Again MLS has already passed NBA in average attendance per game. Big 5 with equal status among NBA NHL MLS can be possible.
It's an outdoor sport with less than 20 home games a season. Realistically, that was a low ceiling punch through.
Not sure MLS will ever reach a TV deal paying each team 130 million like the NFL does. Or get the TV ratings NFL gets.
Indoor or outdoor is irrelevant when NBA is not selling out its indoor arenas. NBA may need to cut a couple of teams, and cut down a number of home games. Hope MLS learns from NAB on over-expansion, and stays around 24.
Do you honestly think they would pass the NBA if MLS teams had 41 home games? Plus a team like Seattle does great but a NBA team needs 2+games to get 40,000
I agree and primarily because I don't believe that MLS will ever have the type of monopoly on the sport that MLS does. If American football every gains a foothold abroad it will be because the NFL directly expands there. But soccer surpassing any of the big 3 in this country will always be difficult to measure because not all soccer fans in this country are fans of MLS. I'm a fan of MLS and overseas football, but so many fans in this country have personal ties to teams abroad and came into the sport that way. Many fans were introduced to the sport by watching the overseas product. NFL doesn't have that problem. Their model is centralized in the most powerful media market. And they also benefit from the structure in that they play very few games per year and can market each game individually and in a focused manner. There are a lot of advantages that football naturally has over many sports that begin before pen even goes to paper.
The NBA also posted $5 billion in revenues this season. And in terms of attendance, there are only 3 NBA teams averaging less than 80% capacity per game. MLS has a long, long way to go to match the NBA.
Until one of the major news networks in the New York start showing their local soccer team in the sports part of the nightly news, I will not believe we are ahead. I know that is not a good reason but it is good enough for me. Seeing every top sport reported. Hell, a 1-0 loss to Tampa Bay got more time on the nightly news than the Red Bulls 4-3 thriller.
I don't see why people don't get it.. TV TV TV. MLS is so low on the media radar for an established major american league. It feels AAA or Arena Football just going by news cycles and radio coverage. It has growth potential sure but like ArsenalKid said, it barely gets generalist coverage in MOST of its markets.
MLS vs NBA/NHL attendance is a stupid comparison in the first place, but I don't know why people like you bring up points like that. Nobody complains about NFL teams only playing 8 games at home. If NFL teams had to play 41 games, how many would be pulling 50% of stadium capacity come game 41? Enough struggle with 8 home games as is. And that's a league that goes to great lengths to minimize the thought that teams have nothing to play for even with only 8 home games. The whole "they play more games" things as a criticism against MLS is retarded, because we should also then be slating NFL for playing nowhere near the amount of games the other majors play. "YEAH SURE NFL AVERAGES 60,000 BUT THEY DON'T PLAY 162 GAMES!!!!!!" Sound familiar? Your average is your average. There's no buts and ifs, and MLS is comparable to both NBA and NHL. On topic, will MLS ever match one of the Big 3? Hard to say. I think it will, especially basketball. But if you ask me will soccer ever match one of the Big 3? That's a hell and a yes.
If NFL had 41 games I am willing to bet they wouldn't get the 70K. Just like MLS numbers would drop if 41 games and would go up if only 8. It is not a criticism, it is reality. And the bigger picture is capacity. NHL avg capacity=18344 NBA avg capacity=19104 MLS avg capacity=21236(with Seattle,NE and DC limited figures) 28241(with Max capacity for above(NE at 38,000 will never open updeck)
when the LA Galaxy was on FSW (they moved to TWC this year) they had more people watching at the Home Depot Center than they did on TV. from the LA Times: Although the Galaxy has been the league's marquee franchise since signing Beckham before the 2007 season, it has not been a ratings winner for FSW, never drawing more than 16,000 homes, a .28 rating. In the last few years, ratings have dropping as low as .11%. http://articles.latimes.com/2011/nov/15/sports/la-sp-galaxy-tv-20111116
Yet somehow, TWC paid good money for the rights even knowing Beckham was out the door. Interesting eh ?
Frankly speaking, it IS interesting, yet it's kinda not at the same time. The huge number aside, I think, like NBCSN it's a case of new kid on the block DESPERATE for any gimmick to score a chance for the prom queen to give him a passing glance. TWCS needs content so...................
They don't need content to the tune of 5.5m a year .... when the national deals for the entire league only add up to like 30m ....
it's a 10 year deal and they see that soccer is a growing sport in the US so they probably figure to lose money the first five years but get a bargain for the last five. And if the ratings stay low the whole ten years it was risk worth taking given the relatively low money compared to the deals with the Dodgers and Lakers. and yeah its about content. The 5 mil a year probably isn't much more than it would be to create their own content.
Soccer is already a sport with large attendances in the US, but a lot of those soccer fans only care about European or Mexican leagues or the World Cup. If they'd embrace MLS, it would be one of the top leagues. By the way, who has a picture of Edward Jones Dome in soccer mode which could be used for www.stadiumzone.weebly.com ?
the majority of soccer fans in the U.S don't embrace MLS. And MLS homers aren't really concerned with why they don't. It's much easier to just call people "euro snobs".
Soccer can draw a big audience in the US, but how could MLS get everyone of those people to embrace its league? * The vast majority of fans who tune into World Cup games are not club soccer fans, they are watching an event (like the Olympics) and they have instant connection to teams due to their nationality. This same connection doesn't instantly happen with start-up expansion club teams. * Many Mexican Americans connect with Liga MX due to heritage. It was the club of their family or represents the city in which they are from. Liga MX has much the same structure as MLS (playoffs, drafts, no real free agency, etc.). * Those who choose to watch European soccer are not choosing to watch 4th division Germany or the Albania league. The vast majority are watching the very best teams in the very best league. Global super teams that can afford the best players on the planet because they obtain global revenues. How is MLS going to realistically get these people to all watch MLS games? I think its easy to look at some charts and wonder what would happen if 100% of soccer fans were MLS fans in the US, but what is a realistic way to get all those people to embrace MLS? It seems pretty obvious that no matter what MLS does, the audience will always be segmented. Its just the nature of soccer in America.
Well, we actually do know why most aren't ... but to be concerned about the fact that pretty much the entirety of the soccer world, and thus the vast majority of generations of living soccer fans, has been around much longer than our league. It's pretty dumb to be concerned with the fact that the vast majority of clubs that people follow here have anywhere from 60 to 100+ years of history behind them while our oldest clubs have fractured histories going back 30-40, but the true continuous ones are less than 20 years old. However, people like yourself want to mouth off that it's because there's no pro/rel, we don't have an open bidding system where prices are artificially driven up, we have college soccer, we have a salary cap, or whatever other "it's not like this league over here" bullshit you wan't to point too. All of those things are secondary or tertiary or even further down the line from the fact that our league and our clubs simply don't have the time behind them to be entrenched in the psyche. That's changing and this change is becoming evident. You're right, it is easy to just point to some stupid shit and say "that's why American soccer is stupid and sucks and nobody likes it" rather than face facts. It is growing steadily and exponentially. Every time we take down, remove, or conquer one of this pissy little points .... people like you point to something else. Meanwhile, we just point back and laugh at your dumb ass.