SoulfishHawk":hq1195lg said:
That's a tough one. I can kind of see both sides to adding that extra game as an international game etc. But it also adds a lot of travel. And some teams travel enough as it is. Some games up in Canada would be cool though. This weekend's games were kind of disappointing overall, and I think there will be a lot of talk about how adding that 7th playoff team will water it down etc.
One year sample, but hopefully next year the games are a little better in that first round.
IMO travel isn't a consideration. If anything, it would even it out some. Jacksonville plays a game across the pond every year, we've played over there just once. Every team would have 9 road or travel games.
Having a few games in Canada is a great suggestion except that there aren't many stadiums with seating capacities of 50,000+, which I would think would be a minimum requirement. But there are a couple, including Vancouver, Edmonton, and Toronto. Honolulu is also an option. Who wouldn't jump at a chance to go watch the Hawks in Hawaii in November?
There would be 16 games per season that would need to be scheduled at either an international venue, of which there are a lot of candidates with 50,000+ seat stadiums, like Tokyo and Seoul, South Korea, or domestic neutral fields like Oklahoma City or Birmingham. That doesn't seem like an insurmountable problem. They could alternate responsibility for scheduling, with each team having to schedule one game at a neutral/international site every two years.
Agreed about the 14 playoff teams. Nearly half of the teams making the playoffs is absurd. Both #7 seeds, Philly and Pittsburgh, lost badly. They didn't deserve to be there.
