MLS changes its playoff format again, now guaranteeing home games for more teams

Major League Soccer changed its playoff format yet again on Tuesday, after months of rumors and a lot of criticism from fans who liked how things were the last few years.

The two big changes are the expansion of the field from seven teams per conference to nine and changes to the format in the first two rounds.

The first round will now be one-game series with each conference’s No. 8 and No. 9 seeds, hosted by the No. 8. (And yes, it means 18 of MLS’s 29 teams will make the postseason.)

The second round, when everyone else will enter, will be best-of-three series with the higher seed hosting the first and third (if necessary) games.

Any game in that round that ends tied after 90 minutes will go straight to penalty kicks, with no extra time.

All following rounds — the conference semifinals, conference finals, and championship — will be single-elimination, as they have been for a while.

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Last fall, MLS commissioner Don Garber said of potential changes that “if we can come out where tomorrow is better than today, we’ll do it, and if we can’t, we won’t.”

The vote wasn’t exactly a democracy.

MLS did several surveys of fans in the last few years, and said the feedback showed many fans wanted more playoff games. But the fact that just one round of the playoffs will have multiple games betrays the real drivers of the format change: teams’ ticket sales staffs and Apple.

The ticket sales staffs will be thrilled that every team gets a home game, whether or not they earned it. In the previous format, the only way to get a home game was to earn it through the regular-season standings.

Apple will like the new format because it gives the company more games to put on its streaming platform. Some playoff games will also be televised by Fox, FS1 and Fox Deportes, but not all of them.

It’s also a safe bet that some coaches and front-office staffers will like the new format, because easier playoff qualification makes it easier to keep job security.

Sources at MLS claimed that surveys of fans showed that enough of them wanted this. The league also engaged with Twenty First Group, a sports consulting firm with offices in San Francisco, London, and Singapore that has worked with entities including the English Premier League, UEFA and the PGA Tour.

Twenty First’s work included running thousands of computer simulations to see how often the highest seeds advanced through the bracket. The results weren’t shared directly with the media, but one source said they showed the No. 1 seed has a 60% chance of making the title game, with a 2% chance of the No. 8 or No. 9 seed getting there.

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It’s clear, though, that the desire to make these changes was far from unanimous. When some reports made the rounds earlier this month, Union manager Jim Curtin said he wasn’t a huge fan.

“You work all season in the 34 [regular-season] games to earn that home-field advantage — and I’ll use us as the example, because it’s recent, right?” he said. “We had to win two home games [last year] to get to a final. That’s a real reward for having a great regular season. ... You don’t want it to turn into hockey, where the 8-seed gets a hot goalie and all of a sudden they’re winning the trophy.”

Curtin said he’d go along with any changes; obviously, he’s an employee of one of the teams. But he didn’t hide his true feelings.

“It’s best to have that regular season mean much as possible to teams,” he said. “The [home playoff] games are a huge advantage in this league. ... The more you can incentivize having a good season and earning those home games, I think, the better.”

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When The Athletic broke the news of the new format on Tuesday a few hours before it became official, the reporter’s Twitter mentions were flooded with criticism.

“No, honestly I would like to know every name that is sitting in a room and approving this new playoff format,” former MLS veteran MLS player AJ DeLaGarza tweeted.

Even the U.S. Open Cup’s official account joined in, tweeting: “Single-elimination ... Live it, love it.”

The expansion of the playoffs means an expansion of the length of the postseason, too. Instead of being able to get it all done in three to four weeks, it will now stretch from Oct. 25 to Dec. 9. As there’s a FIFA national team window from Nov. 13-21, MLS will likely have to resume a disliked tradition of halting the playoffs for two weeks to make way.

The counterargument in the negotiating room was the idea of the playoffs being too short, as few as three games for the No. 1 seed. That has never hurt the NFL, but of course, the NFL never has to fight for popularity.

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