The MLS is better for 2012, but for very different reasons ….
Let’s start here: http://www.empireofsoccer.com/five-lessons-learned-red-bulls-5-2-montreal-impact/5/
You would think playing in a shiny new stadium, in New York of all places, with one of the top acquisitions in league history would get your attendance maybe half full for a second home game. Instead, only about 9,500 people showed up to see Thierry Henry demolish a strained expansion team. Sacre bleu!!! This must’ve been a surprise not only for the fans in attendance but the league management itself who keeps trying to prop up the New York team as a league favorite. What’s going on when a major team like New York is missing their attendance goals for important home games?
I can’t answer that at the moment, but I’m starting to notice a few pecular tendencies with the league this year. Let’s look deeper.
1. Canada’s not too shabby.
The Vancouver team this month hasn’t given up a goal, Montreal is a new addition to the league and Toronto is the only MLS team left standing for the Mexico/MLS Champions League play. Oh, and did I mention that our neighbors to the north smacked our Olympic qualifying soccer team up a bit to keep Americans out of the summer Olympics? Canada right now has every right to say it’s soccer is just as good as American soccer and is putting together a pretty good argument for my next point …
2. The success of MLS has nothing to do with American soccer improving.
Plenty of MLS fans care about the success of the U.S. Men’s National Team but the two are not as related as you would think. As stated before almost half of the players for MLS are foreign born and the coaches number one priority is always fielding a talented team, regardless of national origin. And even for the homegrown players that American fans are proud of (Dempsey, Donovan, Howard and maybe a dozen others) it’s not mandatory for them to play just for MLS. The trend for MLS (as stated by even the commissioner) is to be competitive with the top leagues in the world and compete at the top levels. In those specific top leagues there is not an incentive for developing regional talent, only fielding the best possible team your money can buy. For every Rooney there is a Chicharito flown in to bolster the squad. Two of the best players in the world (Messi and Ronaldo) are not even Spanish yet dominate the headlines in Spain’s league play. For MLS to emulate these leagues means that American owners also have to invite world class players onto their fields, which has nothing to do with domestic improvement.
3. Even if your team has a ton of fans and a competitive team it doesn’t equal national exposure.
About two weeks ago I watched a Seattle Sounders game and took notice of a few things. First I was struck by the amount of people cramming into the stadium and pretty much losing their tops for their local team (MLS always mentions Seattle in the same breath as L.A. or New York because of the atmosphere at their home games). I also noticed that one of the fan death chants involves heavy stomping and abrupt hand motions in some twisted hateful form of the Macarena that’s intended to scare the cleats off the away players (it made for very good television). Seattle and cities like it in direct contrast to a team like New York (see the above paragraph) which can’t get it’s marketing act together or up in New England which Boston doesn’t know exists.
What does MLS have to do to get Seattle to register on the national sports scene? MLS writers have to make obligatory Seattle references (yours truly included) because they know that the city is planting seeds for MLS success and to ignore their soccer program would imply ignorance of something that MLS has gotten right so far. And yet, even if they become league champions this year the major news networks won’t make a big deal out of it because it’s still a small news story outside of L.A. and New York.
Seattle would have to sign Christiano Ronaldo, have him get in a fight with Wayne Rooney at some random friendly this summer and then win the MLS championship (with a broken leg) to have most casual soccer fans start paying attention to Seattle. Remember that even the city of Chicago, despite being such a dense and populated city, wasn’t such a huge basketball story until Jordan started playing there.
Sometimes, it even seems that maybe most people in Seattle would want to keep their team a snobbish secret from the rest of the country instead of trying to foster national news coverage. I know this from personal experience when I found out over dinner that ‘You must follow soccer here (New York) because your city HAS a team, like us in SEATTLE’ … and not because soccer’s a fun game to watch? Garber must be losing it trying to make new American soccer fans focus on that ‘whole Sounder thing’ only to be met with yawns and questions on how to get free Beckham jerseys. If Seattle is only getting a sliver of national news coverage then that’s tough news for Salt Lake, Houston or Portland (which have a solid group of core supporters and yet little outside coverage).
Lastly, I’d like to make mention that although MLS isn’t rebranding itself this year what they ARE doing is splurging a little and hiring some people for a new way to create ‘brand experiences’ and ‘creative happenings’ … or as I like to call it: An expensive posh advertising firm: www.sidlee.com.
That advertising firm is based in Montreal and while I don’t have any doubt to the quality of their work I do think it’s a good example of the league’s perogative: For MLS to get better they pretty much need foreign talent.
The MLS & Boston, a wasted opportunity.
A common saying is that Boston is a city of idealism while New York runs on a strong current of pragmaticism. Yet, the people who say things like that must have never heard of the New England Revolution … Any strong willed idealist attempting to put this MLS team together in any honorable and meaningful way is failing over and over again. That soccer team’s presence is NOWHERE in Boston.
Let’s start with this: I visit Boston maybe three or four times a year because it’s a city that works on multiple levels: The city’s seafood is fresh and doesn’t fail to hit the spot, the city’s long history is tied hand in hand with America’s fight for independence, the Boston people aren’t one-fifth as annoying as television makes them out to be. And last but not least it’s a crowded vibrant city that’s not too crowded sometimes like the big apple.
Over the past few months when I’ve visited I’ve noticed one thing that won’t go away anytime soon: their people grovel at the feet of their local sports teams (Bruins, Patriots, Celtics and the Red Sox) like starving people trying to get invited to a free dinner at a steakhouse. It’s ridiculous how much attention they pay to the Celtics, let alone the Red Sox. The people even emphasize this feeling by talking about ‘the CHURCH’ of Fenway Park and the ‘RELIGION’ of being a Red Sox fan.
This is a quick rundown of things any Red Sox fan will know and brag about (I discovered these when I did a tour of Fenway out of curiosity).
- The home games have been sold-out forever, and will be sold out until 2016. (Although I’m exaggerating a bit here every game WAS sold-out going back to at least 2002).
- It’s the oldest stadium in baseball and half of the seats date back to the 1920s.
- To ’rent’ a private sky box you’ll have to shell out 500,000 a year … and you have to sign a 10 year lease at those rates. They have no problem finding payers.
- They won the first World Series as the Boston Americans and will do anything in their power to keep playing baseball until the end of time. Major League Baseball will never fail and go out of business because if the people of Boston needed to subsidize five dummy teams to play against they would do it in a heartbeat. This team makes people pay twelve dollars to walk back and forth in the stadium for half an hour and HUNDREDS of people will show up from HUNDREDS OF MILES away to go through with it every day. I couldn’t help but think as a semi-Padre fan that if they offered a tour of Petco park they would have to price it at maybe five dollars and have the tour maybe once a day. They could make 200 dollars a week that way.
You would think that the Red Sox would be an extreme example of Boston loyalty, but everywhere I went I saw Bruin shirts and Patriots shirts. And of course when it comes to Celtics jerseys people wear them year in and year out regardless of if the NBA is in season. But not once do I see any Revs shirts, Revs hats, nor Revs advertisements on the streets of Boston. MLS is putting together another strong season but you wouldn’t know it in one of America’s most important markets, because in Boston they wear the black hat with the red B. They wear a grey shirt that says Patriots. They drink beer and watch Rajon Rondo.
……. and do you know why I even made this post in the first place? Because in one of Boston’s most infamous parks (Boston Common) plenty of people are playing soccer now and will keep doing so during the better weather. I saw three or four games going on at one time, all within walking distance from eachother. When I drove back to the airport I looked out and saw another game near Boston’s north side where maybe twenty or thirty players got together for a scrimmage. It’s not a stretch to say that soccer at the grassroots level is a more popular activity there, but it’s not adding up to any interest in the Revs. You have young people playing soccer, they seem to be enjoying it and yet the REVS are ridiculed by other MLS markets and even their own fans.
I’m not saying this to disparage the Revolution’s front office, that’d be easy and even Rev fans enjoy doing that as well. But what I am saying is that you have a major city that should be ripe for soccer’s pickings. And it’s just not any other city, it’s THE city that decided America shouldn’t become some random colony kneeling at the throne of a foreign king. As much as people make a huge deal out of the United States turning into a soccer country, why is not a big deal that Boston’s soccer team is underachieving? I’m not saying it’s Kraft’s fault, or MLS’s fault … I’m just saying it’s a waste of a good city.
5 Storylines ESPN wants you to care about …
Let’s start with the above link. Despite ESPN.com having NO mention of the first day of the MLS 2012 season (today), they decided to try and drum up a little interest with ‘MAJOR’ storylines about the upcoming season. And just for full disclosure: I’m not very interested with any upcoming MLS games, although I’ll try and watch a game or two if it seems important (which means I might not watch a game for five months, we’ll see).
Anyway, in the interest of American suckyball let’s see what those five MAJOR storylines should be ….
1. The rise of the powerhouses
ESPN tried using this tactic last year and the results were mixed. To prove my point, the above image of Beckham and Henry was used in a suckyball post a year ago deriding the same notion. Yes the Galaxy won the title and made headlines for non-soccer news pages, but the Red Bulls weren’t a heavy hitting team by any notion. You can call them maybe ‘successful’ but they were also famous for tying game after game and their new stadium is in legal dispute for not paying enough taxes. The ESPN article also mentioned Michael Ballack as a new Red Bull addition for this season. He is a famous German football player FROM TEN YEARS AGO. As much as they try to convince you Michael Ballack is Das Pele remember that Michael’s greatest success is from TEN YEARS AGO. To spin this in a positive light at least he is in good company with other older European stars playing in the lukewarm waters of the MLS talent pool.
In no way am I disparraging his play, he is/was an elite talent … it’s just that he was better A DECADE AGO.
2. Can an MLS team win the CONCACAF Champions League?
Pass. I think MLS has gotten better enough where they might win against Mexican teams in the North American final. The real question is can they win against European and Brazilian clubs in the finals after the finals? It doesn’t seem likely.
3. The Olympic effect
This isn’t a question ESPN wants to answer anyway as NBC is the one making money from the Olympics this year. Didn’t it make total sense for NBC to start broadcasting MLS games when the summer Olympics were four or five months away? MLS can afford to field lackluster squads as the best compete in London, MLS has fielded a lot worse in the past and still managed to scrape buy. I think the commissioner’s goal every year is to get more Americans invested in soccer and a strong international Olympic push isn’t detrimental to that. Saying that MLS will suffer because of the Olympics is just grasping at straws. Remember, ESPN only cares about four or five big teams to market as the ‘Champion of MLS’, the rest of the league is an afterthought to them anyway. Which brings us to ….
4. Brace yourselves for the Montreal Impact
Their coach is a first timer, their stadium isn’t ready yet and they ‘appear’ to have a strong fan base. Are Montreal’s citizens French enough to hold this expansion team up? I doubt it and think that the league found/duped someone willing to throw a fistful of cash into an MLS team without thinking through the numbers. If anyone needs to be ‘Braced’ it’s the new Impact players being used as a dice roll in MLS’s expansion plans. Bon Chance!!!!
5. The unbalanced schedule — and the imbalance in general
From the article: By now, clubs know that travel is the bane of the MLS experience. To alleviate this effect, and to increase the number of games between local rivals, MLS is going back to the unbalanced schedule, making teams play more games within their conference than outside it. Yet this will have a knock-on effect for the entire league. The Western Conference has been stronger than the Eastern for several years now, and this offseason this imbalance has become more pronounced as most Western teams appear to only have gotten stronger while the East largely stagnated. Will this create two distinct tiers within the league?
Wait, are you saying that the league is shifting into one strong league against a lesser league that can’t compete? Something like two separate leagues that only play against eachother on few occasions? Why, you’re describing a common practice in European and Spanish play: Relegated leagues! So with this in mind: NO, the league will NEVER allow such an arrangement to happen.
The MLS owners will find a way to keep things balanced, especially when they control player contracts and their team destinations. The league won’t be lopsided, just steered in different directions until the Galaxy, Sounders, Red Bulls or THE BRACEFUL MONTREAL IMPACT (this is sarcasm here) go into the post season.
MLS Challenges for 2012
Let’s start with this article from Goal.com:
As much as MLS is overhyping a successful 2012 there are a few issues on the horizon that MLS will have to side-step if it wants to keep growing. To begin with, here are a few facts that are hard to ignore (from the previous article):
The World Series of Poker in 2009 drew more viewers (1.0 rating) than the 2011 MLS Cup final (0.8).
‘Giving Anelka (A European player) a four-year deal at $8 million per season is over half of the $40 million owner Joey Saputo paid to purchase the Impact in 2009. ‘
‘there are concerns that MLS could find itself in a worse position than it was two years ago when the 2010 MLS Cup final drew only a 0.5 rating and struggled to find any TV deals’
What MLS is seeing now is a world without any extra Beckhams or Henry’s to sign for ridiculous amounts of money and news exposure. Team leaders are content to grow talent on their own and play their own version of Billy Beane’s Moneyball, but the twist is that instead of loaning a great player to another MLS team there’s a good chance the player can be shipped off to Europe where he’ll be paid more to be on a different country’s team. MLS teams, it seems like always, are stuck in mediocrity and are teaching wave after wave of young players how to succeed somewhere else. Why, even Clint Dempsey, the lone star from a struggling MLS team (pun intended) defeated Italy with a much needed goal only to check his calendar later for upcoming Fulham travel. Our star players want to go play in Europe and fans even degrade them if they’re afraid to venture across the pond. Landon Donovan knows about this because most American soccer fans wondered how well he’d do in Everton’s line-up and figured he would play against tougher competition.
Could the owners here pay our players more? Not really, that would mean gambling in theory with the future of their franchise and going against what MLS ownership has practiced over the past six or seven years (survive by a slow, boring growth model that emphasizes stability over big amounts of risk).
….. actually, the more I write this the more I see 2012 pretty much being the EXACT same as 2011 with a few more games added to NBC for good measure. In my opinion the REAL challenge is getting some players immense amounts of ridiculous news coverage over private scandals and bizarre behavior. Here are a few scenarios that might cause everyday Americans to take a double take at soccer coverage.
- An American player almost gets arrested for setting off large amounts fireworks in his hotel bathroom (thank you Mario Balotelli)
-An American player is involved in a secret affair with a Kardashian woman (any of them) and someone gets pregnant
-An American player can somehow play another sport such as basketball or baseball at a pro level (like Bo Jackson or Deon Sanders did)
-An American player gets a beer thrown at his face at an international friendly and makes the decision to run into the stands looking for the culprit (thank you Ron Ron)
-An American team is noted for being the ‘bad boys’ of MLS for their abnoxious, foul friendly and thuggish methods of play. This can go either two ways, either a gangsta rap ethos resides inside the team or a punk rock anarchy driven style drives them. Despite Beckham’s tattoos you can’t consider him a renegade outcast when he’s married to a Spice Girl and is rich enough to buy his own MLS team if he wanted to.
No, I’m thinking of something like the soccer equivalent of Allen Iverson (someone you don’t know if they went to jail or not, but you imagine them serving time). As much as Americans were taken aback by the militancy of the Fab Five freshman at Michigan those five players did make an intriguing news story.
-An American with a drug problem that becomes the laughingstock of the press (but not so serious where the player is harmed or has a life ruined, if that’s possible). Think of a Lindsay Lohanish/Manny Ramirez scandal where something is reported, a denial is given, an apology is issued … and surprise, another positive test. This could only happen if the player is so talented and dominant in theory, that his unbelievable degenerate behavior is forgiven time after time after time.
Could Jeremy Lin ever happen in MLS?
Fans of the Knicks lost their collective minds this week when Jeremy Lin started a five game win streak and then scored more points than Kobe Bryant (38 pts for Mr. Lincredible) in a victory over the Lakers. Sports apparel sellers in New York city can’t keep up with the demand for his jerseys and when I go to work on Monday my office will speak more about him than Carmelo and Stoudemire combined. As proud as New Yorkers are with his new success, our civic pride pales in consideration to the overt adulation and divine joy he’s bringing the NBA marketing department. Jeremy Lin is yet another chance for David Stern and his staff to bring in more viewers from China (and Taiwan). Because of that David Stern will haul in GOBS OF CASH FOR THE NBA.
Which brings me to the question ………. could a story like Jeremy’s ever happen for the MLS?
If you aren’t familiar with his story (or are too lazy to Google it) here’s a rundown of his rise to success in the NBA: His parents are both from Taiwan and gave birth to him after moving to Los Angeles where he lead his high school basketball team to an almost undefeated season (32-1). No major colleges gave him a scholarship chance and the sole reason he decided to attend Harvard was because it was the only school that would give him playing time. After graduating with a degree in Economics Jeremy Lin decided to continue basketball even though almost all of the NBA teams didn’t give him the time of day. He had to play through a NBA summer league and faced massive bench time with the Golden State Warriors where he was later waived and picked up by the Knicks. New York thought about cutting him after awhile but had to give him a shot because most of their star players such as Carmelo or Stoudemire had their own injuries to handle. When Lin was given extended minutes he pretty much lit up Madison Square Garden and is the talk of the town.
If we look down the line for a year or two we see a gold mine taking shape again for the NBA. Not only is Lin a terrific player and great person, he’s the perfect vehicle for the NBA to promote itself across the world. Lin grew up in California and is pretty much an All American kid that can appeal to almost any young fan stateside. Not only that, but if you fly him out to Taiwan for a press conference his command of Mandarin isn’t too bad either. Promote him here, promote him there, it’s your choice. Nike had also signed him a couple years back so do you think they’ll mess up their investment down the line?
Which brings us to ………. American soccer?
To start with, a lot of the league is foreign to begin with (about 40% and growing) yet there aren’t a lot of Chinese out there in MLS (there’s about two). Brian Ching is a decent player but he’s not full Chinese and the league shipped him off to Montreal. Another, I mean the other, Chinese is Long Tan who in a mysterious coincidence is also playing in Canada. So not only are these two not being publicized by MLS that much, they’re not even being playing on American teams.
Here’s my reasoning on why this situation won’t improve until ten or fifteen years down the line:
To be blunt, the billions of people in China don’t care about MLS, therefore, if there was a top Chinese player playing at an elite level here nobody in China would notice. With Jeremy Lin, he has the benefit of a China already invested in the NBA. When Yao Ming broke the barrier for a Chinese player into the league he was followed by over a hundred million young Chinese. And even after Yao had a busted ankle in recent years he was still voted into the All-Star game because of the sheer numbers of Chinese voting. Now Jeremy Lin is not only appealing to the Chinese mainland but he’s making inroads into Taiwan (a crowded, populated separate island of its own) for further reach.
Also, keep in mind that the people in China (or Hong Kong, Taiwan, etc) that do follow soccer with a passion only follow the European Leagues. The NBA is regarded as the top league for basketball talent, but the MLS is a 2nd or 3rd tier league depending on who you ask. So if a great Asian is marketed by MLS and succeeds, he won’t have the backing of anyone that even lives in Asia. As it stands a lot of American soccer fans even won’t make a big deal of him unless he scores in the World Cup.
So, to end this, we can speculate that until MLS is the ‘NBA of soccer’ nobody in China will be buying jerseys any time soon. I’m crossing my fingers that AMERICANS I run into will buy more MLS jerseys in four or five years.
American Soccer versus the Super Bowl
Let’s get this over with. On this upcoming Sunday afternoon millions of Americans (well over half the country) will gather in front of their televisions for a four hour advertising assault to their senses. The advertising industry loves to throw out the line that ‘this is the one event that people look forward to watching our commercials!’ and they are right. It might be a waste of time to compare the Super Bowl’s advertising power to MLS, but let’s go there. Let’s see what we’re dealing with. As a quasi-fan of the MLS I see cracks in the NFL’s armor and need to see the full scope of that league’s biggest day.
To begin with, let’s look at basic advertising rates for the SB: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/01/11/sportsline/main6082591.shtml
$3 Million dollars per commercial.
I couldn’t find any numbers for the MLS Final, but I did check the NBA Finals advertising rates just to see what the going rate is for another successful sports league: http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Journal/Issues/2010/05/20100531/This-Weeks-News/Advertising-Sales-Strong-Going-Into-NBA-Finals.aspx
The NBA wasn’t too shabby but is still literally and figuratively out of the NFL’s league. To advertise on the NBA Finals (in 2010 for the above link) it will cost you on average $400,000 for a 30-second spot.
UPDATE AFTER ORIGINAL POST!!: Someone pointed out to me that the NBA might have 7 games total played in a series, therefore bringing up an advertisers rate to a possible 2.8 million over the course of the games. I doubt the NBA Finals commercials are as relevant as the Super Bowl’s, but the point was made that the NBA is getting as wealthy as the NFL over time. Soccer in America could still never charge that much though ….
Let’s look at a different angle, the fact that major advertisers will spend additional money just to produce those commercials for Super Bowl Sunday. It’s one thing to break the bank to get your commercial in the line-up, but how much are you willing to spend on the actual advertising clip? Celebrities like Matthew Broderick can demand serious money to act like Ferris Beuller again after a twenty year hiatus, maybe that costs even more than a 30-second NBA spot. Oh? And what other celebrities can we expect this year? Oh yeah, David Beckham is confirmed to make an appearance that might draw in more total viewers than the entire years worth of games with his MLS team.
Now I digress on that issue and point to a few differences in how athletes approach the game. For one thing, Tom Brady and Eli Manning aren’t going to spend three months a year playing in a different league. Landon Donovan feels no shame in playing a few months in England every year and American soccer fans even now consider him a better soccer player because of it. Donovan’s not alone either, one of the MLS’s best players, Thierry Henry, decided to show up with his old English team just for the fun of it. This is telling because it shows non-exclusiveness with MLS’s players.
If you watch the NBA Finals you are telling yourself you are watching the world’s best basketball teams field the best players (Lebron James, D. Wayde, Jason Kidd and Dirk showed up in 2011). If you watch the Super Bowl you are telling yourself you are watching the toughest, scariest most athletic football players that America breeds and trains; any attempt to duplicate such a game outside of America would not give you such a game. However, with MLS and even the U.S. Men’s team you can not admit to yourself these are the best players. As such, in an MLS Final you would be watching some players that would be desperate to play in foreign lands and treat this game as an afterthought.
Let’s keep going. To buy a ticket to BE at the Super Bowl this year in the stadium on gameday you’ll be asked to pay at least $2,252.00 for horrific seats where you couldn’t identify anyone not named Tom or Eli. If you wanted to spend $250 for tickets to the MLS Final you will have had field view very close to the game per the L.A. Galaxy’s website. If you wanted to spend $2,252.00 for any 2011 MLS Final tickets you might have been sat front and center on a team’s bench and given free beer and an authentic soccer jersey, or deemed insane. Also if you wanted to get into the NFL’s media day to gawk at players who aren’t even playing yet, you would have shelled out between $100-350$.
I’m going to stop beating the dead horse and focus on a few positives for soccer fans who hope for change. First is that for all of the over-hype of the current Super Bowl this years ad prices are stagnant this year. They’re not rising in price like they once did and a lot of the better commercials are already on the internet for viewers to watch now (days before game day). It doesn’t make much sense to me to spend so much on ads that aren’t kept secret anymore. Remember that before the internet you could only watch Superbowl Ads on that one sunday and people would talk about it for days afterwards. Now even Pepsi decided to screw the whole thing and will spend 30 million on something else.
I also think a younger generation with a fast cell phone and zero short term memory is more adapted to soccer in the long run than the NFL only because soccer is played pretty much all the time, in most of the world, with their own over-hyped ridiculous important games. If the NFL can’t convince people to keep watching on television the Super Bowl could be a waste of time (the television as we know it might be obsolete in twenty years anyway). Already most people have over 350 channels, the internet, friends and actual lives in 2012. They can’t be convinced to sit down and care about a game that doesn’t interest them anymore (ask MLB executives about this issue).
To end this Super introspection I’ll end this post with a Super Bowl commercial that some say changed the advertising industry in 1994:
Almost twenty years later Budweiser was bought out by a group named InBev, a European beer company operated by a group of forward thinking and audacious Brazilians. In 1994 most Americans would’ve thought that Budweiser getting bought out by a once small European company was like seeing bullfrogs fly to outerspace, but it still happened, by a company that some call ‘the Wal-Mart of Beer Companies’. This same European group is now in charge of all major Budweiser advertising for the 2012 Super Bowl even as they try their best to make it as American as possible. But it makes you wonder … could the whole soccer thing EVER catch on stateside for huge soccer games?
And when will the MLS Final EVER, EVER, EVER, have some major music act for a half-time show? EVER?
Beat the War Drums …
I started this blog with the intention of taking a tongue-in-cheek look at American soccer development (or the serious lack of it). At that time (July 13th 2011) the Galaxy hadn’t gone through their title run and I could enjoy labeling the team the Gaylaxy because they weren’t winning and seemed to waste Beckham and Donovan. I also witnessed the likes of Manchester United and Real Madrid bash some of our American teams in lopsided victories that no American was enthusiastic about. In short, when this blog first started American soccer wasn’t as good as it is now.
And it’s about to get a lot better while the advertising gets more annoying.
To begin with, on the Yahoo sports page the main story is about the U.S. Women’s team thrashing the Dominican Republic 14-0. I’ve never talked to any soccer fan who was adamant about the power of the Dominican Republic so I have doubts about why this is such a big story (right now European soccer is starting to heat up and you would think Yahoo Soccer would focus on Spanish or England league games). The main story on ESPN’s soccer page is about the U.S. Venezula SCRIMMAGE, a game tonight that means nothing. Keep in mind that tomorrow morning Manchester United and Manchester City are playing against some big rivals with league title ramifications. If ESPN were hyping up NFL football playoffs you think they’d throw a giant story on their site about Canadian football qualifiers instead of a New England / Green Bay match-up? No, they wouldn’t, but with this year’s London olympics and U.S. soccer now showing signs of emergence both ESPN and Yahoo are going to overhype every U.S. soccer game leading up to this summer.
To further emphasize my point let’s take a look at a recent convention in Kansas City for the NSCAA. This happens every year for the National Soccer Coaches of America Association for American coaches to get together and brainstorm about how to get soccer better here. I’m going to focus on two things that happened here to show that America is taking soccer serious. The first is a tirade from Eric Wynalda, a retired American soccer player that played for our World Cup teams and was a major player during MLS’s slow years. At the convention in Kansas City he made a major scene when he disagreed with a lot of MLS practices and basically sounded off on why he thought the league was still amateur (as the sole writer of Suckyball I would imagine I agree with him, but I’m not interested enough to even focus on his points). Wynalda also is known to be bitter about not being a coach now and the fact the Galaxy didn’t want him to sign with their team. Why would his opinions be cause for concern and enough for NSCAA to label it an embarrassment? …. That brings me to my second point.
http://www.nscaa.com/news/2012/01/soccer-in-the-us-the-next-steps
This year Fox TV and MLS’s commissioner were on location there for a major panel in discussing America’s soccer future. Could you imagine in 1986 if television executives would show up at a national coaching convention to look for popular opinion and soundbytes? Could you imagine in 1996 if an American soccer league would be developed enough to wield any power over emerging young players? Well, welcome to 2012!! This NSCAA convention is little by little becoming an important tool in bringing together American soccer executives. Could you imagine in five or six years a youth soccer conference that resembles this? http://www.mcdonaldsallamerican.com/2012/
When I was drunk months ago in Manhattan I told my west coast friends that ‘Soccer’s about to blow up, in ten years, this $*&@ will be everywhere, they’ll market it just like baseball or basketball’ I didn’t imagine it would happen in less time! Fox is about to air more English matches on Sunday mornings and Aaron Rogers walks around with a Manchester City shirt (you can google it). It will just keep getting crazier as Americans convince themselves that they are a soccer country despite having a limited history and a lack of elite world players.
Two more side stories:
While on vacation this past fall I had the opportunity to check out different parts of Pennsylvania. I hadn’t expected New York to change me so fast but I couldn’t help but feel like a fish out of water when surrounded by trees, dirt roads and actual farm animals grazing. Now imagine my surprise when I spotted a giant tent sale next to an Adidas outlet (the tent was selling excess inventory under a makeshift tent at rock bottom prices). My girlfriend flipped when she realized she could get entire Adidas outfits for twenty dollars and I flipped when I realized that about half of the Pennsylvanians at the tent sale were wearing European soccer gear. Is the American economy that bad where kids can only afford old Fernando Torres jerseys and Real Madrid t-shirts for nine dollars? Was there some bizarre Pennsylvanian fascination with the MLS All-Star game from 2010? Bottom line, my wild correlation between a sinking economy and the rise of soccer seemed pretty strong when I walked around an Adidas tent sale surrounded by Americans picking up cheap soccer gear from three years ago. Did the kids in that tent store become more interested in soccer because they liked the Adidas brand (and NOT because Adidas was selling clothing that wasn’t sold in bigger cities?). Anyways, it was an eye opener to see so much soccer gear being sold to people that I would’ve thought wouldn’t care.
Second story, the Red Bull Arena just got sued and most news outlets might look the other way. Read here:
http://www.fieldofschemes.com/news/archives/2012/01/4790_judge_red_bulls.html
I’m not a lawyer but it looks like the city wants it’s taxes back after the Red Bulls’ claims of breathing life into the city are now falling short. As a person who hopes that the team gets some matter of acceptance in a crowded city it doesn’t look too good when ‘the crown jewel of MLS stadiums’ is in a real estate dispute with the city it was supposed to be on good terms with. That situation sucks doesn’t it?
And did I mention that the American women’s team beat the Dominican Republic? …
Looking far too deep into a Jurgen Klinsmann pep talk ….
As a frequent reader of Grantland.com I’ve come to appreciate when Chuck Klosterman will write three or four pages of content for a one minute youtube video of old rock footage. The following run down of a Jurgen Klinsmann pep talk is pretty much the same format that Chuck uses.
0:00 – :25 – Jurgen has a nasal, almost dorky, quality to his voice that reminds me of old Landon Donovan interviews. Although I hate saying that soccer in America is a safehouse for introverted, over cerebral and inarticulate athletes that’s the vibe I’ve been getting from watching more than a few of our athletes and coaches speak in public (but I give Klinsmann credit because English wasn’t his primary language in Europe). Jurgen also prefaces the remaining talk with ‘We’ve got a hell of a lot of work guys …’
0:25 – 1:00 – Coach goes in depth about thinking faster, being aggressive and creating more opportunities off the ball (all vague statements about improving play). There’s a good chance he was telling the exact same things to his German national team but I’m not going to knock a coach for telling his players to execute better and make chances for themselves. Then he mentions that it’s not his idea or anyone elses to always think ahead but ‘how the best in the world play’ while he shrugs.
Translation so far: You guys have a hell of a lot work to do if you want to play well against the best in the world (shrug).
1:01 – 1:24 - Coach mentions what every average soccer fan realizes: Spain’s Barcelona is the big man on campus. The Spaniards play a more fluid style than us and it didn’t happen overnight for them. Jurgen says it took them about 20 years. That means I can keep writing suckyball for two more decades?
1:25 – 1:46 – Coach hints that if you don’t like it, move on, period. I want to state here that Jurgen’s okay in my book because even if the American team isn’t showing any signs of progress it’s not like our team is backsliding into a sea of mediocrity. We live in mediocrity now anyway. Soccer Team U.S.A. has never been a world beater, ever, and as long as we’re not getting blown out by Canada I’ll give the German the benefit of the doubt. In fact, maybe Canada should be our soccer litmus test and we can measure how great we are by how many goals we can score against them (A 5-0 blowout will say something then). So Jurgen, play around as much with the line-up as you want because no one will give you a final grade until the World Cup and you know it.
Also, notice his interesting backslide on the Barcelona topic. ‘They do this, they do that, they have a system, they have this unique academy …. am I trying to copy them? ………. No, let’s talk about something else’.
1:47 – 2:17 – Jurgen continues to try and motivate his team but I get the feeling he doesn’t believe our players will go anywhere. It’s like Phil Jackson had to coach the Memphis Grizzlies for a season and this was a speech trying to get them focused while he thought about how great Shaq used to be. So Klinsmann, even if the entire team works 24/7 to get better we have no chance of a good showing in 2014? We’ve got a hell of a lot of work guys.
2:18 – 2:40 – A 25 minute warm up of jogging? To me that’s a waste of time because these players run all the time anyway (I’ve never been a coach of anything ever by the way). But I do think exhaustive passing drills would be a step forward. Also there’s footage of a nice give and go and I wonder if that’s Agudelo giving the nice assist. Is this quick goal becoming more frequent in practice?. If that was the ONLY highlight of the day then it doesn’t say much.
2:40 – 3:09 – Klinsmann mentions that if the games ahead are challenging then that’s what we want (I think that’s a good attitude). When ex-coach Bradley faced tough teams the game could take on the appearance of a slight disaster even if we were somewhat competitive (I’m talking about the recent Mexico, Brazil and Spain scrimmages over the past few years). But Klinsmann at least seems more level headed and isn’t going to be humiliated if we lose a game or two, or three. It’s almost like he wants our players to get handled by European power houses until he finds three or four players to develop.
Let’s wait out this Jurgen character for another three or four months after a few friendlies have gone by. But so far my thoughts are positive.
The MLS Final ratings can’t touch a boring NFL playoff game
Let’s start here: http://www.sportsmediawatch.com/2012/01/wild-card-steep-drop-in-overnights-for-bengalstexans/
I don’t know if the NFL play-off game wasn’t interesting because I’m watching more soccer or because both NFL teams will soon become cannon fodder for the three or four elite teams that have a legitimate chance of winning the Super Bowl. Either way, most NFL fans would agree that the Bengals and Texans match-up wasn’t going to be a ratings blockbuster and they’re not surprised with the ‘low’ 15.3 rating. Notice that this rating is a substantial drop that Roger Goodell can’t be proud of (but at least he cashed in those ESPN contract checks from before the season started).
What does that 15.3 rating mean? It means that 15% of all households with a TV watched that game.
But what about the MLS Final? They had all of their pieces together for ESPN: Beckham made a Finals appearance with the L.A. Galaxy (an overhyped team to begin with) and the ratings had to be higher than from seasons past right? Please tell us that the ratings were at least higher than the year before.
The ratings were .8, as in 4/5th of 1 percentage. For all of the bells and whistles during the season the MLS Final drew in about 800,000 people. That means that 15 times as many Americans care about two middling, ‘happy to be here’ NFL teams than the two top soccer clubs in America. I’m not comparing the two ratings to disparage MLS any, I just need to illustrate that soccer is maybe at least a decade away from becoming as prevalent as the NFL. And the ratings weren’t higher than the year before (but that was just for first time viewing in America, there’s a good chance that the Galaxy drew in more viewers on international telecasts).
But there is a silver lining though: the NFL DID put together a weak broadcast while the MLS didn’t fall back any. Maybe next year soccer could go forward a bit while the NFL is stuck with something like the Browns vs Chiefs? In my opinion higher ratings can’t be that difficult if the MLS would just SIGN A TOP WORLD PLAYER that would help give the league an extra push in the right direction. But anyone who has read this site more than five times knows how likely that is to happen (.8% chance?).
Best of luck though MLS, in five years may you bring in more viewers than NFL preseason games. That’d be a great start.
Happy New Year!!! Predictions for 2012
Before breaking out the bubbly and singing the night away I think it’s a good time to reflect on the successes of American soccer from the last year. Not only did our Americans make it through “difficult”* qualifiers to face Mexico in the CONCACAF Finals we managed to score two goals on them. Don’t worry about the score or what language the trophy was presented with as that will only be a dissappointment.** Also for 2011 we saw the L.A. Galaxy defeat the Houston Dynamo in a game that brought in almost the same ratings as last year. Don’t worry about Beckham having any thoughts about transfering to Paris next year because I’m sure MLS will sign someone of his high calibur if not now then fifteen years down the line.
In other side stories from 2011 Dempsey is becoming one of Fulham’s best players. It’s a shame more Americans can’t appreciate what the Texas native is doing for American soccer as he continues to score enough goals to keep his team away from the axe of relegation. One could argue that Dempsey’s goals in English professional play are more important than the fluke miracle that happened in the World Cup where the goalkeeper couldn’t keep two hands wrapped around the ball. Not one to be counted out Landon Donovan is parlaying his MLS championship for a chance to be successful with Everton (a well known English team that’s not even close to the top of league play).
Before going into my predictions I’ll give you this link of some players I think would be perfect for MLS play in 2012:
I think Tevez would be a great addition to any American team even if he would talk about transfering to another team after two weeks here. I haven’t watched much of his play but he strikes me as someone who doesn’t focus on things like passing and finesse as much as barreling over players and edging out goalies with close shots. Out here he’d be a welcome addition to any MLS team and should injure at least three weak MLS players after five months. To further confuse Tevez maybe we can send him to Vancouver for a spell?
So without further ado ….. My Predicitions for 2012 and the chances of them happening!!!
1. Donovan gets at least four goals for Everton in his remaining play … the chances of this happening I put at 15%. It would’ve been great if he stuck around for April’s Everton vs Fulham game to go against Clint Dempsey in English league play, but Landon has to fulfill his obligations to the Galaxy and play against teams like D.C. United and the New England Revolution.
2. The Americans don’t even sniff Bronze in Olympic soccer play. I’m expecting a huge advertising build up and American soccer being pushed as a new sport to watch. No longer will it be a cast off like Olympic Ping Pong or Olympic Badminton. You’re going to hear about the Women’s and Men’s Team having a fighting chance in this tournament because NBC also has a new deal with MLS to broadcast further games. The only downside of this newfound Olympic soccer hype will be that the Men’s team is still mediocre and can’t do well against Mexico right now. I expect them to beat a team or two in the Olympics but finish weak overall (but scoring big with marketing agencies). I think the chances of our Men’s team not winning any medal is 90%.
3. Beckham’s gone. 93%.
4. An MLS Team wins the CONCACAF club Final and plays well against a European team in the Champions League tournament. If this goes down then the Mayans were right and the end of the world is imminent. ZERO PERCENT
5. This blog draws in more than five readers a day and a post of mine surges in twitter’s veins bringing me hundreds and hundreds of more devoted readers. I think this delusion waits a year or two and has about a 18% chance of happening.
6. The MLS Final will get more viewers than last year and the NBC deal prods the league forward. Last year’s Final was a bit of a letdown (even with Beckham) but I’m willing to go out on a limb and support the league’s future for next year. The chances of the MLS Final drawing in even more viewers is a solid 60-70%. There’s just too much money being thrown at American soccer now that I don’t think it’ll regress any.
And now, for the coup de grace, a prediction from my girlfriend (someone who has had her family invested in soccer her entire life):
American soccer will still be sucky and nobody will care!!! 100 percent !!!
*America edged out Canada, Guadaloupe and Panama for the right to face Mexico. The qualifying games were close.
*The trophy presentation was spoken in Spanish, not English, although the tournament and its final was held in America (causing our national team goalie to blow a gasket). The Mexican fans in Los Angeles wouldn’t have minded if the presentation was in English though, their team had beaten the Americans with a solid performance and they were happy, but they flipped when the Spanish speaking commenced.
