As the league grows I find myself less interested

For $4.99 a month you can watch every match that's not being broadcast on FS or Uni, or subject to black out.

In addition you get almost every USL match, 180 MLB games, 180 NHL games, motor racing, track and field, college sports etc plus full replays of the above.

ESPN+

 

Chicken and egg syndrome.

People in other countries are happy watching inferior leagues. The Championship averaged 20,496 last season and Bundesliga 2 17,696. Eredivisie pulls in around 19,000 despite the majority of their national team playing abroad. Belgium has impressive attendances for a country of it's size and even the majority of French national team players play in other European Leagues.

Point is, there's no reason to not watch MLS just because it's a lower level than the dozen or so European teams that europhiles actually care about.

PersonalIy I choose to follow a League Two side in England because I have a strong connection with the city.

 

The problem is not the level of play so much as the excitement level. Most MLS games are a bore fest for 90% or more of the game time. It often seems that the players are so afraid of making a mistake that the only direction they can pass is backwards.

The entertainment value for many of the MLS games is so low that it does not register on any known scale.

I watch the MLS because it is accessible to me and sometimes there are enough periods of interesting play that it makes up for the long periods of nothing happening. It is not really the lack of scoring either. Most 0-0 English Championship matches have more exciting periods than 3-2 MLS games.

The MLS needs to do something to increase the speed of play and reduce the negative play. I do not know what that something could be but, maybe, getting rid of coaches and players that are too afraid of losing to take any chances would be a start.

 

That's funny, because my impression is the exact opposite. MLS seems more fun to watch on quality and style of play than it did in the 90s. There's too much negative soccer in Europe outside of the superclubs, and MLS players seem more willing to take risks than mid-table or lower-table European players. I like good ball movement by a whole team more than I like "give the ball to Valderrama and get out of the way" -- and the world game as a whole has moved away from individual playmakers as defensive tactics have evolved and because of the way tiki-taka and gegenpress teams create chances by committee.

FWIW, in 1996 you wouldn't have seen a team string together 20+ passes leading to a goal with 10 or 11 players touching the ball; LA Galaxy, Sporting KC, and Portland have all done that at least once in the last four years.

The speed of play is not going to get much faster because of climate. It just can't when half of the season is played in weather conditions that Europeans would consider extreme heat.

To me, the main thing that's been lost is familiarity. Gone are the days when I could recognize every team's key players at sight, along with every single player on the Galaxy roster. It's different when even MLS Best XI players are sometimes hard to recognize before they turn their backs to the camera and the numbers on their shirts become visible. There are just too many players now, and I don't see any player often enough. In the early days I could root for individual favorite players as a neutral or be familiar with rivalry storylines throughout the league; now it's much harder to do those things.

 

Can fans in Europe recognize all the top players in their league? MLS now has more clubs than all the European leagues I know of other than the lower ones in England, but 23 isn't that much more than 20. Furthermore, the NFL is so popular, and they have so many positions and players along with having more teams than any other league. You may like being able to recognize the top players, but is that important to most fans? If MLS had 10 or 12 clubs, it would get less revenue from outside the biggest cities, and wouldn't that mean lower salaries and fewer DPs to get more people talking about MLS? If you gave Toronto and the biggest 11 American TV markets one club each, two of the last three MLS Cup winners, Seattle and Portland, wouldn't have a club. In terms of how many players per team play in an average game, soccer has much less than the NFL, less than the NHL, about the same as MLB depending on how many bench position players and relievers are used, and more than the NBA.

 

I'm a newer soccer fan but I like where the league seems to be headed. I subscribed to ESPN+ primarily for the MLS coverage. While I'm not drawn to watching every matchup (like I am with the EPL) I do find myself wanting to watch games that involve the LA teams, Atlanta, and Orlando even if my hometown Dynamo aren't involved. I think that's good for the league considering I couldn't watch an entire match that didn't involve the USMNT say 5 years ago.

 

Most of those 20+ passes you mention are, in most games, 15 negative or neutral passes with 10 or less that have actual effect on the attack. But at least the current crop of MLS players are able to usually string a bunch of passes together when under no pressure. That could not and did not happen even 5 years ago.

Speed of play has nothing to do with running and is not impacted by heat. It is the speed at which decisions are made and the quality of those decisions. A team, like many in Mexico, can pass the ball around very quickly probing defenses and moving possession up the field in 10-20 yard segments with few meaningless negative passes in VERY oppressive heat. I guess speed of play could be equated to crispness and that is lacking in the MLS. It does happen from time to time but too much of the time in the MLS passes are just passes with no real intent. That is there is a LOT of possession for the sake of possession only.

I agree about familiarity being lost. But so is identity.

While "team" is important so is individuality. It is said "There is no "I" in team" and that is true but I would also say "There is an "I" in win." To many MLS teams have no one or two or even three players willing to take personal responsibility of the play and assert themselves to control the match.

One thing I REALLY think would improve the play in the US and world wide would be if the referees actually called the matches as the laws are written. Currently the matches are brought to a creative halt because players are fouled and the fouls are ignored by the refs. Yellow cards have become nearly meaningless as refs are reluctant to give a second for the same kind of offense.

I think that refs show cowardice by failing to give that second yellow and by not calling the fouls in the box. Their excuse is "I don't want to impact the game" but that excuse is simply that, an excuse, because by not having the fortitude to make the correct calls the impact the matches just as much or more, sometimes much more.

For those that say that calling all fouls and issuing more cards will result in teams playing men down or even with men missing I believe that players of any real quality will stop fouling quite quickly or coaches will stop using the thugs.

One more thing on top of that simulation by players needs to be punished more often and more severely. Anywhere on the field simulation should be a yellow card and, in the box, it should be a straight red. If discovered after the fact on review by the league a one game suspension should be automatic.

 

I’m going to agree and disagree....

One, I think age is the biggest culprit. I was a kid when the league launched and for almost who followed the league back then, probably were kids too. Sports are always more magical when you’re a kid.

Which, to that point, I’m thrilled Atlanta finally has a team. But they didn’t get a team until my 30’s when frankly, I still enjoy it but I didn’t grow up with Atlanta in MLS either.

Thus, I’m going to disagree that expansion has hurt support. Honestly, we need to try and reach 32-40 teams if we can to really reach the peak of MLS. That includes expanding to places like Charlotte/Raleigh, Sacramento, Austin (not as the crew), San Antonio, Indianapolis, Detroit, Saint Louis, and Phoenix. Nothing is worse than growing up without a team to support.

That said, we do need to invest more in academies and offer more initiatives for teams to play HGP. It’s good to be attractive to talented foreign players, but when you see a MLS team like Colorado fielding 10 foreign players who are roughly equivalent to USL talent, it’s hard to blame them for not being excited about their team.

And, to be honest, too much parity is not a good thing. Parity needs to end where youth development begins. So, it needs to be evident on who are the ambitious clubs and who are not in order to push the bottom feeders to improve.

 

I'm the same way as the original poster. Followed the league since 96. I think part of it was it was just more interesting and there was just more at stake when you didn't know if the league would survive or not. I remember following every attendance number and league signing thinking the result of that stuff would determine if the league would be around next year or not. Now that the league is thriving obviously none of those things matter much anymore. Think thats part of it for me.

 

I'm not trying to be mean, but why did you enjoy worrying about if MLS would survive? Would you enjoy working while worrying if your company was going to go out of business?

 

"Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result."

Winston Churchill, The Story of the Malakand Field Force, London 1898.

 

Well said. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the "New' San Jose Earthquakes.

 

Opposite.

Compare to the Championship (the only other league I watch regularly) where there will be 20 passes between the back four before they hoof it forward hoping one of their players can get onto the end of it.