Between Franchise and Football: MLS, American Sports Culture, and the Future for Postseason

[1]

Major League Soccer ("MLS"), the prominent men’s soccer league of the United States, faces the unique challenge of bridging international soccer culture and American sports culture.[2] When the MLS entered the American sports sphere, the league could not fully adopt the culture of American sports, nor could it fully diverge from it.[3] In a seeming attempt to combat this, the MLS implemented some “American” sports characteristics, like playoffs, to attract American viewers and generate more revenue.[4]

Since its establishment in 1996, the league has continued to expand its reach and audience.^[5] It is no secret that the MLS has recently gained record viewership, attendance, sponsorship deals, and revenue since the arrival of Lionel Messi.^[6] However, Messi’s contract extends only to the end of the 2025 season with one option year.[7] Although many speculate that he will re-sign another multi-year contract, it is unknown how long the 38-year-old will continue to play.[8] It is clear that the MLS cannot rely solely on the global phenom’s presence and must find new ways to grasp viewers to facilitate long-term growth. Accordingly, some of the MLS's adoption of American sports traditions, especially in its postseason format, raises questions about whether they are truly necessary for the league's success.

PLAYOFF STRUCTURE

Playoffs are the center of American sports culture. Most of the world’s soccer leagues have a promotion and relegation system, where promoted and relegated teams are determined by the team’s end-of-season standing.^[9] The world’s most notable leagues, such as the English Premier League, La Liga, Bundesliga, and Serie A use a total-game point system to decide the league's winner and the relegated team.^[10] Although a playoff system is not a common league practice in the international soccer realm, it is not necessarily rare.[11] Other leagues within North America, Central America, and the Caribbean region follow a “knockout round” playoff format.^[12] Even the Union of European Football Associations ("UEFA") has its Champions League and Europa League competitions with play-off variations.^[13]

However, the newly implemented playoff system in the MLS is unheard of to the rest of the world.^[14]  In 2023, the league enforced a new playoff structure with a best-of-three series.^[15] After the play-in game, the remaining 16 teams enter into a best-of three series before the conference semifinals.^[16]  Then, the higher seeded team hosts the first game and the conditional third game.^[17] The best-of-three series has been criticized by many, including the league's own players and coaches.^[18] Many argue that the best-of-three series drastically slows down playoff momentum.^[19] With an international break in the middle of the postseason, the best-of-three series elongates an already drawn-out playoff schedule.[20] Further, no aggregate scoreline is kept.[21] Instead, wins and losses are the only results that matter.[22] Accordingly, the number of goals a team wins by is irrelevant.[23] A blowout win in the first game is insignificant if the following two result in a narrow loss in regulation or penalties. [24] For example, a 7-0 win is treated just the same as a 2-1 win in the series. This playoff structure likely results in more upsets, but it is simply not to the same level of excitement as those in single-elimination games.

If playoffs are to be the continued path of the MLS, the league should either reimplement its two-leg, home-and-away second round format (with an aggregate scoreline) or stick to single game elimination. This two-leg format incentivizes teams to continue to play their best players and score multiple goals. Additionally, it allows fans of both clubs to experience a playoff game. Nevertheless, a single game elimination in each round is the most reasonable format for a postseason. A single game elimination is not only exciting, but it rewards higher-seeded teams by giving them a home game. Essentially, the MLS should be looking to shorten their extremely long postseason to keep fans and players intrigued.

PROMOTION AND RELEGATION

The MLS operates under a single entity structure, which is a generally unusual sports league system.^[25] In this system, the MLS owns all teams, players, and rights associated with such.[26] A "club owner" invests in Major League Soccer LLC instead of a particular team.[27] The "club owners" are really partners in the league instead of competitors.[28] The revenue earned from rights, sponsorships, and sales goes partially to the club and partially to the league.[29] A natural consequence of a single entity sports league is its closed nature.[30] Like all American sports leagues, the MLS is a closed league, with a set number of teams and no possibility of promotion or relegation.[31] As mentioned previously, this is a sharp contrast to the vast majority of the world. Studies find that in promotion and relegation systems, players tend to earn higher wages, and there is a positive effect on attendance for teams that are promoted. ^[32] However, these systems may put some lower league teams at a disadvantage because they cannot reasonably afford the means to produce a winning team.^[33]

Some may think that this would be easy to apply in the United States. However, MLS club investors, who paid high expansion fees to enter the league, seem unwilling to take the risk.[34] Further, the extreme disparity between the MLS and other American soccer leagues makes this integration unlikely.[35] When asked about the idea of promotion and relegation in the MLS, Peter Vermes, the longest serving head coach in MLS history, said, "sometimes we just have to be willing to accept who we are. Our country and the sports industry are based on playoffs. That's who we are."[36] While the concept of a promotion and relegation system continues to gain support among soccer fans, the existing structure and financial model of the MLS largely preclude its implementation.

KATIE OLIVER (staff writer) is a 2L at Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law. She played Division 1 soccer at Radford University and the University of New Hampshire. After law school, she hopes to work in the sports and entertainment industry and is interested in contract law.

References:

[1] Photo by SidorovStock on Flickr.

[2] See Zack Blumberg & Andrei Markovits, American soccer at a crossroad: MLS’s struggle between the exigencies of traditional American sports culture and the expectations of the global soccer community, 22 Soccer & Society 3 (2020), https://www.researchgate.net/publication/343332542_American_soccer_at_a_crossroad_MLS's_struggle_between_the_exigencies_of_traditional_American_sports_culture_and_the_expectations_of_the_global_soccer_community.

[3] See id. 

[4] See infra notes 9-35 for a greater discussion on MLS postseason and American playoff culture.

^[5] See About MLS, MLSsoccer (Apr. 13, 2023), https://www.mlssoccer.com/about/.

^[6] See Inter Miami, MLS Wonder what comes after Messi, Sports Business Journal (Sep. 18, 2024), https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Articles/2024/09/18/lionel-messi-mls-future/. 

[7] See id. 

[8] See id.

^[9] See Barnaby Lane, The Arguments for and Against MLS Promotion and Relegation, Sports Illustrated (Jan. 29, 2025), https://www.si.com/soccer/arguments-for-against-mls-promotion-and-relegation.

^[10] See Derek Reese, What is Promotion and Relegation, World Soccer Talk (Apr. 29, 2023), https://worldsoccertalk.com/news/what-is-promotion-and-relegation-20230205-WST-417286.html.

[11] See Jonathan Yardley, Playoffs around the World: Global Leagues use Variety of Different Formats to Determine Champions, MLSsoccer (Oct. 22, 2015), https://www.mlssoccer.com/news/playoffs-around-world-global-leagues-use-variety-different-formats-determine.

^[12] See id.

^[13] See generally The Official Website for European Football, UEFA,  https://www.uefa.com/ (last visited Jun. 3, 2025).

^[14] See MLS’s Bloated, Neverending Playoff Format has been a Failure, The Guardian (Nov. 16, 2023), https://www.theguardian.com/football/2023/nov/16/mls-playoffs-expansion-round-experiment-failure.

^[15] See MLS announces New Playoff Format for 2023 season, MLSsoccer (Oct. 27, 2023),  https://www.mlssoccer.com/news/mls-announces-new-playoff-format-for-2023-season.

^[16] See Kari Anderson, Does Anyone like the MLS Playoff Format? Players, Coaches Weigh in on Controversial Best-of-3 Structure, Yahoo! Sports (Nov. 8, 2024), https://sports.yahoo.com/does-anyone-like-the-mls-playoff-format-players-coaches-weigh-in-on-controversial-best-of-three-structure-154639207.html. 

^[17] See MLS’s Bloated, Neverending Playoff Format has been a Failure, supra note 14.

^[18] See Lizzy Becherano, Inter Miami’s Jordi Alba calls MLS postseason format “unfair”, ESPN (Nov. 10. 2024), https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_/id/42301274/inter-miamis-jordi-alba-calls-mls-postseason-format-unfair.

^[19] See MLS’s Bloated, Neverending Playoff Format has been a Failure, supra note 14.

[20] See id. 

[21] See id.

[22] See id.

[23] See id. 

[24] See id.

^[25] See Single entity structure: The MLS and the Power of the League, Football Legal, https://www.football-legal.com/content/single-entity-structure-the-mls-and-the-power-of-the-league (last visited Jun. 3, 2025).

[26] See Jake Baskinger, Single Entity Dilemma of the MLS and their Business Structure, Medium (May 29^th, 2023), https://medium.com/@jakebaskinger/single-entity-dilemma-of-the-mls-and-their-business-structure-72b864a6a931.

[27] See Jameson Scarsella, Sporting Econ 101: MLS Finances Explained, The Business Download (Sept. 5^th, 2023), https://thebusinessdownload.com/sporting-econ-101-mls-finances-explained/.

[28] See id.

[29] See id.

[30] See id. 

[31] See id. 

^[32] See Roger Noll, The Economics of Promotion and Relegation in Sports Leagues: The Case of English Football, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (Jan., 2002), https://siepr.stanford.edu/publications/working-paper/economics-promotion-and-relegation-sports-leagues-case-english-football.

^[33] See id.

[34] See Barnaby Lane, supra note 9.

[35] See id. 

[36] A former MLS Coach asks: “How do you tell an owner, $1.2B in debt he could be relegated?”, Yahoo! Sports (Sept. 27, 2025), https://ca.sports.yahoo.com/news/former-mls-coach-asks-tell-202500866.html.