The Future of Major League Soccer
Soccer is by far the most popular sport overseas, garnering millions in revenue for its different leagues and their teams, players, owners, and sponsors. In England, the infamous football gangs–die-hard fans with the deepest level of obsession possible–will kill each other over their teams’ outcomes. They travel in hoards to visiting stadiums, wreaking havoc the entire way and vowing to cause bodily harm to the rival club. This kind of passion–and in no way am I advocating violence, here–is absent in America in terms of soccer.
Football guys and gals tailgate the hell out of their team’s season. Basketball enthusiasts can rattle off stats and scores from games years ago, and baseball junkies have a knack for being superstitious, just like their favorite players. So why isn’t professional soccer catching on in the U.S.? Many “traditional” sport followers argue that watching soccer is boring: the players fake injuries and are rewarded for it by their coaches, the game clock is just kind of an estimation for when the competition starts and finishes, and, well…the United States usually isn’t very good at it on the international stage. We are a country that is no stranger to embarrassment, but in the worlds of sport, we usually dominate. Despite the league’s growth, it still has an inconceivable distance to go before it reaches a respectable level of popularity, which is mostly dependent on America changing its attitude.
Firstly, MLS was founded in 1993. That’s seventeen years ago. I was seven years old. I don’t remember my brother, a soccer enthusiast then and still to this day, ever mentioning one thing about the league’s birth back then. Second, I live in a city with an MLS team–Seattle Sounders FC–and they’ve got quite a following, but the stadium in which they play is also home to the Seahawks, the city’s NFL team. In order for the stadium to appear full, the entire upper nose-bleed sections all the way around have been covered with graphic-paper-fabric stuff. The Seahawks SUCKED last season, and they still drew a bigger crowd than the most popular sport in Europe? Damn. What do loyal soccer followers have to do to get a bone these days?
Advertising - ESPN and all its subnetworks need to devote at least one prime time show to MLS–not just international soccer. I hate to say it, but America is a nation of bandwagon-ers. If ESPN is all over it, I guarantee more people ready to adopt a team or sport into their hearts will start making the advertising investments worth it. Visuals are everything.
National and international network support: become a monopoly. Our gut instinct always tells us that competition is good; it motivates everyone to continue working toward excellence. In this circumstance, MLS needs to be the premier soccer league in the US by being the only soccer league in the US. This will create a distinct path for up-and-coming all-stars to get into the pros with limited constraints. With baseball, basketball and football–the three most popular sports in the U.S.–there is a clear road from youth participation to the pros. The level of competition in the NCAA for the major sports is unmatchable for that age group, and you won’t find college athletes arguing with you unless they’re Lebron James and just skipped that whole scene in the first place. But he could–that’s the kicker (pardon the pun). The league currently has a less-than-efficient way of harvesting home-grown talent, which is a major fan-booster. If Americans want to watch a sport, it’s because we kind of want to watch what could have been ourselves, not some hot-shot from Spain…no offense.
Obviously MLS isn’t going anywhere since it’s survived this long. But for its popularity to grow, the place to start reconstruction will be in the terrifying trenches of marketing and advertising. If the league can garner some more big-name support….
GOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLL-aahh!
About the Author
Anna Forge is a guest blogger for My Dog Ate My Blog and a writer on online schools for Guide to Online Schools.
Recent visitors to this page searched for:
future of soccer | the future of soccer | soccer in the future | adidas mls sponsorship monopoly |You might also like:
