I don't know what to tell you. I enjoy it and I've supported Man United my whole life, so it's not like I'm not used to seeing quality football. I liked the idea of getting on board with such a young league and new team, then I just developed a passion for it. I tried watching as a teenager in 1996 when I was still in England with no connection to the league and at the point I'll agree it was awful. I watched it two weeks running and that was enough. I've seen noticable improvement from 2006, let alone '96. Which teams have you watched? Because if you saw Chivas USA, that's less football and more a very slow aneurysm.
Penalty shootouts for regular season games. Regular season 7 months long to eliminate 2 teams. NFL chalk lines. Crowds of 5000 in 80,000 seat stadiums. Very few games on TV. Etc. etc. Its much more than a quality issue. Maybe its better now, but I am permenantly scarred. Its too late. It didn't help that there was never a team in New York so there is no "backyard" team either.
Almost everything in your first paragraph doesn't exist anymore and hasn't for quite some time. The only thing that does is playoffs and the NFL stadium thing which only exists for about two teams, has actively been moved away from and was hardly a valid reason to not watch anyway. I'll give you a pass on the NY thing as locals tell me that Jersey isn't very easy to reach. Also, how is the MLS format any stranger than the South American split season? All formats have merit.
The current MLS format is not any stranger. But until the past 5 years or so almost every team made the playoffs in MLS, which is by far dumber/stranger than, say, the Argentina split-season format. At least in a split season the majority of games still matter. And that's the ultimate litmus test for any format. Like I said, its too late for me. Maybe if I was younger.... but I'm not at the age where I get into new leagues and/or feel emotional attachment to new teams.
It's only 20 years old, isn't it? Probably still more advanced with better facilities though than Manchester United, Real Madrid, Juventus hundreds of other European clubs were in early part of the 1900s.
mass spectator sport was still a novel concept in 1900 though. The 1st division only averaged about 6000. As late as 1903, Manchester United's average crowd was just 4500, although they were still playing in their old ground, located where the Manchester Velodrome car park is now, back then.
But that's kind of irrelevant, innit? The New York Cosmos are the only North American team I could possibly support. I'm certainly not going to support teams that are trying to kill them. The feuding between Red Bulls, NYC FC, the Cosmos and MLS is a nice example why you absolutely need to have pro/relegation. Without it there isn't really a proper sports league.
Man United were a second division team on the verge of bankruptcy in 1902. At the start of that year they were stillNewton Heath. MLS has still progressed more in under two decades than most have in any 20 year period. Let's please not debate pro/rel. It's been covered ad nauseum and if anything, the existence of divisions combined with increased exposure and revenue enjoyed as top clubs become prominent mainstays has actually played a long-term part in what has been discussed in this thread. English football is a prime example and France, where relegated historic clubs are struggling to survive is an even better one. Pro/rel was introduced based on an appropriate set of circumstances that don't exist in US soccer today.
The point is it's much harder to set up sports as major attraction in a culture that doesn't attend sports in large numbers. In an era when 10,000 crowds were seen as huge, struggling to draw crowds of 10,000 was not a sign of failure. The first 20 years of the football league saw crowds rise from an average of 4,639 to 16,809. It took MLB, in comparison, 50 years to make such a rise. MLS' strength, in many ways, has been a strong starting position, coupled with the acquisition of better franchises over time. The progress of the remaining original 10 clubs, on the other hand, hasn't been that spectacular. The best thing has been the building of better stadiums, but those were mainly built through financing options that just weren't available 100 years ago. It's hardly a reasonable comparison. rising and falling of clubs' fortunes is a perfectly normal part of the pro/rel world, and this hasn't changed at all. You can point to Leeds, Sheffield Wednesday etc having dark times currently, but it's hardly a recent phenomenon. The American viewpoint (if not necessarily yours) is to pretty much pigeonhole clubs into minor/major league placings, and any time a "major" club isn't in the top division is seen as some alarming failing of the system, with pro/rel having crippled the clubs beyond repair. that is certainly true. It solves the problem of too many viable clubs to fit into a single division. The American closed system was invented, originally for baseball, to solve the opposite problem, of a single division lacking enough viable clubs to fill the spaces.
Isn't the UEFA Champions League, and to a lesser extent the Europa, the SuperLeague being hypothesized here? Not one, but 2 pan-Euro leagues of the best teams.
Thanks for the response. I think trying to head off 'threats' from Brazil, US, or China by going beyond the limited 'league' tourneys that exist now is probably a bit premature.
So we all agree this is a good idea right? https://www.facebook.com/pages/European-Super-League-Petition/194755274030849
The CL was created by UEFA as a means to prevent a breakaway European super league. Unfortunately restricted CL access has killed both competition in the biggest leagues and the CL TV revenue pool has killed the competitiveness of representatives from smaller leagues in Europe. The cure might have been worse than the disease. A way to create a super league is to break open to the big leagues for foreign participants through a legal challenge based on EU rules. In essence to seek a Bosman ruling for clubs. UEFA is heavily opposed as it would undermine the entire national league system .
The Swedish league is shite so luckily nobody would want a swedish team to join a "Super League". If this became reality I would stop watching international football in a split second, I already think the EPL is getting to plastic. But as I said, I can always enjoy a good game of local football
First time looking at this thread. First of all in Europe if you live near a club team everyone in the area supports that team. The team usually the has a sponser a small business. Usually it is a restaurant or a local bar. The players would spend time in the bar. The fans went to that bar. In some ways that is the same as club teams here in NYC started. There is a Norwegian club in Brooklyn called Sporting club Gjoa SC. It is a neighborhood bar that started an adult soccer team apx 100 years ago believe it or not. you had the bar and down stairs the players club house. I knew about the MLS long before it started. There was a push here in NYC to get NY club players in the MLS for the ny/NJ club named the Metrostars. They tried to get Italian players from Europe like Donadoni and an italian back forget his name cariculer something like that, and players from NYC to play on it like Gio Saverese. Also other NyC and Jersey players and Spanish players so people here will follow them. They did that and NY and jersey fan did follow the team. Representatives of the Metrostars hired people from the local clubs to work for them. Most likely they would have hired a coach from here, but then decided to go with Eddie Firmani the old coach of the Cosmos instead. Which in retrospect was a mistake. You had to have an interest in the players to watch. You did not so you stopped watching. Frankly when the RedBulls replaced the Metrostars I kind of lost interest.
Not true at all (sadly). Sure, the local team (depending on the level they play at) will have more support than any other club usually, but across Europe there are loads of teams with country-wide support. Sponsorship (beyond adverts round the pitch etc) only really took off about 30 years ago, and no pro clubs were sponsored by local bars. I wouldn't say it never happens, but I can't think of any club with strong ties to a certain bar, nor have players and fans really socialised together for an incredibly long time.
Ceverin, the UEFA president, has announced to develop measures in lthe light of recent developments. In Europe clubs are being taken over by countries disguised as investor companies. See ManCity and PSG. This could have serious implications for the health of the sport. You're not anymore talking about billionaires with a status toy competing for the titles, but against countries with billions spitting out of their wells. Even clubs like Real Madrid, Barcelona and Manchester United are under threat of being pushed to the back ground. What if a country like China or India for prestigious reasons do the same? In the end we could see a global soccer league run by gouvernments outside FIFA/UEFA with pockets so deep it takes the breath of normal clubs. It's impossible to compete with autoritarian countries with unlimited resources in comparison to clubs depending on revenues. What could UEFA or FIFA do?