November 17, 2004
More Changes In Store For MLS?
A couple of weeks ago, Bruce Arena, head coach of the U.S. Men's National Team decided to vent a little bit about the failings of MLS, and how it was far past time for the league to get in better sync with the rest of the global Soccer community.
The heart of Arena's complaint centered around the fact that the MLS season was in full swing while the national squad was fighting for its life in World Cup qualifying -- forcing him to pluck players off of active rosters from around the league.
And that wasn't all, as he took shots at the playoff system, the league's All-Star Game and the fact that most of the top administrators in the sport had little, if any, Soccer experience (and that includes MLS Commissioner Don Garber).
But despite the fact that Arena subsequently apologized for his outburst, it looks like the serious money behind the league was listening:
The chairman of the board of Major League Soccer said he wants the league to reach its financial and sporting potential by joining the rest of the world.
Tim Leiweke, president of Anschutz Entertainment Group, told the Los Angeles Times in an interview that change is needed if soccer is to grow in the United States. AEG, owned by Denver billionaire Philip F. Anschutz, has invested more than $400 million over the past decade in soccer.
"I think we kind of lost our way a few years ago, and what we're trying to do now is regain our way,'' he said. "I always thought the mistake we made with MLS was that we tried to emulate the other leagues in this country. This mistake's been made many times with soccer. People have tried to take soccer and conform it to the way we do sports in the United States.
"I keep on trying to say, 'You know, after the hundreds of millions of dollars people have lost, when are we going to wake up and figure out that we need to convert the American way of doing business to the way soccer is organized around the world?'
"We're beginning to acknowledge that we have to become part of the rest of the world scene in soccer, whether it's on the pitch, whether it's from a business standpoint, whether it's from a competitive standpoint.''
There's no bigger financial supporter of MLS than Anschutz. And when he thinks it's time for a change, expect change to be on the way. Stay tuned.
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I think it's a great idea, and in general I'd be all for it. However I'm not sure how to make an August-May season work in the US. Even football is done with the regular season by the end of December, and they have a lot more insulation (both worn and grown). How can you make a February game work in, say, Chicago? How many fans could you draw for that game?
Posted by:
at November 17, 2004 07:45 AM
Cheers to Bruce Arena and the Anschutz group! May I even begin to think that MLS will drop the meaningless All Star game, silly playoffs and introduce promotion and relegation? Will they emphasize the US Open Cup? Oh please please please make it so!
Posted by:
at November 17, 2004 07:52 AM
That article is pretty devoid of any hint to what the changes might be so it makes it easy to speculate. I think the playoffs are here to stay and we'll also never see promotion and relegation here. I wouldn't expect drastic changes, but respecting the international calendar more would be a good start.
Posted by:
at November 17, 2004 11:35 AM
This might have had some weight if he had said it in 1996. Now, with MLS pretty much following the rest of the world except where it's completely impractical (say, playing a winter schedule in New England and Colorado or doing promotion/relegation when we're already straining to come up with suitable stadia for existing MLS teams), I wouldn't see any major changes. They're already adding reserve teams.
The best things they could do: Cut the playoffs by at least one round and avoid scheduling MLS games that conflict with international qualifiers.
Posted by:
at November 17, 2004 08:25 PM
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