Get Canberra in. 14 teams. Everyone plays each other home and away. Bin off the finals series.
Finally after 20 years the A-League becomes a proper league.
Finally after 20 years the A-League becomes a proper league.
The A League will always have a final series. Dreamland stuff to ever think otherwise. For a cash strapped comp, the extra TV money and crowd revenue is hugely important. We ain't Europe.
But yeah a proper even numbered H&A season would be ideal. 14 teams (even 16 teams with 30 regular season games) provides that.
If (big IF) the ALM ever did get to 20 teams with A1 & A2 divisions (so only 18 H&A games), it might start the season with some sort of crossover cup competition. Sort of similar to how countries like Scotland and Sweden start their seasons with a League Cup comp, involving clubs from the various tiers in groups.
Do that for 6 weeks to give yourself another 6 games of 'product' to sell the broadcasters. Plus you are going to have extra promotion/relegation playoffs at the end of the season which will have lots of novelty factor (no other Aussie sports have relegation) and tension.
Or rather than some early season League Cup, you play 2 full rounds H&A (18 games), then split into something like
Championship Round (top 6 teams A1) with a Grand Final
Relegation/Promotion Round (bottom 4 teams A1 & top 4 teams A2) with a Playoff Final
???? Round (bottom 6 teams A2) winner of this Round gets some sort of incentive for next season