By L.E. Eisenmenger - BOSTON, MA (Jan 15, 2009) USSoccerPlayers -- These are boom times for Major League Soccer. In 2009 Fox Soccer Channel and ESPN succeeded in finding enough of an audience to make their coverage successful. Games on television portrayed MLS as a flashy, friendly, and attractive league to follow. There were talented US and international players in every game, often in new stadiums. Cameras showed crowds of diverse and dedicated fans.
Watching a broadcast of a game live from Seattle or Toronto, you’d think MLS was a hugely successful league. As commissioner Don Garber has stressed more than once in recent months, Seattle has become the new template for what MLS can accomplish, calling it "arguably one of the best expansion launches in all of pro sports."
During his annual State of the League in November, Garber said: "When you take a step back, the credibility that we have, the awareness we have of the great success in Seattle on the field and off the field gives us something that we've never had before, which is a real indication as to what the sport can be in this country."
The League needs to be perceived as successful. It’s no longer in its infancy or even adolescence. Players have grown into, through, and out of the League.
MLS claims David Beckham and Guillermo Barros Schelloto and Freddie Ljungberg as its own. Alumnus Clint Dempsey is lighting up Fulham and Tim Howard was named one of Everton’s top 12 Players of the Decade. MLS earns respectable European transfer fees: Jozy Altidore to Villareal for $10 million, Eddie Johnson and Dempsey to Fulham for $6 million and $4 million respectively, and Maurice Edu to Rangers for $5 million.
Large corporations are interested in partnering with the League/ They're even picking up the kind of multinational companies normally identified with larger leagues and tournaments.
In 2009, the League's marketing arm Soccer United Marketing successfully managed 21 lucrative international friendlies with unprecedented ticket sales. That revealed an eager market for high-level competition and an obvious revenue path, even in an otherwise down economy. The 12-day three-game Barcelona tour generated $8.5 million alone. MLS has managed to create the appearance that anything concerning professional soccer in the US involves them, either directly or indirectly.
The expansion Seattle Sounders had the highest attendance in MLS and raised the bar for the 2010 Philadelphia Union. The 17th and 18th franchises, Vancouver and Portland join the circuit in 2011, all with investors willing to pay increased expansion fees. New York and Philadelphia will christen two more new stadiums this Spring. The League has traction right now and is attracting attention abroad.
The scent of success is one of the keys for convincing skeptical Americans who watch foreign leagues on TV to follow MLS. It’s also essential to win over Hispanic fans who follow their national leagues and believe themselves deprived of worthy live competition.
Both categories of these stubborn demographics are ripe potential followers of MLS. Although the natural state of the football fan might be bitter disappointment, it’s only because of the inability to suppress wanton hope. These potential fans want to be impressed by a successful US league.
Advertisements for World Cup 2010 are already breaking out bold and glossy in prime time slots, merchandisers are rolling out paraphernalia, and ESPN is promising to produce soccer programming in quality and quantity like never before. Fox Sports is setting up a second soccer channel and producing its own World Cup content. The machine is in gear.
In truth, the depressed US economy will soon be served a month-long entertainment spectacle that will be consumed in tidal wave quantity by a nation strapped for cash and hungry for good news and diversion. Given the logistics and cost of a trip to South Africa, they'll have an even bigger potential audience watching the games on television.
There's no doubt that MLS can ride this wave on the crest and capture the public imagination. It's another Summer of Soccer, where the League positions itself as the key to whatever the game has to offer in North America.
As we're reminded by MLS boosters, this is what US soccer fans have been waiting for. A viable first division moving from strength to strength. What could possibly stop the momentum?
The League has reached another milestone in its growth. It has to more closely adapt to international contracts and increase the wealth of the MLS middle class to attract foreign talent and keep American talent home. It’s a brief window of opportunity that could have dramatic results in continuing to improve the image of Major League Soccer.
MLS can promote positive changes in the collective bargaining agreement with its union and actually use it to advertise the success and value of the League, attract good publicity abroad, and fans at home. It's part of the story Major League Soccer is selling, an alternative to what the other North American pro sports offer.
Instead of making the story about a labor battle and the press both soccer-specific and mainstream that goes with it, the League can continue to build. In the near term, MLS has an opportunity to promote itself in a language everyone around the World understands, the language of money.
L.E. Eisenmenger writes for a variety of outlets including covering Boston soccer for The Examiner. Contact her at eisenmenger@soccerlens.com.
