ESPN dumping MLS Thursday night

Soccer's been trying to take that step for more than 30 years.

 

MLS had a huge hill to climb in being played on Thursday night to begin with. We’re talking about the most watched television night of the week. This is when all of the networks put out their best television shows.

I’m not surprised the ratings weren’t higher. I’m disappointed.

 

Obviously, this isn't good news for the league, but the league is hardly in trouble. One of the expansion teams made money its first season. The teams that have their own stadiums do well. The ones that have to rent the NFL stadiums and are at their mercy as to what they will be charged, are not doing so well.

This is not the WNBA.

 

The two that do rent from the NFL team, New England and Seattle, are have Kraft and Allen respectively among their ownership.

LA Galaxy, Chivas USA, FC Dallas, Colorado, Real Salt Lake, Columbus, Chicago, Toronto all have their own places, with New York's scheduled to open this season.

Kansas City and San Jose are scheduled to get theirs in either 2010 or '11, and the others are at smaller facilities, like Robertson Stadium for Houston as they try to get theirs.

 

Ditto, for Twin peaks.

And Star Trek.

And a couple of others whose names escape me.

It's not shocking that ESPN is desperately looking for new ways to present MLS (note the lack of "the" in front of "MLS"). MLS just doesn't get the ratings. Stadiums are nice for the long-term financial viability, but the quality of play must continue to improve.

And I'm not sure how that will happen. Their expansion plan is reckless, as it will only further dilute a thin player pool.

But that's another thread.

 

Great news for Red Sox fans - more OB, less Dale Arnold on radio.

 

I don't think I'd call a league starting it's 13th season "fledgling."

The biggest problem MLS has faced is people thinking they should draw NFL size crowds. Only the 12-15 biggest clubs in Europe do, if that. When you see 15-20K in an NFL stadium, everybody wants to shout "See nobody shows," but now that most teams have size-specific stadiums, they are near sellouts with with crowds equaling NBA and NHL.

 

What the MLS should do is bring some big name players in from The Premier league like Dave Beckham.

 

The problem is they can't play as many games a season as either of those leagues.

No soccer league can.

 

O'Brien actually didn't do MLS games last year.

Anyway, national TV ratings have always been (and will likely continue to be) elusive for MLS. All the things some people thought would make a difference in the past--a steady time slot, a weekly highlight show, more promotion, etc.--haven't mattered much.

National ratings for virtually all sports are declining; people have more options and less interest in watching teams other than their own. Soccer's especially vulnerable, I think; the experience of watching a game when you have a vested interest is entirely different than when you're a neutral observer. (Americans seemed to enjoy a scoreless draw when the U.S. women played China in '99.) So nationally telecast MLS matches were never going to be a big hit.

The key for MLS is to keep building local fan bases that are passionate and devoted to their clubs. It's a slow, unglamorous slog (the Adu and Beckham episodes were short-term cash grabs, and brilliant ones at that, but they were never going to "make soccer big"), but it's the only way to carve out a permanent spot in the sports market.

 

I agree with just about all of this, particularly the need to build the local base.

MLS has relatively few franchises, so there are a lot of soccer fans who have no local team and no rooting interest. I'm 400 miles from the closest franchise. If my city gets a team at some point I'll be first in line for season tickets, but that's not happening anytime soon. Until then I have FSC, Gol and Setanta on DirecTV, so I'm a hell of a lot more likely to tune in to those to see if there's a game on than to check ESPN. And with no rooting interest, I'd rather watch Premier League, Championship, La Liga or Bundesliga than MLS. I'm guessing I'm not the only soccer fan in a non-MLS city who feels that way.

 

You aren't. I could ape your post word-for-word.

And despite the fact it's a good soccer city, my hometown isn't likely to get a team either. If they did, I'd be into it.