MLS are like that handy man father or uncle. Whenever they are ready to fix things or have tools to do it, expect an explosion of sorts.

Well you have to give Don Garber credit for his moxie, but his move to place the MLS Cup final on primetime on Sunday is borderline insanity. MLS announced today that the MLS Cup will be played for the first time ever at night and on ESPN and on Telefutura in Spanish. For years the MLS Cup was transmitted on ABC on Sunday afternoon, but that has been changed to ESPN due to the fact that the network will not remove Sunday programming stalwarts such as Desperate Housewives and Extreme Makeover: Home Edition for MLS' gala event.

This move will see the US' league go head-to-head with the Sunday Night Football on November 22nd when the Chicago Bears face the Philadelphia Eagles. It is quite a crux. They will be going up against two of the most popular teams in the NFL. This would be a bigger dilemma for Chicago Fire fans.

The move was agreed upon by both ABC as well as MLS in an effort to have the game be played at a reasonable time for the west coast. In the eyes of both parties, starting the game later will improve the in-stadium ambience. For goodness sakes, it's Seattle... there is no need to improve the ambience.

Either that or he truly wants the product to fail. I mean for him to do this, he might as well wait until June next year and have opening night compete against the World Cup next year. How should this be read as?

Could it be that they might have done is catered to the true soccer fan for the first time ever without sacrificing them for the casual fan? They finally have realized that the strength of the growth in the league is within its base and the rest of the people will come eventually. It is a ballsy proposition, but at the same time there are other factors that need to be looked at.

The problem is that the networks do not care about the soccer base. AS much as we might think they do, that is not the reality of the issue here. They are driven by the bottom line, which is ratings. If the biggest match in the sport is overshadowed by another event, chances are that that event will not be there anymore. I mean, imagine what a disaster it would be for the Super Bowl to be outviewed by a regular season NBA game? Or if a June baseball game outviewed the NBA finals? How about if the Daytona 500 was outviewed by the Spelling Bee? I know I am reaching a bit, but I hope you understand that I am going for the impact more than anything else.

It is a huge gamble for MLS. There is little to gain on this move and a great deal to lose. So if my handyman uncle isn't careful, this latest project could blow up in his face.

Let us know what you think.