I guess nothing is free anymore. My guess is that most people are not watching with an antenna (my parents do but I don't). I have youtube tv and I do get some MLS games but not many. I do get several EPL games but it is not an unlimited selection. With my basic subscription, it has been more difficult for me to find games that I have a specific reason to want to watch. If the choice is a random MLS game and a game between top EPL teams I'm probably going to choose the EPL game.
nobody cares about mls around the world it is league nobody is threatened of but listening to americans talking about 1 of a kind apple deal you know and so on. reason people talk is if you want to be serious well take the sport serious pro/rel good football on pitch and so on and not expand play offs expand draft and so on
lol bosnia has no aspiration to be global football fans thing to watch MLS does and every time people laugh at that they get defensive lol
Yeah I think this will always be the case. Not saying the USWNT won't be dominating as much anyways as Well. That's when they'll make the changes.
Roger Bennett, an Englishman who’s the host of Men in Blazers, spoke about USMNT players sitting out this summer and the lack of coverage by American sports media 🗣️“There is a side of this story that’s really depressing to me,” he said.“This moment is a reminder of how far… pic.twitter.com/JPyVcOylmv— GOLZ TV (@golz_tv) June 10, 2025
Several of the English pundits I’ve heard on Sirius XM who cover the USMNT have been firmly on the side that our top guys should be itching to be there at the Gold Cup. Interesting that they value the competition more than a bunch of American voices.
Who are these "American Voices?" The ones who don't value the Gold Cup and CNL are usually the "pundits" who live on social media. I will say that the fact that the Gold Cup is played every two years hurts it. Plus the US played in Copa America last Summer as well. Add in the World Cup next Summer and that's 4 summers ina. row of competitions for the National Team members. I don't blame Pulisic for wanting to take an actual summer break. Which if we're being honest is really only a 2-3 week vacation as Milan will be in preseason soon enough. I get why Concacaf holds the Gold Cup every 2 years, because they need the money to fund all of their programs in the region. The money in the Club game is so lucrative and absurd now, that players are going to prioritize their Club football over their country. Their careers are short afterall, and god forbid they pickup a long term injury while on Nat Duty. The National Team does not pay the players bills. In the past the National Teams were a vehicle for players to get those club riches. Now with global scouting, TV, social media, etc.... Players aren't nearly as dependent on National Team exposure to get those life changing opportunities in the Club Game. The US has a viable professional league, with pro-player pathways. The minimum salary for players is quickly approaching six figures. The median salary is $310K. The average salary is nearly $600K. I don't think players view the National Team in the same light as players did 10-15 years ago. US Soccer, despite becoming more professional in it's organizational structure, is still incompetent. They still don't know how the national team needs to play, who the players are, etc. Poch is a great coach. I'm not sure he's the right coach for THIS version of the National Team. I wouldn't be all that shocked or surprised if he's coaching Spurs August 1.
The big problem the USA faces, regarding becoming a force as a national team is the simple fact you don't have enough clubs. A league like the mls is far from sufficient to form a pyramid where enough talents can rise. It simply is spread too thin over a huge area.
The big challenge is geography. The year before MLS started, the professional game was virtually nonexistent. The USL only became a reasonably stable lower league because MLS reserve teams created a critical mass of clubs that allowed regional scheduling and lowered the financial barrier for new clubs to enter. It no longer needs the MLS reserve teams now, but that's because it now has that critical mass of clubs without them.
This thing about missing out on national team competitions won’t make sense to any other notable soccer country. American players used to be viewed as hard-working guys who would risk it all for their teammates (it was the prevailing sentiment toward American military/sports men post-WW2). It has to be rather unusual for them to see us as me-first wimps who give up when the other team plays hard.
The US is a huge area containing several states that are bigger than most countries on the planet. There is more than enough of a population here to support MLS. The problem is that we do not attract top athletes. Top athletes typically go into American football or basketball in high school. Some go into baseball as well. That’s why our talent is spread thin. Guys disconnect from soccer because high status girls want the guys who play the high status sports. It really is that simple. MLS has made that more problematic by astro-turfing a wannabe European culture that promotes feminine politics. Those two factors are absolute major turnoffs for the alpha male sports culture in America. I’m not adding a value statement, this is simply how it is here. We have a strong alpha male sports culture.
The USA is a wannabe European culture. And what the hell is feminine politics? Do you mean feminist? The USA has the most progressive feminist legislation on Earth. So you're saying MLS reflects America?
In today's context, it is pretty obvious (or at least it should be obvious) that it is sarcasm but when I started it certainly was true. Soccer was a foreign sport only good for sissies. Football was for men. In some ways, that is part of the argument against the hypothesis of the thread. It is necessary to have a larger perspective.
The things you are talking about have nothing to do with soccer, so I’ll leave you to it. However, if you believe that the feminine (not feminist) culture that MLS has allowed to be superimposed on American soccer is attractive for top athletes, you are kidding yourself. You can go down the list of derogatory terms for soccer that are passed around among high level athletes that directly make fun of those things.
I’m reminded of the Sterling Hayden character in Dr. Strangelove. He was a parody, but you’re apparently real. Wow.
They are exclusively American sports, without any international competition. Those American sports are in the USA the equivalent of soccerclubs in Europe, while the rest of the planet are the equivalent of the soccerclubs in the USA, spread thin into oblivion for those sports. USMNT faces global competition, that have an efficiency and effectiveness in extracting and developing talents from the available pool, because of the density of clubs. We Dutch are the tallest people on the planet and I think, if we would apply the same infrastructure and knowledge geared to play basketball, we would be flooding the NBA with players.