Ive have been trying to enjoy MLS since last season, but something is bothering me. Most of the teams are lousy. What MLS should do is to have a great team in a major market and have them dominate MLS and play other world tournaments. It would be good for the league if say in New York or Los Angeles had players like Donovan and Beasley. I know some of you wnat *your* team to win, but that is irrelevant if MLS doesn't get up off the ground. Think of the league first. Just a thought.
I understand what you're getting at, but I suspect that next to nobody (myself included) will agree with you here. Further, some will likely disagree in strong terms.
MLS seems to be doing just fine the way it is. Our attendance is on the rise and we're quickly reaching profitability. Stacking one team would be unfair to the others and would hurt the league's reputation. Even if a stacked team was something MLS wanted there is no way it could happen under a 1.7 million dollar salary cap.
I'd like to see a team rise up and take dominant status especially if it where Los Angeles a team in a city everyone can hate. I want to see this happen by the proper ways. Through good team management, building through youth, you all the good stuff that makes teams great. I don't think I could support a league that let one team build itself into a superpower while the others dipped into mediocrity, and I don't think many others would either.
FUSION 2001, was partially the answer to a stronger league!! anyone in retrospect, that cannot see, and understads that, helps the state of this league... and starts with Garber & Co, I/O and ends with us fans... weak league, weak credibility, weak soccer and now the scramble to bring back some credibilty, instead of 12 next time , the league should be at 14... good luck
I disagree for soooo many reason I couldnt list them all. Sure if KC is "the team" I'm all for it. Really, I think its a poor idea. Right now, as Crazy_Yank said, the league is slowly building itself in attendance and money matters. A slow build is good, it starts at the grass roots and will catch on when and if the public decide the time is right (get bored with baseball even more, another sport takes a dive with a strike or something similar). If you took the big risk of putting the leagues credibility on the line to have one great team, it would be a mistake. Tell me one tournament that an American team could get in that it cant get in now if they were a "super team". The WCC didn't happen, and LA was already invited.
Im sorry, but I think MLS should be much better off. Soccer is a great sport, MLS is not doing the sport justice by having a league with 'parity', that breeds indifference among the casual fans. You need something to shake things up, get noticed, something to hate and to love. Look at baseball, it was built on the dynasty of great Yankee teams. In basketball, it was the Celtics and Lakers. In Football, there used to be dynasties that carried the sport. Imagine if say the Fire or the Galaxy were a super team that could not only compete but beat the best teams in South America and Europe. It would bring credibility and respect for MLS. I know there are alot of good players in MLS, but they are spread out evenly among the teams. I love the US national team, they are fun to watch. MLS deserves a team like that.
Sorry I am being vague, but my idea of the 'Super Team' consists of mostly the best Americans on one team. Not a roster full of expensive foreigners. It would resemble the US national team. It would be guys that want to stay and play in America and to make soccer more popular here.
very bad idea. (this is exactly why I don't care about the NBA or MLB, but I do like the NFL...because of the parity and the unpredictability)
First of all the rise of baseball had absolutely nothing to do with the yankees, who weren't even around until the early 1900's, Basketball has absolutely nothing to do with the Lakers/Celtics... Football has nothing to do with the Green Bay Packers, linking league success to one team is irresponsible, if one team is all it takes why didn't NY Cosmos lead the NASL into prosperity, in Baseball it was Judge Kennesaw Landis, in Football it was Pete Rozell, Great Commissioners make great leagues, great leaders make great countries....
Look how good the Porteguese League is with FC Porto, or the Greek league with Olympiako, or the Turkish league with Galatasaray. These leagues are not bad at all, and the above mentioned teams are usually the tops of the leagues with a roster heavy with National team players, but they should'nt be MLS competiton or model. MLS needs to aim higher, so having a dominate team is meaningless. My favorite way to build a league is like the NHL. They had 6 teams for decades and they created such heated rivalries and passionate fans and built tradition that those cities would never lose those teams like other leagues in the US have (Brooklyn Dodgers, New York Giants, Cleveland Browns, Vancouver Grizzlies jk). The NHL has messed up over the past decade but traditions are still strong and growing. They waited it out for years and were able to survive and blossom.
This would have some credibility if the Fusion did ANYTHING in the post-season. On that merit, the Galaxy of 1998 was far superior to the Fusion 2001 or ANY other club in MLS. Go check the numbers, and then shut up! (FYI-The Galaxy in 1998 didn't win the Cup, and that's why they, like the 2001 Fusion, aren't poetically waxed about)
I agree. Maybe not a Real Med super. But a Boca JR.S GOOD. That way MLS can make some noise on this end.
I thought we had something like this with DC United the first 3 years of MLS. They were a team that everyone looked to beat, with a good mix of international and American players, and they did well in international play. I certainly thought MLS was more interesting to watch during those years.
Parity = mediocrity. Let's do this: 1) The salary cap should be greatly raised or abolished. 2) Individual ownership of clubs to foster true competition. If parity results after that, fine. At least it won't have been imposed on the clubs or stated as a policy goal of the league.
The 1996-99 DC United were the super team , in MLS terms that you are looking for. Though during the 1996 regular season, DC was not the class of the league, LA was. The Galaxy has, over time , become the club that it seems everyone loves to hate, and have been the most consistently successful on and off the pitch. Maybe they have not been the "super" club you're looking for, but by their own modest standards, they've been the club everyone in MLS usually gets measured against. IMHO, I prefer the parity to the one great club . Knowing every season that, if the breaks come, that your club has at least a chance of making to MLS Cup is much more interesting than conceding the league before the season even starts. That would also seem to be something that is prefered here in the US, a la the NFL. To bring up the baseball argument, the Yankees dominance in MLB during the 1940's and 1950's killed attendance in most cities and set up the chance for the NFL to seize the publics imagination. Baseball only started to come back in the late 1970's with the advent of free agency and more parity. I would hate to see MLS become dominated by 1-2 clubs for all eternity, like Scotland. That would sound the death knell for MLS very quickly.
Let's say I was a casual soccer fan who lived in unWashington, or unLosAngeles, or unNewYork. I knew my local team was going to stink, and get pounded, year after year, decade after decade, and that it was more or less league policy to encourage that, so we could have one or two super teams that could compete with Rangers and Celtic. That would really make me want to buy season tickets and get emotionally invested in my local side. Or maybe it would make me want to get interested in the local NHL team instead. If all you are is a casual TV fan who wants to watch one team from his country play far away, that's a great idea. If it's YOUR local team that is to be the annointed one (and you're a bully who expects to always win effortlessly) root for the New York Yankees and Manchester United. But don't guarantee that my Columbus Crew can barely hope to play .500 in its best years.