In reply to: all three can get automatic bids posted by plaid_pants
be played at the same stadium for each group. Reduce travel issues, and keep playing conditions as similar as possible within the group.
So you'd have 16 group sites that would get three games total. I'd say give Mexico 4 of those, Canada 3, and the US 9. That wouldn't work out exactly to 60/20, but it'd be pretty damn close.
that I thought made some sense:
"For the 8 groups you set them up as follows:
Group 1: Pacific Northwest (Seattle, Vancouver, San Fran)
Group 2 : Canadian Northeast (Toronto, Ottowa, Montreal)
Group 3: American Northeast (New York, Philly, Boston)
Group 4: American Midatlantic (DC, Charlotte, Atlanta)
Group 5: Florida Group: (Tampa, Miami, New Orleans)
Group 6: Did someone say texas? (Dallas, Houston, Austin)
Group 7: Southwest (Phoenix, L.A., Mexico City)
Group 8: Midwest (Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland)
Then you just consolidate the regions for the Round of 16, and Quarters. You can do this in North America, because unlike Brazil, all these cities already have state of the art billion dollar stadiums that only need a FIFA logo painted on them to be World Cup ready. So you can literally have a 24 venue world cup.
Edit: Just as an example, you can consolidate the Round of 16 and Quarter groups like this -
R16 - P. Northwest v. Southwest, Midwest v. Canada Northeast, NE v. Midatlantic, Florida v. Texas
In this case 1st in the P. Northwest group plays 2nd in the Southwest group and vice versa in the main venue of each regional block.
Quarters - Block 1 (P. Northwest, Southwest, Florida, Texas) and Block 2 (NE, Midatlantic, Midwest, Northeast)
In this case, for example, the winner of the P. Northwest v. Southwest matchup would play the winner of Florida v. Texas matchup.
Semis- One in the south, one in the north both located centrally (say Houston and Chicago)
Final - Major city (NYC or LA)"
I would tinker with it: substitute one or both of Guadalajara and/or Monterrey for Austin, replace Phoenix with Denver, replace Cleveland with Minneapolis, but there are some good initial thoughts in there.
1: a stadium in the flipping desert.
2: a stadium in the flipping desert.
3: a stadium in the flipping desert.
4: a stadium in the flipping desert.
5: a stadium in the flipping desert.
6: a stadium in the flipping desert.
7: a stadium in the flipping desert.
1: a stadium in the flipping desert.
They will do only one of Seattle and Portland and, at very most, two of three of Seattle, Vancouver, and Portland.
Not to mention that Portland would have triple the size of their stadium to even be in the conversation.
And not the 48 teams with 16 groups of 3 that I thought was the actual setup.
I do like the idea of the setup if it was a 32 team tournament, and completely agree with most of your substitutions (Austin would be a terrible place for a World Cup game, and Guadalajara is awesome, so...).
That suggests to me two sites in each country.
I think that probably means Vancouver and Toronto in Canada; and Mexico City and either Guadalajara as you suggest, or Guadalupe.