Let's put it simple:Selling American talent to Europe will get this league no where. I could write a book on this,but let's just discuss this one topic at a time.
MLS has been growing at a steady rate since the annoucement of RSL and Chivas as expansion teams. Both in terms of standard of play and people in the stands. I see no reason why this won't continue.
You could say that selling the best American talent will keep MLS from competing with mainstream sports leagues in the US. In order to be hugely popular in America it will have to keep the best talent and some of that talent will have to be American. It obviously will not keep MLS from growing since MLS is growing. Gradually you sell fewer and fewer players. We already have seen the return of fringe national team players such as Convey, Adu, Feilhaber, maybe Clark. There's not a whole lot of American talent beyond that level currently. It'd be silly to impose some sort of blanket strategy of never selling American players. Right now the main avenue for growth is improving the on field product and the stadium experience. Once the soccer fans are watching, then they can worry about creating American stars to sway the casual viewers into tuning in.
Selling players helps legitimize the league. So in a way, you have to sell players to keep them, in the long term. If we start to produce a lot of talent (meaning other leagues want to buy the talent), that will give more reason for top American players to stay since it is a legitimate league.
Is about the money (well not all but most of it), Brazilian players are not going back to Brazil because the league is now "legitimate" they are going back because pay is about the same or close to the same they would get in Europe. Selling players makes sense if you do not want to lose them for nothing at the end, if the player is good he will demand more money (even demand better competition) so players will move to better leagues when their contracts are done. Selling them just gives the MLS teams a little money in exchange.
A lot of business owners would sell their soul to the devil to experience the type of growth for their business as MLS has experienced over the past decade. Not sure how you account for all the SSS, attendance, sponsorship, revenue and everything else if the league isnt growing.
Actually this is a good model for growth at this stage of the league's development. If MLS can develop a reputation as a feeder league 1) Better players and new fans will be drawn to MLS, 2) teams in bigger leagues will compete for MLS prospects, driving the prices of players up 3) teams can use that money to focus on development and create even better prospects etc
Ya youre right becuase showing the world that players from MLS who can play in the best leagues is awful for the sport.....Put your parents computer away.
Rather then sell great talent,MLS should loan players.Most of them get loaned out anyways at their European clubs. Would you rather loan them or just completely give them away?
MLS has been steadily growing over the last 6-7 years, so your premise is already wrong. Plus, if we refuse to let players leave to Europe, it will discourage players who want to play in Europe someday from signing here, which will hurt the product. In addition, we'd lose out on a bunch of income. Growing the league and becoming on par with soccer in England, Spain, Germany, and Italy is not the same thing. We may be a long way from the latter, but MLS is most definitely growing. And, there are great opportunities for soccer to continue to grow, though I think it may be in the lower levels of the pyramid.
Judging by the level of intelligence demonstrated in the opening post of this thread, I'm guessing that the book will involve many simple words in large fonts and lots of pretty pictures.
i don't know whats worse... the original post or people taking the time to retaliate.... oh damn, I just did too didn't I?
Going back the last ten years, how many MLS players actually get cherry picked by Europe per season? Maybe 5 at most? Transfers to Europe is a phenomenon that only affects the top .001% of players in the league. I'd hardly call that a major factor for the league growth. You could actually argue that more players need to be transferred in and out of the league. The league would be better served in being more integrated in the international market. If you can sell a player to the premiership for $10,000,000, you can maybe use that money to buy 3 quality players from 2nd tier leagues like Holland or Portugal.