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Soccer will NEVER catch on here in its current form.
You must either be blind or oblivious to what is going on in the sports world. The MLS is the fastest growing sports league in United States history. The pace at which the MLS has grown is unprecedented in the sports world.
I suggest you go do some digging in the Sports Business Journal (the authority trade journal in the business of sports in the US) and find out just how ignorant you are on this subject. You're really making yourself look foolish with these post.
Why does the MLS have TV contracts with ESPN/ABC, Fox, and NBC if it hasnt caught on? That is 3 of the 4 major networks in the US, by the way. All have paid the MLS money to carry their games. Kind of weird being that MLS hasnt caught on, isnt it? I mean these are the networks that will cancel a show after a single episode if they dont get the ratings they want.
I find myself becoming more interested in soccer-----I like watching the Premier League matches on Fox and Espn.
We have been hearing that soccer will catch on here for many years. Americans are not a patient lot------they like action sports and the strategic and methodical nature of soccer runs contrary to the pace Americans enjoy.
Some posters have suggested that soccer wont catch on until the sport is Americanized----i.e. the indoor soccer league.
Tinkering with a historical and internationally renown sport like soccer may seem to sacriledge to most fans. What changes could they make to heighten interest in the United States???
1. shorter field?
2. one or two fewer players per side to open up the field??
I notice a pick up in interest in soccer----to claim that some day it will rival the Nfl, mlb,or the nba is very questionable.
I suppose that if trends continue as they are, and the percentage of Hispancis and other immigrants continue to increase over the next 40-50 years, who knows?
I never did get the "they like action sports and the strategic and methodical" that you just made. Football is extremely strategic, just becasue they dont stop and discuss the next play for 5 minutes every 30 seconds of play like they do in American Football does not mean its not strategic. Its a very technical and strategic game.
Americanising the sport has already been tried and it was a disaster. That is not the answer, the route MLS is taking with TV and quality stadiums is the answer. MLS is going in the right direction, its not perfect but its going strong and gaining momentum.
We have been hearing that soccer will catch on here for many years. Americans are not a patient lot------they like action sports and the strategic and methodical nature of soccer runs contrary to the pace Americans enjoy.
Slow and steady wins the race. Fads get popular quickly and fade away just as fast. Things that are truly popular grow slowly but steadily just like soccer is.
The NFL started in it's original form in the 1920s. Even in the 1960s when the first Super Bowl was being played, it was considered a niche league and members of the sports media refused to follow it because they didnt think it would last. Sound familiar?
Quote:
Originally Posted by jefffla01
Tinkering with a historical and internationally renown sport like soccer may seem to sacriledge to most fans. What changes could they make to heighten interest in the United States???
1. shorter field?
2. one or two fewer players per side to open up the field??
That question is irrelevant. The rules cannot and will not be changed. FIFA is the governing body of the sport and the rules (referred to as the Laws of the Game) rarely change because they do not need too. Why mess with perfection?
Quote:
Originally Posted by jefffla01
I notice a pick up in interest in soccer----to claim that some day it will rival the Nfl, mlb,or the nba is very questionable.
It probably will not rival the NFL or MLB and I dont really want it too but I think it will get up to the NBA.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jefffla01
I suppose that if trends continue as they are, and the percentage of Hispancis and other immigrants continue to increase over the next 40-50 years, who knows?
Hispanics and immigrants have very little impact on the popularity of MLS. Hispanics tend to follow the league from where they are from as do immigrants. MLS fans are middle class Americans for the most part.
ugh ... a little bit back ... but you can't compare average draws between leagues that have different numbers of games, stadium sizes, etc
when you have 41 opportunities to see a team it can deflate the per game average a bit because there is so many different times .... it's not so much of an event setting, scheduling issues, etc.
The NFL by far draws the largest per game averages and is by far the most popular of the 4 .... however, if NFL teams had to play 15 home games instead of 8 it would impact a lot of teams and the per game averages would decrease across the league
I think it's interesting to look at the NHL & MLS as almost companion leagues .... the seasons really don't overlap ... they have similar distribution ... have success in the same types of markets
The NBC deal is nice for MLS - $12M per season is good (and a far cry from when they had to pay to be televised) and it's very smart that all their TV deals expire at the same time in a WC year
Keep in mind though that NBC proper is only broadcasting 2 regular season games, 2 playoff games and 2 USMT games .... the other 38 are on NBC Sports Network (the rebranded Versus network)
NHL just re-upped their deal with NBC as well .... they signed a 10 year deal worth about $2B .... the prior deal with Versus paid about $75M per year and had 50 games attached to it
This new deal will put 90 regular season games on NBC Sports Network ... all playoff games from the 2nd round onward will be shown somewhere within the NBC family of networks .... NBC proper will also be bringing back it's Game of the Week for the NHL as well as Winter Classic coverage
However, it should be fairly telling that the recently comcast aquired NBCU is rebranding Versus and running with NHL & MLS as their first two major gets
Millions of people. MLS averages over 18k people a game. Many of the stadiums sell out on a regular basis turning away people at the gates.
We have 20 people in our group of friends that have season tickets and we have about 20 others that come to about 5 games a year. Pretty much everyone I know has at least a casual interest.
The MLS just announced that the fee for the next expansion team will be 100 million dollars. That's right, whoever wants the next MLS franchise will have to pay the league 100 million dollars to simply join the league and there are people out there getting their bids together to do it. That's on top of the millions of dollars associated with starting the business and another couple hundred million to build a stadium. So, a potential owner is looking at 300 to 400 million just to get up and running. Yet, you claim it hasnt caught on?
Multi-billionaire business men do not invest more than 300 million dollars into something that has not caught on. They invest money into something that has caught on and grow more popular by the day in an effort to make profit.
Just because your circle of people have no interest does mean it hasnt caught on. I dont know anyone that likes to hunt but it is insanely popular. I dont know a single person that has any interest in NASCAR yet millions of people follow the sport. I dont know anyone that watches Dancing with the Stars but it is the top rated show on TV. Get my drift?
If you took a demographic of who goes to a soccer game what do you think you would find?
If you took a demographic of who goes to a soccer game what do you think you would find?
Could you be more specific? You seem to have an idea in mind of what is there and I think you would probably be wrong. I follow MLS pretty close and I not only go to every Kansas City home game but usually travel to a couple of away games a year. I also watch a ton on TV and read about the league all the time in the Sports Business Journal so I have seen marketing data for league.
I am not sure what you are trying to imply but in Kansas City the 12k season ticket holders consist of white, middle class, suburban people ranging from college age to those in their 50s and 60s. In my section we sit in, nearly the entire section is season ticket holders and most of us are in our 30s, with young kids, college educated, and live in the suburbs around KC with an above average income.
Actually, the main base of those that purchase tickets for MLS games across the country fit that same demographic. Seattle has an attendance average over 30k and I know their main demo is white, middle class, ages 25-45.
If you think MLS fans are mainly Hispanic or immigrants from other countries you would be incorrect. People make this assumption when MLS has actually struggled to reach this demographic. Mexicans tend to follow their own league and only attend games when a popular Mexican player is playing. The same is the case with immigrants from other countries.
For example, we had 3 Argentine players on our team a few years back and we suddenly had a few hundred Argentine fans at our games that were a lot of fun. However, those players left and those fans havent been back.
I guess to love soccer, you have to have a great game in your childhood that is burned
in your memory forever. Such a game for me was the world cup final of 1966. England
vs W.Germany. A lot of world cup games are rubbish, this game has never been forgot
by anybody who saw it. Just 11 men on each team, no substitutes like today. England
won 4-2, after extra time. Anything that comes up for sale from that game sells for a
fortune. Shirts, medals. The nine surviving members of that England team are still thought
of highly today.
I'm also not really understanding the projections of the MLS growth in this thread. I'm sure some of you guys are familiar with Gladwell's (and many before him) "tipping point" theory. Basically if you see something on the rise, or on the fall, it is highly unreasonable to assume it will sustain the same amount of growth, or decline, for long way into the future. If something is grown from the nothing, (the MLS in its current form was founded VERY recently, 1993 according to wiki) it's highly likely that it will experience HUGE growth early, then tip, and its growth will slow down significantly, or it will plateau, or even regress. I'm glad the MLS is growing, but to assume it's just going to continue up, up, up to me, is absurd.
I'm also not really understanding the projections of the MLS growth in this thread. I'm sure some of you guys are familiar with Gladwell's (and many before him) "tipping point" theory. Basically if you see something on the rise, or on the fall, it is highly unreasonable to assume it will sustain the same amount of growth, or decline, for long way into the future. If something is grown from the nothing, (the MLS in its current form was founded VERY recently, 1993 according to wiki) it's highly likely that it will experience HUGE growth early, then tip, and its growth will slow down significantly, or it will plateau, or even regress. I'm glad the MLS is growing, but to assume it's just going to continue up, up, up to me, is absurd.
Yes, I am familiar with the concept.
The thing about MLS is that the growth has been nice and steady just as a business that is going to be successful for the long-term should grow. Will their be a plateau? It's likely. However, with the rate at which things are moving and the way in which fans are increasing, the overall trend will be growth based on the activity of the last 9 years or so.
After the next World Cup, all of the TV contracts for the league end and with how things are going, they are likely going to land a huge deal that will change the league forever. So, for the next decade or so, it is very likely that the growth will continue. After that, the league will be at a point where it can easily withstand a plateau or even decrease in growth.
Did you know that in the 1960s about 40 years into the existence of the NFL and when the first Super Bowl's where being played that people still said it was going to fail? That members of the media refused to cover it because it was a "niche sport" and it would never over take college football or baseball? That is the same thing people have been saying about MLS for years and the league and fans keep proving them wrong.
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