Hi, I live in Europe and i watched CNN just now. They showed pictures from the Major league soccer cup........It cant be both a league and a cup? Or is it like the European champions league where it is a group play first and then a cup. When i hear about us soccer in the us media, its always about soccer hasent breaked through in your country. So until now, i thought that very few people went to the arenas. But on the MLSnet.com page i read that many of your cupfinales were seen by 40- 60.000 people. That is accutally very good. As good as in Europe and far better than ice hockey and Basketball. So why is your media saying soccer cant compete with the four big sports in your country? David
#1 - Welcome to Big Soccer #2 - Thanx for taking an interesting in learning the truth about American soccer #3 - American soccer is run a bit differently than your typical Euro league. #4 - MLS (Major League Soccer) represents Divsion 1 (top flight) soccer in America #5 - The A-League represents Division 2 soccer. There is no promotion or relegation between the 2 divisions. #6 - MLS currently has 10 teams (12 next year). There is no single table in MLS The teams are seperated by geography. 5 teams play inthe Eastern Conference. 5 teams play in the Western Conference. However the teams do play eachother. The team that finishes with the most points total wins the Supporters Shield. #7 - The 4 teams in each conference that finish with the most points make the playoffs. Each team in each conference is given a playoff seed based on how many points they finish with. #8 - The first round of the playoffs consist of a home & home aggregate goal series between seed #1 and #4, and seed #2 and 3. #9 - The second round of the playoffs consist of a 1 game contest between the winners of both series. This is known as the Eastern Conference semifinals and the Western Conference Semifinals. The teams that wins each game will represent their respective conference in MLS Cup (the championship of MLS) #10 - England has the FA Cup. We have the Lamar Hunt US Open Cup. The format is very similiar, except we have much less teams involved. #11 - Uefa has the Champions League. Concacaf has the Champions Cup. The format for entry seems to change every year. This year, the 2 finalists in MLS Cup will each receive entry into the Champions Cup. Seems a bit silly. #12 - So to review, American soccer has A - Supporters Shield, B - US Open Cup, C - MLS Cup, D - Champions Cup #13 - Average attendence in MLS is around 15 - 16, 000 per game. #14 - MLS Cup has drawn great crowds because of a variety of reasons. I guess Americans like Championship games. #15 - Mainstream media in America often has an anti-soccer bias. #16 - MLS and the US National team are often ignored in the media. #17 - However the mainstream media are like most American sports fans, bandwagonners. When the US did well in WC 2002 it was all over the media. However they have been ignored since then. When the US does well in WC 2006 they will be all over the media. After the show is over they will be ignored again. #18 - When EUropean teams comes to the US on summer tours, the crowds have flocked to see them. But US soccer fans do not rely on the media in their decision to attend games or not. #19 - Soccer in America is on a definate upswing. New stadiums and teams are popping up in MLS. The US National teams is in the top 10 in FIFA rankings. Attendance is up. TV ratings are up. Immigration is up. Soccer has a bright future in America. #20 - How's ice hockey or baseball doing in Europe?
Ammendment to #15 (silly 30 minute editing time limit) - Beleive it or not, many sportswriters in America still view soccer as a communist or socialist sport. These people are still fighting the mighty Red Army, and no I am not talking about Furgeson's Red Army either.
You missed the fact that while ratings are up, they are still miniscule. Arena Football regularly doubles regular-season MLS games. You're right that soccer in America is on the upswing, but we've got a long, long way to go.
If they just showed MLS highlights on CNN Europe, they were most likely of the just played conference finals. Hopefully they showed the highlights from the New England versus DC United Eastern Conference Game. The attendance was great, the atmosphere was fantastic, the goals were world-class, an the game ended in PK's. There's some discussion on these boards that the game may have been the best MLS game ever!! It would be nice to know if this game got some attention overseas. Any soccer fan anywhere would find that match enjoyable to watch. I don't think the media here hates soccer as some other people do. I just think they ignore it. It's thought of by the media as an "ethnic" game for immigrants, not for mainstream Americans. Also the TV ratings pale in comparison to other sports. Once attendance and TV ratings go up, the media will start to pay attention. The best example is the women's world cup. The media didn't care until the games started selling out stadiums.
Isn't Arena Football played in 15-20k basketball stadiums? I've seen it on TV, surfing the channels, but I never stop to watch. Anyway, I don't see how it can double a regular season MLS game. One DC-Metro game -- regular season -- brought in 30k. DC saw a lot of 20k+ matches, and they carried those figures on the road this season, thanks to Freddy Adu. An Arena Football game may double the attendance of a particular MLS game, but there is another side to that coin. Besides, Arena Football is a cheesy, indoor made-for-tv version of the real McCoy, which has also become a made-for-tv event. Soccer is pure sport without commercial interruption -- which is why most of us in the US, with the short attention span tv has fostered, can't handle it. And that explains why Budweiser is the "King of Beers." But that's just my opinion.
I believe he meant in television ratings. Note that Arena Football (the American kind) is broadcast on regular over the air tv, while MLS is mostly all on cable (the championship match being a notable exception). So to summarize the earlier posters, like many leagues in Europe, there is a "regular season" and "playoffs". It's just that none of those similar leagues in Europe play soccer, but we do what we can. Maybe in a little while we'll do it differently (then again maybe not). The big difference between soccer and other American sports is television revenue. Soccer has basically none, while other leagues have a significant amount. Also televison ratings are miniscule, with the average ESPN (think Sky Sports in the UK) telecast getting a 0.1 rating (the championship match usually gets in the 1.0 vicinity).
Very easy to explain. Arena Football is 50% owned by the National Football League. Many of the franchises are owned by NFL owners. Some of the franchises do very well, while at the other end of the spectrum there is very little stability for the weaker franchises with teams moving and going out of business. They bring in 10-20K fans per game depending on franchise. AFL does have a TV contract with NBC which gives them lots of exposure on Sunday afternoons during the February and March, when there is little sport options, which in turns gets quite a few viewers. In contrast, MLS is played in very large NFL stadiums which create poor atmosphere. The 20-30K crowds are the exception, not the norm. Generally 15K-20K would be a great crowd. MLS is mainly shown on cable stations, and in the summer months which has much smaller ratings. An Arena Football game may double the attendance of a particular MLS game, but there is another side to that coin. All is true, however that is why AFL is shown. Lots of commercials every 5-10 minutes for pickup trucks, beer, Taco Bell, Frito-Lay, movies and anything else that allows a network to make money. Soccer is over in 105 minutes. The only break for advertisers and networks is a straight 15 minute halftime. Great for spectators (in and out in 2 hours) bad for business. Because Young and Rubican (or some other advertising agency) came up with the slogan many years ago and it stuck. Coors would look stupid (and would probably be sued) if they started using it. Why is the Dallas Cowboys "America's Team?" Because they said so and no one challenged them. Why is Sergio Galvan Rey the "King of Goals?"
Could we leave the fvcken Arena Football out of this thread, unless by Arena Football you meant Indoor Soccer !! Thanx!
Major League Soccer is the name of our top flight. It has ten teams and plays a 30 game schedule the team with the most points at the end of the 30 game season wins the Supporters Shield. After the 30 games season is over the top 8 teams are seeded and enter into playoffs at the end of which the winner is awarded the MLS Cup. The MLS cup final is on TV this sunday.
i showed the highlights of the dc-ne game to my friend rob who isn't much of a sports fan in general maybe leaning towards football (nfl) like any other american and he was impressed with the highlights of the game, and i told him , watch out soccers arriving and he said ,"mainly americans like brutal sports like football, with more hitting and what not so soccer is gonna have a tough time breaking through" so what if we allow fouls in soccer now?????, jk but its how these typical american sport fans think like.
Where the the WUSA now? The concept didn't have "legs". I'm not saying MLS is next, but it's only the perseverance of a few owners that is keeping the league going through the red ink. The Australian soccer league collapsed this past spring and is taking a year off to try to re-group. I'm not sure that a second LA franchise & expansion in Utah (35th largest US metro area) are where MLS should be going, when the need is to place teams in major media markets & get a national TV contract.
Thank you all for answering my questions! 1. "They still think at soccer as a communist sport" - Why on earth did they do that in the first place? Soccer (football was created in England not by Stalin or Mao. Please explane why they thought it was communist sport. Im dying to know. 2. Arena football.... Never heard of it, and i think of my self as one who knows sports. Amazing i dont know about it when it has 20.000 crowds. 3. How Ice Hockey and Baseball doing in Europe? Ice Hockey is doing very well. In many european countries its the number 2 sport. When i think of ice hockey i dont think of an thypical american sport. I dont even know whos created it. I havent seen any pro team or people on the playfield playing Baseball. EVER!and i have been around for 26 years. The only time i see Baseball is on american movies or tv-shows. 4.Why dont you have smaler stadiums? I live in Norway. The Soccer TV-comercial money are less than in the US. Our avarage crowd are lower than yours. About 10.000. Anyway we can afford new stadiums that fits the game and the spectators. Why cant you? 5.I have read many treads on bigsoccer.com and to many posts are about how bad the MLS is. And that it will take several years for it to compete with the top European leagues. Let me tell you that this is just something you imagine. Like i said, i live in Norway. A country with 4 million people. You have a population of 285 million, certan a hole lot more soccerplayers than we do. From Oktober to April our country is covered in snow. Very hard to play soccer then. Anyway Our top team Rosenborg has beaten Real Madrid at home, AC Milan away, Dortmund away 0-3, and Juventus at home in the Champions league in the last 7 seasons. This year the team played 1-1 at home against Arsenal.(with american player Robbie Russel on the team) You have the population-base, the money-base, and weather-condition to do far better that that. Its the training and standards on the Coatches that has to improve and only that. If you improve this, it wont be long until MLS clubs can compete with Champions league. And MLS hasent have to get higher tv-ratings to do so, as many of you seem to think. Rosenborg has proven otherwise. 6. soccer is a communist sport... i unsderstand that MLS decide in wich clubs the players shall play. The clubs cant even get any money if they produse top player. To me this sound very communist to me......... David
where i live, the only thing i see of MLS is on CNN. They cover the whole season, not just the playoff. unfortunetly i dont know any tv-stations broadcasting live matches. David
It will be very hard for attendance and TV ratings to go up if the media continues to ignore the sport.
That's not what I meant and you know it. The cultures and attitudes towards the both of them are different and cause them not to be comparable. Same goes for the NFL, NBA, college football and college basketball. A good part of their appeal is because of their gambling aspect. It's also why TV loves them. MLS--and soccer in general--should not be judged against those sports or leagues.
Alright, I'll do my best to answer the follow-ups 1. "They still think at soccer as a communist sport" The people who think of soccer as communist or socialist are in the minority, not many people think this way. Those that do use the term "socialist" to mean the same thing as "foreign." In general though, most people who say that are joking. 2. Arena football.... Never heard of it, and i think of my self as one who knows sports. Amazing i dont know about it when it has 20.000 crowds. Yeah, Arena Leage Football is a variant of American football played on small indoor fields with fewer players on the field and the general quality of play is far lower than the NFL. I'm sort of surprised it's still around, as someone said, largely it's to do with being a gambling option. 4.Why dont you have smaler stadiums? I live in Norway. The Soccer TV-comercial money are less than in the US. Our avarage crowd are lower than yours. About 10.000. Anyway we can afford new stadiums that fits the game and the spectators. Why cant you? It costs a lot of money to build a stadium. Since MLS is a new league, most investors or cities were not willing to spend that kind of cash until the league looked likely to stay around for a while. Ten years later, most of the teams now either have their own stadiums or will have one within a year or two. 6. soccer is a communist sport... i unsderstand that MLS decide in wich clubs the players shall play. The clubs cant even get any money if they produse top player. To me this sound very communist to me......... I can't really speak to this because I know very little about the inner workings of MLS. We do have things such as a salary cap (a team has a set limit on how much it can spend on players) and a draft (the worst team from the previous year gets first choice of the new prospects entering the league the next year and the champions get last choice) to keep any one team from getting too powerful. This sort of thing is (as far as I know) unique to American sports. The idea is that it keeps things more exciting as it is rarely obvious at the beginning of the year who will end up as champions.
Its sounds good. It has to be boring for most teams in the EPL, beacuse they know they have no chance of winning the league. It isnt fun when theres only 3 teams that stays in the top year after year. I have to say that this american invention to make the league more interesting by preventing teams to get to powerful seems really good. But so unamerican. I thought the american attitude was that you can be as great as you want to be.
I don't think he said that. It is quite common knowledge that the immense popularity of football as a product is tied to the gambling that surrounds the game.
In our sports, the concept (or myth) of fairness remains strong -- what we call a 'level playing field' not tilted toward one goal, giving unfair advantage to one team. There's also something of the 'for the good of the show' mentality as well -- one for all and all for one. There is also the example of what happened to the NASL around 20 years ago. The NY Cosmos had the money to bring in players like Pele', Beckenbauer, Neeskins, and the other teams in the league went broke trying to keep up with them. As a result, MLS was founded as a single entity. Player contracts were handled by the league; every team had to work within the league mandated salary cap, and the entire league shared in the losses and will share, it is hoped, in the eventual profits. The challenge in MLS is to find the right mix of players, to draft wisely among the available players coming into the league (which is why American coaches, familiar with college and lower division players, as well as MLS regulations, have an advantage over foreign coaches), and to get consitantly good production from the players.