Opinion: U.S. Soccer calendar shift necessary, possible
Image credit: U.S. Soccer
Following the United States’ failure to qualify for the 2018 FIFA World Cup, several days of robust discussion took place regarding changes that need to be made to the way the sport of soccer is governed and marketed in the United States. Most of the conversations centered on familiar themes — promotion and relegation, solidarity payments, training compensation, the structure of the development programs, the lack of synergy and cooperation in the professional league “pyramid,” so on and so forth. But after a few days of hand-wringing, business as usual resumed and talk of systematic changes for a nation that has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on the sport in the last decade but failed to qualify for a World Cup because it finished behind the likes of Panama and Honduras in qualifying simply vanished for the most part.
Perhaps the most important issue from where this observer sits wasn’t raised until USSF presidential candidate and former playing great Eric Wynalda brought it up in an interview with ESPN FC: calendar change. Wynalda has long advocated a shift in schedule for the U.S. pro leagues, something that usually gets met with dismissive retorts of “we can’t do that!”
Wynalda couched his position on the very logical premise that the MLS Cup Playoffs now compete with the end of college football season, heart of the NFL season and World Series. MLS Cup itself has suffered from direct competition — in 2012, David Beckham’s final game with the LA Galaxy took place at the very same time as the SEC championship game between Alabama and Georgia. The NASL and USL have had postseason and championship matches going head-to-head the last few seasons with critical NFL and college football games.
Those who have pushed back against any discussion of calendar change have long done so aggressively and by using some points that appear logical:
1. It’s too cold to play in the northern part of the country during the winter.
2. Pro soccer will suffer or perhaps even die if forced to compete with American football.
I have to say I have never understood the second premise, as my example above illustrates that MLS as well as the lower divisions have left their business end of the season to run concurrent with the heart of the American football season. Currently MLS kicks off the first full weekend of March, the final weekend of the NCAA basketball regular season, and spends the next three weeks competing with conference tournaments and then the NCAA tournament. MLS’ fifth weekend of the season goes head-to-head with the Masters.
Avoiding conflicts with major sporting events of the American variety is unavoidable for professional soccer. To claim somehow the current calendar is the only good option is naive and perhaps even sinister, especially when you consider a shift in the calendar will allow the most important pro matches of the season to be contested without competition from the NFL or college football.
Below are the reasons why a calendar shift should occur, but first let’s discuss how we can work around the first and only legitimate concern about the weather in the north.
Russia’s Premier League recently shifted its calendar from one almost identical to MLS’ to a July to May format with a long winter break. If Russia, with its frigid arctic winters, can change its calendar to something closer to the international norm, we certainly can. Nobody is suggesting the United States professional leagues play through the winter like England’s Premier League does — much like the obstinance many in the pro game here show toward any discussion of a calendar shift, English insiders resist taking a winter break due to traditions, which have arguably cost the nation any real shot at winning major international tournaments.
7° F… a yearly reminder why playing the American soccer season on the European calendar is far from advisable.
— WrongSideOfThePond (@wrongsideofpond) January 7, 2017
When you talk to those from abroad who have worked in the United States off the record, many complain about the schedule. Perhaps its familiarity with playing football at a certain time of the year that lends itself to these attitudes. But dig deeper and you get answers like “it’s tough to train optimally in the hottest months of the season,” and “I could get certain players here but cannot because of the schedule.” I’ve spoken to American-born general managers in the past who’ve said they’ve lost out on players due to the calendar, but also some who landed players because of when MLS, the NASL or USL were playing. All of these critiques hold water with me. When you consider we are moving more and more developing players into the pro league system, it becomes critical that youngsters are given the best possible training experience — having practices routinely cut short or cancelled outright because of rain and heat is a real problem. Similarly, these are problems during the winter in northern climates that will have to be worked around.
Ultimately, it’s a positive thing to align transfer windows and logical to not be playing or training in the hottest months of the year. Moving Americans abroad to European clubs, where they’ll further their growth as professional players, is that much easier if the domestic club is not in the middle of its season. It’s also logical from the standpoint of competition because the business end of the season, when you want the most eyeballs on the TV, does not coincide with the immovable object of the NFL and college football.
Love the insight from @EricWynalda on the soccer calendar and how it impacts the American player
— Roy A Tewell III (@Roy_Tewell) November 4, 2016
In terms of maintaining fan support, let’s keep in mind elite youth soccer clubs tend to play on the international calendar as well, from August or September to April or May. In my days working in the NASL, we’d see some significant attendance dips in weaker markets when youth soccer season was out and the summer heat was in. We as a league also had numerous weather delays which revolved around player safety issues related to summer thunderstorms. Weather issues tend to plague matches held in the Southeast during summer and even some scheduled games in the Midwest have experienced serious weather delays.
The difficulty of scheduling games in some northern cities needs to be worked around with a winter break and perhaps some more scheduling flexibility. However, when we hear arguments that cities in Canada cannot play on a summer calendar, I personally feel we cannot make decisions about our pro soccer system based on the considerations of guest teams from another country. Canada’s system eventually has to be delinked from the United States’ pro leagues for the good of both nations’ national teams, something I will explore further in a forthcoming Soc Takes piece.
Whether we shift the calendar or not, we need to have the conversation. Missing the World Cup is a deadly serious event in terms of the sustainability of the sport in this country and if we aren’t willing to stand up and have adult conversations, we deserve our ultimate fate and failure.
Follow Kartik on Twitter: @kkfla737.
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