As the league grows I find myself less interested

Discussion in 'MLS: General' started by NashSC, Mar 5, 2018.

  1. NashSC

    NashSC Member+

    Nashville SC
    United States
    Jan 3, 2018
    I am an original '96er. I love MLS. I am not saying they should not continue to grow. I don't have a local team and have always just been a fan of the league itself. This has been a totally unexpected result of the league growing. I find it harder to follow now that we are at 23 teams (soon to be more). When it was smaller I could watch all the games or all the condensed versions of the games. Now it just isn't feasible for someone who has a family and job and life. Now, that I can't watch all or most of the games, I have found myself losing interest. The league has lost that small close nit feeling that I used to have with it.

    Again, this is not a complaint. Not suggesting the league stop growing, so don't bash me. It is just an observation for me personally.

    Just curious if I am alone.

    P.S. I said I don't have a local team and yes my screenname is NashSC. I am still 5 hours away from Nashville. They will just be the closest team for me once they start.
     
    BalanceUT, Ismitje, Mikebsiu and 5 others repped this.
  2. vividox

    vividox Moderator
    Staff Member

    Aug 10, 2005
    Club:
    Sporting Kansas City
    I definitely have the same feelings. I also used to watch every game pretty much every weekend, which was pretty easy to do when there were just 5-7 games a week and they spaced them out fairly evenly (and, to be fair, half of them were only available on match tracker). Around 2008, I was at a place where I was familiar with damn near every player/team/formation in the league. I can't say anything close to that anymore. With 11 games a week, it's just impossible to watch them all, and it's even more impossible to keep up with all the offseason moves and coaching changes and line up changes and all that comes with it. I find myself having to do a fair amount of research on a single team when they are coming up in SKC's schedule, and I'm constantly coming across a new stud who's making waves for a team who I'd never heard of before. It's just too much to be a completionist anymore.
     
    Ismitje, superdave and NashSC repped this.
  3. NashSC

    NashSC Member+

    Nashville SC
    United States
    Jan 3, 2018
    And there are more than 11 games a week if there are any mid week games.
     
    vividox repped this.
  4. bigredfutbol

    bigredfutbol Moderator
    Staff Member

    Sep 5, 2000
    Woodbridge, VA
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    #4 bigredfutbol, Mar 5, 2018
    Last edited: Mar 5, 2018
    When I first started following the league I was also new to soccer, period. For me, being a fan of MLS was part and parcel of supporting the sport and evangelizing for it.

    Now, 20 years later (I'm not an original 96'er; I got into soccer during the 1998 World Cup and began watching MLS as a result) I don't feel as driven to wave the flag. I'm still in love with the sport, and I still follow the league. I can't imagine I'll ever lose interest in soccer and I'll likely always follow MLS to some degree, and continue to support DC United (although that relationship has changed quite a bit thanks to Front Office shenanigans). But I kinda feel like both soccer and the league have "made it", to the point where I can just sit back and enjoy it when I feel like it.

    I share the sense that it's gotten so big it's just not the same as it used to be.

    All things must pass.
     
    Ismitje, song219, JasonMa and 1 other person repped this.
  5. An Unpaved Road

    An Unpaved Road Member+

    Mar 22, 2006
    Club:
    --other--
    I agree with the sentiment. My peak MLS interest was probably from 04-14, and even during the latter stretch of that run expansion and rebranding were making me feel less connected. I think there's a couple of teams I've never actually watched yet. Maybe it's just a hipster streak in me, but those older days felt more intimate.

    However, something similar holds true for me regarding the sport at large, and not just MLS. I was obsessed with the yanks abroad ten years ago as well. Dempsey at Fulham in particular was a huge part of my soccer fandom. Now even something like Pulisic at Dortmund is something I'll watch, but I don't feel too strongly about what he does there one way or another. I remember thinking "how could he?" when Bradley left Roma for TFC, but now I don't really feel the need to dictate someone else's career priorities.

    I think my changing interest is just a result of getting older, now that I'm at an age where the vast majority of players are younger than me. It feels weird to care too much now, and in some way I think the players I grew up watching (or players of a similar age I grew up with) had a way of carrying my interest more so than the teams they played for. I expressed something similar in the U.S. Men N&A forum not long ago and some posters there jumped all over me for being a "fanboy that liked Donovan more than the NT," so it's refreshing to see some people here echoing something similar to what I feel.

    So yeah, I feel less connected as well. But I still enjoy MLS, and generally find I relate to its fans a bit better than other areas of soccer fandom.
     
    ukraine76, Ismitje, CyphaPSU and 5 others repped this.
  6. russ

    russ Member+

    Feb 26, 1999
    Canton,NY
    Club:
    Liverpool FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I'm more excited watching my kiddo run after a ball these days.
     
    bigredfutbol repped this.
  7. bigredfutbol

    bigredfutbol Moderator
    Staff Member

    Sep 5, 2000
    Woodbridge, VA
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Co-sign.
     
    russ repped this.
  8. Geneva

    Geneva LA for Life

    Feb 5, 2003
    Southern Cal
    Club:
    Los Angeles Galaxy
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Sporting interests, and other interests in life, come and go. I say follow your passion wherever it leads. Before soccer, for me, I had Pirates baseball, Steelers football, Penn State football, Lakers basketball. Kids sports were right up there. Still enjoy MLS and USMNT, but definitely not with the same intensity as my 1998-2016 years.
     
    MPNumber9, bigredfutbol and russ repped this.
  9. canammj

    canammj Member+

    Aug 25, 2004
    CHINO, CA
    Club:
    Los Angeles Galaxy
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Wow, so many of these posts are spot on! And yes, the soccer years of my daughters still can't be beat. I have found myself following less of following my local team and following the league in general. I have been working on going to a game at every MLS stadium for years for example. I kind of wish the league had stopped at 16-18 teams, I knew almost all the players at that point. But as we approach 24>26 and i firmly believe it will go to 32, becoming too much to follow deeply.
     
    TheEmperor14, bigredfutbol and song219 repped this.
  10. Gamecock14

    Gamecock14 Member+

    May 27, 2010
    Club:
    Chicago Fire
    For me, MLS has gotten bigger (not a bad thing) and I have gotten busier as I aged where I can't spend 3-4 hour blocks of my weekend watching MLS. Having less teams and more free time made it a lot easier. It also helped that the MLS community was a lot smaller, so you felt like you were more part of it.

    Yanks Abroad is a lot different then before. Maybe I aged out, but everything seems much more serious. USA Mens has always been wild, it just seems even more so now and this was even before the US crashed out of WCQ. The nice thing about MLS and MLS N&A is that most members seem to acknowledge another/other viewpoints exist and accept that they can be wrong. YA and US Mens seems to have double downed on everything even if it doesn't make sense.

    Age does have something to do with it. I remember when I was younger (teenager), I used to feel so disappointed in players (especially college players) when they made a costly mistake or missed a shot in basketball or blew coverage in football. I remember when it changed for me. I was 25 in a bar watching a college football game and the South Carolina RB fumbled the ball. The people around me were upset that the kid made a stupid mistake when the team had a chance to beat a top five team. The kid was 19 years old and I just felt so bad for the kid because my next door neighbor growing up was his age and I made that connection age wise and I just didn't care that much after that. I viewed games differently from that point on.
     
  11. An Unpaved Road

    An Unpaved Road Member+

    Mar 22, 2006
    Club:
    --other--
    Very much agreed. In my experience it seems like MLS fans are pretty chill. Sure, there are some overly defensive fans and some prone to overhyping the league, but generally when I'm in a MLS centric discussion I get the feeling fans are pretty comfortable in their enjoyment of the league while also being able to discuss ways in which it could improve.

    Other areas of U.S. soccer seem more like constant battlegrounds, especially after the World Cup qualification failure. And even when things aren't so toxic, I'd rather just focus on the league we do have here rather than obsess over long term plans to get youth players on the path to high level European success.
     
  12. Honore de Ballsac

    Oct 28, 2005
    France.
    I can easily fault Klinsmann for part of this.

    In my eyes, the progress of the national team and MLS were one narrative, one unified mission. All kumbaya, till we brought on JK.

    But notions of European superiority were Klinsmann's elevator shoes, or the main thing propping up his soapbox. He could get very lucky, but didn't have any special magic or coaching chops. Defensively it seemed, he doubled down on the argument of American ignorance and inferiority: "You ain't done shit," Landon Donovan, Clint Dempsey etc. He publicly beheaded Landon, created open discord with the league and a divisive debate in the US soccer community.

    As inevitably thrilling as making it into the World Cup knockout rounds is, I think JK's tenure took a lot of the wind out of our sails. Self belief and unity, subsequent to Brazil '14, were very much in askance for this cycle. That sense of a mission for American soccer was questioned as foreign vs domestic players were pitted against each other. Now we're not even IN the World Cup, and as the league - a pretty roaring success - significantly bumps up its player budgets, it not surprisingly looks more international than ever. The headline is about imports.

    The subheader though is awesome. As much as I'm excited about Medina, Rossi, Kaku etc and want them to light it up, what's really keeping me jazzed about MLS is the new stadiums, development academies, training centers, MLS/USL teams, and the results we saw them produce in Tijuana and Monterey. As much as I get fired up by watching Tata and Almiron and co. attack, I'm excited about the American phenomenon of Atlanta United's success, with their 72k crowds and major league merch sales. I'm proud of Bob Bradley and Greg Vanney and Greg Berhalter. And yeah I love that MLS clubs are so motivated to compete for the Concacaf Champions League.

    It's still an uplifting tune we can all take up. Even those of us who feel a bit burned, jaded, older, wiser, veteran, spent... we're part of the great game and a great success story here in North America.
     
  13. "username"

    "username" Member

    Northern Virginia United
    United States
    Mar 20, 2010
    Northern Virginia
    Club:
    --other--
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I grew up alongside mls and I'm just plain sick of it. Doesn't strike the same chords that international games and foreign leagues do. Even lower division america is more exciting to me than the MLS scrimmagefest. My peers(college age) don't seem to care about MLS and I just don't see that changing until our domestic product is more like the global standard in both structure and quality.
     
    Mikebsiu and adam tash repped this.
  14. canammj

    canammj Member+

    Aug 25, 2004
    CHINO, CA
    Club:
    Los Angeles Galaxy
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    A good reason to separate the PRO side of the soccer business from the Amateur side once and for all.
    -
    Let the PRO side through their academy system and then up the pyramid (affiliate or hybrid teams) develop players for both the parent team and also sell them for a profit. After all, its a business.
    MLS < USL2 < USL3 < PDL(U23) < Academy U18-U16-U14-U12-U10 etc.

    Let the Amateur Side (both youth and adult) develop their own pyramids- regional leagues etc. including how to figure how our "school" based system fits in ( high school > junior college> NAIA-NCAA ), how club fits in versus AYSO etc.
    Police Athletic leagues, ethnic based leagues, city leagues, so many organizations. ALL of this needs to separated away from the PRO side. Yes, this side can still produce players who may jump over to PDL or USL etc., they will just do it in a different way.

    And in all fairness, I would like to see a Woman's organization as well. Probably at this time, it can all fit under one umbrella, but the woman's game has its own challenges, so it should be managed by women so we can develop both the management side of the game as well.
     
  15. "username"

    "username" Member

    Northern Virginia United
    United States
    Mar 20, 2010
    Northern Virginia
    Club:
    --other--
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    This idea is nonsense. We need less arbitrary separation and access control and more universal incentives around a clearly defined pathway for clubs.
     
  16. canammj

    canammj Member+

    Aug 25, 2004
    CHINO, CA
    Club:
    Los Angeles Galaxy
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    ---------
    So you say "clearly defined pathway for clubs", which is pretty much what I said for the PRO side. Amateur side is more of a mess and it clearly needs some "pathways".
     
  17. "username"

    "username" Member

    Northern Virginia United
    United States
    Mar 20, 2010
    Northern Virginia
    Club:
    --other--
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    we have a blockage right now in the domestic game since the pathway is not open to clubs, its only really open to very high net worth individuals. Why don't we let the clubs have access to the ladder so that they can showcase themselves to high net worth individuals? Creating a wonky minor league baseball system just feels counter productive and short sighted. There are hundreds and hundreds of amateur clubs competing and striving to grow but there is a pretty low ceiling on what they can do without a majority owner who has a net worth of something like 10 or 15 mil excluding their primary residence. We just need common sense policy for league standards and less arbitrary blockage created to protect the current USSF power structure
     
  18. OlDffrNewFan

    OlDffrNewFan Member

    Aug 29, 2006
    IN
    I have been a faithful supporter of MLS since it's inception. Even though it is a four hour drive I went to 7-10 games a year.

    My interest has waned, but it is because of the lack of US players. I loved watching young US players earn their playing time and get good enough to then move on to the USMNT.

    It is hard for me to stay interested when every team is made up of mostly foreign players who I have not seen nor heard of before. If I want that, the foreign leagues are more entertaining.
     
    Eleven Bravo, adam tash and NashSC repped this.
  19. FanOfFutbol

    FanOfFutbol Member+

    The Mickey Mouse Club or The breakfast Club
    May 4, 2002
    Limbo
    Nat'l Team:
    --other--
    The biggest problems for the MLS mirrors the problems with the US men's national team:
    1. Lack of real leadership.
    2. Lack of direction.
    3. Lack of overall skill.
    4. Too much poor coaching. Name does not equal quality.
    5. Lack of identity.

    And there are other problems that are mirrored in the US Men's national team.

    On additional problem for those of us that watch the MLS is dilution of talent. By that I mean there are too many teams and the real talent is spread much too thin. It is rare that there is more than 4 or 5 players with talent on any team and that often makes the matches boring to watch. Since it is much easier to play defense than offense too many matches end up 0-0 or 1-0.

    The solution for the MLS is one of two things: (Maybe both)
    1. Stop the expansion madness. Maybe actually shrinking the league by 4 to 6 teams would be good and maybe the hacks would get culled out and the overall quality could improve.
    2. Import a LOT more talent from outside the US and Canada.

    Of course a long term solution is to develop more talent at home but that will not happen until the development system is fixed but that is another, much more complex, subject.
     
    no pain repped this.
  20. Darkwing McQuack

    Darkwing McQuack BigSoccer Supporter

    Nov 11, 2011
    Morrisville, PA
    Club:
    Philadelphia Union
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Dilution of talent is a weak agreement. With the current rules of 30 man rosters and a max of 8 international spots a 30 team league would have 900 players. 660 of those would have to be domestic. So you’re arguing that you can’t find enough talent to fill those spots with the millions that play the game here? I find that highly unlikely. Especially with more teams investing in academies.
     
    oknazevad and aztec21bas repped this.
  21. EvanJ

    EvanJ Member+

    Manchester United
    United States
    Mar 30, 2004
    Club:
    Manchester United FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I'm not checking how many matches end 0-0 or 1-0, but last year's regular season had more goals per club per game than the 2016-2017 EPL. MLS had 1.48 and the EPL had exactly 1.4.
     
    oknazevad, mschofield and jaykoz3 repped this.
  22. puttputtfc

    puttputtfc Member+

    Sep 7, 1999
    More goals does not equal quality.
     
  23. FanOfFutbol

    FanOfFutbol Member+

    The Mickey Mouse Club or The breakfast Club
    May 4, 2002
    Limbo
    Nat'l Team:
    --other--
    Yes I am saying exactly that! There are not 660 quality players in the US. In fact I doubt there are 200. Also much of the non-domestic talent consists of rejects or over age players from overseas leagues and programs. The percentage of quality players in the MLS from outside the US is much larger than the percentage from inside the US and Canada but it is not high enough. We need more quality from both inside and outside the US and Canada.

    There are a LOT of men and boys in the US that play soccer (football) but the coaching and development is so poor in most cases that few reach even part of their potential. That turns the MLS into a mid-level developmental league rather than the "elite" league it should be. The lower leagues, USL etc, should be where the development takes place and where the players that can't cut it (at least yet) can play.

    If the MLS was a smaller league (at least 5-6 teams smaller) and truly was for the best players and if the limitation on foreign players was increased (or made more like other top leagues world wide) then the quality of product on the field would be much better.

    However I do not expect any of that to happen and I do not expect the quality of the product to improve much. I will just have to continue watching the inferior product we now have and complaining when the ignorant commentators say that a shot was a good shot when it missed the goal. We teach that failure is acceptable in this country.

    I want the MLS to succeed and I want it to feed real quality into our national team but as long as we dilute the talent where the best players we have do not compete at a high level each week and do not face real quality except when they play for the national team we will never see development above the average and never be real contenders at the national level.
     
    no pain repped this.
  24. EvanJ

    EvanJ Member+

    Manchester United
    United States
    Mar 30, 2004
    Club:
    Manchester United FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Yes, but you can't claim that fewer goals is evidence of poor quality when there aren't fewer goals. I was disputing an argument against quality, which is not the same as making an argument for quality.

    There could hypothetically be players who would become among the best Americans if and only if they are near an MLS club to go to games while they are kids, whereas without going to games they would pick another career or be good enough for MLS but not able to help the USMNT.

    I agree that I don't like shots that missed being called good, but it isn't only MLS commentators who say that. Watch a few games in the top leagues and you'll hear that also.
     
  25. Nick79

    Nick79 Member

    May 4, 2015
    Club:
    Olympiakos Piraeus
    There we have something in common, I will choose my daughter's soccer games over any pro game, she's going to be a senior on her high school team this fall, and she's playing on a club team now, there's a slight chance she might play in college, one coach has spoken to her, if she doesn't, I find myself feeling sad that I won't have her games to go to anymore. My job is flexible, and I can arrange my time to go, and I haven't missed a single game since she was like 10, now that might be done. sad... growing up....
     

Share This Page