A while back a friend of mine was applying to grad school. He had gotten his undergraduate degree in Chemistry from a solid, but by no means Ivy League school, yet multiple schools were heavily recruiting him for their Master’s and even Doctorate departments. Upon hearing how seriously these schools wanted him, I had to ask “Dude, as bad as they want you, how good was your GPA?” “3.3” He said. Kind of chuckling to myself I say: “That doesn’t sound that good.” He stopped what he was doing, looked at me and said, “Chemistry is really hard.”
Major League Soccer’s TV ratings have been lackluster to put it mildly but contrary to popular belief this league has made a ton of progress. Yet, I still have some very unsolicited advice to help the MLS build on this growth. In fact the MLS is gonna need all the help they can get because attempting to become the fourth major sport in America is really hard.
Problem: Competition on TV
Statistically you are far more likely to watch Barcelona play Chelsea today in the Champion’s League semi-final than you are to watch any MLS game this week. In fact, ESPN’s midday broadcasts of the Champion’s League typically draws over a million viewers, while ESPN’s Thursday night primetime broadcasts of the MLS last season drew about one-quarter as many viewers. You have been told for years that the soccer revolution is coming, well it just turns out it’s already here but Europe is going to lead it. Americans don’t watch sports they know to be inferior (it’s one reason why women’s sports never rise about “niche”.) And it’s why Americans that want soccer have chosen to watch European soccer instead of American. The MLS is not going to change that.
Solution: Butts in the seats
Chris Rock tells a joke designed to challenge our views of who is actually wealthy: “If Bill Gates woke up tomorrow with Oprah’s money he would jump out a window and slit his wrists on the way down.” The MLS is very happy with their 16,000 a game attendance, but if only 16,000 show up to an NFL game, Roger Goodell wouldn’t have to jump out the window- he’d be thrown. However the NBA only averages 17,400 a game and hockey barely over 17,000. MLS teams may play outdoors but their actual capacity is not much different from NBA/NHL arenas, and surprisingly their attendance is not much different from the NBA or NHL either. Fox Soccer, Setanta, and the internet may have made it easy for an American to follow European soccer but they still can’t replace actually being at a game. In this economy it’s not going to be easy, but the MLS has to keep focusing on getting people out to games.
Problem: Competition for talent
Landon Donovan is the best position player America has ever created. He holds every major American scoring record and he has won the MLS Cup twice. Yet he will never be taken seriously because he didn’t go to Europe to play. (Well he did but then he got homesick but that’s a whole other issue.) Bottom line is- American soccer fans realize that the MLS is a minor-league. If someone, say Jozy Altidore, begin to show real talent they must go to Europe if they are going to improve.
Solution: Know your role
The MLS can’t disillusion itself into thinking that it must keep the best players. Landon Donovan may be Crash Davis and the Nuke LaLooshes of the league can spend some time in Durham but ultimately they have to go on to the Show, it’s just the way it is. So far the MLS has done a pretty good job of getting guys to Europe but they don’t seem to understand that that is their main purpose. The MLS must focus on developing talent.
There is also the significant “Come see them before they hit the big time” angle that is currently not being used. Again, the MLS will never be as good as the more established European leagues. Even a second-rate Euro league will be significantly better than the MLS. And that is fine. Get the fans to come out on Saturday night to a game and then Sunday morning encourage them watch the newest exports. Fulham vs Everton may be a mid-tier battle in the Premiere League but real American fans will recognize that it’s Eddie Johnson and Clint Dempsey against Tim Howard.
The other lesson here is: screw David Beckham. Look I will completely grant that Beckham got the league better ratings and more people to the game. But Dennis Rodman did the same thing for the Long Beach Jam. Famous names become sideshows in the minor leagues. The temporary boost these guys provide does not help the league in the long-term, it just distracts the league from its real goal. Beckham doesn’t want to come back, he was willing to pay to stay in Europe (literally.) When the MLS and AC Milan disagreed about the fee Beckham paid the difference. The fans aren’t gonna come out to see him again, the fans aren’t going to tune in just to see him anymore, and he’d just be taking the spot of a developing player.
On that note- learn from Hockey’s mistakes; don’t overexpand. Nashville, Atlanta, Phoenix, these cities have no business having NHL teams (as shown by them being 3 of the 4 worst teams in terms of attendance. The 4th? The New York Islanders, proof that maybe the New York metro area shouldn’t have 3 teams.) Maybe having only 15 teams is too small. Maybe Vancouver and Portland will be great cities for soccer. And maybe Seattle has proven that with a strong ownership group interested in creating a great atmosphere, there can be rapid success, but there’s a tipping point and you’re barreling towards it. When you’re a developmental league, the talent pool is already diluted.
One more rule for new teams- knock this “FC” stuff off. FC stands for “Football Club,” these are not football clubs, they are soccer clubs. It’s not the MLF (which might have given soccer mom a new meaning); no, it’s soccer here. So don’t try to be Europe’s little brother.
In the Thanksgiving Dinner that is our sports landscape- we have a big chunk taken up by the turkey (which in this analogy is baseball, presumably because it may put you to sleep); we have potatoes, both mashed potatoes (the NFL) and sweet potatoes (clearly college football with the Bowl season being the marshmallows on top). Some people even have multiple kinds of stuffing (the NBA and March Madness) and suddenly you remember that you still have pie waiting for you. And not just one pie, but apple and pumpkin and pecan. Now imagine being the guy trying to convince you to put something more on your plate, and you begin to realize that Major League Soccer’s mission is really hard and all things considered they’re doing pretty well.