The Ghost of Soccer Future

The spirits have done it all in one night. They can do anything they want. Of course they can. Of course they can.

Opening Day 2013 - A New Era Opens

The mood is jubilant on the banks of the East River.  Brooklyn FC and Red Bull New York are preparing to kick off a new era in professional club soccer.  A capacity crowd of 45,000 fills Lee Harrelson Field, a sparkling new and surprisingly compact stadium in the borough.  The long wait is finally over: Promotion, relegation and free, independent clubs have arrived in MLS. 

An electric crowd rises in unison for the national anthem. The comments of Brooklyn FC’s majority owner from 2010 ring true: Americans are indeed ready for reality pro sports, just as they were ready for American Idol.

President Obama strikes the ceremonial first kick to a brilliant cascade of flashes.   Some professional photographers are shooting from turf level - his Samba Classics are just visible under his grey suit pants.  Rumor has it that he received in-house training from international superstar Jozy Altidore a few minutes prior to the tap.   Stepping briskly to a waiting microphone, he pronounced his touch as “One small kick for me, one giant night for American soccer.”

The excitement is being broadcast far beyond Gotham, in far better detail, from far better angles.  If the successfully opened lower divisions are any guide, tonight’s live HD broadcast is poised to smash ratings records for a first division club match.  Broadcasters are ready.   Camera placements and production staff have doubled from the 2012 MLS Cup. 

The whistle blows.  The sellout crowd roars its approval for the end of the pre-game hype.  Another thousand electronic camera clicks buzz through the air and the new age arrives.

Beyond Gotham

The dramatic rise of Brooklyn FC paralleled the ascent of American club soccer.  It began with a series of exciting wins and huge crowds in the third and fourth division playoff series.  In 2011, in front of exploding TV and web audiences, they earned promotion to a rejuvenated second division.  During their dramatic five-way promotion battle in 2012, they stretched the capacity of their temporary stadium, and the disbelief of broadcasters, to their respective limits.  On that bright afternoon Brooklyn FC joined the first class of clubs to rise to major league status via promotion.

Their story exemplified a phenomenon that, by late 2012, quintupled television audiences and tripled attendance records throughout our lower divisions.  As promotion and relegation pushed up through our soccer pyramid, initial reticence and worry voiced by many in the old establishment changed to giddy impatience. 

As the first wave of promotions washed into the top division, Red Bull New York were poised to reap the benefits.  Freed from the restrictive salary caps, allocation rules, and diminutive squad sizes mandated by MLS in the single entity era, they sparkle with foreign and domestic talent, whilst keeping on the majority of their squad from the 2012 season.  

How We Got To This Wonderful Place

New excitement and huge crowds for domestic US club soccer were not just a New York minute.  In early 2010, after the President of US Soccer bravely announced that we would begin a three-year transition to an open league model, professional American club soccer entered a period of unprecedented growth.  In the first year of the transition, the lower divisions in the American soccer pyramid had doubled in size.  By 2013, the pyramid grew to one hundred sixty independent clubs in eight leagues across four top divisions

New investors assembled behind existing clubs and jumped at the chance to form dozens of new ones.   BFC’s celebrity owners epitomized this spirit.  From a “humble” initial investment of roughly $1 million, they now own the first major professional sports club in Brooklyn since the Dodgers departed a half century before. 

The transition from single-entity to open league was not without its share of monkey wrenches hurled from the top of the pyramid.  Early on, a small group of MLS owners took a “cold dead hands” approach to the changes.  While most businessmen found it difficult to reexamine their initial assumptions, these owners stood steadfast against the twin white whales of independent clubs and promotion/relegation.  Long accustomed to single entity risk abatements like profit sharing, squad size limits, and salary caps, they quickly pronounced the open league DOA.  Two sold their clubs immediately.  One northeasterner simply folded his tent, took his balls, and went home.

Exponential growth in the lower divisions vindicated the rest.  A year before any of their clubs were subjected to the overblown devil of relegation, most top division clubs had doubled in value.  Average attendance tripled in the second and third divisions in the first of three transition years, and continued to grow steadily after that. 

As thousands of new supporters streamed into stadiums and millions more streamed matches over the web, network and local television execs joined in on the action.  Broadcasts all the way down to third division became common.  Nationally televised promotion battles became the rule.

An unprecedented stadium-building boom began in 2011 and continued unabated through 2013.  As lower divisions opened, supporters arrived in ever increasing numbers to lift their local clubs towards the top division.  This required some second and third division clubs to build facilities that more than matched the flagship stadiums of MLS in size and scope.

In three short years, MLS sponsors and advertisers left worry behind, made a pit stop at relief, and finally arrived at sheer ecstasy.  Before promotion and relegation even reached MLS, ratings of second division matches featuring clubs in promotion battles surpassed those of every MLS Cup.  Echoing the dread of MLS naysayers, they were initially wary of signing long-term contracts with a sports league that did not have a fixed roster of teams in a fixed number of markets.  Now they watched with unbridled glee as American club soccer exploded in popularity, and swore that they were always behind it.

Match Over, the Game Begins

The initial cacophony dies down on this warm spring evening, but the players pick up where it left off.  After a dramatic eighty-seventh minute goal from one of the club’s original members, the most entertaining match in US club soccer history ends in a 3-2 Brooklyn victory.   The capacity crowd remained to cheer on their heroes fifteen minutes after the final whistle – on the pitch.   Broadcasters were happy they built in an extra thirty minutes for post-game reaction.

It turned out that American supporters could not only grasp the open league concept, they were riveted by it.  Just as audiences appreciated the sink-or-swim plot lines of reality television, they were fascinated by the first major American professional sport to embrace promotion and relegation.  As broadcasters achieved so much ratings success with unpredictable and unscripted NCAA Basketball Tournaments, so too did the new network partners of the top divisions of US club soccer.

Two years ago, the open league model that fostered explosive global growth in professional club soccer had finally arrived on our shores.  Tonight, after charging up through the lower divisions, it was finally having the same effect on the top of our pyramid.  Nobody cared it was a century late.

Opening Day 2015 – Single Entity Uber Alles

The 19th season of MLS opens with typical fanfare.  Fuzzy mascots dash in and out of the stands in the Red Bull’s Harrison, New Jersey stadium, which is filled to nearly 80% of capacity.  The national anthem rings out of the PA system at an alarming volume.  As the final notes die away, a promo video pops up on the big screen.  It features star players doing a modified ball-juggling-moon-walk in a sanitized gangster rap motif.  Fanfare complete, the Red Bulls and Sounders take the field for another chapter in the closed league, single entity rerun.

As the match enters the second minute, most of the crowd drift into conversations amongst themselves and screams from supporter groups begin to subside.  Per usual, the crowd is split roughly between consistent followers of the team and curious newbies, wondering what pro soccer is all about.  

Same Old Same Old

The debilitating effects of single entity cost controls remain a part of everyday life in our top division.  Player turnover has always been high.  Coaches and owners struggle to seek tiny advantages over their rivals under tight salary caps and puny squad size limits.  Under what had become known as the “Gaetjens Rules” half of the substitutes that day worked second jobs to supplement their income.   One, like the late World Cup hero himself, works as a dishwasher in a Manhattan bistro. 

MLS TV audiences had remained stable for a decade.  Were it not for the fact that ratings of open league club broadcasts had steadily risen in this time frame, that would be a relative success.  

Sponsors and advertisers, initially won over by the fact that US club soccer would not adopt the foreign, unpredictable, and risky European open league model, now find themselves partnered with a stagnant audience.  Increasing ad buys from male enhancement treatments, colon cleansers, and hair replacement products provide spooky evidence of an aging viewer demographic.

In DC, LA, Seattle and Portland, supporter groups provide a lifeline to the league. Their value to the continued existence of MLS cannot by overestimated.  In franchises that don’t benefit from them, attendance regularly drops off to twenty percent of capacity - even in highly touted “soccer specific” stadiums.  

MLS average attendance records continue to reside in 1996 and the league adheres to strict measures to mitigate appearances of low turnout.  Larger stadiums were never allowed to fully open, no matter the demand for tickets.  TV camera pans were restricted to the contained crowds on lower stadium tiers.

Attempts to bring in star foreign players continue to provide mixed results.   Decisions on acquiring top foreign talent are generally made by marketers, not coaches or managers.  As a result, their experiences vary dramatically.  Some thrive on their status as unquestioned franchise players and enjoy the end of their careers.  Others, dismayed by the heavy hand of the league in club affairs, try to escape their contracts.

A few players successfully escape MLS and are sold back into the freedom of the open league model, but the league holds most of them to the letter of their contracts.  As they plod through the remainder of their careers, stories of their experiences deter other foreign stars from considering a pension in our first division. 

As the closed single entity years drag on, there is one short-term success story that harkens to a free and open American club future that never was: The reincarnation of storied NASL clubs in Seattle and Portland.  After the excitement of their first campaigns dies down, non-derby attendance, season ticket sales, and revenues wane. 

As fans grow more sophisticated, they are often lured away by the higher quality of play in open league European matches. Some fans, upset by the dilution of their support through MLS profit sharing, turn away from the league more quickly and decisively.

Our lower divisions remain static in both popularity and profile.  As new teams enter, old teams fold.  A few clubs hold cult status with their supporters that keep them afloat.  Others, inspired by the Sounders and Timbers, cling to the hope that one day, MLS will grant them access to their private single entity system.  

Even if selected by the single entity for reincarnation, the cost of this virtual promotion is high.  Clubs are forced to give up history, identity, and millions in cold hard cash.  MLS carefully manages these reincarnations so as to avoid any resemblance to real performance based promotion.  The cash carries with it the means to keep their scheme afloat.

Non-American clubs in our lower divisions continue to strive for glory in the CONCACAF Champions League, and often outperform MLS clubs in the competition.  Their American counterparts are not allowed this avenue.
  

Game Over?

The match ends in a 1-0 Red Bull victory.  After a warm round of applause, the crowd shuffles out.  Typical of MLS matches, attendance dwindles by a thousand or so during the game.  Most had never seen a professional soccer game before.  Uninspired, most will never return.

At the end of another lackluster season opener, groups of fans openly worry.   How close to failure IS MLS?   Was it like AIG, GM, Citigroup – too big to fail?  Would President Obama step in to save the league, or be content forever blowing bubbles?  Would the sheltered and entitled billionaire NFL owners and entertainment moguls in MLS ranks provide an infusion of cash to keep it operating?  After all, as long as they run top division club soccer, at least they can keep it from infringing on the market share of their major products.

Proponents and opponents agree that single-entity-risk-abatement entitlements keep the league afloat.  Despite nearly two decades of training, nobody argues that it has become a great swimmer. 

Tonight, our top division remains in the clutches of a few wealthy executives, meticulously insulated from risk, redistributing profits amongst each other, and permanently entitled to first division status.  If American club soccer succeeds, at least they are comfortable knowing it will only do so on their terms. 
  
Of the vast majority of American soccer supporters that are not paying attention to the hoopla this evening, all agree our club soccer lacks the soul that defines it on the rest of the globe.

<<< Back