2008 MLS Preview

Ed. Note: I don’t normally dabble in “news of the day” type articles so this is a bit of a departure. I wrote this MLS preview and submitted it to the Guardian for consideration, but since I didn’t hear back, I figured I might as well publish it here. A couple of notes on this piece: 1) It was, clearly, written before the England vs. France friendly so keep that in mind, and 2) It was written for a British audience less familiar with MLS. As such, it’s really more of an attempt to put it in context in the US sporting and cultural scene. I suspect that it will be of more interest to readers abroad interested in the place of soccer in the US, but I hope my American readers might find something of value in it as well.

Major League Soccer officials have just one hope for England’s friendly against France on Wednesday: that David Beckham does not get hurt. They are less concerned with Beckham earning his 100th cap than they are with ensuring that he return for Saturday’s LA Galaxy season opener injury-free.

The bubble of hype that Beckham’s arrival in LA inflated was popped by the injuries that kept him out of most of last season. Some fans who had purchased tickets to see Beckham complained – many teams forced them to buy multi-game packages to see the Galaxy come to town – and MLS officials were forced to explain that his injuries were genuine and there was nothing they could do. The off-season has given Beckham time to recover fully, leading to his England recall and a nervous few days for MLS officials.

David Beckham, the face of MLS? (photo: The Offside)

But to say that Beckham is all MLS has going for it is to ignore a maturing and increasingly competitive league. The league began in 1996, hoping to build on the legacy of the 1994 World Cup. In the 12 years since then, the league’s long-term survival has occasionally been in doubt, but the past few seasons have undoubtedly been the best, both on and off the field.

MLS is run on a “single-entity” structure in which all teams and players are owned by the league. This structure is intended to avoid the irrational exuberance that led the NASL, America’s previous professional league, to go under in 1984. Slow and steady growth has been the goal this time, although for several years it was more slow than steady. In 2001, the league was forced to eliminate two of its teams and in 2004 there were reports that it had lost $350 million.

From this low point, MLS has begun to move toward profitability. The league signed a 10-year, $150 million dollar sponsorship deal with Adidas in 2004 and in 2006 inked its first television rights deal (it had previously been paying to put games on TV). Last season was the first in which MLS teams sold shirt sponsorships, proving that Americans are behind Europe in at least one aspect of capitalist excess.

Much of the success in recent years can be attributed to teams building their own “soccer-specific stadiums.” After years of being forced to rent American football stadiums, teams with their own stadiums now reap higher matchday revenues. They have also sold the naming rights to these stadiums, which explains why the LA Galaxy play home matches at the Home Depot Center (named after an American home improvement store), and will open the MLS season at the home of the Colorado Rapids, Dick’s Sporting Goods Park (nickname: The Big Dick).

The Big Dick (photo: dickssportinggoodspark.com)

This surer financial footing has given MLS the confidence to begin expanding. This season sees the resurrection of the San Jose Earthquakes, a team that was unceremoniously moved to Houston and renamed the Dynamo in 2005. A Seattle team will join the league in 2009 and Philadelphia will bring the league to 16 teams in 2010.

The Philadelphia team has received a fair amount of publicity for its preemptively-formed fan club, the Sons of Ben. This group is part of a trend of increasingly numerous and boisterous MLS supporters groups, including DC United’s Barra Brava and Chicago’s Section 8. These groups are truly grassroots, and have sprung up in a league that was, until recently, more focused on attracting soccer moms and their families than reaching out to knowledgeable fans. MLS increasingly recognizes the importance of soccer-savvy fans and has eliminated many Americanizing gimmicks, such as keeping the official time on the stadium clock and having it count down, using hockey-style shootouts to avoid draws, and naming the Kansas City team the Wiz (though their current nickname, the Wizards, is only a slight improvement).

The standard of play in MLS has risen dramatically since the league’s inception. Early on, skilled foreign players often complained about the excess physicality and lack of skill in the league and hotfooted it back to where they had come from. Foreign players arriving today are just as likely to say that the level of play in MLS is above what they expected.

But high-profile foreign players like Beckham are the exception rather than the rule in MLS. Or, perhaps more accurately, they are the result of the so-called “designated player” rule, which allows teams to sign players at salaries that exceed the league-mandated salary cap (around $2 million per team per year). Former Aston Villa striker Juan Pablo Angel and USA captain Claudio Reyna went to New York and Mexican legend Cuaumtémoc signed with Chicago on this rule last season. This year’s designated player signings are Argentines Marcelo Gallardo and Claudio Lopez, who will play for DC United and Kansas City respectively.

But perhaps the biggest on-field shift in MLS in recent years has been the emergence of young American players. The most promising talent at the moment is New York’s Jozy Altidore. Born to Haitian parents, the 18 year-old striker has the rare combination of size, skill, and poise in front of goal that has led Real Madrid to take an interest in him (and to top it all off, he also writes a weekly column on the New York Times website). When Altidore does leave, he will join a growing list of former MLS players in Europe, including Brad Friedel, Brian McBride, and DaMarcus Beasley. Less well known, though just as promising, is 20 year-old Michael Bradley (son of national team manager Bob), whose 16 goals from defensive midfield at Heerenveen in Holland have attracted interests from teams across Europe.

A more worrying exodus is the increasing number of players headed for leagues whose level of play is in no way superior to MLS, but whose salaries are. Beckham’s millions aside, salaries in MLS are relatively low. As a result, many players have taken more lucrative offers to play in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Austria in recent years. The loss of these players is bound to lower the quality play in MLS and worry league officials, especially as new teams thin the talent pool.

This season begins on Saturday with teams looking to knock back-to-back champions Houston Dynamo off their perch. Steve Nicol’s New England have come close to doing so, but have lost in the playoff final both years (like other American sports, MLS determines its champion in the playoffs, not in the league). DC United turn out consistently strong teams, though their hopes this year rest on how well playmaker Marcelo Gallardo adapts to the league. Chicago hope to build on the success that Mexican Cuauhtémoc Blanco inspired at the end of last season.

Cuauhtémoc Blanco (photo: Last Kick)

Unfortunately for MLS, teams in the two biggest American markets have experienced little success. Red Bull New York (the team was purchased by the energy drink company in 2006) boast the dangerous strike tandem of Juan Pablo Angel of Jozy Altidore, but the club have always struggled. Chivas USA, the American offshoot of the eponymous Mexican club, were the better of the two LA teams last year, beating the Galaxy 3-0 twice. The Galaxy failed to make the playoffs last season and real questions remain about the team going into this season. New coach Ruud Gullit has promised to bring sexy football to LA, but his team have few quality players outside of Beckham, US international Landon Donovan, and Guatemalan striker Carlos Ruiz.

At the outset of its 13th season, there are two ways of looking at MLS. Pessimists will claim that it has failed to break into the American mainstream and can’t match the quality of top European leagues. But optimists will point out that MLS has achieved a degree of financial stability and raised the level of play on the field to a point many doubted it would ever reach. David Beckham may be the icing on the cake, but at least there is cake to be iced.

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This entry was posted on Friday, March 28th, 2008 at 4:35 am and is filed under Economics, History, North America. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.