The quickest way to kill the shootout will be to have more games like the San Jose - Tampa Bay run about 20 minutes long and eat into ESPN's most profitable program, SportsCenter. I can guarantee you that the honchos at ESPN were not pleased on Sunday evening.
As a way of fostering a discussion as to how to do what all other leagues around the world somehow do, namely finish soccer matches in under two hours, I submit the following suggestions:
1) Kill the Shootouts!
MLS thinks that it is caught between a rock (US Soccer fans supposedly won't accept draws) and a hard place (TV wants games to finish in less than 2 hours). Until there is hard evidence that US fans _prefer_ the shootouts, they should go. 40% of MLS audience (by its own data) is latino, they can't favor shootouts. The other target audience is kids, yet all of the games they play allow draws to stand, so what's the problem here. And we know the diehards don't want shootouts (look at the last 5 surveys on the net). So who does want shootouts? It seems that the larger problem is not screwing up the TV contract by running over 2 hours and eating up SportsCenter on ESPN and Siempre en Domingo on Univision. Let Draws be Draws! PLEASE!
2) Stretcher Off Injured Players Immediately
Every other major soccer league immediately stretchers off injured players when they go down. In fact, as soon as any physiotherapists or medical staff come on, the player MUST leave the field or get a yellow card. This accomplishes several worthwhile things: it gets the player off to get care if needed; if the player is faking, it gets him back into the game soon, and -- in the context of the subject of this post -- it KEEPS THE GAME MOVING!!! How much time in MLS games is wasted by having everyone standing around while the trainers treat the players on the pitch. This is a guaranteed time-waster, as the players milk this to game some rest. This ought to be a no brainer, especially if MLS is under time constraints to finish in less than 2 hours. Is there any logical reason why injured players don't leave the field like they do everywhere else?
3) Get Red Carded Players off Immediately.
This should go without saying, but too often in MLS games more time wasting takes place in such instances.
4). Let the Referee Keep the Official Time.
Every other league in the world lets the ref keep the official time and they finish in less than 2 hours. MLS 'micro-manages' the clock and the inevitable result is games the push past the 2 hours window, even without the shootout.
Folks, this isn't rocket science. We can have all MLS games finish in less than 2 hours!
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