The Soccer Thread (IV)

The day MLS abandons its summer schedule is the day MLS dies.
Period.
The weather is a huge issue, and there'll never be a day when MLS teams can afford domes on the SSS.
Just as important, MLS would not survive if competing full-time against NFL, NBA, NHL, college football, college basketball.
What audience is there would dry up and die.
Best part of this story: Garber clearly knows this. His quotes are designed to appease Blatter, who is clueless as to how to grow soccer in America. There will be no winter schedule for MLS, guaranteed. And, as for Blatter's contention that the US needs to be in a Fall-to-spring calendar to attract the top players -- what the heck does the calendar have to do with bringing in top players? There are only two considerations to that: competition and money. The best players want to play against the best players and they want to make the most money. Again, they're not coming here if MLS plays on Tuesday afternoons at tea time. It's not in the cards.

 

Oh, and if Blatter wants to grow soccer in America, perhaps he might want to get around to allowing this nation to watch the most important game of the year in HD, rather than squeezing into 20-some crowded bars across the nation.
Sepp Blatter is a joke.

 

As Twoback stated, Sepp Blatter is a fucking joke and he has no bloody idea how to grow the sport in the US.

I’ll also point out that Blatter is a corrupt asshole deserving of absolutely nothing. Get him out.

Giving Sepp Blatter huge wads of cash is the only condition for hosting another World Cup. The schedule that the league plays matters exceedingly little.

Also, I don’t see the playoffs being dropped as more and more leagues are starting to adopt the playoff system.

 

Which leagues are those, Pastor? I'm certainly not aware of any in Europe, but I'm willing to be proven wrong.

There also seem to be two competing schools of thought here. One is that MLS can't ever hope to be higher than about 6th on the American viewing/interest agenda. The other is that the U.S. should be allowed to host another World Cup. Seems to me that World Cups should go, by and large, to places where (a) the sport already is No. 1 or 2 or (b) where there's a legitimate chance of the sport's becoming No. 1 or 2 through the awarding of a World Cup.

To put it another way, though, the international soccer community really doesn't *need* the U.S. It's got pretty much the rest of the world. Is there money to be made in the U.S.? Sure. But there's big potfuls of it already being made elsewhere. I can't think of a major American corporation that doesn't do business in, for example, Europe. So you can't really say that the international soccer community would get access to revenue from, say, Coke, or MasterCard.

Nonetheless, your point about Sepp Blatter is salient.

 

The U-20 World Cup is currently on ESPN2. The USMNT has qualified for six consecutive World Cups. I think soccer in the US, and by extension MLS, has reached a stable orbit in the American sports landscape and doesn't need to change for anyone.

Oh, and if you're paying off people for the 2018 World Cup, don't forget Jack Warner.

 

The World Cup should go to places where people will have the best opportunity to view it.
When I saw U.S. v. Italy in Germany, approximately 40,000 others had the pleasure of joining me.
When I saw Germany vs. Korea in Dallas, there were 65,000 others there, even though it was 110 degrees.
In the years since, U.S. venues have improved by leaps -- Seattle, Dallas, Houston, Indy, Detroit, Glendale -- those places could hold 80,000 to 100,000 in great comfort.
The best conditions for travel (hotels, airports, etc) are here.
That's why you bring it here. Because it's supposed to be for the fans.

 

My problem with the schedule is that the end of the regular season and the playoffs are swallowed up by football, both NFL and college. To the extent that the public is going to care at all about MLS, they need to finish their season before college football or certainly pro football starts.

Start after the Super Bowl -- even if you have to play a greater number of games in LA and Houston and end the regular season in August.

 

They are in South America.

I can’t say specifically off the top of my head which league, but I recall the whole argument about “playoffs” existing.

Also, I will contend that the SPL runs an exceedingly similar system to MLS…
There is the League Cup, which is like the US Open Cup or the English FA Cup.
There is the Scottish Cup, which is run like MLS playoffs except all teams start.
There is the League, which is like the Supporters Shield here.

The Scottish Cup takes all teams and throws them into a playoff style format (bracket if you will) and the teams are one and done.

Just because MLS takes their MLS Cup and places it after the season ends doesn’t mean they are doing something wrong. They are just doing something a bit different.

I don’t happen to be someone that ascribes to this theory. However, I don’t see how moving a league that is not there currently into a position where it will have to work harder to obtain the same dollars will help.

In the summer you have baseball. In the winter you have basketball, hockey, football and college football. You would be placing the league at a disadvantage.

Additionally, playing a summer schedule doesn’t seem to be a big deal for Russia. Why the fuck does FIFA care when we play?

I’ll even throw in the caveat that there was a shitload of rumbling around Scotland this past summer about having the SPL switch to a summer league.

Why should either of those be a deciding factor in hosting a World Cup?

It was already borne out that the United States hosted the most successful and profitable World Cup in history. Why should it matter if the sport is number 1 or number 50 on the nation’s Give-A-Shit-Ometer?

The World Cup is headed to South Africa. This is a nation that has no finances to truly be able to host the event. They have far too much crime to guarantee safety (during the Confed Cup the US players weren’t allowed to venture out of the hotel for safety concerns). They didn’t even have close to the infrastructure and may still not have it. However, since they love soccer (though the South African league has lower attendance than MLS, I don’t understand why they rank it number 1) they get to be on your list.

Like everything else, FIFA likes American money. There is not near the amount of “untapped” revenue streams elsewhere.

In China, the sport is absolutely number 1. However, their attendance at games is about on par with MLS. Their television ratings for soccer games in Europe is high enough and people follow that well enough. In truth, I would say that there are just as many people in the US that like soccer as there are in China. There is likely just as many in the US that like soccer as there are in England.

The difference is that the soccer loving public here likes more than one league. They are diverse and spread out. You have Mexicans watching FML. You have Americans watching Bundesliga, SPL, Serie A, EPL, etc. You have Portuguese fans packing into bars on weekends to watch Porto and Sporting.

As a percentage of the total population, we have a smaller cut. However, we aren’t getting less fans than Scotland out to games. We aren’t getting less fans than China out to games. We aren’t getting less fans Ireland out to games.

 

The Scottish Cup and Scottish League Cup *are* kncckout formats, but they run in conjunction with the SPL and SFL, not as part of it. They're not the same as the MLS Cup, because they don't decide the SPL champion -- and more importantly, the Scottish entrants to the Champions League. And the Scottish Cup, not the Scottish League Cup, is the equivalent of the English FA Cup (which involves teams from as far down as the 10th step of the pyramid) and the U.S. Open Cup.

In England, the League Cup is almost worthless (as it is in many other leagues), other than carrying with it a berth in the Europa League, which typically isn't claimed by the victorious team anyway, and so devolves onto the Premier League. And no one takes the Europa League that seriously anyway. Fulham busted their asses to get in it last year, and now they're realising it's probably more trouble than it's worth.

The Supporter's Shield is the equivalent of the NHL's President's Trophy. It's a nice thing to have, sure, but it doesn't mean you're the league champion.

Russia's league, meanwhile, in held in the summer not because of competition with other sports but because it would be nigh-on impossible to hold it in the winter. It would be difficult to hold MLS games in the winter in much of the U.S., yes, but it also wouldn't be 40-below. (Holding games inside, however, would cost the league more credibility than playing in the summer does.)

The problem with the summer schedule is that everything is aligned to the standard fall-spring schedule, in particular the international calendar. Am I right in thinking that MLS continues its season during the World Cup? If I am, that would *never* happen anywhere else, at least not anywhere with a national team competing in the World Cup. It's just inconceivable. And the league is going to struggle to draw top-flight European players when those players will have to miss a chunk of the season every two years, either for European Championships or the World Cup.

I get that MLS has unique challenges not faced by top leagues in other countries. The problem I have is that it seems to want to be allowed to play by its own rules AND be treated as an equal by the rest of the world. I just don't think it can have things both ways.

 

None in Europe. Also, there isn't a single league where top division is divided. As for weather -- obviously there would be a winter break -- if you can play in North Germany (Hamburg) in December you can play anywhere. Right now MLS cannot expand to Florida because of summer schedule.

 

The "summer schedule" has fuck all to do with expansion in Florida.

The League Cup lets in first division clubs as well. But, yes, they are reversed.

It really matters very little when the tournaments are held. They are essentially the same thing. They determine a cup winner.

Yeah, it would be all cheers and happy times if the league would award the “championship” to the team with the best record. However, and this doesn’t apply to next year, teams don’t play a balanced schedule (they do next year). We have divisions in this country because getting from one side of the nation to the other is not as easy as a 1 or 2 hour train ride.

They have a playoff and a cup… so what? With countries actually switching to this format, why is the standard table the “best?”

Why should anyone care how England values their trophies? We value the MLS Cup more than the league. They value the league more than the Cup. That doesn’t mean they are right and we are wrong. That is just a simple valuation.

It does get you into CONCACAF Champions League… just like winning the league in England does!

Right. And MLS would have similar trouble. There would also be the stadia issue seeing as New England Revolution shares a stadium with the Patriots. I’m so super positive that things would work out so swimmingly.

Also, NO, the Revolution will not be getting a new stadium. Ownership is the same for both teams and they own their stadium. They like it that way and won’t change it.

You are wrong. MLS has already stated that they are taking time off for the group stages of next year’s World Cup.

While I do agree that it sucks that they are going to continue playing during the latter stages, it is what they have to do for their schedule. I’m not a fan but that doesn’t mean it is wrong.

You are also wrong on whether “top-flight” European players will come because of this. If the money is right and they remain in their national team picture, they will not give a shit. It is like anything else.

Why can’t they be treated equal? They play soccer games according to the same rules. If the World Cup came to the US, don’t you think MLS would take a break during that time?

Why does the rest of the world get to dictate the start times of games here? That is a rather absurd notion to me.

The games are played according to FIFA rules. The players are let out of practice to join their national teams without a problem.

So, because you disagree that the American public should deem the MLS Cup more important than the Supporter’s Shield the US should not get the World Cup? Absurd.

Because you disagree with when MLS starts and ends its season they should not get a World Cup? Absurd.

Because you don’t like that MLS has playoffs after the season instead of awarding that cup in the middle of the season like Scotland, the US shouldn’t get a World Cup?

When the world whined about shoot-outs, MLS stopped them. When the world whined about the clock counting up, MLS counted down. Sorry, but none of that has “gained” more fans.

Why don’t you let MLS run things the way they’ve been doing so since they actually know their market. The Eurosnob that makes the same complaints that you just did (playoffs, winter schedule, etc.) will only find something new to throw out (the sport isn’t number 1 so it shouldn’t go there). The complaints are all over the map and not very coherent.

 

As an addendum... Korea and Japan, hosts of the 2002 World Cup, also play a summer schedule. With Russia and the US on that list, why is it so damn important that the US change?