Expanded Major League Soccer in 2011 Equals Expanded Season

If you're a Portland Timbers fan counting down the days until Major League Soccer comes to town next year, you'll be glad to know the league has announced that expansion in 2011 will mean four more regular-season games.

The increase from 30 MLS games to 34 games presumably means two more home games at PGE Park, which is being re-jiggered for soccer.

The announcement of the increased schedule coincidentally comes one week before league Commissioner Don Garber is scheduled to speak Sept. 21 in Portland at the Multnomah Athletic Club as part of a speaker series put on by Sports Business Radio and the Warsaw Sports Marketing Center at the University of Oregon.

As somebody who's much more of a football (yes, American) fan, I do find it interesting how easily this schedule expansion was rolled out in contrast to the travails that a increased schedule proposal is causing in the NFL.