Review: MLS at 30: Where the League Is and Where It Needs to Go

Peter Wilt has a history of starting something then bailing on it. I wouldn't let him organize anything but a team in a league.
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I so hope USL gets off the ground in 2027 with a D1 League. They have a revenue stream with CBS and some infrastructure already in place with teams that play in USL Championship. You would hope that they would be able to get at least 5-7 teams from expansion outside of USLC with new investment. I seriously doubt pro/rel would be in the plans for at least a decade if at all.
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Indy Eleven, Tampa Bay Rowdies, Louisville City FC, San Antonio FC & Sacramento Republic would be at the top of the list for D1 as they all have a stadium they could upgrade or have a plan for a new one. I doubt any would happen day one but by 28-29 maybe. After that you have Miami that actually plays in a stadium that qualifies and an owner with some cash but who knows?
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If this happens though I believe you'll see more investment from MLS just like every other American league did when they had competition from a competing league. Can you imagine how the US Open Cup might benefit if 16 MLS teams play 12 teams from a rival D1 league? In the end I think it would squash the pro/rel debate because I don't think they would be able to compete to stay solvent while trying to build infrastructure and also compete for revenue.

 

I think Tampa will struggle to add 8,000 seats without major capital investment. Miami will be in even though they have no fans. Phoenix will probably find a bit of land and lash up some bleachers. Indy is dependent on local politics. Detroit are trying to work on a new stadium.

The last time a D2 league tried to bring on board foreign investors to take it to D1 it worked out really well. NASL is thriving.

Take your pick from Phoenix, Riverside/San Bernadino, Detroit, Tampa, Baltimore, San Antonio, Pittsburgh, Sacramento, Las Vegas, Cleveland, Indianapolis, Norfolk/Virginia Beach, North Carolina (Cary) Jacksonville, Providence, Milwaukee, Miami, Brooklyn, Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Louisville, Richmond, New Orleans, Birmingham, Buffalo etc and we should take the discussion to the USL forum.

 

In the spirit of the discussion, I'll chime in.

I don't really care about promotion / relegation for MLS, and I'm not sure I ever will. Maybe it's relevant for a future generation in MLS, but right now I believe the negatives outweigh the positives. I think it's a theoretical good, and a practical disaster, details upon request.


if we want a thriving non-pro system,

For me the question is WHO really wants a thriving non-pro system? Meaning, who are the stakeholders and what are the pros and cons for each?

• Does MLS want it? MLS teams now have their academies and their curated B-teams in NextPro, are they still looking for roster prospects playing in these amateur and semi-pro leagues? How many players anymore make it onto MLS rosters, and stick, after playing for a USL team or an NASL team? There was a time when it was common that each team featured a few such players, I'm curious how the numbers look now.

• Do the stakeholders of these other leagues even want any sustained unity, or an organized pyramid, etc? I've kinda defaulted to the conclusion they do not . . . if they even want it, why don't they have such a structure by now? My guess is that the pie of amateur and semi-pro soccer is not large enough or profitable enough to share with all, so there is continued rivalry between these factions to grab the lion's share, and to-hell-with-them for the rest.

• Does college soccer still count as part of the talent pool feeding MLS? Inter (my local MLS team) has a few college soccer alums on their roster, alongside all the Barcelona guys etc. I imagine most MLS teams still feature a few, though fewer than was common years ago. I think if I were an MLS sporting director, I'm watching college soccer more closely than I'm scouting in USL or the other American pro leagues -- I could be way off, it's just my hunch..

 

No doubt, you hear a lot of people argue that it would make MLS more popular or make it "appointment TV" (which I did see claimed somewhere), and this is based on little but wishcasting or post hoc thinking. MLS explicitly or implicitly decided long ago that trying to make regular season games into significant TV products wouldn't be worth the cost (you'd have to dramatically reduce 'supply' IMO, meaning fewer regular season games, smaller playoffs, fewer televised games, so that each was rare and each game had a big swing in terms of your record, and all of that might cannibalize the in-stadium revenues that are really driving the league up to now. And then you'd still have to spend a lot more, I think, to make the consumers look at it as a high-level product). Yes, a handful of games among bad teams become meaningful anyway, but I don't see how that translates to viewership across the whole league. I favor pro/rel and think it might be a value add (in terms of total franchise value across the entire professional sport, I would hypothesize it is a net gain), though ownership is unlikely to ever get creative enough to capture it (it would involve compensating MLS owners for what they've spent on teams presuming they'd be sheltered, and that's not easy to do, though I could come up with some ideas), and even I don't think there's much difference in terms of top-division general societal interest or mainstream TV.

What I think it does do is change what a lower division is, change what you're playing for, in a positive way. That has some knock-ons, including possibly more academies that find more top players, but it's arguable whether this is a dramatic or just an ancillary effect. Hard to prove either way, as there's no good control group.

 

These are all great points and why it would end the argument. Tampa Bay had a plan to expand the stadium to join MLS. I'm sure if they had a plan for D1 and are serious, it wasn't about joining a single entity (sarcasm). The teams I mention all had a plan at one time other than Louisville and I believe their stadium was set up to expand in the future.
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The reality of going up to D1 in America is 500 million in investment minimum. The Apple deal is paying just over 8 million a season. To a team like the Union who spent 35 million and had the government help build a stadium for them, those days are over. Just getting a commitment from the government today would be impossible without the guarantee of D1 revenue over how many years to get a return? Will Indianapolis be willing to build a stadium for Indy Eleven now that they can move up to a new D1 league over a expansion MLS team? I doubt it and add in they can be back where they are right now into the equation is the reason the mayor killed a deal they already had.

 

Tampa's MLS stadium plan was going to cost $80 million. I can't see them spending that. And their owner at the time has moved on.

No it's not. $500 million is the cost of joining MLS. D1 requires a 15,000 seat stadium with a primary owner worth $40 million. There's some other financial stuff but the cost of meeting D1 PLS from scratch is probably $50 million.

USL isn't saying they're going to compete with MLS and I don't think anyone is expecting them to try and compete, at least in the short-term.

D1 is just a designation. USL D1 initially will be to MLS what USL Super League is to NWSL.

 

Decent discussion about the league:

 

MLS has 19 of the top 50 most valuable soccer clubs in the world.

https://www.foxsports.com/stories/s...jpN610HpaOB91czcFA_aem_tIY2-ED2YCSZ3NHYzPFIJQ

Yes, valuation is nebulous. And no, it is not the same thing as revenue, which is a different thing where MLS would not come in nearly as high. And yes, valuation and on field product/quality are not the same, either.

But, damn. That is impressive.

Now, the top 10-15 are who you'd expect:

Madrid, ManU, Barcelona, Liverpool, Bayern Munich, Man City, Arsenal, PSG, Spurs, and Chelsea is the top 10. Madrid at $6.53 billion at the top, Chelsea at $3.57 B in 10th.

Then a gap to the rest. Atletico Madrid ($1.85 B), Dortmund, Juve, AC Mian, and Inter ($1.3 B).

EPL has 6, Spain 3, Germany 2, Italy 3, France 1.

Of the next 35? MLS 19 (including #16-#20), ENG 8, ITA 2, MEX 2, GER 1, FRA 1, NED 1, Portugal 1, ESP 0.

On the financial side, MLS is easily a Top 10 league. Revenue, attendance, team value, even transfer spending. Due to the size and structure, it does better in terms of aggregate and median numbers instead of mean average.

And again, the big/middle fish in other leagues generate more revenue. But the revenue numbers are worth reiterating.

Total Revenue
1. EPL (ENG): €7.1 billion
2. La Liga (ESP): €5.24 billion
3. Bundesliga (GER): €4.452 billion
4. Serie A (ITA): €3.618 billion
5. Ligue 1 (FRA): €2.378 billion
6. MLS (USA/CAN): €2.233 billion
7. Serie A (BRA): €1.705 billion
8. Championship (ENG): €1.06 billion
9. Russian Premier (RUS): €1.05 billion
10. 2 Bundesliga (GER): €785.7 mil

Revenue per team (mean)
1. EPL: €355 mil
2. La Liga €262 mil
3. Bundesliga €247 mil
4. Serie A (ITA): €181 mil
5. Ligue 1: €115.4 mil
6. Serie A (BRA): €85 mil
7. MLS: €77 mil
8. Russian Premier: €65.6 mil
9. Championship: €44.1 mil
10. 2 Bundesliga: €43.7

On average, an MLS team has double the revenue of any other league in the world.

Eredivisie (NED) €34.9 mil, J League (Jap) €31.3, Primeira Liga (POR) €30.9, Liga MX €30.8. We are closer to Ligue 1 than the Eredivisie is to us.

Now, the big fish there will certainly out revenue an MLS club, but the gap is shrinking. An an average MLS club does MUCH better.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_professional_sports_leagues_by_revenue
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On the field & big fish vs big fish are a different matter, but in terms of revenue & value, MLS is already top 6-7 in the world. And likely, in terms of the median team, the best outside the big 5 European Leagues (and maybe even insude those 5 on median measures).

 

Most other leagues have a huge gap in finances and level of talent between the top and bottom 3 teams. MLS much less so. In the Leagues Cup, a downright horrible Revs team was no match for the top Mexican teams, but had no trouble with the mid-to-bottom clubs.

 

If we go by Leagues Cup then Queretaro who is always a bottom dweller in Liga MX made it to semis in Leagues Cup.

If we get the last 6 placed teams currently in MLS and compare them to the last 2 in Liga MX (Santos and Puebla) there really isn't that much difference in quality of bad teams. The bottom 6 MLS teams are outspending the bottom 2 Liga MX (specially ATL and LAG) and aren't the much off quality wise.

 

What year was that?

 

My bad. They made it to QF in 2023. But point stands.

 

They were beaten 5-1 and 2-1 by Philly and eked out a draw at New England with 33% possession, winning on penalties.

 

I once stated elsewhere that all 30 MLS teams would finish between third and fifth in the Portuguese league, and I stand by that. What you think of that is up to you, but I do think MLS is going up and not down. It's interesting that the very rules that prevent a European Super League are the ones that prevent the improvement of some of these leagues. (A Benelux league would be a lot of fun, for instance.)

 

The "big 3" in Portugal are Benfica, Sporting and Porto, so maybe around 4th might be more accurate?

 

Not that this means anything but according to OPTA MLS and Primeira intersperse.


Sporting, Benfica, Porto, Braga
Columbus, LAFC,
Vitoria
Seattle, Vancouver, Orlando, Philly, Miami, Cincinnati, Minnesota
Famáliacăo
Houston
Santa Clara
Portland, NYRB, NYC, San Diego, Charlotte
Estoril
Nashville
Moreirense, Arouca
RSL
Casa Pia, Rio Ave
Galaxy, Austin, New England, Atlanta
Gil Vicente
Dallas, Chicago Colorado, St Louis
Nacional
SKC, San Jose, DCU
Farense
Montreal, Toronto
Estrella, AVS, Boavista

Oh Canada!

 

Leagues Cup is an exciting tournament, don't get me wrong, but basing it off on that tournament alone to see which league is better isn't a fair assessment. We know that MLS teams in Mexico have a difficult time getting results. That's just a fact.

 

I agree. We shouldn't consider Queretero's win on penalties over New England as indicative of the quality of the bottom of LMX.

 

So we base it off on a tournament fully played here and come to the conclusion that MLS from top to bottom is better?

I wish Leagues Cup were done on a neutral place (they can't) or just played home and away (possible to do but we know both prefer money over finding which league is better).

 

You can also throw in the wrinkle that 6 Liga MX clubs are already CCC qualified by the time they play the Leagues Cup, which could impact motivation in what is essentially a CCC “qualifying event”.

Overall, the Leagues Cup is of very questionable sporting value.

Whether it is entertaining is a different discussion altogether.

 

That 6 Liga MX already qualified by the time Leagues Cup starts does have an impact. It all depends how those teams decide to approach the tournament. Technically they don't need to place as they are already in CCC. MLS on the other hand no one has qualified to CCC yet by the time Leagues Cup starts. Not even via USOC.

As for the tournament being questionable, we know why it is done. Both leagues want to milk the US market. It's an entertaining tournament (unless you are a Liga MX fan then you'll be disgruntled about it) if you just want to see good entertaining match ups. Which is what it offers. But basing it off as to who has the worst bad teams or who has the better mid table teams we can't conclude anything from this tournament, unfortunately.

 

I know this is all hypothetical but how would the 4 worst current MLS teams (St Louis, Atlanta United, Montreal and LA Galaxy) do in Liga MX if they had played this season over there? How would Santos and Puebla do in MLS if they had played this season in MLS and took the spot of the 4 worst MLS teams?

Atlanta and STL have 2 wins in 14 games so far this season. Montreal has 1 win. LA Galaxy winless after 14. Santos and Puebla had 2 wins in 17 games in Liga MX. IMO, MLS has more bad teams because it does have more teams. But the bad MLS teams are just as bad as the Liga MX teams while outspending them.

 

Hold on you're reversing the argument. Isn't there a word for that?

Weren't you the one who was arguing that the bottom of LMX was as good as MLS based on Queretero reaching the semi-final, nay quarter- final of the Leagues Cup?

I just pointed out that their record that season against MLS teams in regulation was W0 D1 L2.

 

Back to the subject...

This might not go here but where I would like to see this league do is cut the season to 30 games. Play everyone once plus the extra game would be an "away" (or home game) against your rival. Your rival would be the only team you will play twice a regular season. This would cut mid week games and have games just on the weekends. One SS table. For play offs top 14 move on with 1 and 2 getting a bye while 3-14 play each other.

The problem is that it will be a total of 60 games less in the regular season. I don't think Apple would like that. But with those 4 games less per team in the season every MLS team could participate in USOC without a problem, if they even care for it.

 

Should we base it on vibes instead?

How about everyone here not create straw man arguments constantly?