Let me ask you this, why would a traditional soccer fan want to watch MLS? Whats in it for them? Do you think the league even attempts to get their attention? From where I sit, this league is structured and marketed to attract the 8th grader, not the traditionalist.
Turn it around. What's not to appeal to soccer lovers? Do you love the games? or is it the standings? Do you love watching the players compete on the field, or does the lack of advertising splattered on their jerseys bother you? Everybody seems to want to fix what doesn't take place during the 90 or so minutes that the ball is in play. In the end - that's all that really matters in the long term. It's the on field product. Not the bad uniforms, not the questionable refereeing, not the team ownership, not the number of empty seats. None of it. If the play on the field isn't compelling, the product will never be successful. Me? I find the on-field product to be wonderful. It has improved year after year. I find the average MLS game to be as enjoyable to watch as anything I'm seeing on FSW and GolTV. Sure, there are some great EPL and Serie A games, but man oh man are there some stinkers. It's all good.
Don't forget those Champions League matches on ESPN2. Some of the dullest football I've seen are some of those group stage matches where both teams' first priority is not to lose.
Happens in the WC a lot, too. Frankly, I think what opened this game up was the absence of Nelsen. It caused NE to evaluate that the best chance for victory was not playing the way they usually play, but rather going straight at EZ, which paid off at least in the early goal, and very possibly the third as well (somebody should have been marking Noonan, and it probably should have been EZ). With Nelsen, the game might have been as close and/or as hotly contested, but in all likelihood not as offensive (which bodes ill for anyone hoping for a thriller this Sunday).
Well this article bodes well for KC. Or at least NO ONE on these boards should complain about KC's style. http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2004/writers/gabriele_marcotti/11/04/defense/index.html BTW Stan - I named Nelsen my MOM in the 10/9 DC-NE game because he ended up clearing so many attacks by NE. So he was the difference between a 1-0 game and a 3-3 game.
That's very nice in theory, but I don't think the real world functions like that. What's the point of the game on the field being compelling if they surrounding environment doesn't justify my attention? What's the point of having a great game for 90 minutes, only to have the league set up it's rules to create the parity that ensures general mediocrity overall? We all want the league to be more prominant, but not a single one of the major sports in the US got there solely based on putting a good product on the field. AND furthermore, with the increasing option for soccer fans in this country to follow leagues over seas, how can you capture them and make them keep their attention domesticly when things are done better elsewhere, or at least done differently in a way that the majority seems to relate more to? To me it always seems like two goals that are at odds with eachother, one is to compete and grow this league to a level competitive with the rest of the world, and on the other hand do it in a way that is for lack of a better word, "american" and is more like NFL and MLB with the MLS's end goal being to generate $$ like NFL and MLB generate.
The NFL basically did. The atmosphere, to this day, is clearly better in college. (It should be noted that this took a very long time. It wasn't until at least the late 1950s that the NFL had taken the lead over the college game, and perhaps not even until the Super Bowl Era). However, I consider the fan enthusiasm to be one of the most fundamental considerations in the "quality of the product," (especially in soccer) so that complicates things.
Arguably, also, the main thing that launched major league baseball (1871) relatively soon after the arrival of the first openly professional team (1869) was the obvious leap in the quality of play. S'nilloc Nats
Exactly. Which is maybe why all the other small things are annoying, because this league has to artificially create that same fan enthusiasm that exists in part around the world due to the sheer fact that most clubs did not start out as a for-profit company (like MLS did), but rather a social or athletic club. What can you do though, it's the cards that have been dealt. I don't know, I'm not a fan of the playoff system. Would rather see only 4 teams make post season, home/away to determine finalists.
I hear your point and I agree to an extent. Heck, I like watching soccer so much I would watch you and montster kick it around. Do I love MLS? Yes, I watch tons of it. But, there are lots of soccer fans out there who do not. Off the top of my head... The football lines are a disaster. The average age of the fan is like 10. The games lack urgency. The things surrounding the games are cheesy; wacky sound effects, piped in sound and the incessant talking over the PA. The names of some teams are embarrassing; the Wizards, MetroStars and Real. The fact that 8 out 10 teams are rewarded playoff spots rendering the regular season with little to follow. Giant bowl stadiums with zero atmosphere. What exactly is the soccer purist supposed to gravitate too? Decent soccer, played with nothing really at stake, in a atmosphereless stadium, sitting in a sea of 7th graders? Then if that wasn't enough, trying to watch the event with all the fore mentioned cheesy shenanegans hanging over the experience like a dark cloud. We might like it, but the MLS experience is not a pure soccer one. Not even close. Tradionalist don't like all the bull shitt. It turns them off. Ask around, but not here. We drank the cool aide already. Find out why people don't like watching MLS. Perhaps then, we can learn how to make it appeal to more and more people. A note: Look at DC last Saturday night. A great crowd of adult passionate soccer fans, creating a great atmosphere in a good stadium, with no football lines playing in a game that was meaningful. MLS has potential. Anyone who watched this game would agree. Let try and bring as many elements like these, to more of the season. If we did, there is no way you could convince me this league wouldn't be on the radar by now. Why? Cause Saturday night in DC is what soccer is all about. People loved it. It was pure, exciting and void of all the garbage mentioned above.
How many people on these boards disagree with this assessment? I don't see a lot of threads calling for bigger stadiums, less attention paid to supporters groups and more to soccer moms, keeping football lines year round, more stadium music, and less passion. The original question of this thread was the playoffs. I don't see how changes to the playoff system would greatly affect the product on the field. Each game might mean more to the already die hard fans if playoff spots were rare, but I seriously doubt that a bye or a homefield advantage is going to motivate any player in MLS to run himself into the ground in June or July. I seriously doubt coaches are going to start throwing offensive subs in at the end of April matches in a desparate attempt to get three points. If we shrink the playoffs then, yes, the playoff intensity will start a few weeks earlier than it does now but it will also produce a growing number of meaningless matches as teams are eliminated from contention. If our league had ninety years of history instead of nine, that would not be a problem. Right now (and I'm only arguing about right now, not what we should do in the future) in order to develop a die hard fan base it is in the league's best interest to keep teams in contention. One of the reasons DC had such a great crowd is because so many people in that crowd experienced firsthand DC's early success. I will not be surprised at all if San Jose continues to show growth next year despite their poor season and loss of Donovan because the Earthquakes now have a tradition to build on. If NE had made three runs to the conference finals in 96,97,98 instead of the past three years I have no doubt their fan base would have more successfully weathered the many down years. In the short term MLS regular season games are not sold based on matchups or playoff ramifications or the success of the club but in the long term I believe that some taste of success, even if somewhat manufactured by a watered down playoff system, is necessary. Twenty years from now the league can look at the playoff system and judge it solely on its effects on the regular season and the fairness of its methods. Right now so many other considerations come into play.
2 questions.... Why have teams playing been so hard now and for the past month, month and a half? Second, for you, what is compelling about the first 25 games of the regular season?
Today's (11-10-04) LA Times article by Grahame Jones has a good quote by Garber: SO--there is a recognition that something is not allowing MLS to be that compelling throughout the regular season. What solution they come up with is anyone's gues...
I think the current playoff format worked fine this year. To me the two best teams made the final. Columbus was also deserving, but they blew it in their home and home series. If they couldn't get a goal in two games versus a bottom feeder, then you've chocked like dogs. When there are more teams the regular season will mean more, and the playoff format will make sense. The home and home series in the first round should give us the better team at that time. It's like a 5 game series in basketball. Then you have the conference championship, which should also mean a lot when there are more teams in each division (My dream would be to have two tables of 12 or so teams: East and West). Then the MLS Cup. The format itself is fine. Now the marketing and promotion of these games may need some work. Clearly they got the fans out in DC, but what about the other games. Why weren't there crowds like that at every game? That's the question we need to be asking ourselves.
This is a start... Atleast they acknowledge the issue. Which is more than many people here that continue to pine away for the status quo. They somehow still don't see it. Clint Eastwood in the above post to name one. His opinion ofcourse, he is entitled to it. Thankfully though, less and less people are sharing his opinion...
Thats only part of it monster. Do you think adding more teams answers to the people that dont think the regular season is good? You keep saying it, but never respond to the people that argue its more than just adding teams. If thats your stance, thats fine, but it would mean more if you were to back it up.
Look 8 out of 10 to make the playoffs is too many teams but I understand why it needs to be done (NHL used to be 16 out of 21). The teams in the MLS needs to capture on the excitement. we all know that Freddy Adu is main reason for some attendence spikes this year and we need more of that type of anticipation. Take a league like EPL you have 10 or 11 teams fighting over places in Europe and 6 or 7 fighting to stay up so there is a sense of urgency for most of the season
1. Since you choose to be incredibly vague about what you want, I just follow suit. "More people" and "more exciting" are incredibly disingenuous, so is putting words in Don Garber's mouth. He never mentioned the playoff situation or how that affected a game in July. Just that more games should be that exciting. And they should. In all leagues. In all sports. b. Adding teams addresses a number of situations - gets players onto the field who may have been stuck on the bench, makes playoff spots more valuable, encourages stadium development, which will increase revenue, which will make the league stronger. But no one wants to address those realities as I have a number of times. People just seem to want to bitch about this year's playoff format when there is no conclusive evidence that it really hurts the league and it will not be inexistence next year, simply because there will be more teams fighting for eight spots. In short, I don't know how it will affect things and neither do you. Nobody does. But just because the league is making this effort to make things mor eexciting, don't act like they are sitting on their hands. You can keep saying "more people" and "man people" don't like the format, but historical attendance and viewership numbers show that the interest in MLS is relatively stable. Those facts can't be denied as much as some people will try.
In the other thread we were discussing this in, I explained it full detail. You refused to respond to it. You just keep saying "they will add more teams and it will be better". Not trying to be a dik, just saying your opinion might be completely valid, but we don't know, cause you dont try to put it up against any scrutiny. You just ignore it.
No proof??? Kenmasotash or whatever his name is keeps impeccable ticket sale records. IE: attendance.. This league has been no discernable growth in 9 years. The chart is very very flat. I am not a numbers guy, I dont need them to show me whats going on. But perhaps this fact speaks a little more in your language.