MLS - 1st league to have West Coast Bias?

We certainly have more western teams per capita than most leagues. When Montreal comes in as the 19th and then probably NY (or somewhere else in the East) comes in as the 20th, it'll be a slightly lower percentage, but still more than other sports. Bad for trying to catch games as a fan on the East coast... that's for sure, but maybe better for fans on the West coast to get more games in prime time.

 

That's the difference in starting a league at the end of the 20th century instead of the beginning or middle of the 20th century.

 

Well, as much as people hate to hear it, the PNW is about to become the mecca for American soccer. So, I'd definitely say that it will have a west coast bias in that sense.

 

Bias? Is that really the word you want to use.
In fact isn't unbiased in the sense they are establishing franchises based on ownership, stadiums, and fan support and not on geographic proportionality.

 

Per capita maybe. But in terms of available markets for future expansion I'd say we are getting close to tapped out for those two time zones.

If there is expansion past 20 it will mostly be in the east.

 

Unless we're going to duble up in the Bay Area, i think the only real Pacific/Mountain cities left are San Diego and Phoenix. And I think its more likely that Chivas moves South to San Diego than an expansion team goes there.

 

Interesting thread.

For sake of comparison, here are the percentages for the population by time zone (which doesn't reflect the most recent census data):

Eastern.......................47.0%
Central........................32.9%
Mountain.......................5.4%
Pacific.........................14.1%
Alaska and Hawaii…….......0.6%

Link (note, it's a pdf file):

http://www.newtimezones.com/pdfs/current_economic_crisis.pdf


It's interesting how close the NFL franchises follow this distribution:

Eastern (17 teams) . . . . . . . . 53.1%
Central (9 teams) . . . . . . . . . 28.1%
Mountain/Pacific (6 teams). . . 18.8%

Put another way, just over 81.2% of the NFL franchises are located in the Eastern and Central Time Zones, where 79.9% lives. They can't get much closer than that.

I think each MLS market needs to be judged on its individual merits, but I think this data just highlights MLS' lack of a presence in the Southeastern United States. MLS will have only will have about 58% of its teams (that is, 11 of 19) in the Eastern and Central time zones even after Montreal joins the fold. Of course, two of the Eastern/Central time zone teams will also be in Canada; pull out the three Canadian teams and MLS will have only 9 of its 16 US teams (56.25%) in the Eastern/Central time zones.

I'm not sure what impact that distribution has on TV ratings or sponsorships, but it's something to keep in mind as MLS seeks to add teams 20 and beyond.

 

MLS also doesn't have much a blueprint in the industrial midEast. The NFL has teams in Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Detroit (all pretty big cities, particularly Detroit) whereas MLS only has a team in Columbus (a very small, comparatively, city).

 

Subtracting the entire South, much of which is in the Eastern time zone, tends to promote such a bias, no?

It's the inability (perceived or otherwise) of the South, including Florida, to be a fertile ground for generating soccer support on a decent scale that has led to this.

Imagine if you took Miami, Tampa Bay, Jacksonville, Atlanta, Carolina, Tennessee and New Orleans out of the NFL.

Not that I blame Garber--Toronto and Seattle have shown the way forward with the demographic MLS is most after.

What's so sick about all this is that Boston represents that demographic to the nth degree and we'll be lucky if there's a stadium there in the next 20 years.

 

Would it be a bias against the south for not having a franchise or would it be a bias toward having successful franchises. An unbiased approach of MLS franchises based on criteria needed would not place a franchise in the south.

 

For the most part, the general distribution in the west is about what you expect, except ts Portland and Vancouver that are the odd cases. 2 Teams in LA and 1 in SJ make sense, and Seattle as a market makes sense, if you are just talking about the 18 largest markets (New York and LA are so large they really do demand multiple teams). But Portland and Vancouver are unusual market selections, except the Pacific Northwest seems very friendly to the sport, so when you start picking smaller markets, they make sense. But it does lead to misrepresentation.

Its not that these are poor markets, its just that having both of them is a bit surprising. That said, San Diego is another very viable possibility, as is Phoenix. I also think that you see an unusual number of western cities cluster in that sweet spot where they are at the tail end of "major league" cities. There are a lot of eastern metro areas around 1 million population, which really raises the total, but doesn't make them viable markets.

 

So... who's moving to the eastern conference for the '11 season? Maybe Don will tell us when he explains the new playoff system. Has it been 30 days since MLS Cup?

 

Good point.

 

"If you build it, they will come."

I think that line from "Field of Dreams" sums it up best. The West Coast has spent decades building soccer support. The number of national team and pro soccer players from California and the Pacific Northwest is evidence of that. Its no surprise that MLS teams have a great chance for success in Cali and the PNW.

MLS in America is built on hotbeds of soccer interest: California, PNW, New York, Chicago, Houston, Dallas, etc. The only real hot beds of soccer interest untapped (imo) are the Carolinas and St. Louis.

 

My money is still on the Texas teams going East and KC coming West.

 

I think that's probably right. If you look at the teams in the NFL and MLS, both leagues have two teams in the sparsely populated Mountain Time Zone (Denver/Arizona v. Denver/Salt Lake), both leagues have three teams in California, and both leagues have teams in Seattle. It's really the Pacific Northwest teams that increase MLS' concentration in the west.

But much of the recent expansion has been driven by the quality of the ownership groups, which is why the league is in Salt Lake City and not San Diego or Phoenix. Having reached critical mass, however, it wouldn't surprise me if MLS fills in gaps by trying to get new ownership groups to look at specific markets (which is really what I think happened in Philadelphia -- the league helped bring that ownership group together).

 

You could rightfully inclde Sacramento, but expand the Bay Area to include all of Northern Calfiornia. Also, The Inland Empire, though part of the LA Region, is far and away the largest region/sub-region in the country w/o a major league sports team.

 

There's no necessity to move anybody, since the alignment has no effect on the scheduling format this year. It could easily be 10/8, preparing for 10/9 next year.

 

yea no point in really moving anyone cause the next 2 teams gonna be in the eastern conference anyways assuming NY Cosmos is #20

 

that's right. everyone looks for their niche (and soccer is a niche sport by definition in these parts). the nhl 'created rivalries' by putting three teams in the nyc area. mls is going about it with three teams in the northwest.

if you calculate the number of teams in west coast states vs the teams in east coast states, the ratio for mls is higher than any other league. basically, it's the only league to have more 'west coast state' teams than 'east coast state' ones.

and the western slant of mls also might have to do, imo, with the fact that some of the business leaders of mls are western folks.

 

*cough* Vegas *cough*

 

The NHL didn't create rivalries by putting three teams in the NYC metro area. The Isles got a ticket to the NHL to keep the WHA out of NY. The Devils moved to NJ after McMullen bought the Rockies to play at the Meadowlands after things soured for them in Denver and he agreed to pay the rangers, isles, and flyers an indemnity for infringing their territories.

 

Las Vegas, NM isn't big enough for a team!