Re: AEG powerman blasted ChampionsWorld, Man U Yes but comparing MLB (a league with over a 100 years worth history and sport that is so ingrain into our culture we might as well have mitts instead of left hands) to MLS (a league that started nine years ago and went thru a near fatal swoon in the middle of it and is for a sport that 60%+ of people in this country hates or is indifferent to) is like comparing The Beatles to those kids playing in a garage down the street. Yeah attendance has not improved much (btw I wanna see actual numbers, not a graph) but give it time and I'd bet we see an improvement in the next 5 years.
Re: AEG powerman blasted ChampionsWorld, Man U Was the WUSA a SE? Everybody knows the mistakes that league mad eand why they folded (they spent what they didn't have). The USL is failing growth wise, they've had negative growth in the past few years with maybe three or four teams making money. With no higher league to promote to? What makes you think that teams would want to? Other than Seattle and Rochester I haven't heard of an USL-1 wanting a shot at MLS. And MLS losing two teams (and having two new teams this next year) is whole lot better than losing 17 teams! 17 TEAMS!!!
Re: AEG powerman blasted ChampionsWorld, Man U Soccer was a popular spectator sport in this country in 1977 and 1994 before MLS ever came into being. Soccer is now a popular spectator sport in this country. As popular as baseball and football? No, but you can forget about that happening for a while. 15,000 a game constitues relatively popular support. As much as they get in places like Holland and Scotland. What MLS has failed to do is make it significantly more popular than it was when they first started and that's a concern.
Re: AEG powerman blasted ChampionsWorld, Man U Not all those teams went under though. Some simply moved to the PSL. Like any industry, businesses going under is not a particularly bad thing. It serves a purpose. My point remains, the USL has a significantly harder sell than MLS, have less capital backing them and the leagues nevertheless have survived and a few teams have actually done quite well for themselves.
Re: AEG powerman blasted ChampionsWorld, Man U Signifcantly more popular? Your comparing the 1994 WC (a one time event) and the old NASL (that was like bottle-rocket, pretty cool but over in 5 seconds) to a league that is trying to build a fanbase out of almost nothing? I have yet to see any numbers on attendance that you can provide that show this? Hey for comparison sake let's look at the attendance numbers for the first 10 years of the NFL, the NBA, MLB etc.? I would bet they had very similar numbers. The league is brand new, 10 years is too short of time to all of the sudden say "Ok this isn't working let's forget it and try something new!". No, stay the course and this league will grow, it already is. BTW to back up my argument about the A-League: http://www.sover.net/~spectrum/usisl3.html The A-League in 1999 had 30 teams, one being the Project-40 select team so 29 franchises. Now they have 12. Well done . MLS in 1999 had 12 teams, now it has... 12 teams. No growth per se but it's a hell of a lot better than losing 60% of your teams.
Re: AEG powerman blasted ChampionsWorld, Man U I'd rather have every team doing well for itself than just a few. I'd love to see the USL survive but it's success hangs in the balance right now. Yeah the USL has a disadvantage but it's their own fault for selecting owners and communities that couldn't make it work (Calgary didn't make it thru the season and Syracuse only lasted this season) and they've paid for it. What happens if Rochester and Seattle jump to MLS? Can Portland find an owner? How long will the Canadian teams be in it before Canada forms it's own league (something CSA wants do soon)? USL has a lot more questions facing it right now than MLS.
Re: AEG powerman blasted ChampionsWorld, Man U Do you really think in a free market soccer environment, an MLS team could survive relegation? Maybe if they came right back up, but any prolonged spell in the lower division would surely result in banktruptcy. And what happens when some fledgling A-League team drawing 3,000 fans a game in a minor league baseball stadium gets promoted? Lemme tell ya, that looks real major league, the sponsors will be falling over themselves to get in on that action. If there's no market for professional minor league soccer in a place like Edmonton, there's certainly not a market for it in a major league city like New York. Isn't that what MLS does with SEM? Keep the costs low by sharing them. By not spending over their heads.
Re: AEG powerman blasted ChampionsWorld, Man U No MLS keeps costs down by capping salaries and eliminating competition. In other words, MLS keeps costs down by removing any and all incentives and opportunities for the individual teams to spend more money than anyone else, and increasing incentives to reduce existing costs to lower levels (if you can't help your bottom line by making more money, you have only one other choice). If the Metros suddenly decided they were going to outspend everyone 3 to 1, what exactly would they then spend it on?
Re: AEG powerman blasted ChampionsWorld, Man U The other notion mentioned in this thread that I disagree with is this idea that if MLS just broke the bank and signed Beckham, Ronaldo, Tevez, Saviola, etc. the fans would come out in boatloads and major network TV contracts would be on the table by the end of the week. MLS could sign all four of those guys tomorrow and here's what would happen: next year there would be an attendance boom back to the level it was in 1996. Then, the following year, it would level off as the novelty faded just like 1997. Four or five blockbuster signings aren't going to raise the level of play to EPL standards by themselves. Nevermind the fact that probably 200 million Americans haven't the slightest idea who Carlos Tevez is. There are probably a good chunk of MLS fans that don't know who he is. He might as well be Carlos Ruiz, who comes a lot cheaper and scores plenty of goals. At the end of the day, we're still dealing with soccer, a sport that has less fans in this country than some here are willing to admit. We need to grow the sport as well as the league to achieve success. There are no quick fixes here. MLS isn't quite a decade old yet, give it time. Once the league has expanded, built stadiums, started turning profits, and attracted an investor for every team, then you can do away with SEM. Drop SEM too soon and the only investors you'll attract are the same type of vultures who doomed NASL.
Re: AEG powerman blasted ChampionsWorld, Man U Limiting every team to spending the same amount of money on players fosters competition, it doesn't eliminate it. All 12 teams are on equal footing. In a league like England, Manchester United's only real competitors are Arsenal, Chelsea, and Liverpool. In Scotland, it's worse, Celtic and Rangers are it. If Metro wanted to spend some extra cash, they could spend it on marketing, sales, advertising, or heaven forbid, a new stadium. Things that would get more fans out to the games, foster a better in stadium atmosphere, give the team a homefield advantage and ultimately increase the bottom line.
Re: AEG powerman blasted ChampionsWorld, Man U Don't have attendance numbers for the first 9 years of MLB. We do have the numbers for the American League which started as a fully independent league in 1901. Here are the numbers for the 6 teams that stayed in the same cities over those 9 years (Milwaukee moved to St. Louis, Baltimore moved to New York) Code: City 1901 1909 Chicago 4,991 5,906 Boston 4,195 8,920 Detroit 3,706 6,288 Philadelphia 3,126 8,880 Washington 2,377 2,665 Cleveland 1,904 4,606 So at least in the case of the American League, substantial attendance growth was present in its first 9 years. As for the NFL. Again attendance is missing for the first 9 years. Kenn Tomasch has it from 1934 to 1942 and it went from 8,211 in 1934 to 16,144 in 1942 (and over 24,000 the next year). For the NBA, Kenn has the numbers from 1952-1953 as 3,201 to 1960-1961 as 4,607. Seems like attendance increased substantially in all cases.
Re: AEG powerman blasted ChampionsWorld, Man U Don't see anything in that post I have a problem with.
Re: AEG powerman blasted ChampionsWorld, Man U Well then you probably don't understand why the NASL died. The fact of the matter is MLS has pissed away enough money in the last 9 years to finance more than a handful of such players. That kind of money has already been spent and lost so your idea that pursuing such players will result in financial ruin simply does not jibe with reality. What seperates MLS from some of the beeter leagues (and I am not talking about the big leagues either) is vison not money. MLS could easily pursue the Bruno Marioni's, the Luis Figueroas, the Francas and the Alex De Souza's of the world. All these players are relatively cheap and would have brought instant credibility to the league which would have made it easier to attract new talent and would have brough in a lot of the fence sitting fans. No one gave Turkey any respect until Van Hooydonk went there now the only thing stopping more good players from going there is the foreigner limits. Alex cost 4 million about the same Luis Hernandez. People need to face facts MLS is not interested in measurably raising the level of play. They will bring in new foreigners so they can be able to say how committed they are to quality but in the end they bring players in for marketing reasons not football reasons.
Re: AEG powerman blasted ChampionsWorld, Man U Whats wrong with criticising american players? Would you feel better if I criticised only the foriegn players as many here love to do? I want more quality even if it means more foreigners. I don't ever recall advocating eliminating foreigner limits I want them eased. No one said anything about eliminating the cap either. One of the biggest problems with this league is the fanbase in many respects is still stuck in the 80's when there were few quality american players to go around . These are the fans who get tickled pink at seeing americans playing pro soccer no matter what their quality. The entire yanks abroad forum is proof of this (getting excited about players in division 3 in germany says it all). They think that the more americans playing the better no matter what and any mechanism used to get more americans on the field is a good mechanism. Too many of the fans are simply content with the low level of play. This anti-foreigner crap has got to stop. The only way this will change is when the fanbase transitions to a group that doesn't have this 80's insecurity anymore. A fanbase that is willing to say "Why can't we have high quality football here too?". Then and only then might we have change. Listen. Its all fine and good that you get excited about the Davy Arnaud's of this world but don't expect other people to do so as well. And when the fanbase doesn't grow and teams have to make up numbers for attendance try to be an realistic about it and not blame the eurosnobs alright? You may not want to admit it but the product on the field is getting less compelling every year. Take a hard look at the scoring numbers or better yet watch some games instead of burying your head in stats.
Re: AEG powerman blasted ChampionsWorld, Man U Highlighted. I think Bill archer put it best MLS is a corporate entity that puts on hundreds of exhibitions per year.
Re: AEG powerman blasted ChampionsWorld, Man U Its not difficult at all. The cap will always be there. We don't need the hokey plyer acquisition rules. We don't need to have discovery picks or draft picks or anything like that nonsense. All that shows is MLS wants to limit to power of the players. Create incentives for teams to actually go out and find new talent. If you find some hotshot somewhere he is yours if you can fit him under the cap. You don't need to worrry about losing him in the draft or anyother such nonesense. This idea that brining in 22 year old college players is talent development is assinine. Thats just roster filling. The decrease in the level of play is an indication of this.
Re: AEG powerman blasted ChampionsWorld, Man U People don't want to see the truth and want to project the leagues problems on to others (champions world, eurosnobs, lation snobs). They don't want to admit that the league is severely flawed. BTW Champions World bores the hell out of me. I don't get any pleeasure from watching these games but people need to stop acting as if championsworld owes MLS anything.
Re: AEG powerman blasted ChampionsWorld, Man U The problem is MLS simply isn't committed to what many would refer to as quality. To me the mexican league is quality. The top three teams in Costa Rica are quality. Its not about dollars at all. There are many players that can be acquired by this league who are cheaper than many of the stars bought by this league in the past. MLS buys many players for marketing reasons not sporting reasons. They simply are not commited to improving the product on the field. They say they are in interviews but their actions don't speak to it.
Re: AEG powerman blasted ChampionsWorld, Man U No 15 dollars is not a problem. The product on the field is. If it means a better product on the field put me down for $30-40 a ticket and I am far from a wealthy man. I will glad pa that price for the worst seat in the house (sect 101) if it means higher quality. We need to stop tretaing our league like some minor league or it will always be minor league. How are we supposed to grow if we have people crying about a 15 dollar ticket?
Re: AEG powerman blasted ChampionsWorld, Man U No. We need to to improve the player pool not expand it. We need quality not quantity.
Re: AEG powerman blasted ChampionsWorld, Man U So Manu send Darren Fletcher and the u19's to play the NJ Stallions and all is well. Why would FIFA want to get its nose involved in this anyway.
Re: AEG powerman blasted ChampionsWorld, Man U Its really refreshing to know that not everyone drinks the kool-aid.
Re: AEG powerman blasted ChampionsWorld, Man U Why do people continue using this to keep the league viable nonesense. Things are the way they are for the sake of single entity. Owners like it and if they allow teams to pursue their own players they can't claim it exists. Do you honestly believe that if everything else stayed the same with the cap still in place but the Metros were allowed to go out and directly sign their own players and seel their own players the league would somehow become less viable? Someone needs to explain to me how this would work. If there is a cap no one can spend more than anyone eles so someone needs to explain how this inevitable spiral would occur.