Re: MLS beginning to mimic NASL with talent imbalance, rapid expansion Continued expansion beyond 20 teams? Bad idea, and the most obvious stumbling block to ensuring a healthy league. Talent imbalance? 3 stars don't make a team, and it will be interesting to see how many teams go for 3 DP's for a full season as opposed to bringing one or two in the summer transfer window.
Re: MLS beginning to mimic NASL with talent imbalance, rapid expansion Maybe Denver should kick things off with a Caribou tribute:
Re: MLS beginning to mimic NASL with talent imbalance, rapid expansion article is fine. It's press, end positively, points out some facts.
Re: MLS beginning to mimic NASL with talent imbalance, rapid expansion Actually, the difference in wages is much, much, greater now then back when the NASL was in operation, so, it was not as difficult to sign younger players. Certainly a lot of older famous players were signed, but, there were a great number of younger players that came over and played.
Re: MLS beginning to mimic NASL with talent imbalance, rapid expansion You can't mimic the NASL without an accordian. Seriously, in 15+ years MLS have folded two 2 and moved 1----which has subsequently been restored. That's like a good offseason for the NASL.
Re: MLS beginning to mimic NASL with talent imbalance, rapid expansion True. A young Bruce Grobbellar and Peter Beardsley both played for the Whitecaps back in the NASL. Pretty amazing considering how great they turned out to be in the old English First Division.
Re: MLS beginning to mimic NASL with talent imbalance, rapid expansion The NASL didn't have the internet. The internet is huuuuuuuge in the growth of the game in this country. Whether your tv has the game on or not, you can still see the game. Whether the newspapers report much on it or not, you can get all the stats to your hearts' content. Whether sports radio wants to talk about it or not, you have message boards whenever you want them.
Re: MLS beginning to mimic NASL with talent imbalance, rapid expansion The whole article was a giant collection of paragraphs that led me to yell "WTF?!?!" at my computer, but this one took the cake. To wit, if the 2030 MLS Cup is drawing comparisons to the English Premier League, it will mean there is no 2030 MLS Cup. But forget that for a moment - haven't I been reading all summer how Manchester United is worth 1.8 kagajillion dollars? Seems that perhaps from a bottom line perspective, having a few teams separate themselves because of world class talent wouldn't be so bad. Granted, those teams in England have 100 years of history, so maybe MLS should still keep things like the salary cap going for another 20-30 years. But he ends this steaming pile of writing excrement by comparing the E PEE FREAKING ELL to the demise of the Miami Fusion? Please understand, I hate Eurosnobbery in all it's forms, regularly watch MLS games over EPL games, the whole bit. But MLS could only dream that the failure of the Fusion was on par with anything going on in European soccer.
Re: MLS beginning to mimic NASL with talent imbalance, rapid expansion Very good points. And it's only a matter of time before US soccer bloggers discover BlogTalk Radio and make use of it to do live call in shows thus making sports talk radio as relevant as the newspaper.
Re: MLS beginning to mimic NASL with talent imbalance, rapid expansion I'll just take this opportunity to mention that we already have a live call-in show pretty much dedicated to MLS and US Soccer over on chataboutit.com that airs every Thursday night at 9pm EST, 6PM PST. Just go to the site and scroll down to our section to pull up the podcast, but you can also listen live and call in at 877-242-8212. We would eventually like to do it live every day, but need the listeners to justify it. Jussayin'. Sorry, shameless plug I know, but it did come up. Meanwhile, this Tobias guy really hasn't done himself any favors with his first article for SI.
Re: MLS beginning to mimic NASL with talent imbalance, rapid expansion So... not very relevant? Sorry couldn't resist . Agree, great post.
Re: MLS beginning to mimic NASL with talent imbalance, rapid expansion A US national team that wasn't a joke. Or the global soccer economy.
Re: MLS beginning to mimic NASL with talent imbalance, rapid expansion Probably, but because of the MLS Cup system it will never be as bad as Europe. More like the domestic cup, where your Bayern Munichs will always do well but never win the thing more than a couple of years in a row.
Re: MLS beginning to mimic NASL with talent imbalance, rapid expansion Typical histrionics from some of the bigsoccer sheep on here. You have to ask if some people on here actually read it. I thought the article was perfectly reasonable, but with a headline that screamed something else. This is perfectly normal, as you'll find that sub-editors write their own headlines for articles written by others. All he's pointing out is that there are now haves and have nots - illustrated by the two biggest markets owning the best facilities and having the most expensive rosters, playing in front of a sellout crowd instead of the 8,500 rattling around in San Jose. Sure he hasn't done a good job of explaining why the poorer performing markets are like they are, but that's not the point of the article. He's simply highlighting the haves and have nots in what is supposedly a parity-driven league. I think that's fair enough. He's even ended it by suggesting the league is not going anywhere soon, so it's not doom mongering IMO. In a nutshell, I'd say ignore the headline and read the article for what it is.
Re: MLS beginning to mimic NASL with talent imbalance, rapid expansion I'll take the bet that MLS lasts longer than Sports Illustrated the magazine. Really, who subscribes to that or buys issues of that magazine other than Doctor's offices and teenage boys once a year?
Re: MLS beginning to mimic NASL with talent imbalance, rapid expansion Yeah, because it's totally impossible that there could possibly be thousands upon thousands of baseball, football, basketball, and hockey fans in the US and Canada that would enjoy SI's coverage of their sports.
Re: MLS beginning to mimic NASL with talent imbalance, rapid expansion Someone should notify MLB. Apparently the Yankees being so much better than the Royals is a signal of the league's imminent demise.
Re: MLS beginning to mimic NASL with talent imbalance, rapid expansion MLB has the oldest fanbase of any sports league in the US. Baseball is not drawing in young fans. Yeah, there is a large number of existing fans of the sport, but baseball peaked in popularity some time ago. Part of that is because a lot of teams like the Royals don't have any real chance when competing against the big money teams. It's tough to draw in new fans for a team that is essentially out of the playoff race as of opening day. Contrast that to the success of the NFL, where every team is competitive due to the salary cap and revenue sharing. I think MLS should follow the NFL model in terms of ensuring parity in talent as well as revenue sharing.
Re: MLS beginning to mimic NASL with talent imbalance, rapid expansion That would be news to MLB. My point is there are a lot of studies that show interest goes up when a league has a select number of dominant teams and actually declines with parity. Pointing out the talent imbalance between New York and Kansas City is, in my opinion, a poor argument for ringing the NASL alarm bells.
Re: MLS beginning to mimic NASL with talent imbalance, rapid expansion Did it? More people watch baseball everyday now then ever and it's not even close. I have a hard time believing since 1990 Baseball has gained over 6 billion dollars in revenue due to inflation and rising cost so the product alone. so they lost fans..and squeezed and exponential amount of money out of the ones staying? Yes baseball may not have as many young fans as other sports..but baseball picks up fans in there 20s and 30s..multiple studies show this. The Royals are getting 75-90K fans per game on local tv....higher then a lot of NHL teams in the USA and every MLS team.. I am not trying to start a fight..please don't take it that way. It's just that the perception of things can often be wrong...
Re: MLS beginning to mimic NASL with talent imbalance, rapid expansion If 23 million adults watched MLS every week...it would be a billion dollar powerhouse..... as far as your point..given the upslope of soccer here..as long as MLS can stay financially sound..they should be able to last for quite a while. probably at least another 50 years...as long as nothing major happens..like nuclear war
Re: MLS beginning to mimic NASL with talent imbalance, rapid expansion Really? "In the NASL's heyday, small towns like Tulsa languished while the Cosmos reached iconic status. The danger is that MLS, too, could become a league dominated by big-market, marquee-player teams." What an idiot. Tulsa was a .500 team on a small payroll. There was room for both small and large market teams.... problem was large market teams playing in huge MLB and NFL stadiums drawing 5k to 10k per game.... lookup the Atlanta Chiefs, Houston Hurricane, Philadelphia Fury and Colorado Rapids attendance figures sometime......... geez.
Re: MLS beginning to mimic NASL with talent imbalance, rapid expansion Have you seen attendance numbers in places like KC and Pittsburgh? The league may not be in trouble, but those franchises sure don't look healthy.
Re: MLS beginning to mimic NASL with talent imbalance, rapid expansion I am not arguing for the imbalance of MLB. The MLS structure should prevent it. I am simply making a point that thriving NY and LA franchises does not mean NASL is back.
Re: MLS beginning to mimic NASL with talent imbalance, rapid expansion Except that the 8,500 in SJ is like 80% of capacity. The low attendance in KC? Our attendance numbers in KC are within 95% of capacity for the venue. But let not facts get in the way of his argument. Where's Paul Harvey to tell ... "the rest of the story"?