Fair enough but what's the scrape that the agency/marketer takes? It's not a majority.... Again, looking at what FMF gets relative to the total amount would be a very interesting benchmark. I wonder if this information has ever been shared publicly.
Love to see some numbers but I doubt I ever will. The college percentages are going to be different since the amounts are so much bigger; SUM has to do the same amount of work but for a smaller sale. The reality is that I have no idea if SUM is screwing over the USSF or is giving them an exceptionally fair deal given the risks and other opportunities. No one here does. But the conspiracy approach is blinding people to the issues that are actually at stake. Eric Wynalda just tweeted that the reason the USSF set up a friendly with Ireland was in order to get a former Irish youth national to sign with Colorado. We need people to be more serious about the USSF not less.
How much was the USSF getting for TV rights prior to SUM? IMO, I don't see how the men's or women's NT's could get more money on their own given the limited catalog of games. Plus most of those games are friendlies, and have no consequences. Not to mention the broadcast windows. We've all seen what a tremendous job USSF does marketing NT games and the USOC............
IMG used to have the SUM role from 99 to 04. IMG was supposed to continue to have the role until 06 but sold the contract to SUM because they were losing money. The irony is that US Soccer is probably the main reason SUM was formed. SUM was formed in 01 because at the time, no broadcaster was bidding for the US english rights to both the 02 and 06 World Cup. Anschutz, Kraft, and Hunt then paid 70 mil for english rights to both world cups and spent more money for the production costs. They got ABC to broadcast it. A year later they got Mexico as a client for their US games.
Speaking of leagues needing to develop players for their national teams, which S. American national teams select their players from the local leagues? How about Belgium, Netherlands, Croatia, Sweden, Iceland, Switzerland, Ireland, Wales, etc.? MLS should be primarily about developing a soccer culture, and good players would follow. There are many people that prefer college football and basketball to the NFL or NBA. That's because there's more representation than just 30 or so teams, even if the talent level isn't the same. The real indicator of how MLS is doing will be during the negotiations for the next TV deal after the current one expires in 2022. With MLS averaging 230k-270k in TV viewership over 63 televised games in 2017, (with cornhole and bowling tournaments doing better on ESPN), look for MLS to continue piggybacking off of the national team, which averaged 820k in 2017 and 965k in 2016. My guess is that without the USMNT games, an MLS TV deal would be worth $10-20M tops. So even if MLS and the US national teams negotiate deals together, between now and 2022, they will be negotiating for two Gold Cups, a CONCACAF Nations League, WCQ, USWNT games, MLS games, and knockout CCL games. No World Cup in 2018 to give the sport a bump or Copa America Centenario to look forward to. Yeah not looking good at all. And speaking of CCL (which is also failing), did anyone catch last night's Colorado-Toronto game tape delayed on Univision Deportes? Me neither. But I was one of a whopping 3,500 (only two 0's) who caught the highlights on the Youtube CONCACAF channel. My prediction is that right after the next TV deal, MLS will swiftly announce four expansion teams with a $200M expansion fee for each. But of course only in cities with billionaire owners and soccer-specific stadiums. And the charade will keep on going.
Is mls a failure at what? It's not a failure at getting gate receipts. It is a failure at getting a tv audience. It is a failure at getting a majority of American soccer fans to follow the league. Is it a failure at development? Yes, but the American way of developing soccer players is a failure. The word failure doesn't capture it, though. The word is ineffecient. MLS is currently 23 teams. 23 professional soccer academies is not enough on a macro level to develop talent. Top soccer countries have hundreds of clubs/academies working towards that goal. And even so only a few diamonds come out of that. It's wishful thinking to say that MLS academies just need more time to develop world class players. First of all , there's a handful of MLS teams that take their academy seriously. There's a handful that are the exact opposite and then there are the ones in the middle. For years MLS had strict rules about academy signings limiting the number of players they could sign. No other country does this for obvious reasons(removes incentives to develop). I'm not sure what rules exist now or if there are any limiting signings. Our lower divisions don't develop like the rest of the successful soccer world does. This also comes down to incentives. I won't get into the p/r debate so instead let's talk about transfer fees. Specifically transfer fees MLS pays to lower divisions clubs. Ehhhhh they don't actually. I'm certain you could find instances of it but it's rare. I looked over the last five years and couldn't find one instance where MLS teams paid a transfer fee for a player in the nasl or USL. This is unheard of elsewhere in the world. And there have been plenty of players in lower divs worthy of a transfer. Christian Ramirez comes to mind. Was lighting the nasl on fire with goals but no MLS bids for him. Nasl and USL owners have long complained about this. In many instances the transfer fees are minimal (50-100k) range. MLS not paying transfer fees harms the lower divs and removes their incentive to develop. So why doesn't MLS pay transfer fees to lower div Americsn clubs? I think it's some combination of collusion (not wanting to strengthen lower divs so they may at some point challenge for d1) and arcane complicated rules (discovery claims, allocation orders etc). Since there's no free agency MLS teams cannot get into competition for a player. This prevents said player from getting his market value in any potential transfer. Not only that MLS teams to my knowledge (again complicated rules) must pick players in order. The whole mess creates so many barriers to entry that don't exist in other countries. its not the 90s anymore but MLS is trying to operate in 2018 like it is.
You're going to be less popular than me on this one. Thanks. I agree with you though. And there are already, I believe, several US players playing in League One and the Championship. So to answer your question yes there probably are some. But a I'm not proficient in knowing the skill level of all the US born players in the MLS so I'm hard pressed to answer you.
It's also a failure at playing style. it is painful, to me, to watch most matches still and my favorite team plays in the Championship so that is saying a lot.
Yes, failure. I feel like I’ve been watching the same level of play now for the last 10 years. Once teams get good, MLS expands and continues to add foreign roster spots that water down the talent yet again. Let’s not forget the amount of green card players that qualify each year to open up another foreign roster spot or DP. TV has failed to grab hold and even as an original franchise and forward, I still find it hard to follow/watch any other team other than my own. I would say options in the stands has grown appropriately. Venues are far better, and supporter culture however on field product is still slower and less skilled than other options available to me. At 5 years they said wait’ll 10-15, at 10 they said to wait until 20. We’ll we’re here and the generation playing has always had a career path within their boarders that paid better than some college jobs and fresh out of college jobs. Meh... Our recent failure for the World Cup reflects this as well. Stop diluting level of play for cash grabs at the next city of X. I agree we are not producing as many top players that generating at least a courting audience of bigger transfer clubs.
The crucial point here is that: a) The USA is not in Europe, so unlike Croatia or Iceland, we can't just have our players taken in by strong Euro clubs or seen easily by their scouts; b) The USA is not South America or Western Africa, we don't have good players making 20K/year and willing to relocate for under 50K. So we're not on the same boat with the second or third tier UEFA countries, nor with the C-BOL or CAF or most AFC ones. We're on the same boat with Australia, Japan, Canada, the Emirates, Saudi Arabia and South Korea. We have no passports, plenty of money, and very little interest. Can't apply criteria from elsewhere here, because the situation is entirely different. PS: China is an interesting case --long before their latest craze over-paying for marquee players, Chinese soccer players have been making enviable salaries when compared to the regular people there. Another reason no one really cared to sign them or scout them --the salaries of their Chinese players were even higher than those in MLS for our decent American players: http://www.china.org.cn/english/2003/Dec/82979.htm Otherwise, most footballers in China earn more than 500,000 yuan (US$60,400) annually. [Dec. 2003; back then most footballers in MLS were making a fraction of that.] Another country in a funny situation is Russia, with also inflated salaries for their players, reason why very few of them play in other leagues and Russia had 23 guys from their Premier League in Brazil.
http://worldsoccertalk.com/2017/11/27/tv-ratings-us-mens-national-team-15-2017/ TV ratings for US Men’s National Team down 15% in 2017 In 2017, the average viewership for the men’s national team on English language broadcasts was 819,842 viewers per game, down 15% from 965,842 in 2016 (though it is up 12% compared to the average of 728,550 in 2015). https://www.usatoday.com/story/spor...-tv-ratings-lag-as-us-mulls-future/107770250/ But viewers averaged under 300,000 for nationally televised regular-season matches, fewer than the average for a New York Yankees game on their regional sports network. --- In short, we have in our best moments about 2m people watching the NT and 0.5m for the top MLS games. Those are miserable numbers once you consider college basketball at times tops 3m viewers, and the U.S. Figure Skating Championship gets well over 2m viewers: http://www.sportsmediawatch.com/2018/01/college-basketball-ratings-fcs-pga-figure-skating/ Compared to the countries we aspire to emulate, in the USA people just don't care about soccer.
It amazes me when people think that MLS will rival the Big 4 (not that I think it has to in order for us to field a competitive team). The math simply doesn't come anywhere close to working
On a per-game basis, a USMNT game is certainly more valuable than an MLS game, but MLS sells many, many more games each year. Not disagreeing that the ratings suck, just that the calculation of the value a TV package depends on more than per-game ratings.
I'll ignore the first part. But I do have a question. How long have you been a fan of soccer in the US? I know in one post you mentioned the 1980's. Were you a fan in that era or did you look on wikipedia to get the records and draw conclusions from that? Were you a fan pre MLS? This is an honest question. I don't mean anything by it. I would appreciate an answer but obviously you do not have to answer and I understand if you would rather not. As for the bolded: USL is planning on a D3 with the idea of installing pro/rel with the current USL (that should make a great number of people happy). One thing I noticed, however, is that the plan is to wait until the D3 is established to the point that it be effectively implemented. One of the things that many people seem to ignore about pro/rel (irrelevant to it's merits or faults) is that pro/rel (in my opinion) requires not one, but multiple established levels. Two levels would be the bare minimum but in addition to the two levels being established, there needs to be enough overlap so that it is workable. When I say overlap, I mean in every way: player quality, team quality, infrastructure etc. If the gaps between the two teams are too great moving between leagues will be extraordinarily difficult. Teams moving up in Europe have it hard enough with the top of the lower levels being close to or in some cases overlapping with the bottom levels of the upper divisions. In the US where the depth in the player pool is far lower, funding a lower division will be more difficult than it would be in Europe. That being said, if pro/rel has a chance to work it probably has a better chance (at least for now) at the D2 and D3 level because both of those levels require less infrastructure and are generally far less expensive than MLS. It is one thing for a team like LAFC to know they are going to be in MLS with a multi year timetable for preparation and quite another for a USL team to win the league and have a much shorter timetable to up their investment and infrastructure. If USL I and USL II continue to grow, pro/rel might become feasible from that standpoint for the top three leagues (MLS, USL I, USL II). I don't expect it to happen and unlike many people I don't think that pro/rel is the magic solution to our problems but it will be interesting to see what happens at the USL1 and USL 2 levels.
I think you're way overrating MLS's concerns about the minor leagues. The USL is run on the cheap and is not interesting in moving up. The NASL can't even keep themselves together as a league. Transfer fees would be hardly any money in any case. The mechanism to get a minor league player under contract would be to put them on their "discovery list". The first team to do this would get exclusive rights to negotiate with the player (yes, it's done to keep salaries down). It's complicated, but not actually that difficult and discovery lists are used all the time. I've watch a fair number of USL games over the last few years. The good players are basically MLS roster fodder. The Galaxy have four former-USL players on their roster. One makes about 100k and is in competition for a starting job, although I don't see him being there in the long run. The other 3 make in the 60-70k range and are unlikely to ever be starters in the league. The reality is that the country has more of this level talent than MLS can use so that you can pretty much always get someone on a free. I wouldn't have had any objections if we ended up pay a 40k transfer fee for one of those players, but in the scheme of things, selling a 40k player once a year isn't going to do much for a team's finances. Sure, every once in a while, a good player will end up in the minor leagues, but it's not common enough to worry about it.
In the latest Gallup fav sports poll soccer is #4 at 7%. Baseball is 9%. If you look at ages 18-35 Soccer is #2 at 13%. Google Gallup favorite sports poll. So soccer is a top 4 sport now in this country. MLS hasn't been accepted by the majority of soccer fans in this country. It's not a good measuring stick for the sport's popularity.
There have been several players over the years that were MLS quality and MLS teams did not bid for them. It's a bit odd isn't it? How do you explain no transfers in 5+ years? On the surface it looks like collusion.
As head of SUM, Don Garber made $26MM last year. That is only $4MM less than SUM paid USSF. The MLS owners and Garber, and Gulati is in there somewhere, are using SUM to divert large amounts of money to themselves that should be going to USSF to grow the game.