WEB EXCLUSIVE By Mark Starr Newsweek Updated: 4:26 p.m. ET April 08, 2004 First, last summer's World Cup stirred up genuine excitement, as the U.S. lads showed for the first time—beating Portugal and Mexico and, in defeat, outplaying megapower Germany—that they may soon be able to compete with anybody. Was there a World Cup last summer in which the US lads showed for the first time that they can compete with anybody? Damn, I must have missed it then. Moron journalists, can't even get their facts straight. Hey, and what about the 1950 World Cup in which the US beat England? Wasn't that considerted "to be able to compete with anybody"?
Someone needs to RELAX. It's just an article, the writer even give props and yet stupid soccer fans still find someting to nitpick about.
"... A new ESPN poll indicates that 43 percent of those between ages 12 and 17 have an interest in the MLS..." I thought that was quite interesting. Hopefully, within 5 or 6 years, that statistic will have some positive impact on MLS... or should I say THE MLS.
Sounds like you're the one who needs to relax. It's called reading articles critically and it's not typically associated with "stupidity." In any case, the main problem with the article (not saying on the whole it's bad) is that it makes the standard mistake of assuming that the popularity of MLS is reflective of the popularity of soccer in general as a spectator sport, much like the popularity of the NHL is reflective of the popularity of hockey.
starr always writes positive articles on soccer. If you look at changing demographics in the USA he could have a case in like 20 years.
seems to me, mls is probably the best (or most appropriate) barometer of soccer as a spectator sport in the u.s. or am i missing your point?
If you have any intelligence, you should apologize. There is nothing wrong with pointing out an error in an article.
So it did a little. But it does not justify the "stupid" remark applied to any and all soccer fans that point out errors in articles. That is going overboard!
Actually I think he was taking a little different angle than that. I think he was trying to say that there are a limited number of team sports that can be seen as "major" sports in this country. Part of that is the amount of media attention available, part is the amount of sports fans available, and part is the entertainment money available. I didn't take from his article that hockey fans would start going to MLS games en masse, but that more attention might be focussed on MLS, by the media, and perhaps by some sports fans, with hockey out of the picture. I don't know if I agree, but I think that is what he is saying.
You're foolish to get hung up on him (and his editors) making one relatively minor facutal error. It's a terrific article from an author who has always been positive about soccer in a mainstream publication (some of his stuff makes it in to print as well - not sure about this.)
starr responds... "when you guys get to be my age, you will discover that you sometimes get confused about time and dates. and when i recall the world cup, i get so excited that i think it must have been just yesterday. i know exactly what year it was. i just didn't remember that 2002 wasn't last year. time flies when you're having fun. and blong, you're correct in your assertion."
sregis: Are you Mark Starr, or just passing along his response? Apology accepted, and likewise I apologize for the "over critical" examiniation of the article. Nothing personal. Doing some analysis of the article topic: I don't believe it is claiming that somehow the NHL fans will turn to MLS to fill a void. The demographics of the respective fans are very different. There is a small intersection, no doubt, but I don't think going after that would be the best strategy for MLS. (Again, I don't think the article says this, I'm just thinking aloud.) Apart from some of the cold-weather states, how does ice-hockey participation compare with soccer participation among children? With ice-hockey you need access to ice-rinks and all the equipment, whereas soccer needs just a ball to kick-about and you can even make up a goal by putting up few markers. In some of the cold weather states, the kids may be skating around on frozen ponds in the dead of the winter, I don't know. But still, I can't imagine the overall participation figures even compare. Setting aside soccer moms spending $100+ on barely used cleats for the kids, really, how much equipment is required for soccer? Think about all those bare-feet kids in Brasil or Nigeria kicking around on sand or tar/concrete. And especially in Africa, sometimes even making up a "ball" out of tire parts/ropes/stuffed cloth, all sorts of things thrown together. I know we won't see anything like this in this part of the world. But the point is the relative simplicity of the sport. Given the changing demographics, MLS should take advantage of the simplicity of the sport and the high participation numbers for widening its footprint.
Re: starr responds... Ditto on that. I would not have noticed the 2002 error if I had not read this thread beforehand. Time does get blurred as the years go by. But there is one obvious (nitpick!) error I did notice. It was the way he spelt "Masters". (He used an apostrophe.) That really is more difficult for a professional sports writer to explain away.
Interesting, Been saying on World Soccer Weekly and BigSoccer Radio for some time now that an NHL lockout next season could really present an opeing for MLS and soccer in general. Look at attendance numbers - MLS outdraws, albeit fractionally, NHL (and yes, I get the difficulites in filling seats over an 80 game season), NHL ratings have really been hurting over the last few years and while ESPN2 is the "network that the NHL built" all is not rosy. ESPN offered substantially less for the renewal (despite Bettman's prediction otherwise)and even pulled the Stanley Cup finals off ABC and left them on ESPN. Salaries are out of control and many people think that the NHL is unable to bring in substantially more fans then they now have. In other words, they've peaked as a national sport and the current business model bleeds green for club owners. The NHL is a saturated brand with little hope for meaningful future growth. Oh... and by the way I'm a hockey fan. I don't need to point out to BS posters the obvious differences in market size and business model between global soccer and national hockey. Good article. It's not going to happen overnight but I think we're a lot closer that many people think. Nick
Well, I was at Seahawk Stadium last summer with about 67,000 people who would by and large say that they enjoy soccer as a spectator sport. Of them I'd say maybe a couple thousand at most were MLS fans. Also, you could make a pretty good argument that, nation wide, the Mexican League has more followers in this country and as such it is a better barometer of soccer's popularity as spectator sport than MLS is. In any case, picking any one league and using its popularity in the US to judge soccer's popularity doesn't work. The only thing that all US-based soccer fans watch is the World Cup.
points taken, though i still think mls is the best barometer of soccer as a spectator sport in this country. what you're talking about is a soccer "silent majority", but in comparing it to the other majors, one has to use the same standards, and that's attendance and/or tv ratings.
Good point. Most of the soccer fans that I know do not follow MLS at all. They watch other leagues (mostly EPL or Mexican) or just follow their national team. As a soccer fan with limited interest in MLS, I rarely go to DC United games. After seeing the first three games this year, I might start attending games if DC continue playing attractive soccer. Whenever I tried to watch them play in the last couple of years, the play was so poor that I did not want to expose potential soccer fans to MLS games.
There's a disconnect in this country between the various levels of soccer as spectator sports, and I don't think that can reasonably be denied. The other disconnect is obvious when you look at the numbers that the Soccer Industry Council of America puts out. I don't have them handy, and I'm going from memory (they're on my hard drive at home, I believe), but there were something like 5 million people who listed that soccer was their favorite sport. Yet fewer than a million people could be bothered to watch the championship game of MLS on over-the-air TV. Even if you account for the people who didn't watch because their team wasn't in the game, that's a whole lot of folks who really, really like soccer, but couldn't be buggered to watch the championship game of the domestic Division I league. I'm not any more convinced that an NHL work stoppage would be a benefit to MLS, any more than I thought a baseball strike would have been a benefit. The absence of a sport that a person likes isn't going to make them start attending and following a sport they don't like just to have a sport to attend or follow. If they already don't like soccer (and I'm not sure there's a lot of crossover in the potential audiences for hockey and outdoor soccer), they're not going to start liking it. If they've seen the value in following it, they will probably continue to follow it. It's not a zero-sum game. We need to stop obsessing about the sports that are perceived as being ahead of us in the pecking order (especially the ones that are perceived to be really close) and worry about keeping our own house in order. Do that, and we'll succeed or fail on our own merits, regardless of what hockey does.
Totally agree. When the NASL folded, I didn't start watching more baseball games. I just spent that time playing more soccer or doing non-sporting stuff. It IS possible MLS could get more media coverage, but I suspect the media would simply cover the work stoppage, instead. I think the league is heading in the right direction. With SSSs now going up I'd say expansion is the next big step. Side note: Is it just me or is the Freddy Adu situation actually getting more media attention by him NOT being in the starting lineup?
I think the idea of MLS benefitting from an NHL lockout is fiction. How does a 10 team league benefit when a league in 26 US markets shuts down during the MLS offseason? I know many hockey fans and I have to say they'd be more likely to follow indoor/outdoor lacrosse and arena football than MLS. The rationale just doesn't make sense to me. At this point, MLS has nothing even close to the Stanley Cup, which even a great deal of non-hockey-fans consider to be the most dramatic post-season in North American sports, to at least grab some post-season attention. Hockey doesn't have to lose for us to win. Think about it. If MLS folded tomorrow, would you suddenly start following the NHL or MLB the way you follow MLS? My guess is the answer would be no from just about everyone. All MLS needs to do is slowly improve the quality of play and expand into more markets. Once more of the potential MLS market starts to tune in and take the league seriously, the league will find a solid and respectable place. The trick is actually doing that. If Freddy pans out, this would be a good step though.
Not really. Newspapers have a set number of pages for sports. One less sport, better chance for that postponed Adu story Newspapers have a set number of sports writer on payroll. They have to write about something if NHL is on strike. Sportcenter has a set number of minutes each day, etc. The more sports, the less minutes for the less popular sports. I surely would. I spent 10 hours or so this Saturday watching MLS. I can guarantee you that if MLS folded, I would have watched the Yankees-RedSox and Knicks-Nets. Also, if I was a Nielsen home, ratings for baseball and basketball would have seen a dramatic impact when I was watching 10 hours of soccer.