The USA don't really get soccer.....

[westham,eggyandchips]

The premier league has gotten too big. It's now the be all and end all when it comes to English football, and I don't think it's going to change, as the PL couldn't give a damn about the national team as long as the ££££s keep rolling in.

Like anything, the bubble will burst eventually. I cant see our national teams' fairing much better than they currently do though. I mean, prior to the PL starting in 92-93 England hardly pulled up any trees (except '66 of course)

[Morocco Mole]

There is a well-known sports commentator in the US named Keith Olberman (a bit of a windbag but fairly thoughtful) who had seven suggestions about how to increase American interest in soccer:

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That was from ESPN's Outside The Line. Patronising b*llocks if you ask me. Did you watch the whole show? Joe Roth (Seattle Sounders owner) was excellent and made Olberman sound like the berk he is.

[westhamerica]

That was from ESPN's Outside The Line. Patronising b*llocks if you ask me. Did you watch the whole show? Joe Roth (Seattle Sounders owner) was excellent and made Olberman sound like the berk he is.

That was from his show, the one on OTL was Dan Shaughnessy. He's the worst.

[WHU_Del]

If you honestly felt you were made uncomfortable supporting England in this World Cup I feel sad for you.

I don't feel uncomfortable, I don't give a monkey's. But there are a number of people that will make judgements about you if you wear an England shirt or display an England flag.

[Morocco Mole]

That was from his show, the one on OTL was Dan Shaughnessy. He's the worst.

Yup, that **** was on there as well.

As Roth pointed out, if the Sounders were an MLB team they'd have the highest attendances in the entire league. MLS is in good shape....

[bitter-iron-ny]

Patronising b*llocks if you ask me. Did you watch the whole show? Joe Roth (Seattle Sounders owner) was excellent and made Olberman sound like the berk he is.

You'll need to use a more Amercian term than "berk" if you expect me to follow along :lol:

As westamerica pointed out, that was from Olberman's own show. Whether it's patronizing or not depends on who his rant is aimed at. There are plenty of Americans who are neutral on soccer but keen on sport(s) in general who are genuinely persuadable, and that is who would react positively to the type of changes he was talking about.

From it's first day of existence, MLS has (have?) been telling anyone who would listen what a great job they're doing building support at the grassroots level. This despite minimal proof that outside of a handful of cities that our domestic league has any real traction. The draw for the casual fan, or the potential fan, has been the USMNT. Patriotism is still a big draw in these parts, more so than a contrived attempt to create atmosphere and tradition in a vacuum for a few selected regions of the country. MLS does fine in the Pacific NW and places like Kansas City and Dallas, but I suspect the national TV ratings are somewhat on a par with the WNBA. Meanwhile, ratings for US v. Belgium were higher than the World Series, and the match took place midweek during the workday.

What needs to be different about the game is it's presentation, not it's substance. And the presentation that would resonate best with the average American sports fan is something that most the rest of the world would probably find appalling.

[Morocco Mole]

Personally I couldn't give a f*** about the presentation or the Americanized jargon. "Pitch", "field"?...who cares? Infact give me Taylor Twellman and Fernando Palomo over Ian Darke and Steve Macmanaman any day of the week. My issue with Olberman's rant was the entire premise that US soccer needs someone like him telling it what it should and shouldn't do.

22 of the US WC squad plays in the MLS including big dogs like Bradley and Dempsey. They're playing to packed houses every week. Villa and Kaka have just rocked up. Becks has bought a team. The MLS is in great shape and growing - I don't think it especially needs validation from a 55 year old baseball fan. Olberman's demographic don't have to get it and more than likely never will. I thought the whole thing was irrelevant, condescending and pretty wide of the mark quite frankly.

[WalthammerUSA]

MLS has terrible TV ratings but mostly good crowds. It's a financially viable league as far as anyone knows. It's certainly the most stable soccer league in US history, and there have been more than just the NASL. Pro soccer in this country goes back to the 19th century, and soccer was a pro sport before any of our other sports except baseball was. It just hasn't stuck financially until now.

[bobcar]

What needs to be different about the game is it's presentation, not it's substance. And the presentation that would resonate best with the average American sports fan is something that most the rest of the world would probably find appalling.

Could you expand on what you think the "American presentation" would be like in an ideal world for the American sports fan?

[Morocco Mole]

Well MLS is already very much an 'American presentation' and although they're using mostly English commentators for the World Cup, the studio has a strong US presence - Bob Ley, Twellman, Lalas etc. They use Palomo (Mexican) and Moreno (Venezuelan) for the Latino match ups too.

I can't see the issue really.

[WCpete]

As annoying as he can be, I think Max Bretos used to do a decent job. He's spent someof his youth in Argentina, for some reason is a West Ham supporter and speaks in Americanisms with a latin flair. He knows the game. Like nearly all commentators, he's just a little bit annoying.

[american 'ammer]

The MLS is a really tricky thing.

I have a friend who plays for the Earthquakes. I watched a couple of their matches, including a very interesting match at ATT Park in SF (great stadium). Despite that connection, I had a hard time calling myself a "fan," or watching many matches. Other than him and his wife, I knew no one that went to matches, never saw the games on in bars and never saw shirts on people out in the real world.

I'm now in LA, with a "bigger" club as my local team, it's the same thing. I know no one who goes to matches (they play in Carson, 45-60 mins south of LA with nothing really around it), or who considers themselves a fan. Only in Seattle did I know supporters, and still have a friend up there who is a season ticket holder.

The MLS is a long way off from being a real, viable league. The level of football is well below the European leagues, and getting a Kaka or two isn't going to change the overall talent level of the league. An aging Robbie Bloody Keane is the best player the Galaxy have. Says it all, really.

As for Oberman - do me a favour. With the u in the word. We're not going to love this sport if we Americanize it. The culture of football is becoming normal here, and long may it continue to battle against the entrenched franchise system that dominates this country.

[Gator_Hammer]

One thing that is really working against the growth of MLS vs the other leagues is the lack of a viable celebrity figure. Historically in this country, the celebrity player has been the draw to make a sport popular. In the 1920s when baseball was reeling from the Black Sox scandal and everyone thought games were fixed, Babe Ruth became the celebrity that drew everyone back in. If you think about the popularity of the NBA, I would argue that a lot of it is driven by the popularity of a handful of players. It has been that way since at least the 1980s with Bird and Magic....and that was the era that really made the NBA successful as a league (thanks to ESPN). Bird and Magic begat Jordan begat Kobe begat LeBron, and so on. The celebrity player draws attention and gets people hooked.

MLS does not have that type of figure, and they will not have that type of figure as long as elite players can get a better payday in Europe. The need for a bankable player is why the American media went nuts when Beckham signed for the Galaxy....why Landon Donovan was the only recognizable American soccer player for several years....and why they went nuts when Dempsey returned to Seattle. The league needs a hook to draw people in. If you noticed the online ads for NBC's EPL coverage, they have all been "Watch Tim Howard Every Week For Everton." MLS has to find someone people want to watch before people will watch MLS.

[WalthammerUSA]

One thing that is really working against the growth of MLS vs the other leagues is the lack of a viable celebrity figure. Historically in this country, the celebrity player has been the draw to make a sport popular. In the 1920s when baseball was reeling from the Black Sox scandal and everyone thought games were fixed, Babe Ruth became the celebrity that drew everyone back in. If you think about the popularity of the NBA, I would argue that a lot of it is driven by the popularity of a handful of players. It has been that way since at least the 1980s with Bird and Magic....and that was the era that really made the NBA successful as a league (thanks to ESPN). Bird and Magic begat Jordan begat Kobe begat LeBron, and so on. The celebrity player draws attention and gets people hooked.

MLS does not have that type of figure, and they will not have that type of figure as long as elite players can get a better payday in Europe. The need for a bankable player is why the American media went nuts when Beckham signed for the Galaxy....why Landon Donovan was the only recognizable American soccer player for several years....and why they went nuts when Dempsey returned to Seattle. The league needs a hook to draw people in. If you noticed the online ads for NBC's EPL coverage, they have all been "Watch Tim Howard Every Week For Everton." MLS has to find someone people want to watch before people will watch MLS.

That's part of what broke the NASL, though. After Pele came over, there was an arms race to see which clubs could pay the most for the most famous players. The richer clubs overspent, and fans lost interest in the poorer clubs, which couldn't bring in big names. The league imploded financially. It was gone less the a decade after Pele's arrival, and oddly enough, it had existed for a decade before Pele got to New York. A similar spending spree on a smaller scale was part of the reason WPS died, too, although another women's league is back now.

MLS needs promotion and relegation, but the owners would never go for it. Go tell Bob Kraft his team is going to play the Carolina RailHawks or the Rochester Raging Rhinos next season ... MLS needs to act like a real football league, but it's not set up like one. The clubs are centrally controlled franchises and aren't actually independent. However, the MLS is currently financially viable, even if TV ratings are abysmal.