I think that in 1996, MLS tried to cater to the nonsoccer fan in this country going the way of shootout and time clock countdown to zero. I believe that was a huge mistake. It was a slap in the face to the millions of soccer fans already here. The corrected their ways and have since, started converting back to catering the soccer fan. As we embark on our 10 year of oeration, where do you guys see mLS going? I think it would be wise to continue to build the league with soccer culture and tradition. You either love the sport or you don't and we shouldn't be trying to waterdown our sport, we should build it up, I hope that makes some sense. I see MLS at some point going to a single table format but withplayoff. Once all teams have stadiums, we will see home/away playoff system, a round robin regular season, with the Top 8 teams advancing. These are not Euro standards, or anything like that, these are football standards that most if not all of the world go by, so we should follow suit. What do you guys think? The hell with trying to gain the nonsoccer fan, there are plenty of fans already here and we can make the league contend with the NFL, MLB, NBA etc etc!!
If you just take your thread title, enter it into the search bar, in 5 seconds you will have more discourse on this subject than you would ever want. These questions get asked once a week, so people don't like bringing the same topics up over and over. Now, for all those who haven't yet rode on this merry-go-round...feel free to repeat the same arguments here.
I think that a good idea bears repeating. In Spanish their is a saying: "el entendido a senas, el tonto a garrotasos". I think that we need to take the approach of "el garrotaso" to MLS hq.
"el entendido a senas, el tonto a garrotasos" "The intensity of the elevated train gave me a sinus infection, but it was cured when I was garroted by Tonto." It's something the Lone Ranger used to say a lot.
No worries, they are all legitimate questions, and I can guarantee that over the course of your time here at BS you'll be able to express your opinions on all these subjects as much as you want. Like I said, they come up every week if not day in some threads.
It's no fault of yours, Bayer. Some of these topics have appeared again and again over the years, and their reappearance can cause the native trolls to get a bit restless.
So why did attendance go way down after they were changed? There are plenty of people who watch soccer, but there are no more "soccer fans" than what MLS has already. The people who watch foriegn soccer do so because it provides a connection to their land of birth, not because it is "pure" or of "higher quality" (if it was, then Mexican soccer wouldn't far outpace English or Italian soccer in the US, would it?).
i couldnt have agreed more or said it better myself, soccer is growing at an incredible pace in the USA and we should continue to do so without compromising the game itself.
This may be relavent it may not. Since the Burn changed their name to FC Dallas and then claimed it to be in order for people to recognize it as a soccer team. Yet, everyone that I have talked to (not soccer folk) say that they dont get it. So does this really help the nonsoccer fan identify FC Dallas as a soccer team or does it just make sure that existing soccer fans know there is a soccer team in town?
Short version: it didn't. Throw out the first six weeks of 1996 (well before they were changed), and attendance was about as low in the early years as it is today.
Throwing out the first year, the average attendance at each game: 1997: 14,619 1998: 14,312 -307 -2.1% 1999: 14,282 -30 -0% 2000: 13,756 -526 -3.7% (first season with rule changes) The biggest drop was the year that the rule changes were brought into action. Now clearly there are other factors going ito the attendence numbers, but the very best you can say about making the MLS game "more pure" is that it has absolutly no effect on attendence. The idea that there are soccer fans out there who will flock to MLS once it has been made in the image of a European league is bunk. And even worse is that the world has lost a league willing to experiment, and possibly bring some needed change to the interpretation of FIFA rules.
Blame FIFA, which despite Sepp Blatter often talking about "Americanizing" the game, has basically threatened to kick countries out of international play (both national team and club competition) if they don't adhere to the official rules as set by the IFAB.
I'm pretty sure that will happen, that Sepp in his madness will ban the United States from the World Cup, and risk bringing an issue, previously about a sport barely mentioned in the back pages of the Star-Ledger, to page one or two of the New York Times, when Americans hear that, despite coming very close to a semifinal berth in the last World Cup, they will not be allowed to have anything to do with international soccer (Americans don't like soccer (yet), but they sure don't like being snubbed by the rest of the world), all because the stadium clock at the Meadowlands during a Metro-Dallas game counted down and not up. So yeah, I'm pretty sure that will happen.
MLS is competing for the attention of general sports fans - There's dedicated soccer fans, soccer families, ethnics and then general sports fans - Its this last group that MLS needs to really establish a TV audience consistently - To do this, they need entertaining competitive games on TV with two pretty evenly matched teams - Thats why PARITY is so important - A close game with teams that are pretty even are more likely to hold the attention of casual viewers than watching a highly skilled team toy with and blow out a lesser team Its more critical on TV than at a stadium - Stadium crowds can generate their own electricity -
Oh, and I argued at the time that it wouldn't, that's just not my version of "way down." (especially if you look at the median attendance at www.kenn.com which showed virtually no change in those years, and a bit of an uptick since). But I agree with you that the 'legions of fans' who would suddenly switch to this league if it were Europeanized enough are largely imaginary.
What I am saying is that if we were to make our league more like the rest of the world, for starters people would stop laughing at MLS. MLS is consider a joke by many fans worldwide, in most countries it gets no media coverage. We are considered a joke because of all those wacky rules we have come up with in the past(splitting up the game into 4 quarters for WC94, that was proposed by US organisers). So if we played by the rules, it would earn a little bit of respect, so if all things were equal except for the quality of the product, we would be in line to start attracting socer fnas. It is hard to gain fans when they are snickering about MLS. No one is saying the euro fan would come in droves to see MLS, but if we stop all the silly nonsense, they may have more of an open mind to it.
What does it matter? If a top-4 finish in the last World Cup didn't impress people, then there is nothing that will convince them. A German coach suggested splitting games into thirds during WC98. There is recognition among the people that run soccer leagues the world over that the sport is not friendly towards TV advertising and that there should be serious thought into doing something to change that.
That's a long sentence. And ahem, I've watched the stadium clock at Highbury (Arsenal's home stadium) count down instead of up for the last 8 years. And nobody has talked about kicking England out of the World Cup because of that yet. I think you meant a top-8 finish, but your point is well taken. (Unless of course, in your imagination Hugh Dallas called the handball call against Germany correctly and we went on to win the match in overtime.)
That sounds like a great idea to me. It would let coaches do more actual coaching during the game, increase refreshment sales at games, give advertisers more time to run commercials, etc. Would it have any negatives? It's hard to think of any.
Sadly, I honestly think that significant rule changes in soccer will be harder and harder to come by in the future. Because with the emergence of soccer in the US, any proposed rule change will be blamed on pernicious American influence and will therefore be resisted by the international community.