WASHINGTON, DC and SAN JOSE, CA (Aug 26, 2008) USSoccerPlayers -- J Hutcherson and Tony Edwards argue that every league ebbs and flows through the schedule, but Major League Soccer faces the added difficulty of competition from live events and televised coverage of other soccer leagues.
J Hutcherson: Hey Tony. Though it's easy enough to focus on the less than flattering aspects of Major League Soccer, every North American league seems to go through a period where it's not exactly exciting. I would say we're there with MLS.
What makes it more than just standard sports business is that through Soccer United Marketing, MLS competes directly with what should be its core product. So it's not just the doldrums of a league schedule, it's the other events vying for interest.
Where does MLS fit against the live promotion like Chivas - Club America in Bridgeview? Much less the start of the European season?
Tony Edwards: On top of the European season and SUM-promoted events, don't forget that school is back in session in a lot of places and the Fall youth soccer season has either started or is about to start. The U-12 team I coach has at least three games next weekend, and in all honesty, I'm not likely to drag my family to Buck Shaw on Saturday night knowing we have to be at the field at 7:30 Sunday morning.
So, for the dubious short-term benefit of putting ChampionsWorld out of business, SUM is in a position of effectively trying to make its own product look second-rate. But we've also seen that Barcelona didn't draw the numbers they had drawn in past years, including a game against Guadaljara. Manchester United hasn't toured here in a few years. Chelsea has opened up their US online store, etc. I'm wondering if the market isn't over saturated when it comes to 'international' club teams.
Certainly, one of the failures of MLS/SUM is that MLS apparently comes off second, but how is that different than anywhere else in the world? Maybe it's not as big of an issue as we think or perhaps its a bigger issue that no one has found an effective answer for yet.
JH: If the League desperately needs the money SUM generates through the lengthy exhibition schedule to keep the doors open, I don't think any MLS fan would argue. At the same time, marketing like they're doing us a favor is a bit much. I would much rather see MLS games that matter than an exhibition schedule.
That said, we're talking about the need for less games the same week the CONCACAF Champions League takes off. For the CONCACAF Champions LEague to work here, it needs less games. No SuperLiga, no pre-pre-Libertadores, and no MFL club friendly schedule watering down the marketplace. Instead, it's competing with all of those.
We already know MLS isn't going to get out in front of that and start talking about crafting a schedule that pushes the primary product and builds interest in other competitions and events past the quick hit. Fair enough, neither would most leagues. At the same time, there's the weight of all that available content that those other leagues just aren't facing. Nobody is turning off the NBA in favor of FIBA. MLS can't say that about a list of leagues.
TE: Everything you say is valid, but MLS schedules like none of those other things exist. And Don Garber's patented excuse about available dates increasingly is hollow everywhere but a couple of places on the East Coast.
The only even close parallel I can think of immediately is football. The NFL and college and high schools found a way to make it work, to feed off each other rather than feeding ON each other. Whether by intent or luck, the gridiron fan has a weekend worth of games.
But aren't all these friendlies, tours, pre-Lib, InterLiga, etc all just part of the card game? Distract the paying customers long enough and maybe at the end we'll have a product (MLS) worth watching. Let's not actually plan to make the league better by paying the players more competitively, having teams actually build scouting departments, and so on. But that doesn't change the fact that MLS remains a tough sell, even in the best markets.
Another way to look at it might be how does MLS/SUM turn this wealth of televised soccer into an advantage, or at least a zero-sum game?
JH: Good point. There's something to be said for creating an environment where it's never just MLS. We say how that went early on, and one would hope with the League-stressed successes in Toronto and elsewhere that things have changed. The reality might not be so helpful.
I don't think anybody is in the position to fairly judge what an MLS market should be, because that's been hedged by general soccer promotion. If it's just MLS a few years out from the creation of the club, what's success?
Taking any league seriously that uses terms like model franchise when referring to recent expansion markets has to be taken as slightly suspect. What about the places that have had over a decade to get it reasonable, much less right?
TE: I think creating an environment where your business plan is based on the real world wouldn't be a bad place to start. People want to see the best players play. If that means the Galaxy doesn't play the night after a US qualifier, so be it. Who benefits by that? The club/league pays Beckham's/Donovan's contract, and yet schedules games where they know they won't participate? How is that smart business?
The same can be applied to these exhibitions promoted by SUM.
I concur with your point about what should an MLS market look like, but we're 30 years into professional soccer in North America and we still have no idea how to create that market, short of buying Pele or David Beckham.
Sure, Toronto is great, for the first two years, but how can you call that a model franchise that quickly?
JH: Remember when nobody was supposed to reference the North American Soccer League? Now we're right back there with a League that seems a little too fond of expansion fees and not so much with the rosters past a few name players.
The Toronto example is basically insulting to everybody else in the League, especially the clubs that know how hard a sell MLS is past the initial curiosity.
TE: The expansion fees model has got to raise questions for anyone following professional soccer.
True, the Toronto line is basically an insult, but its also fair to say there were some less-than-invested investors.
JH: The real problem for the fans is that this becomes an issue after it's creeping towards terminal. The 'none of your business' approach to operations is fine, along with the shifting responsibility. As in "we're responsible to our season ticket holders," we're responsible to our sponsors," "we're responsible to our investor/operators" and feel free to pick the one that will prevent us from answering your question.
What the League lacks is real movement. Quick hit expansion isn't it and neither is a few teams willing to spend on a marquee name. MLS is so used to controlling the show, they're just not ready to have the market dictate to them.
That intransigence might be the biggest problem. They're not going to adapt unless it's so obviously in their immediate best interest as to be unavoidable. Meanwhile, the small market they helped re-create for club soccer in the US isn't immune to what effects the larger markets for pro sports consumption in general.
Major League Soccer is simply taking too much for granted while using the same old excuses to shut down anybody suggesting alternatives. Thus the international play through, creative scheduling, and a real feeling that the middle months of the season have to happen but aren't really a priority.
TE: But how do we know its creeping towards terminal? I'm asking.
On one hand, the product on the field generally gets better, if not fast enough, because of the number of relatively inexpensive and quality players in this country. After 1981, no one ever said the quality of play was improving in the NASL.
I'm agreed that you have to have a budget that works. But if the league works, its because of the players and coaches, not because of the league structure and management.
The disappointing part is that it would be pretty simple to make these games in July and August compelling and the league, as you say, isn't going to budge (or budget) except for short term success.
