I have noticed since the world cup ended the media has pretty much ignored soccer. No increase in coverage of MLS or anything. Maybe instead of bashing they have moved to the ignore stage.
To attempt to answer your question, I can't help but think that it is a mixed bag. On one hand, MLS is not getting highlights on Sportscenter, at least to the best of my knowledge. However, internet coverage, as evinced by CNNsi.com covering Arena's possible re-signing on the main Sports page, is actually getting better on mainstream sports sites. And, I've actually seen a few MLS mentions on SkySports, England, and the Teamtalk U.S. portal site is getting many a look, so perhaps there is increased international media coverage of the league. Progress will be slow, but I think that the media will continue to show more interest in MLS, especially if the U.S. National team continues their unprecedented success.
1. Define media 2. If they have "ignored it" because there hasn't been an "increase in coverage" then doesn't that mean they didn't have coverage before? 3. Those that ignore have always outweighed those who bash. People just pay more attention to the ones that bash. To answer your question, by looking at the MLS daily newsstand and the daily news threads here, soccer coverage has remained pretty consistent in MLS cities. The Post has dropped some of its coverage for various reasons (lower attendence, bad team, great outlay of capital on the WC) but some other papers have increased, including more regular coverage from the LA Times. Read the news threads and you'll see that print media - the most reliable media there is - has not ignored soccer for a long time. In fact, those doing good things about soccer outweigh the bashers by an easy 10-1 ratio at least.
I agree with what you say about the print media always being better. But the television and radio has always been very poor. These are the guys that I think have totally dropped soccer following the world cup. They never covered it before, but i thought maybe they would after our success at the world cup.
1. By and large, TV people are (a) lazy and (b) world-famous for following whatever's hot at that moment (or just a split-second ago), but almost never ahead of the curve, nor do they remember or care about what was hot last week. 2. You mean there wasn't a World Cup Media Bump to go along with the World Cup MLS Attendance Bump? Again, the US gained a measure of soccer respectability at the World Cup, but its benefits will be more long-term than short-term. Those looking for all these "bumps" are going to be disappointed.
Coverage of the Burn in the Dallas Morning News has picked up a bit since the World Cup. It used to be that we'd only see soccer coverage on Wednesdays and matchdays. Since the Cup, though, you'll see one or two more articles per week on the team. Additionally, several of the established columnists who usually just write columns on the Cowboys, Rangers, etc have written columns on soccer in the last few months.
I'm almost positive that the invention of the internet will be the great boost that the NASL (in various guises) didn't get. The TV coverage might not be great. But with the internet, the possibilties are endless due to it's free nature. As someone said, it'll be a slow process, but a successful one. Without the internet, I fear MLS would have taken a similar track to the NASL.