All Star 2010: The Commisioner on Board of Governors Meeting, Rafa Marquez
July 28, 2010 
7 Comments
BY SHAWN FRANCIS
As is his custom, Commissioner Don Garber addressed the media during halftime of this year’s All Star game in Houston. Speaking to the assembled media members at the rear of the press box the Commissioner addressed a number of topics, with the juiciest bits being details on today’s MLS Board of Governors and the rumors of Mexican captain Rafa Marquez making a move to MLS.
“We hope to be able have good news with Rafa sometime in the near future,” Garber said. “If we can bring Marquez in, captain of the Mexican national team, a guy who had a great World Cup, a long-time FC Barcelona player, if we can have him in MLS it would really give us I think a big boost of credibility and be really exciting for our fans.”
MLS IS SHORT ON USA fan support. I think it would help if you showed the STAR SPANGLED BANNER {our national anthem} intro before the game.
Ugh. What is Garber’s problem with a single table?! We essentially already operate like one! Why is he so resilient to it? The conferences is so stupid when we end up with teams like New York western conference champions. It looks ridiculous!
What is so special about having conferences? Nothing. Ditch them. Having a single-table is the next step Major League Soccer needs to take. It will make it more fair for clubs to qualify for the MLS Cup.
We base the qualification for the CONCACAF Champions League and the US Open Cup around the overall standings and not by the East and West standings, heck, we now only guarantee spots in the MLS Cup play-offs for the top two in the east and west.
So why continue the conferences? Have one table of 18 teams. The top 8 go to the MLS Cup. Have like 1 v 8, 2 v 7 etc. and keep the same aggregate system.
well we need something different form any other league something exciting like maybe we have a regular season with a single table and then what ever the postitions you get in the top 18 who ever is on top gets a home game whoevers on bottom gets a away game teams that suck dont get to play at home in the playoffs every team makes it and you dont get out until you have 3 losses then your eliminated once your the teams who win get to stay bad or good and then we could really determine who the true mls cup winner is i just thought we need a new playoffs and league system if we are to generate more fans to our league because it is hard to compete against these european and south amerian powerhouse leagues
I think people worry too much about conferences vs single table. The current system is basically the same as having a single table except for the first few teams.
With the addition of more teams and the limited depth of MLS rosters, it would be very difficult to have every team play each other twice. So, you might as well limit travel costs and increase regional rivalries by having divisions or conferences within which all the teams play each other. Play against the other conference would have to be limited like it is in the NFL.
Regardless, there are FAR bigger concerns for MLS and more important steps for MLS to take:
1. Every team establishing quality youth development programs.
2. Every team establishing quality scouting operations abroad.
3. Every team investing serious money in marketing themselves locally.
4. Every team owning their own stadium.
The big news in this clip is Marquez. I assumed with the talk of large transfer fees that the deal wasn’t going to happen. The Don makes it sound like a done deal. This would be huge!
OK, I take back that last part. Now that I read a few more websites, it seems I was wrong to doubt that the deal would get done.
I think the whole thing with conferences is it sets up more rivalry games, since I’m assuming as more teams come into the league they won’t play each other exactly twice (i.e. too many games).