just as the title suggested, when will MLS be on the same level as the Mexican football league in term of quality, attendance, and team salary? 2006 is a benchmark year for MLS in term of SSS and expansion in my opinion. By then, MLS will have at least 12 teams and SSS in Los Angeles, Columbus, Dallas, Chicago * Denver* New York* and possibly Rochester if they got the expansion bid. * = if everything goes according to schedule I put my vote for 8 years from now in 2012 where I believe MLS should be on level with the Mexican league. p.s. I left out option for "beyond 2020" because if MLS can't be on the same level the league of our southern neighbor 16 years from now. MLS is f***ed and should fold. Right now, MLS objective is to be on par with the Mexican league, after that they can move on to bigger fish.
There's really too much to determine this to even make a guess, IMO. On any given day, MLS clubs can beat MFL clubs. However, MFL enjoys far more popularity in Mexico then MLS ever will here. It's the national sport, and while I think soccer will grow here in the States in the future, I don't see MLS being the number one sport in my lifetime. I love the fact that we are consistently better then Mexico in international play one v. one, with each side mostly made up of domestic league players. And we have far more players going overseas. I know Mexico pays very well, but that level of inbreeding doesn't help the national team in the long run. Team salary? Probably not for a decade or more at least. Quality is always debatable among fans. How does one ever prove that the quality of MFL or MLS is better? If forced to, I'll say 2010, but again it's very hard to guess.
I know this is very opinion-based but I guess you will know when you know. You will know when you can compare MLS to MFL like people are now comparing EPL to La Liga or Series A. So a measuring stick would be 'someday down the road' there will be lot of Big Soccer threads claiming MLS is better than MFL. I don't think that it is very hard to compare when a league is on par with another. Right now, we can say for sure that EPL is on par with La Liga and Series A. We will use the same judgement and intuition if one day MLS reach the level of MFL. And a few years before that happen, there will be tons of threads discussing MLS is better than MFL.
Quality is not that far off I believe and could be there easily by 2007 after the world cup. Salaries will be harder to raise and are somewhat based on attendance which I doubt will ever be there. Stranger things have happened like people thinking baseball is enjoyable to watch.
The question isn't "when will MLS be as good as the MFL", it's "when will the MFL be as good as La Liga"
My first question was: well, how far off are we? Attendance I could find MFL: about 22,000 MLS: about 16,000 FWIW, if MLS attedances grow by 5% a year, that makes it 2009 before we hit 22k. Of course, Mexican attendance has been falling in recent years, if I recall correctly, so passing the MFL would happen sooner than that For average salaries, I'm not sure, but clearly MLS plays less. Some SSS and pricey transfers, and MLS could end up on pretty good financial footing in a hurry. For quality, well, it's pretty freaking hard to say, since there are so few games between the leagues, and the ones there are have been bizarre for one reason or another (odd venues, line ups, out-of-season etc.).
MLS still isn't established, give it 12 seasons and it will be on par with the rest on the American leagues.
many things need to happen first MLS Itself mls needs to have higher attendance than MFL mls needs to have rosters as big as mfl rosters mls needs to have better coaches MLS Internationally mls needs to start winning in the champions cup (against the mexican b teams IN MEXICO) mls needs to prove that it can do well in Copa Libertadores once they enter (MFL teams have already proven their worth) those are a few that I can think of and im sure there are many more.