First, I have to post this in every "read the future" thread. It's a necessity at this point: [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Uw7phR9ucA"]YouTube- Zager And Evans - In The Year 2525[/ame]
Now, seriously, I do think that coming down the pike are some successful new franchises that will change how the league is perceived. Seattle is looking like a bit of a fluke (or a fad) to those outside of soccer right now, but if their attendance holds, and Philadelphia, Portland and Vancouver get the success that I suspect they will at the gate, it will be 5 really strong franchises in a row (stretching back to Toronto). It's probable that Montreal makes that 6 in a row. As a consequence of that, I think when we get to about 20 teams, we really will slow down a bit, not just because Garber has said so, or because of 'dilution of talent', but because the MLS brand name will be somewhat coveted by this time, and the league won't want to dilute it by adding anyone who isn't somewhat of a lay-up to get off to a great start attendance-wise. That may, in turn, cause whatever second division exists at that time to get stronger, because if you're going to build that kind of lay-up audience, that's where you're going to have to do it. What's a goal for the level of play for that time? Really hard to say. I take it as a distinct plausibility that Thierry Henry will be playing for the Red Bulls some time pretty soon, and that after him, with ever-increasing exposure to the foreign game (another World Cup this year, plus the Champions League final will be on a weekend, which should double or more the viewership level in this country) more stars in the ~32 age range will be following him. That age range may even start to creep slightly downward over time as the league gets more money and acceptability. One of the big problems we've had with this in the past was that 'famous soccer players' don't actually tend to be famous enough over here. Over time, I think that will change. Cristiano Ronaldo, for instance is more famous at his age than probably any European soccer player ever has been before. Notice the upswing on Ronaldo's graph (in my link above) over the last couple years. Here's the relative Google search popularity of each player over the last few years, with CR7 normalized to a popularity of 1: Year--Beckham:Ronaldo 2004--19.8:1 2005--13.0:1 2006--1.65:1 2007--2.8:1 2008--1.02:1 2009--0.56:1 2010--0.59:1 At one time this vastly favored Becks, but the last nearly three years have belonged to Ronaldo, and it isn't a matter of Becks' search volume going down but C-Ron's going up. With an upcoming World Cup and weekend Champions League finals in which the latter is far more likely to feature than the former, this gap should only widen. At the age of 25, if his career accomplishments and headline-grabbing tendencies continue, you wouldn't have to explain to many who he was if you signed him at a similar age. Messi, of course, has even longer. The number of people who will have actually seen these guys play by the time they're old enough to consider MLS will be just vastly greater than past generations of stars (including that most of them will have toured the US many times). And then the big question is how we will complement these guys. Will we develop better young American players? Because that's the test of whether we can build a league that brings forth a "reasonably-close-to-major" product. The league will also hit seasons 20 and 25 in the next decade. 15 is an achievement, but not really a major anniversary or cause for the kind of exultation that you'll see at 20 and 25 (although Beau Dure's upcoming MLS book will be a nice way to celebrate that). I expect the league to do a bit of peacock-strutting about having 'made it' on those two latter anniversaries, and really assault what's left of the position that soccer has no legitimacy as a sport in this country. Another question, will we be hosting the WC in 2022? If so, then the anticipation by 2020 should be palpable, and leaguewide attendance should show that. Ten years is really not a long time for a league to be fundamentally changed into a 'Major League'--but at the same time I think the differences between the league of today and the league of 2020 could well be easily seen by anyone who really follows it now.
obama passes a law where the FIFA games have to make MLS teams 5 star good. People instantly start watching MLS teams. best league in the world.
Yeah, some event like an MLS team arriving or a stadium getting built just tends to make people publicly react, but only in the way they've always felt. A lot of people will seem to come out of the woodwork to either seriously support or seriously bash the new team/stadium, but it doesn't actually mean attitudes are hardening, just that there's some specific occasion that caused people to give voice to the attitudes they already have. It'll pass. Currently, I do believe there's a sizable gap between soccer fans and 'general sports fans', but in the long run, I don't think it's widening or deepening. Just the opposite. I agree, and I'm not one of those who thinks we actually have to win. We just have to be, on a regular basis, one of those teams that's not just there to make up the numbers. One of those teams that anytime we fail to advance from the first round, it's a legit disappointment/upset. Another key necessity is that soccer needs to create a real event more than once every four years. Whether that be another international tournament, or MLS Cup, or the CL Final or what-have-you, soccer needs to get on the US radar screen at least once a year, not once every four. Once every four allows too many people to discount it based on comparisons (largely phony, but nonetheless) to Olympic events that aren't really popular aside from the event and nationalism aspects.
Here is how I see the MLS in 2020. 30 teams 3 divisions within each conference. Eastern Conference Northeast Division Toronto FC New England Revolution Montreal Impact Ottawa Detroit Atlantic Division New York Red Bull Philadelphia Union DC United New York Cosmos Crystal Palace Baltimore Southeast Division FC Dallas Houston Dynamo Barca Miami FC Atlanta Silverbacks Birmingham Western Conference Northwest Division Seattle Sounders Vancouver Whitecaps Portland Timbers Real Salt Lake Colorado Rapids Pacific Division LA Galaxy Chivas USA San Jose Earthquake Phoenix San Diego Central Division Chicago Fire Columbus Crew Kansas City Wizard St Louis United Minnesota 10 team Playoffs. WildCard Rounds Wild Card Team 1 vs Wild Card Team 2 Division Round Wild Card round Winner vs #1 Division Winner #2 Division Winner vs #3 Division Winner Conference Round Division Winners MLS Cup Conference Winners
24 Teams Eastern Conference: 1. New York Cosmos 2. New York Red Bulls 3. Philadelphia Union 3. Columbus Crew 4. Toronto FC 5. Chicago Fire 6. DC United 7. New England Revolution 8. Kansas City Wizards 9. AC St.Louis 10. Montreal Impact 11. Atlanta FC 12. MiamiBarca FC Western Conference: 1. LA Galaxy 2. Seattle Sounders FC 3. Vancouver Whitecaps FC 4. Real Salt Lake 5. Portland Timbers 6. FC Dallas 7. Houston Dynamo 8. Colorado Rapids 9. Chivas USA 10. San Jose Earthquakes 11. Arizona FC(Phoenix) 12. San Diego FC(I'm not good at creating names) The Salary Cap will be around 8 million and an American DP rule will be implemented. Red Bulls-Cosmos will be a huge attraction unlike any other MLS game will be...the Yanks-Sox of American soccer. Notable DP's who will make their move to MLS by 2020 or sometime before then will be Cristiano Ronaldo(LAG), Kaka(NYC), Robinho(NYC), David Trezeguet(NYRB), Zlatan Ibrahimovic(NYRB). Those are just players I think would fit in well in America. BOLD PREDICTIONS: (I may recieve some big complaints on these) 1. David Beckham will be a partial owner of the New York Cosmos. 2. Seattle, NYRB, Cosmos will win the CCL by 2020 and LA will not. 3. We will still have the same calender(March-October) 4. Andy Najar will be the face of US soccer and will turn into a threat to Landon Donovan's title "best American player ever" 5. Pro/Rel will still be a dream 6. MLS will be better overall than the FMF. 7. The Big 4 of American sports will not change, Soccer and MLS will still be left out.
My guess is that MLS will get NYC2 and the Quakes will get a stadium and that will be about the only changes (other than what has already been announced). People will still be in here bitching about CCL, Pro/Rel, and how douchy Seattle and TFC fans are...... So things will almost be the same as they are now.
I will start with the salary cap. 8 Million is not likely by 2020. It reaches just at 3 million at the end of 2014 per the current CBA. I would LOVE to see a higher number and maybe the league is profitable enough to support an increase, but I don't see it going from 3 - 8 over the course of the next CBA. 1) Not far fetched 2) Who knows 3) agreed 4) we can hope 5) agreed 6) hmm . . . unless we put serious money into reserve leagues and development - this will not happen 7) agreed - but we don't have to be, just need to double our fan-base in the next 10 years which will not impact the other sports at all but will make the league very profitable.
The NHL will fold because hockey has no fans.(They do have good league wide growth yearly, have increased revenues by 600 mil in 5 years, averaged 1 million viewers per game on Cable, and 3-4 mil per game on Broadcast(reg season) there Finals saw 13 million viewers for game 6..but since half of that was in Canada it doesn't count...even though MLS will have at least 3..maybe 5 teams in Canada in 2020 with a major TV deal..it still doesn't count..only TFC counts!!! MLB is toast since the World Series ratings have dropped in half the last 2 decades..(even though local tv, attendance, and revenue has grown exponentially at the same time baseball is still dying) the NBA has lost a big part of its FINALS audience..to suffice (again see above, NBA has done the same thing baseball has) The NFL is dying...they had a record number of blackouts this past season... MMA, Nascar, Golf...don't count...to suffice they suck. In 2020 after 50 million Americans watch the World Cup final at 3 am becuase the host country is on the other side of the globe....Soccer will be number 2 behind the NFL....until 2019 MLS will have 7-8 million viewers per game on ESPN. and 15-16 mil viewers per game on Monday Night Soccer on ABC, 14-15 mil viewers per game with Thursdays on the Pitch with NBC...and another 4-5 million with Super Saturdays where Versus shows 4 MLS games in a row...becuase those rating beat anything..and since MMA doesn't count and NHL is dead...they have nothing else to show. CBC in Canada will show MLS games 3 times per week with massive ratings....infact it will be MLS that will put the NHL out of business for good. all told...MLS in 2019 the year after the World Cup averaged 15 mil viewers per game on ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN3, ESPN4, ESPN6(ESPN5 is the all sports channel...the others sports still have a couple fans...except Nascar..they don't count). not to mention the other 7.653 million viewers on illegal internet streams, motomart and mcdonalds tv, ESPN720 the super mobile with G8 internet speeds. don't forget about the gas pump tv's and the new in-car viewing...this apparently helped MLS gain another 670K viewers because of all the youth soccer kids watching MLS in the Van on the way home from there games. all told MLS signed a 1 year 1.6 billion dollar TV deal with USA and Canada combined(yes Canada counts now that there is 6 MLS teams there. don't forget the 600 million from MLS international the 24/7 MLS interactive TV channel broadcast in 250 countries with 1000 different languages and dialects.. MLS signs 1yr tv deals because they grow so fast they can get that much more money each year. So all told from TV mls gets 3 billion dollars to split among there 30 first division teams.. at this point all first division MLS teams are playing in NFL stadiums..not only that..the NFL which is barely holding on put in new Grass before each MLS match so there are no NFL lines....it is there honor tohelp the most powerful sports league in the world. while all 30 of the first division MLS teams plays in super sized stadiums...the 30 division 2 MLS teams play to packed houses in the old SSS stadiums...and the 30 Divison 3 MLS teams play in retrofitted minor league baseball stadiums now that baseball has collapes the minors are gone. Frist Division: Single Table: NYRB NY Cosmos NY Rangers(NHL died, took naming rights) NJ Devils(see above) New England Revs Philadephia Unioin Chicago Fire La Galaxy Chivas US/Mexico/Canada(Expanded fanbase) Seattle Sounders San Jose Dallas Houston KC Wizaards Atlanta Street Ballers Miami Hurricanes Carolina Crush TFC Montreal Calgary Hamilton Colorado RSL(Morms....the club got bigger then the church, church bought club to grow Phoenix San Diego Univisions(owned by the netowork) London Flyers(expansion to Europe) Mexico City Crusiers(expansion to the motherland) Tokyo Giants(baseball died here) CBUS all told MLS has a footprint on 240 American Cities and 60 Foriegn cities....MLS divisions 4 and 6 are all foriegn cities(3 teams were allowed to be in MLS division 1. the other 60 cities are kept in div 4 and 6 at all times. all told yearly 378 million of 390 million potential viewers watch MLS....the 12 million who do not are under the age of 2.5 Even with 240 teams....St. Louis is not allowed to have a team..and anyone living within 60 miles of downtown STL will be meet with certian death if they try to watch MLS.. To Suffice in 2020 The MLS Cup will be played in a 235K person Stadium built only for the event....there will be a mass transit system in place in this new city that is called Major League Soccer land...the world govt. decided to build an entire city for the MLS Cup because of it's prestige. The same will sell out and 350 million will watch on American TV and another 5 billion worldwide!
The "real" salary cap is significantly higher when you consider the exempted salaries at the top/bottom of the scale.
I would hope that in 10 yrs we will have grown enough as a league that individual MLS teams will consistently give FMF teams a run for their money in the CCL. I think that when we are able to beat Cruz Azul,Pachuca,Toluca, Pumas, Club America, Chivas Guad etc. at their homes regularly enough that the mexican teams know that a victory is not automatic and they have to play hard to win, then we will have truly arrived as a league in this area of the world (CONCACAF).
Won't happen. They did try NFL Europe YEARS ago and failed miserably. Simply put, American Football sucks on the global stage. Honestly, do they think they can get some kids in the ghetto to get "inspired" to play when equipment costs more than what his pop makes in like a year over in Brazil/Europe/whatever? lol @ the NFL thinking "globally".
I agree with everything you said here except for one thing: I honestly believe that once the salary cap is 7 to 10 million for teams, European players will start to want to come over to America. Our standards of living are still somewhat better than Europe and you hear it all the time from European players that want to 'bring their family to America and get an education!' kind of stuff. I really do believe that soccer will take off if America is award the 2022 World Cup. Just like you said. Also I am 24. I will be 34 in 10 years.
The real question is what will MLS do in the next ten years to turn MLS into a major league on the American sports landscape by 2020? So far MLS has not had the commitment to actually do that other than the DP rule. The DP rule simply isn't enough because it doesn't allow you to build up an entire roster of high quality players. The LEAST MLS needs to do is to double its pathetic salary cap to $5.1 million. It has to have the ability to bring in the kind of talent that debacles like LA-PR never happen again. Further, I'd adjust the DP rule in addition to doubling the salary cap. I'd add a mid-range DP category for guys earning between $500,000 to $1,500,000 at a salary cap charge of only $165,000 a year. Thus each team would be able to get two mid-range DPs and two large range DPs for a total of four DPs, and a fifth DP of either type could be purchased by a team. So, NY could have Henry, Marquez, and Angel as large range DPs, and it could also have two mid-range DPs (Fielhaber and Altidore to go to that 4-3-3 Backe has been talking about). This would substantially improve the quality of play. Next, with the new DP category MLS could make a serious push to bring in all of the top American players to this league. This is really important. Wouldn't it be great for MLS after the next US run in the World Cup to be able to tell American soccer fans that if you want to see those guys play on a regular basis that you have to tune in to MLS or go see your local MLS team at their stadiums? Finally, MLS HAS to find a TV partner that actually cares about it. This is where it would be great to see it hook up with Versus. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I believe that MLS is only a few short years away from averaging 20,000 fans every game. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised at all if MLS cracks the 17,500 mark this year. So, if MLS takes the right steps, gets a little luck, I wouldn't be surprised if it is averaging 22,500 fans per game over a 34 game schedule by then with a 24 team league and bringing in over 9 million fans a year. If it has a good TV partner and gains some credibility internationally, puts an attractive product on the field, it could have a viewership of a million fans a game with a final that draws over 5 million fans. I know the last part makes me seem like I have my head in the clouds. But MLS is growing rapidly with young men. I don't know ESPN's numbers, but MLS Cup 2009 on Galavision drew nearly 2/3rds of its audience for men between the ages of 18-49. The World Cup also had a very high young viewership as well. 18-34 year old men are increasingly likely to name MLS as a league that they are fans of. MLS and soccer also do well with the 11-17 set (the next generation of fans). Further, by the end of the decade it is likely that high school boys soccer will overtake high school boys baseball as the fourth most popular high school sport by participation. Another thing to consider is that the 11yo to 30yo set is the most multicultural generation in American history, and they have a much more international outlook than any previous generation thanks to the internet. Soccer, of course, is THE international sport. So, if you present a credible product with a good TV partner my ratings predictions are not at all unreasonable.
Yo, what does "all told" mean? You said it like 20 times in your long post. Never heard it used like that.
Well, to be fair, MLS is still in expansion mode. They need to get their teams, they need to get their own stadiums built, and then they can start to look at world domination. They have to start looking into expansion in the dirty south. They need Miami, Atlanta, Charlotte, and New Orleans.
If the current growth rate of MLS doesn't prove that MLS doesn't NEED any particular new market then you are beyond all hope. What MLS NEEDS is owners with very deep pockets, committed to putting together a first class organization, in a strong soccer community, with a revenue controlled stadium (preferably a SSS). If the dirty south is capable of meeting all of those criteria, then ship 24 guys down there, give them matching t-shirts and shorts, and call them an MLS team. If not, f*ck the south.
The south is the toughest nut for soccer to crack. Outside of major cities, there is relatively little interest in soccer beyond something to tire the children out, particularly girls. The reasons are deep and cultural, dating back to when soccer was rejected in America in the last 1800s and early 1900s. Nativism (link to learn more about nativism) in America meant that only American sports such as Baseball, Football and Basketball were OK. Other 'foreign' sports such as Soccer were not allowed. Nativism has been ebbing away in the northeast, upper midwest and western states. But, it still holds strongly in the south, the hotbed of NASCAR, another relatively recent American sport. Florida is the best bet, along with the Carolinas because of the large number of retirees from the northeast, but it means those areas will be a generation behind. Florida moves up the list because of its large hispanic population. So, I think that Florida will get its teams along around 2018 to 2020. The rest of the south about 5 to 10 years after that.
sorry but honestly I don't think the world cup will ever help MLS be popular. We saw how huge the world cup was here for the US this year, but really it didn't translate that much into MLS because still not many know about it. All those people that were in with the huge world cup crowd just watch the national team every once in a while and the world cup, and that's it. One of the only exceptions is the higher attendance just to see LD. The only way MLS will improve fan attendance is on it's own with it's own publicity.