It is officially victory week for those of us who love both Major League Soccer and that glorious region of our nation(s) known as the Pacific Northwest. I spent two of the happiest years of my life among the Oregon evergreens, and from experience can say that Portland is one of the most beautiful cities in the nation, with the most wonderful people you will meet anywhere.
And this special region will now boast three professional teams to battle each other for years to come in Portland, Seattle and Vancouver, BC. Even the NBA couldn't manage to hold onto that awesome triumvirate, as only Portland could hang onto their team.
So why is the Pac Northwest suddenly the soccer capital of the nation? Not St. Louis, or Montreal, or Miami? Because the laid-back, festive, open-minded, liberal, passionate Northwest is the region most tempermentally suited to soccer. It's no coincidence. A stroll across the Hawthorne bridge past Pioneer Courthouse Square towards PGE park is all it should take to convince a visitor that Portland was the natural choice for expansion. Downtown Seattle has positively screamed for a soccer team since before any of the sports fanatics living there even considered the possibility. The Vancouver waterfront (another sight you simply must see) is the most natural space possible for the roar of an outdoor crowd in a pure celebration of sport.
I want the best and the most for this league, but as long as the game doesn't have the popularity of football, baseball or basketball, the upside for its fans is that we don't have to deal with the massive egos, fans who go to get drunk and start fights, eight-million-dollar salaries who sit on the bench rather than play out of position, clubhouse wars being waged through the media, unlicensed weapon charges or homophobic amateur rap lyrics.
This is why using the Northwest to springboard this league is exactly the right move. Everything I just listed is anathema to the ethic of the evergreens. The Blazers' popularity cratered when the criminal convictions piled up. The fans ran the team's best player (Rasheed Wallace) out of town when his ego and temper proved an embarrassment to the city. The athletes of the Northwest are expected to engage with the fans and to recognize that the fans' passion is the only reason they get to play sports for a living.
I applaud the Don and the league for going Northwest. 2011 can't come soon enough for me.
Showing posts with label expansion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label expansion. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Sunday, March 15, 2009
In the new season, where is the league long-term?
For an inaugural post, I'm not going to predict who will finish where in the MLS table, or which players will break out or fall off, or even write D--id B-ck--m's name in its entirety. Instead, I'm going to make a long-term prediction for the prospects of the league's place in American sport.
The outlook, for lack of better word, is good. Within 15-20 years, MLS should be one of four major sports in the US, more popular and profitable than ice hockey, though never to reach the levels of the NFL, NBA or Major League Baseball.
Although the Wall Street Journal has just published the most comprehensively bizarre denigration of soccer that I've ever seen (sample quote: "As a display of nearly death-defying stamina, soccer mimics the paradigmatic feminine experience of childbirth more than the masculine business of destroying your opponent with insurmountable power."), I see no reason that the sport has anywhere to go in our beloved homeland but up.
Here are my five arguments for a special brand of MLS optimism:
First: the financial strategy the league is pursuing can best be described WWNASLND. What would the North American Soccer League Not Do? They are cautious in the extreme. It's a strategy that's been frustrating to fans in the past, but in the midst of a massive recession we're finally starting to see it pay serious dividends. At least a few MLS teams now have shirt sponsorships that, absent a designated player, will actually cover the cost of their rosters. Money problems will not implode this leauge as it did the NASL, even if TV ratings were to completely stagnate.
Second: people want to see MLS games, at least in person. Seattle sold out 15,000 season ticket packages so fast they eventually added 5,000 more, and sold those out, too. Per game, they're going to outdraw 26 NBA teams if no one ever shows up. They'll be joined by the Galaxy, Toronto and probably DC United, at least. These are in stark contrast to some of the less passionate markets, but further expansion, of which a great deal is planned, will only be in markets that vastly outdraw Kansas City and Dallas. Hey, speaking of which...
Third: expansion is turning this into a truly nationwide league, and generating massive excitement wherever it goes. MLS teams are getting people excited about the sport by giving citizens of more cities and their environs a team of their own. After 2011, the league will have expanded from 10 teams to 18 in seven years. Everyone is clamoring for an expansion team. It has become the must-have fashion accessory for today's city-about-town. And to get one, you've basically got to prove to the ultra-cautious Don Garber and his ultra-cautious boys in New York that you can not only build a stadium, but fill that sucker up.
Fourth: the only thing stopping television ratings from matching attendance successes, in my opinion, is the lack of treatment by the sporting press, national and local, of MLS as being an important and popular sport. I swear the head honchos at ESPN will be the last four people in America to figure it out. But as international coverage of the Euro, the World Cup, and the Champions' League sloooooowwwwwwlllllyyyyy heighten interest in the sport, they will raise interest in the league we have playing here at home.
and finally, Fifth: it's tough to undo the popularity of a sport that is this popular around the world. As the world gets smaller, and America absorbs more and more international culture, more of our young people are growing up around the game and becoming fans. Look at how more international cities are getting new franchises: Toronto, San Jose, Seattle, Philadelphia, now most likely Vancouver and Portland. The rest of the country is trending as international as these places already are. The American exceptionalism that holds the game back is on a steep decline.
Bring on one excitin' season.
The outlook, for lack of better word, is good. Within 15-20 years, MLS should be one of four major sports in the US, more popular and profitable than ice hockey, though never to reach the levels of the NFL, NBA or Major League Baseball.
Although the Wall Street Journal has just published the most comprehensively bizarre denigration of soccer that I've ever seen (sample quote: "As a display of nearly death-defying stamina, soccer mimics the paradigmatic feminine experience of childbirth more than the masculine business of destroying your opponent with insurmountable power."), I see no reason that the sport has anywhere to go in our beloved homeland but up.
Here are my five arguments for a special brand of MLS optimism:
First: the financial strategy the league is pursuing can best be described WWNASLND. What would the North American Soccer League Not Do? They are cautious in the extreme. It's a strategy that's been frustrating to fans in the past, but in the midst of a massive recession we're finally starting to see it pay serious dividends. At least a few MLS teams now have shirt sponsorships that, absent a designated player, will actually cover the cost of their rosters. Money problems will not implode this leauge as it did the NASL, even if TV ratings were to completely stagnate.
Second: people want to see MLS games, at least in person. Seattle sold out 15,000 season ticket packages so fast they eventually added 5,000 more, and sold those out, too. Per game, they're going to outdraw 26 NBA teams if no one ever shows up. They'll be joined by the Galaxy, Toronto and probably DC United, at least. These are in stark contrast to some of the less passionate markets, but further expansion, of which a great deal is planned, will only be in markets that vastly outdraw Kansas City and Dallas. Hey, speaking of which...
Third: expansion is turning this into a truly nationwide league, and generating massive excitement wherever it goes. MLS teams are getting people excited about the sport by giving citizens of more cities and their environs a team of their own. After 2011, the league will have expanded from 10 teams to 18 in seven years. Everyone is clamoring for an expansion team. It has become the must-have fashion accessory for today's city-about-town. And to get one, you've basically got to prove to the ultra-cautious Don Garber and his ultra-cautious boys in New York that you can not only build a stadium, but fill that sucker up.
Fourth: the only thing stopping television ratings from matching attendance successes, in my opinion, is the lack of treatment by the sporting press, national and local, of MLS as being an important and popular sport. I swear the head honchos at ESPN will be the last four people in America to figure it out. But as international coverage of the Euro, the World Cup, and the Champions' League sloooooowwwwwwlllllyyyyy heighten interest in the sport, they will raise interest in the league we have playing here at home.
and finally, Fifth: it's tough to undo the popularity of a sport that is this popular around the world. As the world gets smaller, and America absorbs more and more international culture, more of our young people are growing up around the game and becoming fans. Look at how more international cities are getting new franchises: Toronto, San Jose, Seattle, Philadelphia, now most likely Vancouver and Portland. The rest of the country is trending as international as these places already are. The American exceptionalism that holds the game back is on a steep decline.
Bring on one excitin' season.
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