Eric Wynalda's "Howard Beale moment": FSC employees rant against MLS at the NSCAA Convention

Discussion in 'MLS: News & Analysis' started by xbhaskarx, Jan 13, 2012.

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  1. tab5g

    tab5g Member+

    May 17, 2002
    fair point.

    (although, the US was bidding in the 2018/2022 block per FIFA's crazy -- dare I say criminal -- two World Cups voting combined procedures. so the actions of the Russian league and MLS might be more analytically comparable, than say the US bidding on 2022 and Brazil bidding and winning the 2014 process much earlier and not just in 2010.)

    and the water drains down the sinks with a different rotation in the Southern Hemisphere. Does Brazil's top league play through the World Cup weeks? (heck, even MLS doesn't play through the group stage weeks of the World Cup, as far as we can assume.)
     
  2. OleGunnar20

    OleGunnar20 Member+

    Dec 7, 2009
    Club:
    Manchester United FC
    i don't know let's look at some facts:

    [​IMG]

    LARGE VERSION: http://i80.photobucket.com/albums/j164/jcole042/MLSTeamWeatherChart.png

    so that is the weather for the days your talking about from 2011 in each location of an MLS team's stadium. the red is if the temp was under 50 and the green over 50.

    there are only three teams where the weather would have been okay for attendance at an MLS game on each of these supposed dates you'd like to add ... unfortunately two of them play in the same stadium but i guess you could have back to back games with LAG and CHV both having home games on the same weekend. still ... you'd need to be able to host games in at least half of the team's stadiums which you can see from the chart you simply cannot ... at least without seriously impacting attendance due to crap weather and/or some of the weather is even unplayable.

    it cannot and should not be done.
     
  3. RaveGreen

    RaveGreen Member

    Seattle Sounders FC
    Apr 6, 2009
    Seattle
    Club:
    Seattle Sounders
    Not sure if anyone has posted this yet (pardon me if they have) but playing a split season through the winter would not be a first for a soccer league in the US:
    http://homepages.sover.net/~spectrum/nafbl.html

    The NAFBL was a league which operated between 1895 and 1921 in the coastal
    area of the US between Philadelphia and New York City in the years before
    the advent of the ASL I. The league suspended operations in 1898 but was
    revived in Kearny, NJ in 1906. This was the second professional soccer
    league to be formed in the country, and was the top circuit in the country
    before the inauguration of the first American Soccer League in 1921.

    Also...

    http://homepages.sover.net/~spectrum/earlyteams.html

    If it can happen once, it can happen again.

    Also the idea of adopting the Apertura/Clausura season would be fine too as it could avoid both the coldest part of winter and hottest part of summer.
     
  4. tab5g

    tab5g Member+

    May 17, 2002
    nice chart. (although I'm not sure why "50 degrees" is a most honest or magical threshold or reference point.)

    yes, moving MLS games to colder weather dates will impact attendance (negatively, we can assume). but again, the summer months are some of the lightest attended dates in MLS's history anyway.

    we have no idea how "seriously" the attendance would be impacted if MLS played games in the first two weeks of Dec and the date range roughly from Feb 15 to March 7. (We do know, that for about 75% of MLS games, the league would not be placing games to new match dates, so attendance would/should not be significantly affected in still the vast majority of the league schedule.)

    And we can imagine that if any games scheduled on those dates (or others elsewhere on the MLS calendar) had matches that faced unplayable conditions, MLS would have to (and very likely would be able to) find dates on which to reschedule those matches.

    again, MLS isn't going to make (and they certainly aren't going to rush into making) any decisions or changes that potentially aren't "good" for their operations. (and they're not going to try anything that will be an overall detriment to their business.)
     
  5. OleGunnar20

    OleGunnar20 Member+

    Dec 7, 2009
    Club:
    Manchester United FC
    one, because i could only find the mean temp for each date/city and not a list of temps at various times. the thinking is if the mean for the day is 50 then the temp at the time when most games are played, late afternoon/evening was that or lower. and 50 is pretty uncomfortable to be sitting outside for 2 hours.

    but even if you put the threshold at 45 ... there aren't enough team with suitable weather (at least half) to play the games. you cannot play games in any of Feb because too many MLS teams (over half) are in places where the weather makes that IMPOSSIBLE ... likewise in December .... so you cannot just "take two months off for winter break" you pretty much have to take 3 ... DEC, JAN & FEB ... because the weather in those 3 months in over 50% of the MLS teams locations is either unplayable or so severe as to seriously negatively impact weather.

    and if you are going to take 3 months off for those months you cannot do anything but what MLS is already doing by making it the offseason, otherwise you'd be taking a 1 month "offseason" in Jun or Jul and a 3 month "break".

    give it a couple decades of global warming and maybe the weather in at least half the MLS cities will be suitable in Feb and Dec but it isn't that way now.
     
  6. superdave

    superdave Member+

    Jul 14, 1999
    VB, VA
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    This is gonna be one of those super rare moments when I agree with tab rather than Andy.

    I won't go so far as to say the reason convinces me that changing the schedule would be a good idea. But it IS a reason.

    Here's something that I think is kind of interesting...the big reason I don't find this argument compelling is because the amount of player movement at this moment in time is minimal. (And let's face it, a fair amount of the player movement is from MLS to Scandanavian leagues that have the same schedule as MLS.)

    But if in the next 6 or 10 or 15 years the MLS and USSF youth initiatives pay off and the American player becomes better, then you're going to see more and more teams with "real" money wanting MLS players, and they're going to want them in THEIR offseason and not MLS'. In addition, I suspect that as MLS grows our pay will start to become competitive with a different class of European club, meaning MLS teams will be more interested in bringing guys over from Lille or Catania or Feyenoord.

    If/when those two things happen, it's going to be a problem for MLS if every season, the rosters change dramatically in midseason, and it's easy to imagine it undermining fan support. Why care about a team in May that might get gutted in August?
    Your brother is the kind of fan I was talking about before. Moving the MLS schedule to conform with the Western Europe standard changes the lake in which MLS is fishing for fans in positive and negative ways.

    To me, the evidence at this point, given weather patterns and MLS revenues from fannies vs. eyeballs, is very strongly in favor of the argument that the negatives of moving outweigh the positives, and I haven't seen anything close to a convincing argument on the other side.
     
  7. ElJefe

    ElJefe Moderator
    Staff Member

    Feb 16, 1999
    Colorful Colorado
    Club:
    FC Dallas
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    "Drunken ranting" is not a synonym for "passion."

    Eric Wynalda has plenty of the former. The latter? Eh.

    And pray tell, how do you change that?

    Well, those people who are impressed by guiding Germany to a semifinal appearance in a World Cup held in Germany. Those of us who note that Germany makes it to the semifinals two-thirds of the time when they're NOT playing in Germany are maybe not so impressed.

    Forget Clint Dempsey. Forget Landon Donovan. Forget Brad Friedel. Forget Brad Guzan. Robbie Findley is now the face of American soccer.

    But when I need all of those things, Eric Wynalda will not be in the top 100 people I ask.
     
  8. tab5g

    tab5g Member+

    May 17, 2002
    thanks. and it IS a reason, as you note.

    and the people that have to be convinced are not the readers/commentators of BS, but those that sit on the MLS BoG and the MLS Competition Committee or in other chairs that will have influence on any of these type of decisions by the league.

    again, the league will find their reasons (and be convinced as businessmen) for making any changes in the future.

    or they'll remain convinced that the scheduling status quo of spring to fall is (and always will be) the best model for their league's seasons.
     
  9. Jossed

    Jossed Member+

    Apr 23, 2011
    Club:
    New York Red Bulls
    Almost all the national team plays abroad. Even a lot our B players now. So I am not sure what this has to do with MLS TV ratings. If Robbie Findley can't score from 2 feet, and is still employed, than it probably says something about the quality of the soccer they play at Nottingham Forest in England than anything about MLS.

    Passion without facts just makes you a nutty ranter. Eric lacks facts.

    You are acting like MLS is broken and needs to be fixed. This is not 2002 or even 2005. MLS is working. It is growing. If Don Garber and the BoG feel they can improve it, then they will take measures to do so. Compare it to other attempts to establish a D1 here. MLS works. Sadly not fast enough for some people who want it to be an American EPL in a few years. But that was never rational. Not with the NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, and college sports here.
     
  10. GreatGonzo

    GreatGonzo Member+

    Jul 1, 1999
    MA
    Club:
    Colorado Rapids
    tab5g - I apologize that I don't have the data for this and can't easily pull it together, but do you have any sense of whether or not that attendance drop in the summer months still holds true if you just look at recent years? Kenntomasch's blog covers 1996 - 2009, and I think looking just at 2006 - 2011 would make more sense.
     
  11. LongDuckDong

    LongDuckDong Member+

    Jan 26, 2011
    Club:
    FC Schalke 04
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Here's what I got for average daily high temperatures at stadiums.

    [​IMG]

    full size (here)

    Green: > 50 - (good to go)
    Yellow: 45 to 50 - (could be a bit sketchy, but generally workable)
    Red: < 45 - (bad idea)
     
  12. DoctorD

    DoctorD Member+

    Sep 29, 2002
    MidAtlantic
    Club:
    Philadelphia Union
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Ruud, there are a lot of things about the EPL that I find either dumb, inapplicable to the US, or cynically used to protect the big teams. But the one thing it does superbly - and it applies to your ratings statement - is to broadcast a game and make it look exciting.

    Better than the Germans, Spanish, Italians, anybody.

    So Eric W., if you are reading this, have FSC or ESPN import a complete EPL-quality broadcast team for one game: cameramen, sound guys, directors, announcers, everybody. Set up as many cameras and in the same locations as an EPL game and let them do the boradcast. Camera selection, when to show replays, sound quality (every notice how loud the crowd is when the visiting team scores a goal even though the majority of the stadium is shown sitting on their hands?), just like in ol Blighty. No concessions to supposed American tastes.

    And I bet that lowly MLS game will suddenly look first-rank.
     
  13. SYoshonis

    SYoshonis Member+

    Jun 8, 2000
    Lafayette, Louisiana
    Club:
    Michigan Bucks
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    And, what happened to those leagues.....? Short answer: Not something that I'd like to happen again.
     
  14. OleGunnar20

    OleGunnar20 Member+

    Dec 7, 2009
    Club:
    Manchester United FC
    uh, why would you pick the daily high? the game isn't likely to be played at the time of day when the high happens ... unless you want all of these games to be 12N-1pm kick offs ... which would negatively effect attendance in another way.

    the mean for the day, outside of being able to get temps for exact times like 4pm and 8pm, is a much better measure.

    but i am sure you went with highs because if you put the mean temperature for each day the picture would be much scarier.
     
  15. AndyMead

    AndyMead Homo Sapien

    Nov 2, 1999
    Seat 12A
    Club:
    Sporting Kansas City
    There's no evidence that changing the schedule will change the TV ratings.

    The Fall-Spring schedule would basically just swap December and February in for June/July.

    Unless the games in December and February draw massive ratings compared to the lost games in June/July, I'm not seeing how the TV ratings will be affected by a different schedule.

    Considering that you'd almost certainly have to have more day games in a February or December than in June or July and that ratings are typically much better at night, it's an uphill battle.
     
  16. chapka

    chapka Member+

    May 18, 2004
    Haverford, PA
    Club:
    Philadelphia Union
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Wynalda would argue that you're confusing cause and effect: that the reason not many players move, and most of those that do move go to Scandinavia, is because of the offseason mismatch.

    I'm not 100% convinced of that, but I do think you've misstated the argument a bit.
     
  17. LongDuckDong

    LongDuckDong Member+

    Jan 26, 2011
    Club:
    FC Schalke 04
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I went with the daily highs because I think these winter games should be played at 2 or 3pm. College football is pretty much over. Why not play these games early Saturday afternoon?
     
  18. KensingtonSC

    KensingtonSC Still Lazy After All These Years

    FC Vaduz / Philadelphia Union
    Jan 7, 2010
    Andalusia, PA
    Club:
    FC Vaduz
    The 2011 Union home opener was against Vancouver, and the temperature at game time was 47 degrees. People did nothing but complain about how chilly it was. It's different when you're in the supporter's section, and you're bouncing around, but for the guy sitting just 5 sections away, I don't think it was all that pleasant, since, as I said, I only heard people complaining about the weather. Again, you may be comfortable with 50. That doesn't mean everyone is, and that's who MLS is taking into account.
     
  19. tab5g

    tab5g Member+

    May 17, 2002
    not that it's a huge difference, but tv ratings overall are higher in the colder months, and lower in the warmer months.

    with more people inside, more tv viewing is being done in Dec-Feb.

    nicer weather has more people outside (and/or out of town) doing things other than watching tv.

    no, it isn't a huge difference, but winter time tv programming (even if it is the same content) does better than summer time tv programming.
     
  20. JasonMa

    JasonMa Member+

    Mar 20, 2000
    Arvada, CO
    Club:
    Colorado Rapids
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Presumably MLS would keep around a 34 game schedule, and they would have around 38 weeks to get all the regular season in + playoffs, so you'll still need some midweek games that would be played in the evenings.
     
  21. AndyMead

    AndyMead Homo Sapien

    Nov 2, 1999
    Seat 12A
    Club:
    Sporting Kansas City
    In general, but we're likely talking about day games in the winter vs night games in the summer. I'm not sure the summer games wouldn't draw more.

    Additionally, we're talking about swapping out 2 of 8 months. The large majority of the televised games won't change.

    Anyone positing that a Fall-Spring schedule will noticeably alter TV ratings is going to have to show their work. The available evidence just doesn't back it up.
     
  22. EL MONO MARIO

    EL MONO MARIO Member

    Apr 9, 2002
    Montevideo, Uruguay
    Club:
    CA River Plate
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    After his MLS extratime pod cast interview he did have some valid points about incentives and player contracts which I think he has a point.

    As far as switching the calendar... We can beat it around the bush all we want.... So lets just stop sugar coating it and say it:

    NO ONE WILL PAY $$$$$ TO SEE A FING SOCCER GAME IN CHICAGO IN DECEMBER!


    MLS like MLB is a summer time sport.... It is the ONLY sport the MLS really competes with... Why move to the winter to compete with NHL, NBA, oh and that little league no one watches called the NFL!

    Finishing the season in May, one month before most Americans begin to take summer vacations and go to ball games/ sporting events is stupid...

    March to November, live it, love it, ACCEPT IT!
     
  23. LongDuckDong

    LongDuckDong Member+

    Jan 26, 2011
    Club:
    FC Schalke 04
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    So you play those midweek games during the warmer months?

    No one's suggesting that we play soccer in Chicago in December. That would be idiotic.
     
  24. tab5g

    tab5g Member+

    May 17, 2002
    we're not sure of anything.

    we don't have a lot of the data that MLS has, or could realistically get (or project) for analytical use in these types of (possible) considerations.

    we certainly don't know how MLS would specifically schedule match times were they to play games in early Dec and in late Feb.

    in 2012, we'll get to see if MLS plays their MLS Cup (and first MLS game in December) at night or in the afternoon.

    of course.

    just like the large majority of the league's overall business won't (or wouldn't) change.

    although, they'd likely have their primary and secondary transfer windows flipped, they'd be sending US-qualified teams sooner to compete in the CCL, they'd be playing their post-season in warmer weather, and they'd have to market the new season format to fans to help everyone accept the incredibly strange mid-season extended break.

    no one is conclusively positing anything of the sort, as far as I can tell. most here are making broad (if perhaps uninformed) statements and trying to speculate how things might (or might not) change for MLS were they to try to play their league season from the fall to the spring.

    for all the "tv viewers" the league may gain (even slightly) in Dec/Feb, it's a very real concern that there will be some negative affect on tickets sold, relative to the current ticket sales for the games played through the summer.

    there are clear/simple arguments that MLS is "doing fine" now, and there is (potentially, or honestly) more to be lost than gained from any change/switch, so it makes the most sense to keep the status quo.

    there are also potential considerations that can broadly be discussed, even with a limited amount of knowledge that we, as league outsiders, have with respect to MLS's overall business.

    none of our conclusions or opinions will truly matter, when it comes to what MLS decides to do.

    it has been interesting to witness MLS expand its season footprint in recent years, to the point were it is now playing in the second week of March, and late into Nov (even to the first day of Dec in 2012).

    it will be interesting to see if the league continues with that season footprint expansion, and MLS matches are scheduled into additional and previously unused weeks on the calendar.

    and if that continued expansion happens, it will be interesting to see if MLS winds up deciding that a permanent summer off-season would work best for their league, and that a fall-spring schedule would make the most business sense for the league in some future year.
     
  25. tab5g

    tab5g Member+

    May 17, 2002
    to be fair, MLS has set a schedule that very well could have an MLS game played in Chicago (Bridgeview, IL, 60455) on December 1, 2012.

    and what we may consider "idiotic" might not actually align with or affect what MLS actually decides to do with their schedule.
     

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