Can’t actually find a dedicated thread for MLS.New season just started. I see Charlotte FC a new franchise set an attendance record of 74k. Pretty impressive considering Charlotte isn’t the biggest of cities.Maybe some of our US friends could give a heads up how the games growing over there. Seems to gathering in popularity?
MLS
- Thread starter Delboy75
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While MLS still has the "retirement League" vibe from some in Europe, there's been a trend in recent years on developing players to sell to Europe (Alphonso Davies being the biggest example). There's also been a move on finding the next tier of younger central/south American players and brining them into MLS. There's still a pretty big pull of getting American green card if you weren't good enough to get looked at by a big European league.
But overall I think there's been more of an acceptance that MLS will not be one of the biggest leagues in the world anytime soon and that developing an entertaining product and feeding better players to European clubs is a good business model. And I do think I'm less as a product is quite entertaining. Obviously the skill level is not anywhere near the Premier League but the kings are usually crazy and entertaining.
And with the baseball players locked out it will probably continue to help MLS and the sport in general to become the third most popular one in the US which is massive considering the size of that commercial market.
But overall I think there's been more of an acceptance that MLS will not be one of the biggest leagues in the world anytime soon and that developing an entertaining product and feeding better players to European clubs is a good business model. And I do think I'm less as a product is quite entertaining. Obviously the skill level is not anywhere near the Premier League but the kings are usually crazy and entertaining.
And with the baseball players locked out it will probably continue to help MLS and the sport in general to become the third most popular one in the US which is massive considering the size of that commercial market.
ronzalo
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- Jul 21, 2021
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https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/61806084 - pretty interesting deal. Worldwide rights for 10 years for Apple TV. Definitely piques the interest a little for me.
Pochemon94
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- Aug 6, 2019
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I live in LA and have season tickets to LAFC. look it's not the best quality but it's super fun in its own way. I call it chaos ball.
It's like League 2 if all the players did meth before kickoff.
taidgh
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- Aug 13, 2004
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Pretty good article on the new MSL deal with Apple here: https://12ft.io/proxy?ref=&q=https://theathletic.com/3365616/2022/06/14/mls-media-rights-deal-facts/
There's two things that have caught my interest. They want to make it to where most of the games are on Wednesday and Saturday nights. And then they want to produce a whip-around show similar to NFL RedZone where they jump to key moments and highlights around the league.
CanadaSpurs
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- Aug 14, 2013
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The streaming service that carried the PL rights in Canada for the last few years had something called “Goal Rush” where they’d play one match but cut away to all the goals as they were happening. Never really caught on for me but was interesting.
Yeah NBC has something similar. Often though those Saturday mid-day PL windows only have three or four matches, and almost never any of the big ones. The MLS product could be more interesting if you have 15 games from 7pm eastern to 10 pm Pacific.
taidgh
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- Aug 13, 2004
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Goal Rush is produced by the Premier League. It's not only on TSN and NBC, but also DAZN (Europe and Asia) and SuperSport (South Africa), etc. I think Apple's plan for that type of show could be attractive to casual soccer fans who want to watch the featured match while also being shown all the action from all the games.
CanadaSpurs
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- Aug 14, 2013
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Dazn has been the rights holder in Canada for the last few years now (they’re going to a different streamer next year) but I did wonder who was actually putting the show together.
- Thread starter
- #12
The real trigger maybe if they can produce a real superstar. They have some good quality players but no real mega star. Thought Pulisic might be it, but not looking likely. I mean if Egypt can produce Salah and Norway Haaland you’d think it’s just a matter of time.
LSUY
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- Jul 12, 2005
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But what other sports compete with football in Egypt and Norway? It's going to be a lot harder for the US to find and develop a real superstar as the collegiate system has the scouting structure already in place and can blow the MLS and US Soccer out of the water financially when it comes to recruiting.
BosSpurs08
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- Aug 8, 2019
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I'm optimistic that this will happen eventually, but I doubt MLS will have much to do with it. The top players are bypassing the NCAA/MLS path in favor of going to European clubs - and the players likely to start/feature in the next WC are quite young and play at clubs like Chelsea/Barca/Juve/BVB/RBL, with the rest mostly at the Lilles/Valencias et. al.
There was a big youth soccer boom around/after the '94 WC - kids in minivans coached by guys who grew up playing american football/basketball/hockey. Its their children/grandchildren that grew up with the sport that I have the most hope for.
Think this is another factor. Baseball/hockey are declining in popularity and soccer/basketball are really in the ascendency, with american football a potential question mark in the medium/long term (still massively popular, but lots of parents pulling their kids out of youth football b/c of the concussion issues). The first American superstar is probably someone who would have played another sport if they were born before 2000.
Here's a recent poll: https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.c...gues-and-Governing-Bodies/US-soccer-poll.aspx
A lot better golf in SoCal compared to Cardiff!
MLS is pretty complex. They do have a salary cap that is designed to fill most of your roster with an amount of money that is sustainable based off of the leagues income. But there is also what's called a designated player slot in which each team can have up to three players that goes above the salary cap which is how most of these bigger players are signed.
MLS website says he's not taking a Designated Player spot. Which means he's signed for fairly low wages. I'm sure he'll have some big sponsorship opportunities, but I'm guessing he's basically doing this to live in Los Angeles and keep a basic match fitness ahead of that WC.
ILS
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- Jun 21, 2008
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I have already looked at going the day earlier but it will be an extra £800 and let's be honest I can imagine the wife's face when we get there to find out he is injured!
