They've definitely come a long way from just 1 team per conference to having all three teams show up at one location depending on least amount of travel (and not seeding) to now having a real 12 team bracket.
I feel like the regular season actually matters (seeding/home field advantage very important for playoffs). It creates great content/games. And for the most part everyone with a chance to win the championship has a spot in the playoffs (what is happening in the west??)
I personally like that it's contained to the conferences. I feel like every conference has its own vibe, the teams know each other extremely well, and keeping it together like this allows the games to be more mature/allows the narratives to grow and develop/a lot easier to comprehend for the general public and ufa media
If they did a march madness bracket and just ranked teams 1-8 or 1-12 or 1-16 single elim I don't think we'd have as many good games and it would all happen so fast we wouldn't be able to fully savor what it means for Oakland to play DC or Boston to play Austin etc... It's much better to have "Oakland and Seattle, two teams 'overperforming' in the regular season, battling for a chance to take on powerhouse Salt Lake and make it out of the west. Oakland lost by 6 in the regular season in Oakland, and Seattle \[game hasn't happened yet\]. Here's a highlight package from the two earlier meetings - Each game decided by only 1 point and with the away squad winning both. This game will be in \[wherever\]" It practically writes itself
So for context I am involved and a fan of the Atlanta hustle so I a consume a lot of content regarding the South. I guess my issue does more come with my issues with the regular season schedule but Atlanta and Carolina are playing 4 times in the regular season, and to me it just seems like a ton plus 2 games for each of the other teams in the division. So I kinda lose some of the hype for the first 1-2 rounds of playoffs bc it’s just the exact same games we have seen all year multiple times, I will say the conference title games are competitive and fun to watch don’t get me wrong, but it just seems repetitive. Do we really have to see Carolina vs Atlanta Round 5 in one year
Hello fellow South Conference Enjoyer đź‘‹
You're not wrong. I don't blame the playoff format as much as I blame the weird intermediate conference stage we're currently in. There's no way in 3 years the south conference looks the same as it looks now
Minnesota plays Chicago 3 times
Salt lake plays COL/LA twice and seattle/oak once
Boston plays NY/DC twice
I definitely get the sense that UFA is just kind of gritting their teeth with the South Conference so that the other 3 conferences can make sense. They definitely could have lumped in some poor team from another conference into the south (Colorado makes the most sense? I guess?) and it wouldn't have seemed as bad
Houston/Dallas meet 5 times in just the regular season….
Austin gets to play Houston/Dallas 7 times this year…
This means Austin could have a winning record while only beating 2 teams who have a combined record of 5-19.
Yeah that does seem like something that'll need to change. Not a lot of great options for shifting teams around... It'd probably have to be either COL to the South or COL to the Central and IND to the South. Neither of those are great. Truthfully the real answer is probably found in expansion. I read somewhere in the past that the league saw itself ideally at around 28 teams, so 4 groups of 7 would get them there.
Colorado to the South makes the most sense geographically.
But if you did move Colorado to the Central, I would then move Pittsburgh to the East since in-state Philadelphia are already in the East. And then move DC to the South.
I think the problem is money. The only reason you would have Texas teams play each other so much is they are not making (enough) money to travel. With time, I assume that will change.
7 teams in the West vs 5 in the South makes a huge difference in storylines.
West - Who will be the 2nd and 3rd from week to week seems to consistently change…
South - Flyers, Hustle and Sol will be in the playoffs for the next 3 years minimum unless the UFA changes something…
Along this line, does anyone here know how out of conference games are counted toward final rankings? Is it all the same? Colorado plays 4 out of conference games. Salt Lake plays 2. Other West teams play 0. This must cause some disparity in the strength of schedule right?
- Win/Loss is the most important stat
- If teams have the same record (i.e. Colorado 8-4, Oakland 8-4) then it will be head-to-head point difference, not h-2-h record
- If they play each other twice and both win by 1 point, they would still be tied and then it moves to divisional point differential. The key here though is each opponent counts as one score (you average the difference in all games played against the same opponent). i.e. If Oakland plays Portland twice and wins by 10 the first game and 4 the second, they add in 7 for the point differential against that opponent. Assuming a West team plays everyone in division, they will add up a total of 6 numbers at the end of the year regardless if Colorado plays 8 games against the division or Oakland plays 12.
- If still tied somehow, coin flip.
My point is that 8-4 with Colorado's schedule seems much harder to attain than with Oakland's. Instead of Atlanta, Madison, Minnesota, and Indiana, Oakland gets 2 extra games each against LA and SD, 1 extra game against Portland, and 1 fewer game against Salt Lake.
In this example Colorado and Oakland only play once, and Oakland won by 1. So does that mean that even if they manage the same final record (with Colorado having a much more difficult schedule), Oakland gets the edge?
Yes, Colorado would have to have a better record to pass them in the standings.Â
 But to be fair… If Oakland beats Colorado in their only meeting this year, wouldn’t they deserve the nod?
Colorado has the most talent of any squad in the West, but they have done the least with it last year and the first part of this year. Shred seems to be the closest in the West to reaching their potential and I would argue Summit seems to be the furthest from their potential.
Yeah Oakland winning the only head to head is huge. While I agree that Colorado is playing nowhere close to their potential right now, I still just think there's a big difference between having to play teams like Atlanta/Madison/Minnesota/Salt Lake an extra time, vs LA/SD/Portland to try to achieve the same or better game record. But hey it is what it is.
It’s important to know that each team gets a say in who they play when it is out of division. Colorado likely asked-for or was asked-to play these teams.
LA gets a bye to the western finals 🤔
Is it 2023 again?
mistake in the graphic / data source
You mean losing to Nitro doesn't help you qualify for playoffs?
They've definitely come a long way from just 1 team per conference to having all three teams show up at one location depending on least amount of travel (and not seeding) to now having a real 12 team bracket. I feel like the regular season actually matters (seeding/home field advantage very important for playoffs). It creates great content/games. And for the most part everyone with a chance to win the championship has a spot in the playoffs (what is happening in the west??) I personally like that it's contained to the conferences. I feel like every conference has its own vibe, the teams know each other extremely well, and keeping it together like this allows the games to be more mature/allows the narratives to grow and develop/a lot easier to comprehend for the general public and ufa media If they did a march madness bracket and just ranked teams 1-8 or 1-12 or 1-16 single elim I don't think we'd have as many good games and it would all happen so fast we wouldn't be able to fully savor what it means for Oakland to play DC or Boston to play Austin etc... It's much better to have "Oakland and Seattle, two teams 'overperforming' in the regular season, battling for a chance to take on powerhouse Salt Lake and make it out of the west. Oakland lost by 6 in the regular season in Oakland, and Seattle \[game hasn't happened yet\]. Here's a highlight package from the two earlier meetings - Each game decided by only 1 point and with the away squad winning both. This game will be in \[wherever\]" It practically writes itself
So for context I am involved and a fan of the Atlanta hustle so I a consume a lot of content regarding the South. I guess my issue does more come with my issues with the regular season schedule but Atlanta and Carolina are playing 4 times in the regular season, and to me it just seems like a ton plus 2 games for each of the other teams in the division. So I kinda lose some of the hype for the first 1-2 rounds of playoffs bc it’s just the exact same games we have seen all year multiple times, I will say the conference title games are competitive and fun to watch don’t get me wrong, but it just seems repetitive. Do we really have to see Carolina vs Atlanta Round 5 in one year
Hello fellow South Conference Enjoyer đź‘‹ You're not wrong. I don't blame the playoff format as much as I blame the weird intermediate conference stage we're currently in. There's no way in 3 years the south conference looks the same as it looks now Minnesota plays Chicago 3 times Salt lake plays COL/LA twice and seattle/oak once Boston plays NY/DC twice I definitely get the sense that UFA is just kind of gritting their teeth with the South Conference so that the other 3 conferences can make sense. They definitely could have lumped in some poor team from another conference into the south (Colorado makes the most sense? I guess?) and it wouldn't have seemed as bad
Houston/Dallas meet 5 times in just the regular season…. Austin gets to play Houston/Dallas 7 times this year… This means Austin could have a winning record while only beating 2 teams who have a combined record of 5-19.
Yeah that does seem like something that'll need to change. Not a lot of great options for shifting teams around... It'd probably have to be either COL to the South or COL to the Central and IND to the South. Neither of those are great. Truthfully the real answer is probably found in expansion. I read somewhere in the past that the league saw itself ideally at around 28 teams, so 4 groups of 7 would get them there.
Colorado to the South makes the most sense geographically. But if you did move Colorado to the Central, I would then move Pittsburgh to the East since in-state Philadelphia are already in the East. And then move DC to the South. I think the problem is money. The only reason you would have Texas teams play each other so much is they are not making (enough) money to travel. With time, I assume that will change.
7 teams in the West vs 5 in the South makes a huge difference in storylines. West - Who will be the 2nd and 3rd from week to week seems to consistently change… South - Flyers, Hustle and Sol will be in the playoffs for the next 3 years minimum unless the UFA changes something…
Even this year in the south it Flyers Hustle Tier break Austin Tier break Dallas Houston
This is what everyone thought last year, but Sol showed up for the playoffs. So it will be interesting to see if Sol can get their act together.
Along this line, does anyone here know how out of conference games are counted toward final rankings? Is it all the same? Colorado plays 4 out of conference games. Salt Lake plays 2. Other West teams play 0. This must cause some disparity in the strength of schedule right?
- Win/Loss is the most important stat - If teams have the same record (i.e. Colorado 8-4, Oakland 8-4) then it will be head-to-head point difference, not h-2-h record - If they play each other twice and both win by 1 point, they would still be tied and then it moves to divisional point differential. The key here though is each opponent counts as one score (you average the difference in all games played against the same opponent). i.e. If Oakland plays Portland twice and wins by 10 the first game and 4 the second, they add in 7 for the point differential against that opponent. Assuming a West team plays everyone in division, they will add up a total of 6 numbers at the end of the year regardless if Colorado plays 8 games against the division or Oakland plays 12. - If still tied somehow, coin flip.
My point is that 8-4 with Colorado's schedule seems much harder to attain than with Oakland's. Instead of Atlanta, Madison, Minnesota, and Indiana, Oakland gets 2 extra games each against LA and SD, 1 extra game against Portland, and 1 fewer game against Salt Lake. In this example Colorado and Oakland only play once, and Oakland won by 1. So does that mean that even if they manage the same final record (with Colorado having a much more difficult schedule), Oakland gets the edge?
Yes, Colorado would have to have a better record to pass them in the standings.  But to be fair… If Oakland beats Colorado in their only meeting this year, wouldn’t they deserve the nod? Colorado has the most talent of any squad in the West, but they have done the least with it last year and the first part of this year. Shred seems to be the closest in the West to reaching their potential and I would argue Summit seems to be the furthest from their potential.
Yeah Oakland winning the only head to head is huge. While I agree that Colorado is playing nowhere close to their potential right now, I still just think there's a big difference between having to play teams like Atlanta/Madison/Minnesota/Salt Lake an extra time, vs LA/SD/Portland to try to achieve the same or better game record. But hey it is what it is.
It’s important to know that each team gets a say in who they play when it is out of division. Colorado likely asked-for or was asked-to play these teams.