well i know here in dc, we are very appreciative of the strong support we get from the Latino community. the more the better. especially was helpful that dc played in the champions cup and now has been invited to play in the copa sudamericana. the more mls teams get involved in tournaments like these, the more young players, and the international stars (coming full circle to the start of the thread), all are good for the league's popularity and prestige. it should be a good year.
yeah, but you guys in DC are lucky to have some of the best support numbers-wise of any team in the country. I mean considering the population and demographics of the los angeles metropolitan area, our mls games should be sold out every weekend. but neither team has been effective in marketing to the mexican fan base
thats unfortunate, i would have thought chivas was doing better with that fanbase...i hear the fire does a decent job too. even pre-blanco.
My local team tried it- 'The highlight of the year was undoubtedly the signing of NBA legend Dennis Rodman for three games. Rodman had recently appeared in the Celebrity Big Brother TV show in the UK, and his appearances for the Bears drew packed houses and arguably the largest media presence ever seen at a British basketball game. Rodman's appearances were certainly welcomed by the Bears fans, but they also caused controversy when it transpired that the Bears had broken player eligibility rules by playing Rodman alongside the three permitted work-permit players.' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brighton_Bears 'In the summer of 2006 the Bears announced that they would be taking a year off from the BBL "in the interests of the long term viability of the franchise". Owner Nick Nurse was reported to be looking into options for moving the Bears into an NBA Development League or the proposed rival British Basketball Association (BBA), but neither option came to fruition. Nurse moved back to the States, and with no fellow Directors to take over the reigns the once glorious Bears were no more. ' Didn't work out tho.. We get a little MLS coverage in the UK(on free terrestrial channels), and I'm as happy to watch that as footy from any country or league going. The guy who started the thread sounds like some old girl who wont watch a soap opera cos she doesnt know the characters. HINT- You never will unless you start watching. I think someone who follows foreign teams, but not the MLS is glory hunting. Ignoring (as you pretend) the MLS just proves your not really that into the sport.
theyre doing good by mls standards.. but chivas usa has the potential to be a behemoth as far as local fan base. i think eventually they will get it together though
I'm a mexican american and I can tell you from experience that not 1 cares about the Chicago Fire. I have played in many teams and know 100's of players and none have ever been to a MLS game except when the Fire play a Mexican league team. Belive me if their is a mexican league or any european league match and at the same time their showing a mls game 10 out of 10 will watch the international game then the mls game. The US does not care about MLS and it will never come close to american sports and that is a fact. How many people watch the finals of any american sports Super Bowl, World Series, NBA Finals. Who actually cared about the MLS final I don't even know who played it. The Super Cup is coming up in June and you will see that the 4 Mexican league teams will whoop the 4 MLS teams and when the MLS teams play each other the stadiums will be full and where ever America & Chivas play will be full. I don't know 1 Hispanic or European person that will prefer MLS over their league.
I THINK THE ANSWER IS SO EASY! America wants and needs to improve their soccer. The big names are to get people that aren't into MLS into the MLS. Why so much fussing about Beckham being overrated and such...we all know why they are bringing these big names over...to improve American soccer.
MLS is already stronger than some European leagues....Im from Croatia (pretty good soccer playing nation for its size) and MLS is already higher quality than the Croatian league (the same can be said for a handful of other European leauges.)
Whether you like or not MLS is YOUR league! You are the most pathetic type of football fan! In fact you are not a football fan at all, you are a consumer and you are part of a revenue stream of people who disregard their own countries league because it's not the best in the world. A football fan follows his local team in the bad times as well as the good and screams his head off in rain, hail or shine in the hope of seeing his team reach the next level! You actually have the nerve to believe that you are superior to MLS fans because you prefer to watch games on tv rather than experience the buzz of live football. You a strange one. Support your local team, Support your local team, For we all do, and so should you, Support your local team. (We chant that at home games for my team)
WELL SAID! Let's be honest...the MLS really isnt all that bad. Its pretty exciting to me. Is it different? Yes, but the talent is pretty good. Plus soccer in HD is great!
sorry but thats complete b.s. lots of us aren't new johnny come lately soccer fans, and have had extreme loyalty to teams way before mls even existed. i've been a chivas fan since i was 5, i have pictures of myself as a toddler with a chivas jersey on. mls just started in 1996, and until recently, had a pretty low level of play compared to other more established leagues in north and central america. why should we automatically devote our loyalty to a team and league that sucks just because they decide to set up shop in our area? When i lived in san jose and used to go the clash games in 1996, 97, 98 to see missael espinoza play, almost without fail i was dissapointed to see a level of play that looked almost amateur. why should i spend i money and time watching that when i already have a real team ive loved for years? mls is slowly but surely catching up to the other leagues in the region, and for that reason fans like me are giving the league a second chance.. for you to call someone the worst kind of soccer fan there is and simply a consumer because they dont want to waste their time on football that isnt quality is ridiculous. a fake soccer fan or consumer would be the one to devote their loyalty to a brand new team simply because they are local without caring if theyre even any good
In what capacity are you a chivas Guadalajara (sorry for spelling) fan? Are you a seaso ticket holder? Or do you just shout at a tv screen? Whether you like it or not you are from LA therefore YOUR team is an LA team. If your team is crap, thats tough luck, they are your team! Your last sentence is nothing but pure garbage. You think that the people who support a league that is being criticised from all angles, yet continue to fight for that leagues existence are not real football fans! They are the most pure football fans of them all . The ten thousand fans who brave Giants Stadium and Arrowhead or Paetec Park every week out of pure devotion for their team epitomise the true spirit of football. Trust me your support would be much more appreciatted if you went to live Chivas USA games and chanted for them rather than kissing your chivas GD jersy while sitting on your armchair or barstool.
in what capacity am i a chivas fan? in the capacity that i dont miss a single game if i can help it, that i live, breathe, bleed, and die for the team, and i have for as long as i can remember. if i could afford the travel, you can guarantee i would be a season ticket holder. true, now that chivas has an l.a. team ive taken to the chivas l.a. team as well. but theres no way ever i could erase so many years of intense loyalty for my true team just because a team sets up shop in my hometown. and garbage? personally i think anyone who would give up on their favorite soccer team just because a team opened up shop in their hometown is not a true fan. especially since the galaxy never did anything to earn that loyalty from me, and even less because some guy on the internet from britain thinks i should unconditionally support the galaxy or chivas usa. youre right about one thing, you should support your team through ups and downs rain or shine, and i do, very intensely, even though i rarely have the pleasure of seeing them live.. and to me thats what a true fan is
Well we have both given our opinions so there is no point in going around in circles. But I am NOT from Britain and no part of Ireland is in Britain. I feel that I can give my opinion on this because of the striking similarities with Irish people who give their loyalty to EPL and SPL teams rather than Irish teams. To be honest with you glory hunters are just customers yet they think they are superior to people who support so called weaker teams. I also dont think that 11 season consitutes a brand new team.
both of you have valid points. support the team you like best. also support your local league. support the development and growth of the beautiful game anywhere on the planet. I go to any live game I can, before MLS I was going to college matches. I am a DC fan but I will watch every Red Bull game that comes on TV. I also watch GolTV, ESPN2, FSC, telefutura (even though I speak no spanish) to watch MLS, European Leagues, South American leagues. And I tune in to the Nigerian station that is broadcast in the dc area to watch african league matches in horrendous quality tv. I have DVR so the beauty is I never have to choose. The thread starter keeps saying "if you had to choose", the beauty is there is so much of this amazing sport going on around all over the world that there is no such thing as too much of it. I am a fan of SOCCER. I will watch it live, I will watch a packed champions league final, I will watch my MLS team's rival play to a 0-0 draw in front of 7000 fans, I will watch the W-league when it comes back, and probably folds a few years later, and as I flip through my channels, I will stop anytime I see someone kicking a ball, even if it is the movie "Kicking and Screaming". End.
for you [youtube]7vzqGB4WLkY[/youtube] __________________________________ Man, you are so right I mean can you imagine the embarrassment for MLS if they had sent a ref to Germany last summer and they did something like show a player a yellow card THREE times before showing them the red card?? By the way didn't the American Brian Hall work the world cup 2002? and as far as the 2 steps forward then two steps backward remark well at least they are no waorse then they were when the league started you mean there are leagues in the world with at least one great player on every single team WOW can you believe that there are people in this country that don't even realize that the league needs saving much less that Beckham isn't going to do it BTW have you looked at the La Liga table lately? Real Madird sitting all high and mighty at the top of the table there I mean no wonder they want to get rid of an old has been like Beckham before he drags them into relegation!
Provincialism People, people, people let me interject some facts here. We have a Mexican-American fan bashing the MLS but can anyone remember the last time the Mexican national team beat the USA national team? Moreover, I have seen many, many Mexican-American fans at the Fire games I have been to. The last one had a youth soccer club which seemed to be primarily Hispanic. Remember, the Fire have several players from latin America. Then, we have another guy bashing our refs and comparing them to German refs. Are we talking about the same German refs which are involved in the game fixing scandal in Germany which has rocked the Bundesliga? You have another guy talking about at least one great player per team in Europe totally ignoring the fact that the named GREAT player probably does not originate from the teams host country and they are there for the exact same reason the MLS is bringing Beckham to the Galaxy which is to put some fan's butts in the seats. They also seem to ignore the HUGE racism problem in European soccer which is being addressed by FIFA as we speak. Fact, if you think soccer elsewhere has some corner on class or professionalism you are grossly mistaken. Sport anywhere has its problems and growth periods. To ignore that is kind of ignorant of how the world and professional sports operates. Enough said...
- Real Madrid were willing to negotiate a new contract (but wanted to keep his image rights, something MLS were willing to cede to Beckham) - AC Milan wanted him probably right about the top 4 in England, but if you've watched him play recently, he's at the top of his game. Nearly any club in Europe outside the top 3-4 in England and Spain would take him in a heartbeat, the guy's crossing during Sunday's game was celestial.
Re: Provincialism I hope you were not making reference to my post! I wasn't talking about German ref's that was a reference to Poll an English ref and none of it was meant to be negative towards MLS.
Re: Provincialism i dont know if you were referring to me as the "mexican american bashing the mls" but i am actually an mls fan, and i said mls is slowly catching up to the level of play of the older mexican and central american leagues. all im saying is mls could be marketed better, and it would be a whole lot bigger among mexican american fans like myself... and although the u.s national teams performance against mexico recently has been really impressive, and definitely shown their team has closed the gap, to think that the results of games that were mainly friendlies and meaningless world cup qualifiers has some analytical value on any of the issues we are discussing in this thread is mistaken.
Many of the last few posts have been right on the money. I'm a stickler and I for semantics and I work as a statistics nerd but it just kills me when people use such absolute or exagerrated language: "NOT one european/Hispanic soccer fan cares about MLS", "U.S. are the ONLY ones who care about MLS" , "Only 10% of american soccer fans like MLS", "There are NO" great players, etc etc. When we assess MLS, we should all try to be objective and realistic... bottom line, MLS has come a LONG way, and it still has a long way to go. If ever there were a year for MLS to make major strides, on and off the pitch this is it. The folks at MLS are doing what they feel will improve the quality of play and bring respect and popularity to the league, even if some of the moves are questionable. THAT, original thread-starter, is why MLS is bringing the international stars, is doing jersey sponsorships, has created a playoff format that is a good balance between single table and your typical American sports, is diversifying its ownership, is creating stadia, is landing television deals in both English and Spanish, is marketing across the world, partnering with foreign leagues, has started the SuperLiga, Sueno MLS, etc. etc. These moves may or may not pay off, but they are all part of the push to improve the overall status of the league, and no one can accuse the league of not trying, at least not this year. International stars are only a part of the picture.
Re: Provincialism Seeing as how the Mexican national team walked off of the field without shaking hands you are mistaken if you think they weren't actually trying to win. International friendlies are pertinent when comparing the relevant strength and weaknesses of a team. The point is that to say Mexican soccer is worlds above that in the USA is simply wrong. To say that USA soccer is dead is simply wrong. To say that other country's professional leagues are staffed with their country's players is wrong (for example Real Madrid is mostly staffed with foreign nationals). To criticise the Galaxy for signing Beckham and then praise another country which does the exact same thing is either ridiculous or naive, probably both in this case. I was around during the NASL and the MSL is far and away more advanced than it ever was. Personally, as a business person I think the MSL is on the right track and is more than likely here to stay. If I had the money I wouldn't hesitate to invest in an MSL team. Most of the criticism on this board is blind nationalism rather than any real factual criticism....