MLS: Is further expansion actually good for the league?

MLS announced that the league plans to expand to 30 franchises in the coming years. Is more expansion a good thing for the league?

Major League Soccer announced it is preparing to increase its expansion of the league to 30 teams in the coming years. Twenty four teams currently occupy the league, with Miami, Nashville, and Austin on the way by 2021. Sacramento and St. Louis are expected as the 28th and 29th clubs with a 30th to be named later. The league had just 14 teams as of 2008. Only Marvel Studios has put out more content in the last 11 years.

With the league’s updated expansion statement comes the big question on everyone’s mind: is expansion actually good for the league? The simple answer is yes, expansion is good for the league. The complex answer is no, expansion is not good for the league. Or, the answer could be seen from a short-term/long-term perspective.

In the short term, more teams in the league means more money for the league. This is especially true now that future clubs must pay $200M to join. In the long term, more teams may cloud the legitimacy of the league on the global stage. Some may argue there isn’t enough talent to go around for 30 teams, while others will argue promotion/relegation is needed as more teams enter the fray.

Is more expansion good for MLS?

MLS has a challenge ahead of them: how do you accommodate 30 teams in a country that doesn’t fully support the sport yet? Sure, the league is on the up and scores well in the young adult demographic, but for those who actually pay attention to all of the league, they know that there are a few markets struggling to really make an impact in their city. Plus, the league itself still falls behind the NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, and even Mexico’s domestic league, Liga MX.

The few struggling markets that come to mind are New England, New York (Red Bulls), San Jose, Columbus, Colorado, and Chicago. New England appear to have apathetic owners and, with the team struggling mightily for five years now, positive change seems far away. The Red Bulls are usually a top team on the field but struggle to fill their beautiful soccer-specific stadium. San Jose have struggled on the field and also fail to fill up their wonderful stadium.

Columbus is going through an ownership change that may increase their popularity in the city, but also may not (only time will tell and the early returns are not great). Colorado also appear to have apathetic ownership and are consistently at the bottom of the league in performance. Chicago are rumored to undergo a rebrand very soon while moving from their suburban stadium back into the city where there will presumably be more visibility.

All of this is to say MLS already struggles with the markets they occupy. How can the league properly support 30 markets when at least six struggle now? After that question comes more questions. Why do those six markets struggle now? Is it apathetic ownership? Their location? Perhaps people in those cities just don’t care about soccer? Or maybe their teams are boring and no one wants to watch bad soccer?

No matter the reason, red flags are apparent in current cities. MLS may stretch itself too thin with more teams, leading to severe losses of money in the long term, which is where the short vs. long-term argument comes back into play.

The long-term perspective also plays into another aspect of MLS’ continued expansion. The league must care about their future to some extent, despite a lack of clear objectives (Do they want to be a selling league? Do they want to be the best league in the world? etc.). Assuming the league wants to be the best product in the world, as far as soccer on the actual pitch goes, how does expansion achieve that?

The long-term perspective says expansion doesn’t help achieve that goal. Many will be quick to say, ‘there’s not enough talent to go around for 30 teams.’ At the end of the day it actually doesn’t matter whether or not that notion is wrong. And that’s because MLS constricts itself from growing in other ways.

How do other leagues in the world present better soccer? The answer to that is quite simple: money. Even with an influx of cash via expansion, the league will not and cannot grow until it loosens its roster rules and restrictions. Under the salary cap, teams can only acquire so much talent. While things are improving, the league has a ways to go in that category. Further expansion does nothing to improve the immediate product on the field. It only introduces the product to different parts of the country.

MLS must find a solution to improving its on-the-field product or the new markets won’t care about having a soccer team in their city. Some markets already don’t care. But what can MLS do?Some will suggest promotion/relegation, which is used in nearly every soccer league around the world. This system would give MLS some legitimacy in the eyes of the global soccer community, but MLS owners are extremely unlikely to adhere to such a system.

At some point, MLS will have to choose whether or not to accept lesser roster restrictions. At some point, MLS will have to choose whether or not to accept promotion/relegation. Expansion of the league is just pushing closer to those breaking points.

Ultimately, MLS is going to do what it wants. The league prides itself on its parity, which is something that will likely disappear with fewer roster restrictions and promotion/relegation (just look at nearly every other league in the world). While the league will eventually do what it wants, it needs to decide what exactly that is.

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Let’s assume the league isn’t going to stop at 30 teams. How does the league align its teams? They can keep an Eastern and Western conference, or they can move to divisions, or they can even attempt to shift MLS into a top flight and second flight. Having so many teams is doable, especially compared to the aforementioned big four leagues in the country. However, more teams means more headaches from a logistics standpoint.

Look at the big five domestic soccer leagues in Europe (England, Spain, Italy, Germany, France): each league has 18-20 teams in the top flight. As a result, their schedules are simple. They play every opponent twice, once at home and once away. Each league then plays 34 or 38 games depending on the size of the league.

Right now in MLS, there is balance to the schedule. Each team plays their conference opponents twice (home and away), while playing their inter-conference opponents once, equaling 34 games. This will have to change when Nashville and Miami join, before changing again to accommodate Austin, Sacramento, and St. Louis.

Teams cannot play each other twice, as there is too much travel involved. And while the travel works with North America’s biggest leagues, it only works because of the idiosyncrasies of those individual leagues. It cannot work with soccer because the schedule does not allow for a series against opponents or consistent road trips. Only the NFL is comparable in terms of one game a week and they only play 16 games in a regular season.

MLS is forging its own path for now. At some point, the league will have big decisions to make for their health in the long term. They risk over expanding at the expense of an influx of money, while they seemingly match the other North American leagues in size. Soon, MLS will have to decide if they want to be a North American super-league or a respected domestic league. They cannot have both, and further expansion continues to illustrate that.