The MLS that abolished the draw and almost went under

To win the right to host the 1994 World Cup, the United States made FIFA a promise in 1988: it would create a first-division professional league. Major League Soccer came out of that promise, kicked off in 1996 with ten clubs, and for its first few years looked very little like what we usually mean by football.

A clock that ran backwards

The first match was played on 6 April 1996 at Spartan Stadium in San Jose, in front of 31,683 people with FIFA president João Havelange in the stands. San Jose Clash beat D.C. United 1-0, and the only goal came from Eric Wynalda in the 88th minute, after eighty-eight minutes in which nothing had moved. For a league launching itself, a goalless opening day would have been the worst possible start.

What spectators saw on the scoreboard was not normal either. The MLS clock counted down towards zero rather than up, stopped at every dead ball, and a horn sounded at exactly 90:00: there was no stoppage time. That system was in force from 1996 to 1999.

And a shootout you ran

The strangest rule, though, was a different one: in the MLS of those years the draw did not exist. Any level match was settled by a shootout — but not with ordinary penalties.

The player started with the ball 35 yards from goal and had five seconds to dribble in and beat the goalkeeper, who was allowed to come off his line and close him down. Five rounds each, then sudden death. A win inside ninety minutes was worth three points; winning the shootout was worth one, and losing it nothing.

It ran from 1996 to 1999 and was scrapped at the end of that season. From 2000 MLS has awarded points like everybody else.

Nor was that all. In 1996 the league went to FIFA proposing bigger goals, kick-ins instead of throw-ins, play continuing behind the goal line, and matches split into four quarters. FIFA said no to all of it. The first MLS Cup final was also settled by a golden goal: D.C. United 3-2 LA Galaxy, scored by Eddie Pope.

The money going out

Behind the oddities sat a serious problem: the league was losing money at an unsustainable rate. The figure usually quoted is around $250 million of losses in the early years, though it is worth saying carefully, because sources differ on whether that refers to the league itself or to its three major investors.

Because three is what it came down to. By around 2002, ten clubs were in the hands of just three operators: Philip Anschutz, Lamar Hunt and Robert Kraft. Anschutz at one point ran six clubs simultaneously. A league in which one owner controls more than half the teams is not a healthy league; it was simply the only way it could continue to exist.

The champions who were shut down

On 8 January 2002 came the hardest decision. The board of governors voted unanimously to fold two clubs: Tampa Bay Mutiny and Miami Fusion. The league went from twelve teams to ten.

And here is the detail that makes this a story rather than an accounting note: Miami Fusion had just won the 2001 Supporters' Shield, the trophy for the best regular-season record, with sixteen wins, five defeats and five draws. It was the first and only trophy in the club's history, in its fourth and final season. They won it and were closed down.

One more fact explains a good deal: Miami Fusion did not play in Miami but in Fort Lauderdale, a solid half-hour up the road. Tampa Bay Mutiny did not even have a local owner; the league ran the club directly.

What saved it

MLS was rescued by two decisions and a stroke of luck. The first was creating Soccer United Marketing in 2002: the league's owners bought the United States television rights to the 2002 and 2006 World Cups for around seventy million dollars, bundled them with MLS advertising inventory and sold the package on. The second was building its own grounds: Columbus Crew Stadium, opened on 15 May 1999, was the league's first soccer-specific stadium and set the template.

The luck arrived that same summer of 2002, when the United States reached the World Cup quarter-finals. SUM's television bet gained value overnight.

"A league that abolished the draw, timed its matches backwards and shut down the winners of its own regular season. Thirty years later it is worth billions."

• Simulate the MLS regular season and build both conference tables.
• Fill in the playoff bracket and decide who lifts MLS Cup.
• Change any result and watch the standings rearrange.
• See how often the best regular-season side actually wins the title.

"Open the MLS simulator and decide who wins it this season."