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There's definitely a lot of dumb poo poo that MLS is doing and a lot of things that could be done better. I definitely don't agree with continued expansion in the face of an increasingly diluted talent pool. My post was mainly directed at the inferiority complex of a lot of MLS fans. It's ok for MLS to not be at the same level of play as the top European leagues and it's ok for it to have terrible TV ratings. If you're enjoying the league you shouldn't feel you have to justify these things to people who think MLS is trash.
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May 13, 2016 05:38
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CaptainYesterday posted:
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May 13, 2016 05:39
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WARNING: PRO/REL CHAT
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threeagainstfour posted:My post was mainly directed at the inferiority complex of a lot of MLS fans. It's ok for MLS to not be at the same level of play as the top European leagues and it's ok for it to have terrible TV ratings. If you're enjoying the league you shouldn't feel you have to justify these things to people who think MLS is trash. I think most of us in here already agree with this sentiment, or else we wouldn't be here.
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May 13, 2016 06:04
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Hello Towel posted:Last year, former Fire player Hunter Jumper posted a bunch of tweets criticizing the Fire's medical care of him and other former players, including Mike Videira, whose career was allegedly shortened or ended by bad care. Soumare seems like he has lost his grip on sanity from his Twitter rants and conference earlier this year.
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May 13, 2016 07:43
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Hello Towel posted:I think most of us in here already agree with this sentiment, or else we wouldn't be here. Every few months somebody that thinks MLS fails some how (and to be fair, it fails regularly) comes along to let us know why MLS sucks. Every few months somebody takes the troll bait. It's ok that some people don't like the MLS, I don't like the MLS, it's not a unique viewpoint.
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May 13, 2016 08:14
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threeagainstfour posted:My post was mainly directed at the inferiority complex of a lot of MLS fans. It's ok for MLS to not be at the same level of play as the top European leagues and it's ok for it to have terrible TV ratings. If you're enjoying the league you shouldn't feel you have to justify these things to people who think MLS is trash. yes but the problem isn't the level of play. most of us have watched MLS for years and years, the massively increased level of play is obvious, it's hard to complain about that anymore (particularly when the refs are so much worse). the problem is that the league as an organization is garbage and unfun to follow. few people are ever going to care about a soccer league where discussions of simple player transfers requires knowledge of DP slots and allocation money, not when it's 2016 and you can watch any league in the world just as easily. long-term success is dependent on fans showing up in person to watch their local team and develop a bond with that team, but that's inherently undermined by their refusal to accept promotion/relegation and thus spread relevant organizations to ever corner of the country. i have riverhounds season tickets but it's still pretty lovely knowing my team won't ever be a player on the national stage unless daddy warbucks shows up to pay garber $10m in unmarked bills. anyone who complains about the level of play in MLS should be kicked in the dick. it's a minor miracle the players are as good as they are given the stupid low salary cap and bizarre restrictions on signing players. wicka fucked around with this message at 13:17 on May 13, 2016 |
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May 13, 2016 13:13
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wicka posted:yes but the problem isn't the level of play. most of us have watched MLS for years and years, the massively increased level of play is obvious, it's hard to complain about that anymore (particularly when the refs are so much worse). the problem is that the league as an organization is garbage and unfun to follow. few people are ever going to care about a soccer league where discussions of simple player transfers requires knowledge of DP slots and allocation money, not when it's 2016 and you can watch any league in the world just as easily. long-term success is dependent on fans showing up in person to watch their local team and develop a bond with that team, but that's inherently undermined by their refusal to accept promotion/relegation and thus spread relevant organizations to ever corner of the country. i have riverhounds season tickets but it's still pretty lovely knowing my team won't ever be a player on the national stage unless daddy warbucks shows up to pay garber $10m in unmarked bills. Lol the long term success of MLS has absolutely nothing to do with the Eastern Bumfuck Riverhounds or whatever garbage team you follow
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May 13, 2016 15:27
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Crazy Ted posted:What's interesting is that the slowly-moving but slowly-gaining-steam concept of a Canadian Soccer League run by the teams in the CFL supposedly has a 2018 start year now. The rumor that goes with it is that the CSA might actually name the all-Canadian league as their Division 1. This seems likely enough to happen (loving finally) but Swansea still play in the PL despite the existence of a Welsh league (or the Wellington Phoenix in the A-League, etc.) so nothing is likely to change for the Canadian teams in MLS. (in particular, the CSA will probably still use the Canadian Championship to award that CL spot, or perhaps lobby the new federation president, who happens to be Canadian, to give us a second?). I am, shall we say, not convinced that a) you could sustainably run the quality of league we all want to see on solely the level of interest or TV ratings you get for the PL in America (even NBC's PL TV deal is worth only twice as much as MLS gets per year from Fox/ESPN/Univision ($160m/year vs $90m/year), by contrast the PL's domestic deal is worth $2.4b/year, the NFL's $6b, NBA at $2.6b, MLB's about $1.6b, NHL's about $1b), so even if you were running the Platonic Ideal of Soccer Leagues in the US you'd still be dwarfed in TV interest by the domestic leagues that are Doing It Wrong. Garber's insane goal that we make fun of ITT DEPENDS on unlocking the drawing power of a domestic titan like the NFL or PL - if that doesn't happen we're likely to stay more or less where we are as a second or third tier league on the world stage, which some of us are honestly just fine with. I agree that the quality of play is necessarily the problem - people obsess over college and high school sports in your country despite the level of play because they're local and personally connected in a way the professional leagues cannot necessarily be because the US is big and people move around a lot - but that's why US leagues are usually around 30 teams, to try to cover as much of that space as possible and give as many people as possible a local team they can show up in the stands for and cultivate that interest. I don't think the league format or transfer rules are the problem either: Americans manage to keep up with the playoffs in literally every other domestic sports league, or the arcane minutiae of the NFL, NBA, or NHL salary caps and their associated exceptions just fine. (They are, however, a problem for US soccer fans, because it means every place to discuss soccer on the Internet gets its very own ghetto for MLS in the vain hope of carrying on a discussion with slightly fewer trolls who are shocked SHOCKED that they do things differently in a foreign country.) The problem is the level of interest in soccer in the US and Canada, and that's something that will only grow, or not, with time. Baseball used to be the unchallenged pastime of America, now the only people that say that are nostalgic old people and contrarian hipsters. All that said, I do think that some sort of closed-format pro/rel is in the league's far future: when MLS can control it by having enough teams in enough big markets that relegation doesn't mean away games in Tulsa that nobody will watch. USSF will likely play ball: a lot of pro/rel leagues require some sort of "license" at the bottom level where you have to meet certain business requirements to be "promoted" from the leagues below. Dallan Invictus fucked around with this message at 16:38 on May 13, 2016 |
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May 13, 2016 15:28
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MLS definitely has a path to success that doesn't involve a pyramid. There's nothing intrinsic to soccer that requires promotion, relegation and a full pyramid. The problems are the league is expanding too quickly and the level of play is going to be affected, which is bad when it's not that great to begin with (but yes it has improved quite a bit, I know) and that the player composition and movement is all screwed up.
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May 13, 2016 15:30
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KFBR392 posted:Lol the long term success of MLS has absolutely nothing to do with the Eastern Bumfuck Riverhounds or whatever garbage team you follow the long term success of soccer in america unquestionably has everything to do with cultivating successful organizations in every city in the country. anything less than that maintains our current status as a soccer backwater. and yeah, they are quite garbage. i bought season tickets because they included a free beer at every game. i enjoy going to the games but i have no passion whatsoever for the team. the stakes are far too low and there's no reason to expect they're going to get any higher. Dallan Invictus posted:I don't think the league format or transfer rules are the problem either: Americans manage to keep up with the playoffs in literally every other domestic sports league, or the arcane minutiae of the NFL, NBA, or NHL salary caps and their associated exceptions just fine. none of these leagues have to compete with major football/basketball/hockey leagues that aren't structured in insane ways, that's the difference everyone overlooks. there is not an american football league in europe that is far more successful than the NFL, with far better players, and with far more easily understood rules that NFL has to compete against. they live in their own little bubble and can do whatever they want. one of the many dumb things that MLS has in common with the NFL is that few fans have a truly local team. few fans actually live in the city of the NFL team they sport, and even fewer regularly attend games. again, this doesn't matter with the NFL, that's just how things work. but for MLS, what is the difference between watching "your" MLS team on TV and never or rarely being able to attend a game, vs watching "your" premier league team and never or rarely being able to attend a game? it's far easier to watch premier league games. that's the difference. and that's why the premier league crushes MLS in TV ratings, why PL viewership is increasing at a faster rate, why PL teams invest more and more in the US...because MLS is doing everything they can to alienate those fans. we keep talking about growing MLS, we should be talking about growing the sport of soccer in the US. at this stage, MLS is actively impeding that growth. wicka fucked around with this message at 15:57 on May 13, 2016 |
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May 13, 2016 15:55
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at every point in the resurgence of american soccer over the last 30 years, USSF (and, later, MLS) has insisted that we, as americans, HAVE to do things differently, HAVE to do things The American Way. they insisted we should ignore the established way that footballing nations have successfully operated for like 150 years. not once have they ever improved upon anything. and slowly but surely they've dropped their terrible ideas and admitted, one by one, that their terrible ideas were worse than good ideas that have been tested and fine tuned for a century. it's going to be the same with MLS, you're just wasting time, effort, and money defending them.
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May 13, 2016 16:09
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Lol footballing nations are almost all smaller, actually care about football locally and weren't trying to kick-start a high level league in an era where big time professional sport was already a thing. Stop trying to pretend you aren't actually different than England or Argentina or the Netherlands and that you don't need to do things differently. Otherwise you end up with fuccbois in NYCFC shirts throwing chairs at fuccierbois in New York Redbulls shirts outside expensive bars in Brooklyn.
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May 13, 2016 16:40
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PL viewership crushes MLS viewership for two somewhat related reasons: 1) it's better soccer, in English 2) it's more Authentic and in a country that already has a ton of existing professional sports the whole soccer subculture is full of fat beta males that never actually played the game and fetishizing Authenticity is their way to legitimize their fandom of some team and the league they have no actual connection to.
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May 13, 2016 16:45
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Put another way, fans of the sport don't want to watch second rate garbage, and fans of the idea of the sport don't want to watch second rate garbage.
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May 13, 2016 16:48
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"soccer culture" has existed in the united states for 20 years tops. mls will be fine, it takes time to build interest.
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May 13, 2016 16:49
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be more subtle with your trolling, my man
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May 13, 2016 16:50
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wicka posted:be more subtle with your trolling, my man I'm not trolling. MLS has a tough job of getting Americans who care deeply about sport but care mildly about soccer to get on board. They've actually done a decent job tbqh but in the modern age I dont think trying to replicate the organic strictures of 150 year old league pyramids is in any way feasible. I'm glad you kinda care about your weird local semi-pro indoor team but no one else does or will, and building an infrastructure in tyool2016 based on hundreds of these bad teams that no one wants to watch is a bad bad idea. Worse than rapid top level expansion by a few degrees.
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May 13, 2016 16:58
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wicka posted:none of these leagues have to compete with major football/basketball/hockey leagues that aren't structured in insane ways, that's the difference everyone overlooks. there is not an american football league in europe that is far more successful than the NFL, with far better players, and with far more easily understood rules that NFL has to compete against. they live in their own little bubble and can do whatever they want. Yes, but in 2016 America, these established leagues in other sports still have to compete with other stuff for attention and TV audiences, including foreign sports that are easier to watch than ever before. And the foreigners still get blown out of the water in US audience levels even though THEY have the advantage of being scheduled five hours ahead so they don't always have to compete directly against this continent's vast array of more popular sports for eyeballs, PLUS the advantage of their, to hear you tell it, objectively superior and easier to follow league rules. I don't think you're a troll, honestly, just that we're never going to agree on this core premise: I think the only way to grow a domestic soccer league in the US and Canada to the point where it ISN'T second-rate (not necessarily MLS but as long as they continue to exist let's just assume it will be them) is through appealing to people who are currently watching other sports, because the audience numbers required to get the money to run a Good League in this era of Modern Football, when you are competing for talent against European leagues where the money comes in fountains and trying to convince talented domestic youth to try pro soccer, can only be found in that group of potential fans. There simply aren't enough of us otherwise, TV networks will ignore us and shove us on channel 300 at dumb-as-gently caress timeslots for a pittance, and then here we are. Obviously we can't change the rules of the game itself to appeal to them (well, that was tried and rightfully found dumb) but we can run a league in a way that meets them on common ground. By contrast, you think a US league can get to those heights off people who are already fans of soccer but just not watching domestic soccer for whatever reason. Meanwhile the PL's US TV ratings suggest the ceiling is not actually that high yet. quote:we keep talking about growing MLS, we should be talking about growing the sport of soccer in the US. at this stage, MLS is actively impeding that growth. So we grow the sport of soccer in the US by trying to tailor it structurally to the tastes of the vast minority of Americans who are already fans??  Meanwhile America has been successful for decades and longer running its sports in a way that evolved, organically and dare I say authentically, for the context of American sports culture (why did baseball not institute a pyramid? They sure as hell COULD have, and they are most of the way there but the minor league teams are no longer independent and don't shift tiers), but no that's actually all bullshit because Ted Westervelt doesn't like it. Christ, no wonder American sports fans have that dumb Not Invented Here It's Bullshit reaction to soccer, when so many American soccer fans have that Invented Here It's Bullshit reaction to American sports. tl;dr: fans are the worst, kill all fans. Dallan Invictus fucked around with this message at 17:14 on May 13, 2016 |
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May 13, 2016 17:10
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no, we grow soccer by appealing to american soccer fans who aren't watching american soccer, AND by not pretending that americans have some sort of aversion to, like, simple leagues, because that's a blatant lie. OR by implementing a very proven framework that has successfully grown soccer from the ground up worldwide, rather than being such asinine fake patriots that you think you have to enforce the mythical American Way from the top down solely because that benefits garber and his investors. wicka fucked around with this message at 17:19 on May 13, 2016 |
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May 13, 2016 17:16
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Dallan Invictus posted:tl;dr: fans are the worst, kill all fans. We're doing a really good job at coming up with alternate titles for this thread.
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May 13, 2016 17:19
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Dallan Invictus posted:Meanwhile America has been successful for decades and longer running its sports in a way that evolved, organically and dare I say authentically, for the context of American sports culture (why did baseball not institute a pyramid? They sure as hell COULD have, and they are most of the way there but the minor league teams are no longer independent and don't shift tiers), but no that's actually all bullshit because Ted Westervelt doesn't like it. it is the most childish and ignorant thing in the world to suggest that americans wouldn't like promotion/relegation simply because an exact replica of the european league system didn't organically grow here. no one knows if it would be a success because they refuse to try, and they only refuse to try because - again - it questions the value of billionaire's investments, not because they actually think fans won't like it. that's what this is discussion is about. it's about what's best for american soccer and american soccer fans vs what's best for a tiny group of investors. the current way of doing things is only good for the latter.
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May 13, 2016 17:21
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Americans might like promotion and relegation. Hell they might love it. Bit that's a separate issue from whether promotion and relegation is the best thing for establishing a top tier and sustainable soccer league in America in 2016.
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May 13, 2016 17:33
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 Yep, it's that time again. Time for some rando, or wicka, to swoop into the thread and remind us all we suck and things will only get better if their specific brand of genius were to be followed. But it isn't so we're all doomed to failure and we shouldn't even try to do anything. To summarize: pro/rel = god, MLS is a Ponzi scheme, Don Garber is worse than Hitler. All Hail The European Way! This is despite the fact most outside the top 4 teams of the top 4 leagues are in dire financial straights and would fold if they actually had to pay their debts. MLS will go to pro/rel when we get our expansion jimmies out at about 32. Hopefully, the NASL will be have their head out of their own asses at that point and MLS will buy them and USL to create MLS1, MLS2, and MLS3, where MLS3 consists of all the '2' clubs and PDL. This will take another 10-15 years.
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May 13, 2016 17:33
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For example - I think MLS should immediately move away from their stupid schedule and to a home and away format with the playoffs cast into oblivion. That's a good change that apes a universal system from other soccer league. But that is a change that's easy to implement and doesn't rely on a level of infrastructure and history that simply doesn't exist in order to make it work. Promotion and relegation rely on lower level clubs having some sort of existing goodwill and value, which simply doesn't exist and won't exist in America for another 100 years if at all.
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May 13, 2016 17:37
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MLS is never going to do promotion or relegation lmao
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May 13, 2016 17:38
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quote:This is despite the fact most outside the top 4 teams of the top 4 leagues are in dire financial straights and would fold if they actually had to pay their debts. hahahahahajajajahahahaha no
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May 13, 2016 17:40
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everything MLS and USSF have ever done to be different has failed. they will continue to grow at a snail's pace until they stop trying this dumb and bad things. the body of evidence for this is vast and inarguable.
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May 13, 2016 17:41
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Yes making a league/system in the 2000s in a massive country that doesn't give a poo poo about soccer should be done exactly the same way as a bunch of tiny crappy countries that love soccer did it back in the 1800s before professional sport was a thing.
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May 13, 2016 17:47
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KFBR392 posted:For example - I think MLS should immediately move away from their stupid schedule and to a home and away format with the playoffs cast into oblivion. That's a good change that apes a universal system from other soccer league. Hi, this is the part of this discussion when I note MLS used to play a home and away schedule (with playoffs, yes) but shelved it when teams (like, say, mine) would bitch about the endless travel because hey who'd have thought that schedules designed for countries smaller than many US states (and also Russia, which may well play home-and-away but also has most of its top division teams in the relatively small part of Russia wherein people actually live) don't work well in the third-largest single country in the world, which plays in a joint league with the second-largest. There is probably a way to do home-and-away scheduling in MLS while keeping aggregate travel reasonable (I've seen gimmick schedules that make the attempt, I'm not really in a position to evaluate how good they are) but holy gently caress regionalising things is SO MUCH EASIER. KFBR392 posted:Promotion and relegation rely on lower level clubs having some sort of existing goodwill and value, which simply doesn't exist and won't exist in America for another 100 years if at all. B.B. Rodriguez posted:MLS will go to pro/rel when we get our expansion jimmies out at about 32. Hopefully, the NASL will be have their head out of their own asses at that point and MLS will buy them and USL to create MLS1, MLS2, and MLS3, where MLS3 consists of all the '2' clubs and PDL. This will take another 10-15 years.  On the bright side, it's Friday, soccer is on tonight! (even if the choices are between an impromptu Spanish lesson, Ramses fuckin' Sandoval, and hoping Sky picked this game to air and I can find a stream.)
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May 13, 2016 17:56
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Re: Travel stuff, yeah I totally understand the genesis of the issue but the teams should get the hell over it, it was hard when there was no money and they were flying coach or w/E.
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May 13, 2016 17:59
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KFBR392 posted:Re: Travel stuff, yeah I totally understand the genesis of the issue but the teams should get the hell over it, it was hard when there was no money and they were flying coach or w/E. I wanna say they still do. They definitely don't get their own charter flights in certain circumstances right? Somebody posted about that recently.
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May 13, 2016 18:01
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Azerban posted:you're only allowed x number of chartered flights a year because it's an unfair advantage to the poorer teams
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May 13, 2016 18:02
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Gigi Galli posted:I wanna say they still do. They definitely don't get their own charter flights in certain circumstances right? Somebody posted about that recently. I'm sure it varies by team and I'm also sure the league could step in and mandate things. The US is massive but a 4 hour chartered flight from Houston to Seattle isn't that much more physically taxing than a 4 hour chartered coach from Manchester to London.
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May 13, 2016 18:06
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Found the bit in the CBA about travelMLS CBA posted:Section 11.1 Mode of Transportation: Team travel greater than two hundred and fifty (250)
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May 13, 2016 18:08
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^^^Yeah, that.wicka posted:hahahahahajajajahahahaha no You do know the likes of Barcalona and Real Madrid owe hundreds of millions of Euros to banks right? Teams in La Liga and Serie A routinely don't pay their players because they have no money.
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May 13, 2016 18:09
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Okay that's retarded but probably a legacy of the shoestring stuff and the level playing field stuff uniting in an unholy alliance of current idiocy.
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May 13, 2016 18:10
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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-3016432/Club-club-guide-Premier-League-s-financial-health.html This is from last year and only the precious, perfect BPL.
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May 13, 2016 18:44
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B.B. Rodriguez posted:http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-3016432/Club-club-guide-Premier-League-s-financial-health.html What does this have to do with MLS?
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May 13, 2016 18:46
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Azerban posted:you're only allowed x number of chartered flights a year because it's an unfair advantage to the poorer teams lmao the more i learn about this league, so loving dumb
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May 13, 2016 19:03
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I don't really care that much about broader notions of "American soccer" or whatever the gently caress you guys are parachuting in here to post about. I just like watching my local team, hanging out with my friends who also like the same team, and yelling at people who like other teams and then buying them a drink afterwards. Isn't that the whole loving point?
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May 13, 2016 19:28
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