By J Hutcherson -- "Our partners are unrivaled and I would literally say that in the world of sports, our ownership group is as good as any ownership group of any league in the world," MLS deputy commissioner Ivan Gazidis told Bloomberg for some reason. He continued by putting the National Hockey League on notice, both for number of teams and popularity.
Why not just go ahead and throw competing with the National Football League out there? After all, if you're really the League of "wealthy, top class, committed, experienced, sophisticated investors" go ahead and shoot for the level where that's taken for granted.
There's a line of thinking that the National Hockey League probably won't have that many teams in a few years. After all, hockey and the National Basketball Association are the ones we've been told are most susceptible to people not buying tickets. Their sponsorship and broadcast money isn't significant enough to make up a downturn in gate receipts. Sort of like a certain soccer league.
It's an odd choice of target, considering how many MLS investor/operators are also fond of professional hockey. MLS taking down the NHL does nothing for Anschutz Entertainment, the Checketts Group, or Maple Leaf Sports, and the same is true for any of the other major leagues. Soccer-specificity with MLS investors is almost nonexistent, and for good reason.
To think that these investor/owners are going to set aside the best interests of their bigger clubs for the sake of some deep emotion for professional soccer is as naive as the bigger clubs thinking their owners' soccer teams don't really matter. All are part of a broader picture, but leave it to MLS to stress importance.
In reality, the MLS money churn is too tied to real estate development and the kind of suburban land grabs that looked like quality business before the market shifted. As usual, MLS is running behind that. Anybody questioning soccer-specific development opportunities in under served or far reaching communities simply didn't get it. Even as that vision has turned, MLS pushes on with real estate as the answer.
Fair enough if it really allowed for the kind of open scheduling that would put games at times when the bulk of fans are actually interested. Not so much when it's simply trading rent for ownership in areas where the values are falling and money isn't exactly free flowing. Then again, what do we know.
Comments, questions, solutions to problems that have yet to present themselves. Please, tell me all about it.
