It's in the daily dispatch of articles MLS sends to the media. I won't violate TOS by pasting the entire thing, but here are some highlights: But in the wake of Mr. Beckham's signing, a number of developments point up U.S. soccer's rising profile at home and overseas. Earlier this month, MLS announced a partnership with the Bundesliga, Germany's top circuit, that calls for the leagues to establish closer promotional links and share expertise in areas like stadium construction, TV production and youth marketing. The German league has the highest average attendance in Europe, but its foreign TV revenue lags behind that of England's Premier League and Spain's La Liga. In an effort to spur hotter rivalries on this continent -- and reach out to millions of Latino fans -- MLS and Mexico's top domestic league have teamed up to start a new tournament. Dubbed the SuperLiga, the competition is an attempt to emulate Europe's Champions League, which pits top clubs from different countries against one another and generates billions of dollars in TV rights and sponsor deals. For the first time in league history, every MLS game will be televised when the season kicks off April 7, and ESPN announced yesterday that its entire 28-game MLS schedule will be available in high-definition. Mr. Beckham's pending arrival has also spurred a merchandising push: Target will promote MLS gear at more than 1,400 of its stores, and Adidas has already presold more MLS-branded apparel this year than it did in 2005 or 2006. European clubs are expressing their interest in on-field talent as well. A record 25 Americans are now playing in Europe, including 13 in England's Premier League. And so on. It's a positive article from which drawing a conclusion that MLS is bound to go out of business means the concluder is on crack.
The Journal is pointing out the obvious... Attendance is stabilizing and season ticket sales are way up in many cases. The Beckham effect hasn't really even taken root yet, since Becks hasn't visited the U.S. yet or trained with his new team. When he gets here, he'll be on Letterman and Leno and celebrities will make going to Galaxy games a big deal... The stadiums are really making progress (now add Salt Lake). When Poplar Point gets approved, that will be huge, and the attendance will be tremendous. RBNY is going to turn the tables when the Bull Ring gets built. Red Bull corporate will start pouring money back in; they're probably in a partial holding pattern (big mistake ala Colorado and Dallas) while they wait for the new stadium... With the "losses" teams are posting, the new naming rights agreements for stadiums and kits will erase the deficits right there... Then you add SUM's deals on tv, which make a huge positive impact... Then you add the Interliga and the World Series of Soccer and other summer tours, and it gets even better... Then you add some more DP's in the summer (Blanco, in particular) and the game begins to get attention on the field... Then you add the initiative of the academies (including Africa)... Need I go on? Direct Kick, MLSliveTv, upgraded team websites, Becks and Posh getting a 6-episode reality tv show... Cities lining up to get into MLS (Cleveland, Phoenix, St. Louis, Milwaukee, for starters)... Substantial franchise fees for new teams... Now EPL players are looking to come across the pond. Even if they are at the end of their careers, some of them still have skills, though they may have lost a step or two. Point is, none would even consider MLS two or three years ago. It upsets me when someone says this league will fold when all evidence is to the contrary. These guys know a lot more about running a league profitably than we give them credit for. This league is here to stay!!!
It's about 2/3s Garber marketing and 1/3rd reality. Rather like Adu. Don't get me wrong, not a complaint. Garber is paid in large part to create perception, perhaps entirely to create perception now that I think of it, and he's brilliant at the task. Paul Gardner complains about him incessantly because Paul wants some ex-soccer guy who is running the show. Paul is dead wrong, of course. Pete Rozelle wasn't a footballer, either. That's not in the least important when it comes to running a league. The league is doing pretty well, has had a good last 12 months, and won't be disappearing anytime soon. That about covers it.
Found it. Can Thomas please get his yellow card back for his lies. The attendance number is right here. The article is 100 percent accurate. If Thomas wants to compare Weinbach and Zeigler, let's do that somewhere else. The article did not say US soccer had "turned the corner." It said "MLS has quietly solidified its infrastructure and laid the groundwork to expand in the U.S. and abroad." It also pointed out, "Of course, MLS is still dwarfed by the "big four" of American sports -- the National Football League, National Basketball Association, Major League Baseball and Nascar -- when it comes to TV ratings, merchandise sales and sponsorship revenue. Franchise values for MLS teams are still lower than those in the struggling National Hockey League," which led into the phrase about attendance that Thomas felt the need to lie about. Two things Thomas failed to point out (because they would expose him as a liar) are that Target will put MLS merchandise in 1,400 stores (I was seeing team-branded balls there last year) and this comment by an independent source: The Arsenal and Bundesliga deals are in sharp contrast to past U.S. efforts by foreign teams, which often tried to drum up interest with haphazard summer tours, says Paul Swangard, executive director of the University of Oregon's Warsaw Sports Marketing Center. Now, "there's a recognition that MLS is a viable piece of the global soccer business," he says. "It's a credibility statement for American soccer." If he's gonna say the article has mistakes, let's see them. If not, the repeated lies and trolling should be punished for strating yet another useless thread to expand his twisted vendetta against the truth.
agreed. The article is 100% accurate and states the obvious to any dedicated MLS fan. However, this newsbit is great for the league since it's reaching out to millions of investors who had probably never even thought of MLS in their lives before...I mean, this 'free-ad' for MLS could signal a turning point. Is there really another young sports league in the world with such raw potential for growth??? There are many other bigger sports leagues in the world, but none of them will grow as fast as the MLS simply because they've basically already tapped out their domestic markets. The MLS is (parden the pun) on a virgin playing field and when investors realize that this league is set to skyrocket (which the WSJ article alludes to), then they'll start pouring a whole s*%# load of money into the league. And you know what the greatest thing about that is folks??? We all can say that we were there at the beginning! So party on...this'll be a great season
I forgot to add that the national team wouldn't have amazing performances like today if it wasn't for MLS. Beautiful, beautiful game. Donovan was simply amazing. I don't even want to begin to think of how our national team would be if MLS didn't exist. There is a great future in MLS. I plan to be a Crew supporter for another sixty years, and they can spread my ashes on the field. So **** off. Worst post of the year.
Just because legit analysis isn't happening here, doesn't mean it can't happen without a link. May I suggest closing this thread and starting a new thread with Kenntomasch's post with link?
A second Dust Bowl will wipe out FCD and the Dynamo! Seriously, Thomas, have you been in a coma for the past year or two? or even just the past 4 months? Sponsorship money and media attention has increased, and partnerships with the Bundesliga and Arsenal (for Colorado) show that the league is on the right track. Why would the Bundesliga or Arsenal invest in a league that is "doomed to fail"? Don't you think that they would measure the financial consequences of such a relationship before getting involved? I really don't know what to say because the analysis you put out there was possibly the worst I've ever seen on these boards (and for all of you who frequent bigsoccer, you know that's saying something). thanks for the link tho
Then you've clearly missed the point of these new stadiums. Who gives a crap if they've got the same attendance they had before, if the teams are saving TONS of money by not having to pay rent (or not as much rent) and having new revenue streams by being able to control parking, concessions, etc etc. Gate revenue is so overrated. The real money is in sponsorships (which are clearly on the rise, New York nonwithstanding), broadcast deals and other ancillary revenue.
Let's see what happens in Chicago's first full season with a stadium. When you have something like 10 home games in a row, it's a little harder to get people to show up over and over again. [edit - jeez, the red cards are just flying!]
Revenue from attendance is not the only factor that contributes to a team's profitability. FCD hovered at 15k last year, but made it into the black because they didn't have to pay rent, and gained revenue from other exhibitions, concerts, and all of the other money those bring in (concessions, merchandise, etc.)
OH thank god! I was getting worried. What would my girlfriend say if the league folded and our wardrobes are stashed with MLS merchandise???
People dogpile Donovan, but what about the subpar performances from none other than Ronaldinho and Lampard at the WC? What's past is past. Right now, Donovan's got his game back. Results speak volumes. ...And Ronaldinho put in a hummer today (very nice).
I admit: the socks were all mine. It certainly reminds me of Three Amigos, adapted here somewhat: "Are sock puppets falling from the sky?" (another sock puppet drops in) "Si, jefe."
I think there's an inherent danger of spinning the story (if not outright lying about it as went on here), but it's now done. In order to make the thread coherent, I did my best to lose the posts that were all about the original poster as well.
Ballack, Totti, Nedved, Gerrard, and Riquelme also had poor tournaments relative to what they are capable of. Zidane was really the only great center mid, Pirlo wasn't bad. The stars of the tourney were wide players like Ribery, Grosso, Cameronesi, Zambrotta, Lahm, Schweinsteiger. Teams crowded the middle and made wide players beat them. Dempsey was probably the US's best player for this reason. Guys like Donovan didn't have a chance.
Wow, this thread was something altogether different this morning. The Ministry of MLS Information has been here. The original thread-starting post was problematic but it's main point was that MLS still has problems getting enough people sufficiently interested in the league to come to the games, and that a 15k average attendance number is misleading. I think that's a legitimate point. There's some data to support that (e.g. the "paid attendance" figures published a while back in the Zeigler article). And that study doesn't consider no-shows, which may be considerable in some places. Is it good enough that it's "stabilizing" at 10k average paid attendance and maybe another 10-20% lower than that for paid turnstile attendance? Attendance is only part of the picture of course, as the article apparently indicates, and there are signs that next year's attendance will be better with the Beckham bump, etc. But will it be sustainable? We'll see. I would say that it's still a legitimate concern for the league.
I agree, a lot of people have no sense of perspective when looking at Garber's job. The owners are going to make a lot of the heavyweight decisions, that's just the way it is in a league in this era. You're not going to get Kennesaw Mountain Landis out there. But compare him to Doug Logan and. . . well, there isn't one. When Garber first took this job I actually think he was marrying down just a bit, betting on the potential. It's when the league had actually grown a bit that they became a better fit.
Unfortunately it got to the point where the entire thread was about what a "moron" the first poster was, mixed with a bunch of sock puppets defending him (don't know whether they were his or not, actually). You make the point in a much better way. I tried to fix it, but that looks impossible.
Oh my GAWD were posts deleted!!! Here's what happened, and I admit to not having seen more than 2 of the original pages: The Reputable Thomas Flannigan started a post in which he "paraphrased" a WSJ article. I put paraphrase in quotes b/c it was obvious that Flan (I like to call him that one name word a la Brazilian... 'cuz his ign'ance is just legendary)... ...Flan wanted to push his agenda: namely that MLS is literally about to fold any day now. So he twisted and turned the points to fit what he wanted to say. And he got reamed. Like... f'ugly reamed. But our very own Quixote fought back!! He managed to get in a couple of references to his other pet topics, I'd imagine. I admit to being lax on my Flan history. The one topic I did catch was immigration and how the fall of civilization is going to happen, and it's all starting w/ MLS. Sigh. It was a vintage Flan thread. Those of us who witnessed it have essentially been to BS Mecca. There are rumors that ppl become mods just to get a glimpse of all the binned Flan posts and threads. So much material. So little time. I believe this is my third Flan Thread Sighting: that's when Flan has his semi-permanent yellow or red card lifted, he starts a doozy of a thread, and then it gets binned and he gets carded. And I might add... BS is lesser b/c of it. I honestly thought I'd never live to see another one. But I have. And I am proud. Maybe someday YOU can get a glimpse of Flan in all his glory. Make sure to mention the USWNT, Freddy Adu and immigration. Good times!!
Yes, San Jose fans know all about that, thank you. Hard to fight perception. (Of course, on this board Garber is praised at least twice: when a team leaves a city and when a team doesn't leave a city. The Real Salt Lake situation was a terrific moment for Garber, who did nothing either way. )