Major League Soccer announced on Friday that the full 2011 schedule will be released on Thursday.
The schedule will be balanced with each team facing each other twice, both home and away. With the inclusion of the Portland Timbers and Vancouver Whitecaps, each team will play 34 matches in the 2011 season. The announcement comes amid vocal displeasure from fans about the delay of the final schedule release.
“We recognize that the timing of [the schedule’s] release has caused some inconvenience and we appreciate our fans’ continued patience,” MLS said in the statement.
The announcement will come with little more than a month until the start of the season, when the Los Angeles Galaxy take on the Seattle Sounders at Qwest FIeld on March 15th. The season opener and the 18 home openers for each club was released on December 20th.
Happy to finally know when the schedule will be released? About to plan your roadtrips for road matches? Ready for the season to start?
Share your thoughts below.
bush league, but still it is “nuestro fútbol” and i’m excited for the season.
I was beginning to think they’d announce the schedule one week at a time as the season progress.
At the same time it’s fun to see the teams try to market season tickets and multigame ticket packages without a schedule. It give their marketing depts a run for their money.
But then that means the Conference winners can’t add those nice shiny trophies to their cabinet.
What a novel idea. Surely, no one has discussed this at all.
Am I the only one to see this? If each team is playing each other twice (home/away), why not one table.
Does this not make sense? Get rid of the sily east/west crap!!!
Garber, ONE TABLE, ONE TABLE, ONE TABLE!!!!!!!!
Can’t wait for bus trips
Pass.
I’ll agree with that if NY manages to sign Anelka.
Everybody is playing each other twice that was announced when they increased the games to 34
I fully agree that the MLS’s releases its schedule too late!
Fortunately, the Red Bulls will make it all worth to everybody. I know that even the non-fans can’t wait to see the Red Bulls in 2011!
HC
The NBA schedule comes out 2 1/2 months before the season starts, MLS isn’t too far from that but I would be interested to hear from the league what factors go into their scheduling to make it come out so close to the season openers . If the MLS schedule came out sooner I know more people would buy tickets sooner including 5-pack and 10-pack holiday promos. Or are the Red Bulls the only team that tries to get people to buy 5-packs two months before the schedule is released?
The lateness of the schedule probably has more to do with the opening of KC’s stadia and the attempt at an unbalanced schedule of playing teams in your conference more than twice. The league seems certain to make it unbalanced for the sake of making the conferences relevant.
amen, i mean really, there’s more and more soccer specific stadiums every year or at least breaking ground. i have still yet to see a good reason for for the schedule being realesed this damn late
Complications or incompetence to blame? I’ve been following this league long enough to make up my mind. Anyway, I am excited.
MLB and NFL don’t really need to worry about int’l fixtures, exhibition matches in the middle of the season (which is bs imo), a KC stadium opening in the middle of the season, and all the other quirks that are make MLS so beloved.
Seriously, MLS. Get it together. I have things to plan, and I don’t want any tickets to go to waste. Every other sports league has to plan around TV coverage and competing interests, and they manage to get the schedules out in a reasonable time frame. MLB usually has their schedule for the next season announced by the end of playoffs, and they play 162 games!
your adult league has to take into consideration
– happy hour
– baby sitters
– kids games
– work schedule
it’s probably much more complicated than the MLS and that’s why it comes out so late.
Its MLS, anybody really surprised?
I’m guessing it is more of a nightmare than just some lazy people not getting it together.
Also, is Superliga still up in the air? Wouldn’t mind seeing that dumped, although Chris Kleins bicycle kick was great.
obviously there’s a lot of considerations when making a schedule, but this seems much later than any other league-other than my adult league- to release such it so late. What gives Ives? Any ideas or thoughts?
Only a week later than last year. Anyway, lot’s to be worked out between friendlies, cup ties, tv contracts, etc.
Why so late? Only Seattle and New England play in an NFL stadium. Houston and San Jose are in college stadiums.