The Pointless Realignment Outpost

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[IceCap]

Move Arizona to Quebec City

 

North

Calgary Flames

Edmonton Oilers

Montreal Canadiens

Ottawa Senators

Quebec Nordiques

Toronto Maple Leafs

Vancouver Canucks

Winnipeg Jets

 

Central

Carolina Hurricanes

Chicago Blackhawks

Columbus Blue Jackets

Dallas Stars

Detroit Red Wings

Florida Panthers

Nashville Predators

Tampa Bay Lightning

 

East

Boston Bruins

Buffalo Sabres

New Jersey Devils

New York Islanders

New York Rangers

Philadelphia Flyers

Pittsburgh Penguins

Washington Capitals

 

West

Anaheim Ducks

Colorado Avalanche

Los Angeles Kings

Minnesota Wild

San Jose Sharks

Seattle Kraken

St. Louis Blues

Vegas Golden Knights

 

Four divisions, eight teams each

[McCall]

1 hour ago, IceCap said:

Move Arizona to Quebec City

 

North

Calgary Flames

Edmonton Oilers

Montreal Canadiens

Ottawa Senators

Quebec Nordiques

Toronto Maple Leafs

Vancouver Canucks

Winnipeg Jets

 

Central

Carolina Hurricanes

Chicago Blackhawks

Columbus Blue Jackets

Dallas Stars

Detroit Red Wings

Florida Panthers

Nashville Predators

Tampa Bay Lightning

 

East

Boston Bruins

Buffalo Sabres

New Jersey Devils

New York Islanders

New York Rangers

Philadelphia Flyers

Pittsburgh Penguins

Washington Capitals

 

West

Anaheim Ducks

Colorado Avalanche

Los Angeles Kings

Minnesota Wild

San Jose Sharks

Seattle Kraken

St. Louis Blues

Vegas Golden Knights

 

Four divisions, eight teams each

Why would you separate the Blues and Blackhawks and send the Blues and Wild out west while putting Dallas, a city farther west than St. Louis AND St. Paul, in the Central with the aforementioned Blackhawks? I get this is how it was for the 2020-21 COVID season, but that was extenuating circumstances... and even then didn't make any sense.

[IceCap]

4 minutes ago, McCall said:

Why would you separate the Blues and Blackhawks and send the Blues and Wild out west while putting Dallas, a city farther west than St. Louis AND St. Paul, in the Central with the aforementioned Blackhawks? I get this is how it was for the 2020-21 COVID season, but that was extenuating circumstances... and even then didn't make any sense.

You could move a few teams around here and there. 

 

Also this wouldn't just be a retread of the COVID season. The divisions would be scheduled against each other 

[SCMODS]

EASTERN CONFERENCE 

 

Atlantic

Carolina

Florida 

New Jersey 

N.Y. Islanders 

N.Y. Rangers

Philadelphia 

Tampa Bay

Washington 

 

Northeast

Boston

Buffalo 

Columbus

Montreal

Ottawa

Pittsburgh 

Quebec

Toronto

 

 

WESTERN CONFERENCE 

 

Central

Chicago

Colorado 

Dallas

Detroit

Minnesota 

Nashville 

St. Louis

Winnipeg

 

Pacific

Anaheim 

Calgary 

Edmonton 

Los Angeles 

San Jose 

Seattle 

Vancouver 

Vegas 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[jlog3000]

With San Diego having a franchise to be the MLS's #30 team, I think that it will be very interesting once it joins the league. However, what concerns me a bit is the scheduling and conference format. I thin that both the MLS East and the MLS West must grouped their 15 teams into 3 divisions of 5 teams each, obviously based on geographic approximation.

 

The issue is that each team plays like 30 or so regular season games. This season is 34. One solution would be that a few games need to expand:

 

Like each team faces 4 teams of its own division twice, then face 5 teams of other division twice and face 5 teams of other 2nd division once (with inter-division play switching each year) and face 15 teams of other conference once. That would be a total of 38 games (oddly enough thats the same amount of games used on other pro soccer leagues of other countries, only that in those leagues they each got 20 teams and each of those face the other 19 twice [home and road alike]).

 

[Red-Knight]

NHL - 33 Teams
 

Move Coyotes to Houston. They become the Houston Aeros.
Bring back the Atlanta Thrashers for 33 teams. 3 conferences of 11. Top 5 in each conference make the playoffs for total of 15 teams.

1 wild card berth given to the team with the best record not in a playoff position for a total of 16 playoff teams.

16 teams are then re-seeded based on overall season record

84 game schedule. Every team plays home and away with every team not in its conference (22 teams - 44 games total). Play home and away twice with teams in own conference (10 other teams - 40 total games). 

 

[jlog3000]

With San Diego being the MLS's 30th franchise, effective the 2025 season, I wonder if the league would somehow apply divisions for both East & West Conferences, to reduce travel expenses and what not. But it would make a bit more sense once the league hits to 32 teams; because originally it wouldn't fit as it was originally predicted, according to this post from Reddit about 7-8 years ago:

 

 

Instead, the teams that joined alongside Atlanta United FC, Minnesota United FC, Los Angeles FC and Inter Miami FC were Nashville SC, FC Cincinnati, Austin FC and Charlotte FC; with St. Louis FC (this season) and San Diego FC (in 2025) will follow suit. While the Carolina Railhawks, the Sacramento Republic, the San Antonio Scorpions and the Indy Eleven didn't make it and were left out.

 

With that being said, the MLS might look like this:

 

MLS East:

* Northeast - Atlantic : DC United, Philadelphia, NY Red Bulls, New York City FC

* Northeast - New England: New England, CF Montreal, Toronto FC, <expansion>

* Central - Great Lakes: Nashville SC, FC Cincinnati, Chicago, Columbus

* Central - Southeast: Atlanta United, Charlotte FC, Inter Miami, Orlando City SC

 

MLS West:

* Frontier - Plains: Colorado, St. Louis, Sporting KC, Minnesota United

* Frontier - Sun Belt: Austin FC, Houston, FC Dallas, <expansion>

* Pacific - Northwest: Vancouver, Seattle, Portland, Real Salt Lake

* Pacific - Southwest: LA Galaxy, Los Angeles FC, San Jose, San Diego

 

Each team would face everyone (being 31 games), and another 3 within same section for a total of 34 games.

 

Thoughts?

[McCall]

1 hour ago, jlog3000 said:

With San Diego being the MLS's 30th franchise, effective the 2025 season, I wonder if the league would somehow apply divisions for both East & West Conferences, to reduce travel expenses and what not. But it would make a bit more sense once the league hits to 32 teams; because originally it wouldn't fit as it was originally predicted, according to this post from Reddit about 7-8 years ago:

 

 

Instead, the teams that joined alongside Atlanta United FC, Minnesota United FC, Los Angeles FC and Inter Miami FC were Nashville SC, FC Cincinnati, Austin FC and Charlotte FC; with St. Louis FC (this season) and San Diego FC (in 2025) will follow suit. While the Carolina Railhawks, the Sacramento Republic, the San Antonio Scorpions and the Indy Eleven didn't make it and were left out.

 

With that being said, the MLS might look like this:

 

MLS East:

* Northeast - Atlantic : DC United, Philadelphia, NY Red Bulls, New York City FC

* Northeast - New England: New England, CF Montreal, Toronto FC, <expansion>

* Central - Great Lakes: Nashville SC, FC Cincinnati, Chicago, Columbus

* Central - Southeast: Atlanta United, Charlotte FC, Inter Miami, Orlando City SC

 

MLS West:

* Frontier - Plains: Colorado, St. Louis, Sporting KC, Minnesota United

* Frontier - Sun Belt: Austin FC, Houston, FC Dallas, <expansion>

* Pacific - Northwest: Vancouver, Seattle, Portland, Real Salt Lake

* Pacific - Southwest: LA Galaxy, Los Angeles FC, San Jose, San Diego

 

Each team would face everyone (being 31 games), and another 3 within same section for a total of 34 games.

 

Thoughts?

You assigned the expansion teams conferences/divisions without having cities selected. Las Vegas, Sacramento and Phoenix are all in play for the 31st and 32nd teams and if two of them were selected, it would push a Western team, geographically being St. Louis or Minnesota, into the East.

[jlog3000]

14 minutes ago, McCall said:

You assigned the expansion teams conferences/divisions without having cities selected. Las Vegas, Sacramento and Phoenix are all in play for the 31st and 32nd teams and if two of them were selected, it would push a Western team, geographically being St. Louis or Minnesota, into the East.

 

Let's see how would you realign things, based on my model.

[McCall]

1 hour ago, jlog3000 said:

 

Let's see how would you realign things, based on my model.

How can you when the expansion teams are unknown? Even in a hypothetical model.

 

But also why do you have divisions within divisions within the conferences? Like the "Great Lakes" division of the "Northeast" division of the "Eastern Conference". Just have four divisions within the Conference. Like the NFL and every other league. "NFC South/East/West/North". Why make things more complicated than they need to be?

[McCall]

1 hour ago, jlog3000 said:

 

Let's see how would you realign things, based on my model.

Mine would be similar, but I selected a couple markets so that I can accurately align them. I chose Phoenix and Detroit for this one and kept the division names straightforward.

WESTERN CONFERENCE
NORTHWEST	PACIFIC	SOUTHWEST	MIDWEST
Portland	LA Galaxy	Austin	Colorado
Salt Lake	LAFC	Dallas	Kansas City
Seattle	San Diego	Houston	Minnesota
Vancouver	San Jose	Phoenix	St. Louis
EASTERN CONFERENCE
CENTRAL	SOUTHEAST	NORTHEAST	ATLANTIC
Chicago	Atlanta	Detroit	DC
Cincinnati	Charlotte	Montreal	New York (RB)
Columbus	Miami	New England	New York City
Nashville	Orlando	Toronto	Philadelphia

 

If Sacramento and Las Vegas were the two expansion teams in a hypothetical model, the alignment would be a lot different. Or Sacramento and Detroit, etc. The point is, you cannot accurately align teams without knowing who all the teams are.

[RoughRiders99]

So I saw an article where the NFL was entertaining the possibility of having a 4-team division in Europe to help with the travel costs and all that. 

 

But my question is - assuming all current NFL teams stay intact - how would the logistics work? 

What would the schedule look like? 17 or 18 games? 2 byes or just 1?

How would the division fit into the NFC or AFC? Or is it just an "unaffiliated' division? Where would their playoff teams go? 

 

I know it'll probably never happen in real life, but just for the sake of discussion, let's just assume it'll happen. What would the logistics be like? 

[Luigi74]

52 minutes ago, RoughRiders99 said:

So I saw an article where the NFL was entertaining the possibility of having a 4-team division in Europe to help with the travel costs and all that. 

 

But my question is - assuming all current NFL teams stay intact - how would the logistics work? 

What would the schedule look like? 17 or 18 games? 2 byes or just 1?

How would the division fit into the NFC or AFC? Or is it just an "unaffiliated' division? Where would their playoff teams go? 

 

I know it'll probably never happen in real life, but just for the sake of discussion, let's just assume it'll happen. What would the logistics be like? 

Maybe that's the point the NFL ditches conferences and goes with just divisions, they'd most likely expand the playoffs to 16 teams.

[McCall]

1 hour ago, RoughRiders99 said:

So I saw an article where the NFL was entertaining the possibility of having a 4-team division in Europe to help with the travel costs and all that. 

 

But my question is - assuming all current NFL teams stay intact - how would the logistics work? 

What would the schedule look like? 17 or 18 games? 2 byes or just 1?

How would the division fit into the NFC or AFC? Or is it just an "unaffiliated' division? Where would their playoff teams go? 

 

I know it'll probably never happen in real life, but just for the sake of discussion, let's just assume it'll happen. What would the logistics be like? 

The only way that would work without adding four North American teams as well, would be to do away with divisions, put the European teams in one conference and move two teams from that conference over to the other giving each one 18 teams... with no divisions. Then essentially, just schedule as if there were divisions, meaning the 4 Euro teams would only play each other home and away.

 

Btw, that Euro division-talk is nothing knew. Been going on for years.

[Ferdinand Cesarano]

4 hours ago, RoughRiders99 said:

So I saw an article where the NFL was entertaining the possibility of having a 4-team division in Europe to help with the travel costs and all that. 

 

I don't think that a whole European division is necessary.

 

A single London team could stay at a U.S. base for the first eight or nine games of the season, and travel from there to road games. It would then go home to London for its home games.

 

Each of the London team's visiting opponents would play on Thursday on the week before going to London; then each of those teams would have a bye on the week after its London game. 

 

In order not to disadvantage any team that would have to play in London on week 18 right before the playoffs, the London team would have its bye week during that week. And it would play on Thursday on the week of its last game in the U.S. during the front part of the season, and on Monday for its first home game.

 

If the London team were to make the playoffs, then either it would have to travel to a U.S. city, or a U.S.-based team would have to travel to London, with no Thursdays, Mondays, or byes available. In that case, just suck it up.

[RoughRiders99]

On 6/14/2023 at 11:29 AM, Luigi74 said:

Maybe that's the point the NFL ditches conferences and goes with just divisions, they'd most likely expand the playoffs to 16 teams.

 

I like this idea. There's only one MVP every year anyway. The pro bowls are fantasy drafts so it's all moot. 

How would the schedule format work though? I'm sorta assuming it'd be 18 games now rather than 17 games. 

 

On 6/14/2023 at 12:31 PM, McCall said:

The only way that would work without adding four North American teams as well, would be to do away with divisions, put the European teams in one conference and move two teams from that conference over to the other giving each one 18 teams... with no divisions. Then essentially, just schedule as if there were divisions, meaning the 4 Euro teams would only play each other home and away.

 

Btw, that Euro division-talk is nothing knew. Been going on for years.

 

Or just have a pure 17-week round robin style schedule. Face every team in your conference once. No cross-conference games. Would make for an extremely balanced schedule I think. 

 

23 hours ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

 

I don't think that a whole European division is necessary.

 

A single London team could stay at a U.S. base for the first eight or nine games of the season, and travel from there to road games. It would then go home to London for its home games.

 

Each of the London team's visiting opponents would play on Thursday on the week before going to London; then each of those teams would have a bye on the week after its London game. 

 

In order not to disadvantage any team that would have to play in London on week 18 right before the playoffs, the London team would have its bye week during that week. And it would play on Thursday on the week of its last game in the U.S. during the front part of the season, and on Monday for its first home game.

 

If the London team were to make the playoffs, then either it would have to travel to a U.S. city, or a U.S.-based team would have to travel to London, with no Thursdays, Mondays, or byes available. In that case, just suck it up.

 

That's not a bad idea. Wonder where that U.S. base would be. Probably Texas because it's centrally located, in warm weather, and tons of good football facilities there (See XFL). I love and agree with your idea about the playoffs. Just suck it up lol. 

[McCall]

5 hours ago, RoughRiders99 said:

Or just have a pure 17-week round robin style schedule. Face every team in your conference once. No cross-conference games. Would make for an extremely balanced schedule I think. 

Never gonna happen. Much of the current division alignment is based on rivalries. Even if you did away with actual divisions, the scheduling would have to remain as such. Rivalries like the Chiefs/Broncos/Raiders, Cowboys/Giants/Eagles/Commanders, etc., are to ingrained in the fabric of the league. Playing each other only once wouldn't be enough. Many of those games are the most anticipated games and account for some of the highest attendance at each home stadium every year. Having each team play their rival at home only once every other year would never fly.

[Ferdinand Cesarano]

6 hours ago, RoughRiders99 said:

Or just have a pure 17-week round robin style schedule. Face every team in your conference once. No cross-conference games.

 

1 hour ago, McCall said:

Never gonna happen. Much of the current division alignment is based on rivalries. Even if you did away with actual divisions, the scheduling would have to remain as such. Rivalries like the Chiefs/Broncos/Raiders, Cowboys/Giants/Eagles/Commanders, etc., are to[o] ingrained in the fabric of the league. Playing each other only once wouldn't be enough.

 

That's true about the divisional rivalries.

 

So get rid of interconference games, and have a third game against each divisional rival!

 

That replaces three of the (I think) five interconference games that each team plays. The remaining two interconference games would be replaced by games against the teams that finished in the same standings position in two of the conference's other divisions. 

 

I know that the Super Bowl is already the most watched event in American sports. But what would make it even better would be if the teams that meet in the Super Bowl cannot have played each other during the season.

[RoughRiders99]

3 hours ago, McCall said:

Never gonna happen. Much of the current division alignment is based on rivalries. Even if you did away with actual divisions, the scheduling would have to remain as such. Rivalries like the Chiefs/Broncos/Raiders, Cowboys/Giants/Eagles/Commanders, etc., are to ingrained in the fabric of the league. Playing each other only once wouldn't be enough. Many of those games are the most anticipated games and account for some of the highest attendance at each home stadium every year. Having each team play their rival at home only once every other year would never fly.

Let me see if I got what you're saying right: 

2 18-team conferences
No divisions
But rather, there are "de facto" divisions/pods/locked rivals a la college football permanent rivals

Wouldn't that just make for an even more unbalanced schedule? 

Let's just pretend that NFL becomes like baseball's NL/AL style but with no interleague(conference) play and have each of these 18-team conferences have 3 divisions of 6 teams per for simplicity. 

• 10 games vs 5 divisional rivals (2 games per team, home/away)
• 6 games vs 1 divisional (3 homes, 3 aways)
• 1 game vs the team that finished in the same standings position in the other division
• No inter-conference games. 

But assuming that the 4 Europe teams are all in one division together, then one conference would never play them. 

 

Not trying to disagree with you or anything. Just having an enjoyable conversation with you, I'd like to think. Yes, of course I want to keep as many rivals intact as we can.