Sunday’s MLS Cup Final, despite officiating controversies, was a thoroughly entertaining affair. Portland, who have one of the hardest-core fan bases in the league, won the title defeating Columbus in a game played in front of a noisy crowd in a stadium that was built exclusively for this sport.

Unfortunately, despite the entertainment value of the game, the match drew a rating on ESPN that was embarrassingly low, making one of the least-watched MLS Cup Finals in the league’s 20-year history.

Once again, the MLS Cup was placed in a time slot when it was forced to compete with American football. The last two seasons it has been the NFL. The previous few before that it was college football’s SEC Championship game.

It has become painfully obvious that MLS Cup, the league’s showcase match, cannot compete head-to-head with American football for the attention of casual sports fans. Plus, many soccer fans who are burnt out from a morning of Premier League and an afternoon of Liga MX are skipping the match as well.

In order to make any real progress in TV ratings, MLS needs to stop trying to compete with American football. It needs to consider changing its schedule, which can be flexible where a 6-week winter break could be built into the season.

For years, we have been sold various reasons why MLS must play a March-December schedule within a single calendar year. The theories have largely revolved around the availability of stadiums, climate considerations and avoiding the entire season competing with American football. All three of these rationales no longer have any real merit from where I sit. Here’s why:

1- Availability of stadiums

The argument that MLS has to play from March to December is no longer credible as most MLS teams either control scheduling at their facilities or own them outright. The only circumstances in which we see clubs in a bad stadium situation in terms of scheduling flexibility are newer teams who temporarily play in a rented facility (like Orlando at the Citrus Bowl and potentially Minnesota at Target Field) while their own soccer-specific stadiums are being built. Since MLS clubs now control the scheduling in the facilities they play in, more flexible scheduling for the league is now possible.

2- Climate

All too often those who are inflexible to considering a change to MLS’ current calendar maintain that it is impossible to play through the winter in the United States. But with the changing landscape of soccer in the United States as well as the aggressive growth of MLS into the Southeastern US and Pacific Northwest, scheduling can be done in a creative enough fashion where very few games take place in frigid climates during the winter.

Let’s say MLS breaks from mid-December to the first week in February. Clubs like Minnesota, New England, Toronto and Montreal can be scheduled to play away from home in the two weeks immediately prior to the break and after the resumption of play. With locales such as Los Angeles, Atlanta, Orlando, Miami, San Jose, Houston, Vancouver and perhaps Dallas, Portland and Seattle able to host games at that part of the year without any issues, scheduling may not be as difficult as many think. In Europe, games are scheduled all the time in difficult climates such as snow. For MLS, while some venues may prove far from ideal in early December or during the month of February, playing mid-season games in harsh climates is far preferable to some of the frigid MLS Cups we have had in recent years (see Toronto and Kansas City).

3- Avoiding American football

I admittedly have never understood the argument made for years by proponents of MLS’ current scheduling setup that claimed playing an August-May calendar would force the league to compete against the NFL and college football thus killing interest. Currently, MLS allows the business end of its season to compete directly with NFL and college football, and therefore we see continued disappointing TV ratings for the MLS Cup playoffs and final. A calendar shift would mean the beginning of the season, at least in theory the less interesting and important part of the MLS regular season, would compete with American football, while the playoffs and MLS Cup final would compete with early season baseball and could be scheduled at such a time to avoid direct competition with the NBA and NHL playoffs (though matches would take place on the same day as NBA and NHL playoff games, head-to-head competition could be avoided).

The change in a potential scheduling pattern would also allow MLS not to have to worry about breaking for summer international competitions, or risk playing through those events with watered-down squads and reduced interest from hardcore soccer fans.

Twenty years into the MLS era, the fan base and models for success continue to evolve. Given the shifting backdrop, it is about time MLS changes its tune and adjusts to the reality of the American sports landscape and gives the postseason and league title game the best chance for success on television.