I am certainly not an expert on the subject, but I have read various things over the years that talk about how the EPL is a much better league than it used to be - better play and a lot richer. It's my general impression that there was a lot of "Route 1" soccer being played back then, and that the game is now a lot faster. The name is new, too, I realize. So I was wondering, how did this happen, and what can MLS learn from it? What did the EPL elders do to change their league? Is it just that they started getting better foreign players? Better academies? TV rights fees went up? Or was it just the passing of time (ever look at some of the 1960s NBA games...)?
Here's how the MLS can learn from the EPL: 1. The MLS needs to have a few more Becks/Blanco type players in the league for star power. A total of 4-5 international stars would be sufficient for now to increase overall attendance for the MLS. These stars would be on different teams and their rotation between venues will help to get people in the seats. 2. Keep ticket prices low. For most americans, they have never played soccer so why would they want to pay Lakers ticket prices to see a game they don't understand? If ticket prices remain low, it should be a good incentive for your average fan to watch a soccer match. It doesn't brake the bank to see a game and it should stay that way. 3. Clubs need to actively cultivate their support groups. This is how a distinction can be made by the MLS vs. other US pro leagues. For people that are in the support groups, going to a soccer match is not to watch a game, it's an experience. The more people that are involved in support groups, the more die-hard fans are created. Eventually, you would like to get all the fans on the same page signing the same songs and chants. Once that happens, the experience of going to an MLS game will blow away most pro sports. You get all three of these together and it is the perfect forumula to develop the MLS. These are the incentives to bring out the average sports fan to watch soccer. All these people need is to be a part of the experience and watch one good game and they are hooked.
dont make it too much like the epl, the mls title race is wide open, keep it like that. with the huge number of latin americans in the country, i believe that the mls should try and be more like the argentine, mexican, etc leagues.
Great idea, but it has nothing to do with the EPL, which has some of the highest ticket prices in the world.
Marketing. When the EPL was founded it was all about a fresh new image away from the 'drudgy' 'divison 1' football. This was the 1990's the end of the European ban, the 'Premier League'. This was how it was marketed to the world, especially the Asian markets which it now dominates. Serie A and La Liga were slow in this and for the next few years will be playing catch up as the EPL continues to grow in the Asian market, especially China.
It boils down to money. The Premier League broke away from the Football League. Clubs kept more of their own home match gate reciepts instead of sharing the money around. This is a big part of the current state where Man U and Liverpool 'Chelsea and Arsenal are slightly different' are in a league of their own. They already had huge fan bases, now it became much more worthwhile to expand their stadiums. The Sky TV money. It's not all good. Take another look at that second paragraph.
What can MLS learn? The short answer is "nothing". The problems English football had 20 years ago do not exist in MLS. For a slightly longer answer you have to forget assumptions that premiership growth has been linear, like US sports have been and that the game is now more popular than ever. The true peak of the game here was 50-60 years ago. Crowds in the second tier averaged over 25,000 with top division crowds averaging over 38,000 - and this in the days when hardly anyone had a season ticket, meaning crowds dipped for the lesser games. It started to go badly wrong in the 1970s, with football violence and poor facilities making attending games a less and less and less attractive experience, and with fan being a byword for hooligan, just being a fan became borderline socially unacceptable. The nadir was 1985. Football violence seemed out of control. There was a riot at the Luton v Millwall FA Cup match, which was televised http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=UCKeVQ-jdqE On the last day of the season there was also a riot at the Birmingham v Leeds match. Part of a wall gave way, and in landed on and killed a young boy going to his first ever match. It hardly made the news. Not because it wasn't shocking, but because on the same afternoon, due to lax safety standards, this happened at a 3rd division match at Bradford. http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=SnEyZweOr1w (doesn't really start until about 1 1/2 minutes into the clip) It wasn't obvious how serious it was at first, as there was no way of knowing that all the exits at the back of the stand were locked shut. 56 died. By a twist of fate, the stand was due to be knocked down the next day. Then, two weeks later, the riot at Heysel killed another 39. It was taken for granted that crowds that had nosedived in the past decade or so, would plunge even further. The Prime Minister Maggie Thatcher, was suggesting the all football matches be played behind closed doors for the benefit of the betting industry. Some were wondering if the newly televised sport of American football could take over as the viewers sport of choice. And they weren't being laughed at. It looked impossible for a 92 club pro league to survive. Some even suggested that crowds would just keep falling, and it would disappear as a form of entertainment altogether. But clearly, that didn't happen. There wasn't one thing that changed it, and it certainly wasn't the premiership - it just jumped on a bandwagon that already had a fair bit of momentum and gave it an extra push. Clubs had to upgrade facilities, some of which were unbelievably bad. It was upgrade or have you stand(s) shut. Even once proud clubs like Wolves found three sides of their ground condemned. Clubs also got more serious about tackling hooliganism, and the police improved their tactics to stop trouble before it happened. The divisions outside the top flight also introduced the play-offs, to allow the fight for promotion, the lifeblood of the game in most divisions, to be open to more clubs. They also introduced automatic promotion from the 5th tier of the game to the 4th division for the first time ever, which livened up a stagnant lower half of the 4th division. Crowds started to grow, but fans were still regarded as "mainly thugs" by much of the public. Accusations of the police being "over enthusiastic" with their tactics fell on deaf ears. The Police blamed the Bradford fire on a smoke bomb thrown from the crowd, even though this was found to be untrue. Then Hillsborough happened. The police also lied about that incident, saying it was caused by hooligans smashing down at gate to get in. People believed it as they believed football fans were capable of anything. The Sun newspaper devoted several pages to saying the Liverpool fans that day urinated on the bodies of the dead as they picked their pockets, and people believed it. Then CCTV tapes, which had been "lost" by the police were discovered, showing what really happened. It opened a few eyes, and coupled obviously with the tragedy of the events, fans seemed to be regarded as people rather than hooligans for the first time in a long time, and fans found a common voice. Often this was through the home-made fanzine that every club suddendly had at least one of. Supporting became a unifying thing, and the perception of what a fan was, changed. A year later, England were in the world cup in Italy. Anyone who has watched England play will know what it's like. A team full of players who ooze confidence in their club sides, get thrown together and look like eleven rabbits caught in the headlights, completely unable to comprehand what to do with the round thing in front of them, and turn in displays more painful than polishing your eyeballs with a cheesegrater. Then england put together a run, playing entertaining football as well, and make the semi-finals. The country went ballistic. From being a place where football scores had stopped being read at the end of the news as it was felt people were interested, every man and his dog jumped upon a 45 million seat bandwagon for unprecendented interest in a football match. England's record tv audience ever sat down to watch the match and the penalty drama. The nation was gripped. The match had everything. People who'd have previously regarded watching football as inviting as an evening mud-wrestling in a pig-sty were enthusing over the match. Gazza's tears (during the match) after his booking (meaning he'd miss the final) had the media redefining masculinity. The place went bonkers, and football, and more importantly watching and caring about football, became the in thing. SKY came in a couple of years later, years after crowds and the game's had been rising, and pumped money into the game. It meant that the all-seater regulations, thought by many to lead to very poor cheap conversions, saw grounds genuinely improve instead. Better facilities again attracted fans. As SKY's owners also own several papers, football was also heavily pushed there in a way that it wasn't before, and rival papers found they had to also increase their coverage. The bandwagon just got bigger and bigger. There are worrying signs that ticket prices have hit a watershed point and crowds could start to fall again, but there's no panic just yet. After all, the money keeps coming in. But again, in short, no MLS can't learn much.
for start it can learn how not to treat its fans and supporters. Not that MLS is doing a good job, but it could be worse, it could be EPL
Step 1: ? Step 2: Generate tons of revenue Step 3: Spend said revenue of world-class players Unfortunatley, Step 1 in my process is still a question mark as the MLS needs to do something to generate tons of revenue. I suggest collecting underpants before each homegame.
The MLS can't learn a single thing from EPL. MLS will never have 66+ major teams, will never have relegation, will never have 6+ teams in one city(area). Will never be the only MAJOR sport, and will the USA will never be the SIZE of ENGLAND. IF the USA was the size of California, then maybe we could learn a thing or TWO.
It could learn that involvement within the local community is vital to building team profile, marketing itself towards the inner cities, concentrating on player development an coaching. Football needs to be seen as an option to the inner city kids who use sport as a way to escape poverty. Meaningful competitions, MLS and Superliga while being a success to a point aren't going to be of the quality of continental tournaments within Europe (especially at generating finances) until they sort out issues with TV coverage, sponsorship and scheduling). Matches for Superliga need to be of the highest quality and you wont get that with one team in mid-season and one in pre-season. It could be in the best interests of MLS and Mexican football (and other CONCACAF nations) to arrange their leagues around the same timetable, this doesn't necessarily have to comply with FIFA Aug-Jun schedule but there is a need to take into account International fixtures. Looking at the MLS table this season I noticed there was a bit of a fixture backlog, I assume this was because of the Beckham situation, but that really needs to be rectified. Even if MLS retains the single entity, Clubs should have more control over their own finances and transfers. The salary cap needs to be raised, and clubs need to have parity in wages. Players in MLS need to be paid an attractive (in some cases even a living wage).
I'd say the lesson that can be learnt is: You can get away with treating your fans like shit, as long you hype things up well. Other than that, like RichardL says, its a different situation.
this is what the USA and MLS need. we need a great dream run in a world cup at home where 250 mil americans root along.
No NFL, NHL, NBA, WNBA... All of those sports are ranked higher then MLS. Seems kind of odd to me when soccer(football) is the biggest sport in the world. I think that Americans are just impatient and don't want to sit and watch a sport that only has 1 or 2 goals. It's called "the beautiful game" for a reason because it takes patience and skill to even score. I'm not too sure where the league is going but hopefully with David Beckham's arrival, it's on the rise to stardom.
...and it is very wrong to look just at the premiership. crowds outside the premiership have doubled in that same period. Ticket prices have risen just as much as the premiership in proportion elsewhere. Yet outside the premiership you don't get the premiership hype. You don't get the premiership level of coverage, and clubs most certainly don't get even a distant relation to the premiership's tv money. Even for championship clubs, tv money is a small part of their income.
So world cup 90 was what turned the attitude to football around in England? I didn't know. It's interesting how much one world cup can mean. It's often said how important West Germanys world cup win in 54 was for giving the people some sense of pride again, and for turning the whole nations situation around.