MISL To Evaluate Format For Playoffs

The Major Indoor Soccer League (MISL) forum
Fran
Site Admin
Posts: 1204
Joined: Wed Nov 26, 2003 2:49 am
Location: Southampton, PA
Contact:

MISL To Evaluate Format For Playoffs

Post by Fran » Fri May 09, 2008 1:48 pm

http://www.pressboxonline.com/story.cfm?id=3601

By Staci Wolfson

With the seventh season of the Major Indoor Soccer League completed, this summer will be a busy one for league executives.

The always-evolving league will take the offseason to review several aspects of its structure and scheduling. Last season, the MISL worked to support three expansion teams and also faced criticism regarding its postseason format.

The New Jersey Ironmen, Orlando Sharks and Monterrey La Raza joined the league for the first time. New Jersey and Monterrey both made the postseason before the Baltimore Blast eliminated them on their way to their fourth championship in six seasons.

“It’s startling,” said MISL commissioner Steve Ryan of the success of the new teams. "It’s a tribute to the parity that we have. The players are coming in from all around the world. We have 23 nations represented among the players. … It’s gratifying; it also upgrades the level of play and allows expansion teams to be extremely competitive.”

While no formal announcements have been made regarding the additions of more teams, the league has looked into expanding into other parts of the country.

Ryan said a city in the Midwest may be added for the 2009-2010 season, and the league may have to do so to replace the California Cougars, a team added in the 2005-06 season which has yet to advance to the playoffs. While California has not officially announced it will leave the league, the organization has struggled with tough road schedules and poor attendance.

In constant flux, the MISL has had member organizations in Cleveland, Dallas, Harrisburg, Kansas City, St. Louis and San Diego. These teams are now defunct or inactive, and Milwaukee and Baltimore boast the longest-running operations.

“These are two great franchise cities,” Ryan said. “We really have a very deep fan base in both of them, and they’re very competitive during the regular season. They’ve built a rivalry between these two, which is excellent for our game. When you look at those two cities and you see the fan support they have, the sponsorship support, it encourages us to look to the future of this league.”

In addition to working on the growth of the league, MISL executives will assess the success of this year’s postseason format.

Six teams in the nine-team league earned playoff berths, and the quarterfinal and semifinal rounds were determined by two-game series that would have been decided by a "golden goal" sudden-death overtime format in case of a series split. After winning Game 1 of the semifinals and losing Game 2, 21-2, to Detroit, Monterrey advanced to the championship contest by winning the golden goal.

“My personal opinion is we need to change it,” said Blast general manager Kevin Healey. “We probably should do something that is certainly not the golden goal. If you’re going to do it, either go one game or three games. Either go one game and the higher seed gets it, and that’s what you worked for all year, or go three games, but to get rid of the golden goal is the way to go.”

The championship, however, was decided with just one game. The location of the matchup was decided prior to the postseason, and Milwaukee hosted the Baltimore-Monterrey game despite being ousted by the Blast in the semifinals the week before the final.

“If it’s a championship game, everybody would like to play at home,” said Blast captain P.J. Wakefield. “You play at home all year, you try to get the most wins as you can there, and a lot of teams are very successful at home. On the road in this league it’s very hard to get wins, and you take two teams to a neutral site, and anything can happen in this league. A bad bounce here or a bad bounce there, you can lose a game.”

While fans in Monterrey and Baltimore could only watch the championship game on television, Ryan said the decision to hold the championship game in Milwaukee was made so one date could be marketed all season to fans and to Fox Soccer Channel.

Due to technical difficulties, much of the first half was not broadcast.

“The counter-argument to this is that teams want to play in front of their hometown fans, and I understand that,” Ryan said. “I think we decided two years ago to pursue this, and it’s time to step back and evaluate it.”

User avatar
Pounder
Site Admin
Posts: 2736
Joined: Tue Mar 23, 2004 7:01 pm
Location: Portland freaking Oregon!

Post by Pounder » Fri May 09, 2008 4:42 pm

In Baltimore and (IIRC) Milwaukee, the MISL are actually the main tenants in their buildings.

Everywhere else, they depend on the vagaries of other teams.

At first blush, I was thinking that they ought to start and end their season later, so they have less schedule conflicts to run against, which they MIGHT be able to arrange with Fox Soccer Channel. MIGHT.

Problem with that: a lot of the league's quality players play both MISL in winter and USL in summer. If MISL messes with that, they're LIKELY to lose the bulk of those players. Those players often dream of substantial (not necessarily big) money in Europe, and the scouts will be watching outdoors with USL, not indoors.

SO, what do you do? This is a good business school quandary IMO.
Mean Spirited Blogger #107

cardshopmd
Site Admin
Posts: 40
Joined: Sat Jan 19, 2008 1:50 pm

Post by cardshopmd » Mon May 12, 2008 3:59 pm

first of all steve Ryan is a idiot why would you arange a championship game off of your home turf they only atracted 6300 fans since the home team did not play

as a blast fan i was glad to see us win but the leage needs to go back to it roots when it was a success ( if its not broke dont fix it ) get rid of the scoring no one likes it ( look at the attendace DUAHHHHHH) go back to a 3 game finals & bring in some of the older teams who want to come back

User avatar
Pounder
Site Admin
Posts: 2736
Joined: Tue Mar 23, 2004 7:01 pm
Location: Portland freaking Oregon!

Post by Pounder » Mon May 12, 2008 6:36 pm

Roots, eh?

Earl Foreman. Co-founder of the MISL, right? Same guy who said "I don't give two s***s about outdoor soccer." Dude conveniently forgot that the source of his player pool was, well, OUTDOORS... and suddenly bereft of the NASL. Those are the roots of the MISL.

Recall, however, that this league began its operations as the NPSL. These were the underlings that survived when the original MISL failed. The roots of this league were, well, in the kind of places like, say, Detroit plays now.

Indoor soccer was an attempt to grow a league like, say, spruce trees. Spruces grow in really wet climates, so much so that roots don't even bother digging into the ground, they just spread out and soak up the surface moisture. One stiff wind, and whoosh, down goes the tree. There's a lot more wind in the business climate than there is in the rain forests of the Pacific Northwest.

You got no roots. You have illusions of days gone by that weren't what you thought they were anyway. Step outside for a while.
Mean Spirited Blogger #107

bomp
Site Admin
Posts: 399
Joined: Sun Oct 22, 2006 5:40 pm
Location: Baltimore, Maryland USA
Contact:

Post by bomp » Mon May 12, 2008 6:54 pm

Actually the current MISL started as the AISA then became the NPSL.

If the old teams want back in, who is stopping them? Just put up the money and it is a done deal.
Unique ideas lead to prison. Don't name your son after a baseball glove. "Listen dude, do you really want the SEX??"

Post Reply

Return to “MISL”