So last time I talked about the Euro 2012 tournament and how it got me started with soccer... I have more to say about Euro 2012 and international soccer in general but first we'll talk about club soccer in the US - or as we call it: MLS.
As you would expect given the name, club soccer features players playing in national or regional leagues for teams (clubs) that represent regions or cities. Like the NFL or other professional sports, players often cross their countries or the globe for enormous sums of money to play for these clubs. In the US, there is one big league of note - Major League Soccer - commonly referred to as MLS.
MLS is not popular in the US. It's not really covered in any depth by American sports journalists. It might get half a page buried in the back of a Sports Illustrated once in awhile or there might be some discussion in the tabloid press about David Beckham sitting in the stands at a Lakers game but on the whole, unless you're really looking for it, you're probably not going to hear about it. So is it any good, is it worth watching?
Maybe.
I spent a few weeks this summer trying to get into MLS but I had a hard time really getting excited about it. For one thing - there aren't that many games easily available on TV - I think I got maybe two a week - one on the NBC Sports channel and maybe one on ESPN2. And of course those were featured games so there was no consistency to the participating teams - making it hard to really follow any one team or plot.
One thing I should point out is that MLS does have a cable package available that lets you get pretty much every MLS game. It's called MLS Direct Kick and it's around $80 for a full season. I couldn't bring myself to actually buy this package because I wasn't sure how committed I was to MLS and or how much MLS I would have time to watch once the NFL season started.
Another thing that made it difficult to get into MLS is the relatively sad state of the stadiums and fans. Since it is not a popular sport in the US, most of the teams play in either very small stadiums or very large stadiums they share with other sports that are mostly empty. The average attendance for an MLS game in 2011 was 17,872. By comparison, average attendance for an NFL game is 67,509 (over 3.5x larger), and an FBS College Football game is 46,074 (over 2.5x larger). To put it bluntly, the atmosphere on TV for most games is quiet and somewhat bland compared to what I'm used to seeing.
I should also note that there are exceptions to this. I saw a few games at the home stadiums of the Portland Timbers and the Seattle Sounders. Both of those stadiums seemed to have much more exciting atmospheres. Unfortunately this is the exception not the rule - and as I mentioned above - I didn't get much of a choice in which games I could watch.
Another problem, at least for me, is that I had a hard time picking a team. Here are the teams currently in MLS:
Eastern Conference
- Chicago Fire
- Columbus Crew (Columbus, OH)
- D.C. United
- Houston Dynamo
- Montreal Impact
- New England Revolution
- New York Red Bulls
- Philadelphia Union
- Sporting Kansas City
- Toronto FC
Western Conference
- C.D. Chivas USA (Los Angeles Area)
- Colorado Rapids
- FC Dallas
- Los Angeles Galaxy
- Portland Timbers
- Real Salt Lake
- San Jose Earthquakes
- Seattle Sounders
- Vancouver Whitecaps FC
You'll notice there are no teams in Florida or South Carolina (or the entire southeastern part of the country for that matter) and no teams in Wisconsin. So I don't really have a team with built in ties to any place I'm from. While I'm flirting with the idea of just picking one of the exciting western teams [Timbers (atmosphere), Sounders (atmosphere/success), Earthquakes (high scoring)] - none of them have really clicked with me yet for whatever reason.
So what are the good things about MLS? Well, I do believe the game is being played at a high level. I watched a couple of exhibition (or "friendly" in soccer terminology) matches against the European Champions Chelsea FC: The first against the Seattle Sounders and the second against the MLS All-Star Team. The Sounders lost 4-2 but there were points in the game where they held their own and despite the score I didn't think Chelsea looked like they rolled over them. It's important to note here that the Sounders are only an above average MLS team (as I write this they are in 3rd place in the Western Conference). The MLS All-Stars actually defeated the European champions 3-2. So while this is a small sample size, it seems to me that MLS has some quality players that can at least compete on the same field as one of Europe's best teams.
Another good thing about the MLS is that, compared to European soccer leagues, there is a good amount of parity. In the league's 16 seasons there have been 9 unique champions. This is at least partially explained by a couple of truly American ideas that are quite different from what we will learn about European soccer leagues in coming posts.
- The entire league is actually a single-entity and all teams are centrally owned by the league. This means that the league can share revenues, better control costs, and negotiate player contracts (preventing them from growing exorbitantly)
- The league has a salary cap for all but three "designated" players per team. The designated players allows the league to compete for international superstars that demand high salaries while trying to keep the teams competitive with each other.
- Like other American sports, the league has a knockout playoff format for it's championship (the MLS Cup).
To really understand the truly American nature of those bullets you have to know a bit about European soccer leagues and how they are set up in comparison to traditional American sports leagues (NFL, MLB, etc)... but I want to save that for another post so we won't get into that yet. The key takeaway for now is that MLS is trying to create an exciting league where lots of teams are competitive and fans have a reason to get excited - and that is a good thing.
So am I still watching MLS matches? No, I'm not. I ended up getting really interested in a European league when their new season started in late August and between that, the NFL, and College Football I just don't have the time my sports watching schedule for MLS. But I can't say I disliked MLS and that certainly doesn't mean I won't try MLS again in the future (especially during the NFL offseason).
Next Subject: European Club Soccer
As you would expect given the name, club soccer features players playing in national or regional leagues for teams (clubs) that represent regions or cities. Like the NFL or other professional sports, players often cross their countries or the globe for enormous sums of money to play for these clubs. In the US, there is one big league of note - Major League Soccer - commonly referred to as MLS.
MLS is not popular in the US. It's not really covered in any depth by American sports journalists. It might get half a page buried in the back of a Sports Illustrated once in awhile or there might be some discussion in the tabloid press about David Beckham sitting in the stands at a Lakers game but on the whole, unless you're really looking for it, you're probably not going to hear about it. So is it any good, is it worth watching?
Maybe.
I spent a few weeks this summer trying to get into MLS but I had a hard time really getting excited about it. For one thing - there aren't that many games easily available on TV - I think I got maybe two a week - one on the NBC Sports channel and maybe one on ESPN2. And of course those were featured games so there was no consistency to the participating teams - making it hard to really follow any one team or plot.
One thing I should point out is that MLS does have a cable package available that lets you get pretty much every MLS game. It's called MLS Direct Kick and it's around $80 for a full season. I couldn't bring myself to actually buy this package because I wasn't sure how committed I was to MLS and or how much MLS I would have time to watch once the NFL season started.
Another thing that made it difficult to get into MLS is the relatively sad state of the stadiums and fans. Since it is not a popular sport in the US, most of the teams play in either very small stadiums or very large stadiums they share with other sports that are mostly empty. The average attendance for an MLS game in 2011 was 17,872. By comparison, average attendance for an NFL game is 67,509 (over 3.5x larger), and an FBS College Football game is 46,074 (over 2.5x larger). To put it bluntly, the atmosphere on TV for most games is quiet and somewhat bland compared to what I'm used to seeing.
I should also note that there are exceptions to this. I saw a few games at the home stadiums of the Portland Timbers and the Seattle Sounders. Both of those stadiums seemed to have much more exciting atmospheres. Unfortunately this is the exception not the rule - and as I mentioned above - I didn't get much of a choice in which games I could watch.
Another problem, at least for me, is that I had a hard time picking a team. Here are the teams currently in MLS:
Eastern Conference
- Chicago Fire
- Columbus Crew (Columbus, OH)
- D.C. United
- Houston Dynamo
- Montreal Impact
- New England Revolution
- New York Red Bulls
- Philadelphia Union
- Sporting Kansas City
- Toronto FC
Western Conference
- C.D. Chivas USA (Los Angeles Area)
- Colorado Rapids
- FC Dallas
- Los Angeles Galaxy
- Portland Timbers
- Real Salt Lake
- San Jose Earthquakes
- Seattle Sounders
- Vancouver Whitecaps FC
You'll notice there are no teams in Florida or South Carolina (or the entire southeastern part of the country for that matter) and no teams in Wisconsin. So I don't really have a team with built in ties to any place I'm from. While I'm flirting with the idea of just picking one of the exciting western teams [Timbers (atmosphere), Sounders (atmosphere/success), Earthquakes (high scoring)] - none of them have really clicked with me yet for whatever reason.
So what are the good things about MLS? Well, I do believe the game is being played at a high level. I watched a couple of exhibition (or "friendly" in soccer terminology) matches against the European Champions Chelsea FC: The first against the Seattle Sounders and the second against the MLS All-Star Team. The Sounders lost 4-2 but there were points in the game where they held their own and despite the score I didn't think Chelsea looked like they rolled over them. It's important to note here that the Sounders are only an above average MLS team (as I write this they are in 3rd place in the Western Conference). The MLS All-Stars actually defeated the European champions 3-2. So while this is a small sample size, it seems to me that MLS has some quality players that can at least compete on the same field as one of Europe's best teams.
Another good thing about the MLS is that, compared to European soccer leagues, there is a good amount of parity. In the league's 16 seasons there have been 9 unique champions. This is at least partially explained by a couple of truly American ideas that are quite different from what we will learn about European soccer leagues in coming posts.
- The entire league is actually a single-entity and all teams are centrally owned by the league. This means that the league can share revenues, better control costs, and negotiate player contracts (preventing them from growing exorbitantly)
- The league has a salary cap for all but three "designated" players per team. The designated players allows the league to compete for international superstars that demand high salaries while trying to keep the teams competitive with each other.
- Like other American sports, the league has a knockout playoff format for it's championship (the MLS Cup).
To really understand the truly American nature of those bullets you have to know a bit about European soccer leagues and how they are set up in comparison to traditional American sports leagues (NFL, MLB, etc)... but I want to save that for another post so we won't get into that yet. The key takeaway for now is that MLS is trying to create an exciting league where lots of teams are competitive and fans have a reason to get excited - and that is a good thing.
So am I still watching MLS matches? No, I'm not. I ended up getting really interested in a European league when their new season started in late August and between that, the NFL, and College Football I just don't have the time my sports watching schedule for MLS. But I can't say I disliked MLS and that certainly doesn't mean I won't try MLS again in the future (especially during the NFL offseason).
Next Subject: European Club Soccer
