Here’s some truth about the MLS: It is not a completely flawless product. The quality of play is not perfect, and the talent pool in the league is sometimes shockingly shallow. It has, however, improved, and anyone who follows with any regularity would notice the fact.
In 2007, the MLS All Stars went up against Chelsea from the English Premiership, and, in a result that raised about 12 eyebrows in international football, won 3-2. Since then, Manchester United has steamrolled the all-star squad twice, and beaten Chelsea AGAIN last year (1-nil). The MLS actually has earned a 6-4 record, since the format changed in 2005. Not bad for a league that still doesn’t have as much respect as even the second rate leagues in Europe.
However, an All-Star Game is a flawed weather vane to judge the real quality of a league in any sport.
Here’s how it is in the US. Most sports fans barely consider soccer in America when looking at their cable tv guides. Unless there is a major international event, such as the FIFA World Cup, the average sports fan thinks of soccer as a novelty – something to keep the kids active while they’re in elementary and high school, but not a sport to pursue as a career. You did ask why not, right? If you were an athlete, and wanted to make serious money plying your choice of trade using your finely tuned anatomical machine, you would go where the best LOCAL money is. That sport is not soccer. It’s basketball or American football, or baseball, or even hockey. To make comparable money, you must go overseas to play. That means leaving your home, your family, your significant other, and sometimes your language and your culture. For most athletes, that just doesn’t seem all that appealing.
So, how do you affect this kind of change? You build world class facilities, you put up grand stages to display your athletic abilities in front of as many adoring, devoted, and maniacal fans as law and architecture will allow you to gather under multiple sets of sparkling bright lights. You sign massive and lucrative broadcast contracts, so the fans who can’t gather under the aforementioned lights, can gather on couches and bar stools, across the countryside and still feel a part of the action. Then, when the timing is right and your talent pool has reached critical mass, you expand.
Commissioner Don Garber has made headway in some of these departments. Many teams in the MLS now, either have their own stadium, have a new one in the works, and those who don’t have a plan are on an unofficial clock. The league has a fairly good starter TV contract to show their product on a national level, splitting time with NBC Sports Network, and ESPN. And with each team, and practice facility, comes an “academy” to grow the game locally by developing talent starting at the youngest ages possible.
Is the current formula working? Let’s take a look at the numbers.
Overall league attendance is down a touch, a modest 3.92%. Honestly, that’s not terrible, especially when you take into consideration the fact that the US citizens (and Canadian to an extent) have been enduring financial woes, and generally the first thing that goes by the wayside is entertainment. However, two major market teams are down in double digits. Chicago Fire, formerly a powerhouse team in the MLS and now just a middle of the road squad, is down 16% from last season. Chivas USA is also down by a shocking 33.25%. With Chivas going through a discrimination lawsuit that was made very public last week on HBO Real Sports, that number probably will not improve. There are some whispers that Chivas will be relocated to Miami and handed to David Beckham’s ownership group, but nothing has been set in stone there. However, these numbers are balanced out by the outrageous success of the teams in Portland and Seattle, as well as the San Jose Earthquakes, Sporting KC, and FC Dallas.
Commish Garber has come out publicly and stated to anyone who will listen that he intends to expand the MLS to 22 teams. Whereas the talent pool has grown, and homegrown players spend more time playing for teams in the MLS before going to Europe to make real money, the local growth doesn’t seem, at least on the surface, to be able to keep up with adding 3 more teams. However, those new clubs won’t be coming immediately, save one. In a bit of a coup, EPL big wigs from Manchester City partnered with the MLB big wigs from the New York Yankees to bring us NYCFC in 2015. That franchise could create some drama, producing an instant rivalry with New York Red Bulls, the rebranded Metrostars, who have been in the league from its inaugural season in 1993.
How about that TV contract and the ratings? Well, the move from Fox to NBC truly was a fantastic move, since NBCSN is more widely distributed than the soon to be defunct Fox Soccer Network, and has provided higher quality coverage than Fox ever did. From 2012 to the current 2013 season, the numbers are fairly unchanged. However, make no mistake, these numbers are not even close to as strong as most other major sports leagues in the US.
Help actually may be on the way, though, and from a somewhat unlikely source.
Before, we mentioned that Fox Soccer is becoming extinct, leaving the EPL without a US television contract. In a fascinating move, NBCSN signed a massive contract to broadcast every single Premiership match on the conglomerate of networks and online outlets that NBC has under the wings of the peacock. Need proof on what NBC can do for a sport? Look no further than my other love, the NHL. Since the National Hockey League signed on with the networks of NBC, interest and quality of coverage has grown year over year with every season. Compare this to the coverage provided by Fox and the ABC/ESPN combination. NBC aired the Stanley Cup Finals in prime time on their flagship, producing the most watched NHL games in US history. That’s a pretty impressive resume, considering the way in which ABC/ESPN summarily discarded the NHL after their 2004 work stoppage forced them to cancel an entire season.
Surely, the EPL has grown in popularity stateside. There was a moment 10 years ago that we American EPL fans had to watch the games on delay, with a disinterested intern doubling as an announcer, or sometimes not at all. Now, an early rise on a Saturday or Sunday is a welcome and expected treat to watch Manchester United, Arsenal, Spurs, or whatever English club you support.
Know what I think? I think the sudden accessibility and the higher quality coverage that the networks of NBC will provide Barclay’s Premiership could also prove very beneficial to the MLS, not only in the short term, but also in the long term as well. Think of this for a moment; for the first time ever, a major footy league will be getting world class coverage by a major network on a regular basis in North America. I don’t think that NBC intends to treat soccer as an amusing novelty as ESPN does. If that was their intention, why commit to broadcasting EVERY game?
No, I believe hope is on the horizon for the North American game. Look at the run the USMNT just made in the CONCACAF Gold Cup. They dominated every game, and found a way to win the tough tests. Is this a precursor to a serious US World Cup run in 2014? Probably not (although, this writer for one, is secretly holding out hope), but it does signal the adolescence of the American game. Most of the players on the national squad play right here in the MLS. Now, with the EPL getting world class treatment here in the States, a whole generation of young athletes can enjoy top notch footy, and dare to dream. With that said, maybe the grade school age MLS can reach adolescence, too.
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