north of the Mason-Dixon line. You can argue that it puts us at a disadvantage, but the weather isn’t going to cooperate just because our soccer teams would like it to.
Besides, summer schedules aren’t unprecedented even in Europe – 13 UEFA leagues are on a summer schedule (including Ireland and Russia).
Now that I think about it, why do Europe’s seasons run through winter. I know you can play outside in France/Germany/England this time of year. But why would you want to?
Really this issue I think comes down to Blatter being totally ignorant to the sporting market in North America and focussing on an obvious difference in leagues’ set-up to pick on. Now if we want to talk about MLS’s rediculous collective barganing agreement…
Their summers are so short, they are outside and/or on vacation a lot during their summers.
Plus Euro Championship and World Cup in Summer. Probably the same reason we have football in the winter (maybe not so much baseball except for the Dutch), better TV ratings in winter. It probably is just like baseball, it comes down to money.
Good questions
but lots of answers, I’m afraid!
In England (where the professional game was first codified) Football (and therefore Rugby) was the winter game to be played when the far longer established cricket season had ended (the first professional cricketers can be dated to before the Plague of 1665!). After all, a large number of footballers were also cricketers in the late 19th/early 20th Century.
The model was thereon copied across Europe leaving a convenient gap during which Internationals could be played: June to August was a serendipitous time to hold multi-team international tournaments as it’s a period when it’s not too wet/cold in the Northern and not too hot in the Southern Hemisphere.
Funnily enough, as I type this I’m listening to the UK’s national sport radio channel (BBC5) where they’re discussing the annual issue: should the leagues take a Winter break? And now, even more aptly, they’re talking to an American asking how come the NFL can get games played in Pittsburgh and Buffalo but the transport grinds to a halt here after a bit of snow (I think that’s unfair, by the way: the weather currently here is freakish for our usual climate).
Some leagues have small breaks in their seasons but you’ll find it’s more a cultural thing than any real concession to the weather; oddly enough, though, it’s likely that MORE games will be called off in the future due to the litigious culture we now find ourselves in and this may force leagues to consider just suspending the program over Dec/Jan. This would be a real shame; the Boxing Day football fixture is traditional in the UK as eating Turkey the day before, after all and those extra games will have to be squeezed in somewhere.
Your second point about Blatter is spot on. MLS doesn’t need to concern itself with the European schedule; it should take care of business however it deems most appropriate. Blatter’s just a blow-hard and can be safely ignored; he’s regarded as a clown in every other part of the footballing world, after all.
Thirdly, collective bargaining? Now there’s a hot potato that divides opinion in just about every functioning professional football league. Whichever route is chosen means somebody misses out. I’d be interested to hear why you think it’s any more ridiculous than any of the other options…?
by rudi on Jan 10, 2010 7:57 AM EST up reply actions 1 recs
I'm far from an expert in MLS contracts
…But I first smelled something fishy when Maurice Edu was transfered to Rangers a couple years ago. TFC used their first overall pick to get him. Rangers paid something like $3 million for him, but since MLS actually owned his contract TFC only got a couple hundred grand from that. I honestly think that’s one of the events that has really slowed Toronto’s player development.
Plus the way the league likes to rewrite the rules when it’s convenient is bizzare (the DP rule and Donovon’s purpetually grandfathered contract.) But these are all issues for another day. Perhaps after the lockout in Feb…?
