[!@#$%!]

i don't know or care about other sports, but i thought these "conferences" had to do with the size of the country and the time and expense it took to travel before airline deregulation.

these days air travel is a non-issue, but there is an established tradition in those other sports which is harder to break. borrowing those limitations from other sports to make it "palatable for americans" seems silly, just like the old "shootouts" at the end of a game when there was a tie.

right now the mls format is an incomprehensible clusterfuck where after pointless "conference" rivalry come the playoffs which negate all the hard work of a season. ugh! and until recently, a team from one conference could win the opposite conference. simply absurd.

other countries have this "cup" format parallel to the regular season , and are more open in that they allow other teams (FA cup, dfb pokal, copa del rey, etc).

maybe what they should do here is 2 tournaments: one with a single table that's won by points, another with a cup format that would allow other teams (e.g. 2nd division, us pro or whatever the fuck they call it) to get a chance to "kill giants".

and what would *really* spice things up instead of artificial "conference" rivalries is having actual promotion and relegation from and to a lesser league-- but hey, one step at a time, rome wasn't built in a day, so i'm willing to give it a couple of decades to get things right. it's definitely harder to build a following from the top-down instead of promoting from the grassroots.