Soccer fans remain something of a cult in the United States. We still sometimes exchange an understanding nod with a total stranger if we pass on the street both wearing soccer jerseys. It’s an instant recognition code that we belong to an underground society, and that although the two of us will never meet again, we will, with those like us, periodically gather after dark to partake of highly stylized rituals that outsiders don’t understand or want much of a piece of.
American soccer fans want to see the game go big in our homeland, but it cannot be denied that there is a definite thrill in being part of a small, self-contained community, quirky, different, an outspoken minority who are proud of what sets us apart. And with that, we must admit, comes at least a hint of Shakespeare’s famous aphorism: “the fewer men, the greater share of honor... we few, we happy few, we band of brothers.”
MLS fans from the outside must look like we’re pretty bunkered in. We tend to be downright obsessive, which hardly sets us apart from the fans of other sports, except that the more pervasive nature of that obsession may make it harder for the casual fan to approach us.
For example: the Oakland Raiders have the Black Hole, sure, but turning on the game at home (assuming that the local coverage isn’t a Black Hole itself that week) doesn’t mean to the casual viewer that they have to go as gung-ho about the whole deal as the revelers in masks and spikes. They don’t even have to wear a jersey as they sit in their living room catching up on their email while the game plays in the background. The point is that they can engage at their own pace and level of intensity. The experience of football fandom is, on the whole, unintimidating and inviting.
Now consider DC United, and my proud perch inside the Aerie with the rest of the Screaming Eagles. Given 1) the effort it usually takes to be a soccer fan in America, and 2) that the level of play in MLS is far below the big-time leagues of Europe and South America, there is really no such thing as a casual MLS fan. If you’re in that stadium, or even watching on television rather than following the English Premier League on cable, you’ve got to want it. Pretty much anyone who follows the league is by definition way more than a casual fan.
Now, it is true, splendidly, wonderfully, joyously true, that someone attending the first soccer game of their life at RFK is almost guaranteed to be blown away by the atmosphere that the entire DC United experience produces (and I know that most of the league can replicate it). I remain convinced that MLS’ best possible business move would be to stand outside a local major league baseball game and hand out free tickets. It may have the look of desperation, but once you get genuine sports fans inside an MLS stadium, at least a small portion of them will be instantly hooked. The MLS experience can handle its own, and then some, when given a chance.
But there is another viewpoint to consider. Casual sports fans look at other sports and see a shower head exuding warm water that they can dip themselves into, and then slowly make warmer at their own pace. I think there are more than a few who look at MLS like the water in our shower is a hell of a lot hotter – up where we all like to nudge it after we’ve been in for ten minutes. But right now, they’re bone dry. Jumping straight into a stream that hot would require a few moments of really painful adaptation before subsiding to nice and toasty.
People go to an MLS game, and while they may love the passion that the jumping, chanting masses generate, it doesn’t mean they want to be just like us, at least not right away. If we can be the Black Hole (and make no mistake, MLS supporters’ clubs are usually well beyond that level of raucous), they will happily take up the role of the more relaxed viewer -- the NFL is a bad example, but let’s say the people who go to three or four baseball games a year -- that populates the rest of the stadium.
MLS can only grow so large living on obsessive die-hard fans like myself without reaching out to the people I’m describing. They are massive in number, they have televisions, the assertion that they are incapable of becoming soccer fans is just plain wrong, and they’re seemingly not the target of any of MLS’ marketing plans.
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