The MLS Debate

It seems that FIFA president Sepp Blatter is not impressed with the progress Major League Soccer has made in gaining a foothold in the American sporting public's hearts and minds.

Blatter was less than complimentary about MLS and the development of soccer in the U.S. in an interview with Al Jazeera broadcast on December 29.  “There is no very strong professional league” in the United States, Blatter told Al Jazeera’s Marwan Bishara, as reported in the New York Times.  “They have just the M.L.S., but they have no professional leagues which are recognized by the American society.”

Andrew Das wrote about the interview in the Times on New Year's Eve and concluded with his own comments:  "Corner kick: There may be a ring of truth to what Blatter said: M.L.S. is not considered on par with the N.F.L., the N.B.A., Major League Baseball and that other game that escapes me right now in the American sports landscape. But is that a fair comparison, given that the other four had a head start of at least a half-century?"

Yesterday, MLS Commissioner Don Garber responded in Das' column, saying he was "surprised" by Blatter's criticism and that he knows the FIFA chief believes in American soccer and MLS. 

Coach P's take:  it is true that the league’s average attendance last year (18,807) was a league record and was higher than the average crowd for  N.B.A. and N.H.L. games (which of course play in indoor arenas).  It is also true, as Das points out, that the league has nearly doubled in size - from 10 teams to 19 - from 2004 to the present and that a half dozen cities are bidding for a 20th franchise - expected to cost nearly $100 million.  But the game still is not in the consciousness of the majority of sports fans.  It is not part of small talk in elevators around the office water cooler and at parties.  People don't plan their day around an MLS game the way some people do around an NFL game.  When I speak with a business contact in another part of the country, they may open the conversation with something like, "tough to be in Philly these days with the Eagles, huh?"  No one ever asks what it's like going through a sub-par season with the Union.

As Das and other commentators rightly point out, the other leagues have been around much longer and, with the exception of the NHL, were selling a game considered "American."  Soccer for years was viewed as a "foreign" sport.

We're not there yet, but we're getting there.