WBURLittlefield: Finally, Soccer Has Major-League Problems

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In 2008, Major League Soccer Commissioner Don Garber, holding the ball, announced plans for a new team, the Philadelphia Union, which kicks off its inaugural season next month. (Joseph Kaczmarek/AP)

BOSTON — Since it began 14 years ago, Major League Soccer has made progress.

Soccer specific stadia are the rule, rather than the exception, now, and according to veteran soccer writer Grant Wahl, the stadium that the New York team will occupy this spring is “the most advanced, state of the art soccer stadium in the Western Hemisphere.” This season will also see a new team in Philadelphia.

On the other coast, last season the expansion Seattle Sounders drew an average of almost 31,000 fans per game.

And in a weird interpretation of the league’s failure to reach a new basic agreement with the players, MLS Commissioner Don Garber has characterized that potential train wreck as more evidence that MLS has arrived. “These are big league problems,” he said this week. “Years ago we had nothing to fight about, so we didn’t have labor issues.”

Negotiations during the second extension of the five-year basic agreement that expired at the end of January failed to produce a new agreement, meaning that although the 16 MLS teams are training for Opening Day on March 25, the players could opt to strike at any time.

They are looking for a higher minimum wage — no surprise, since some of them make less than $30,000 a season — and an end to the system of indentured servitude that allows the league to prevent them from playing for another MLS team when their contracts run out.

To suggest that those concessions would endanger the finances of the league — even given how fragile MLS has sometimes appeared to be — seems disingenuous. MLS has always operated under a salary cap, which should serve to give the commissioner and owners all the control they need without nickel-and-diming the rookies and artificially restricting player movement within the league.

This leads to the suspicion that the league and the players have failed to negotiate a new agreement not because the players’ requests are unreasonable, but because the commissioner wants to let them know that he and the owners will continue to unilaterally dictate the terms under which pro soccer will operate in this country.

That stubborn determination could push the players to strike. While basketball fans consumed with March Madness and baseball fans looking forward to their own Opening Day might not regret that development or even notice it, fans of soccer would, and some number of them would shrug and turn away from MLS, which is desertion the still-developing league cannot comfortably afford.

WBUR Topics · Boston · Sports
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  • http://www.regularguycolumn.com Brian

    Did the player’s union compensate Bill for this horifically slanted piece of writing?

    “indentured servitide?” Really, Bill? The league doesn’t “prevent (players) from playing for another MLS team” when a contract ends. It has a system that requires compensation for the original team if a player re-signs with MLS. While I wish the league would change this rule, to characterize it as “indentured servitude” is just a comical mis-representation.

    Add in the fact that Bill harps on “nickel-and-diming the rookies” when anyone who takes a true open-minded look at the league knows it’s much more complicated than that and this is nothing but pure propoganda. The players themselves remind us time and time again that it’s not about money. The league has continually bumped up the starting salary for players on the senior roster and shows no indication that will change, but let’s not let facts get in the way of Bill’s axe-grinding.

    The cherry on top is the charge that the players are right and the commissioner and owners are just big meanies intent on crushing them like the peons they are. What a crock.

    It’s really sad because many of the players’ aims are worthwhile, but far too many people come to defense to them with horribly slanted writing riddled with inaccuracies and some sort of agenda.

  • PSCFlounder

    Is it baseball season yet. Kickball is a niche exercise event that can be attributed to a small inbred community of those that weren’t particularly gifted with speed, height or good hand eye coordination. Scientists who peer review global sports research say that American soccer keeps them off the premier playing fields and still gives them an athletic activity.

  • John

    PSCFlounder, are you being serious? Soccer is the most popular sport in the world. And to play it a high level takes great coordination. And I suspect that the speed of professional soccer players is, in general, higher than that of the players of any other team sport on the planet. In soccer, you don’t have the lineman to lower the average that you do in American football. Also, a lot of soccer players are relatively tall. I’m 6’2″, 190 lbs. And I run a 4.5 40. Also, it is good that soccer is a sport where one’s size doesn’t make as much difference in terms of how good one can be. This give more people a chance to excel at soccer.

    In addition, in the U.S., soccer is one of the most popular participation sports. And it is a fairly popular spectator sport in the U.S. Remember that there are 47 million Latinos living in the U.S. Last night an exhibition match between Mexico and New Zealand drew over 90,000 fans at the Rose Bowl. And MLS is averaging about 15,500 fans per game over a 30 game regular season. In addition, combined the English and Spanish-language telecasts of the 2006 World Cup Championship Final (between France and Italy) attracted an estimated 16.9 million American viewers, comparable to the average viewership of the 2005 World Series of Major League Baseball. Here is a link:

    http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/11/sports/soccer/11sandomir.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

    Finally, according to a Harris Poll conducted prior to the 2006 World Cup, nearly half of respondents expressed some interest in watching a game in the 2006 World Cup. Here is a link:

    http://www.nytimes.com/1994/06/28/opinion/l-world-cup-just-might-give-us-soccer-fever-521175.html?n=Top%2FReference%2FTimes%20Topics%2FSubjects%2FW%2FWorld%20Cup

  • Ivan

    MLS is on its way of being the 4th most popular league in the US. Baseball is doomed the way of boxing; first, it’s not a sport, second, it’s insanely boring.
    Major League Soccer, on the other hand, already has a higher average attendance than NBA and NHL…and it is a baby league, only 14 years old. The beautiful game is finally here; now, if we can only cancel NASCAR as the biggest waste of gasoline in the history of western civilization…go New York Red Bulls…

  • Mike

    Ivan, how funny to post that baseball is dying on a WBUR thread! I suspect the local 9 are doing ok and might draw some interest. MLB as a whole is neck and neck with the NFL in total revenue. You probably know the Deloitte money league just came out. See Newcastle United at #20 with an estimated 86 million pounds in revenue? All 30 MLB teams are there or above (well, the Marlins could be lower given the imprecision of estimates and the fluctuating exchange rate…)

    As for comparisons with NHL and NBA, sure, raw “official” attendance figures are close. How many MLS tickets are freebies? What’s the avg ticket price of the three leagues? What’s the average revenue of an NHL or NBA club compared to the NBA? MLS makes what, $180-200 million as a whole? So…the league’s revenue is about as much as the Knicks.

    MLS has to compete not only with other sports, but it has to compete with other football leagues for soccer/footie fans. It has trouble drawing soccer fans away from broadcasts of Premiership games. A strike could seriously damage the league, and both sides need to work to avoid one.

  • PSCFlounder

    Yes 47 million latinos and most of them are illegal aliens.

    http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_are_the_ten_most_popular_sports_in_the_United_States

  • Mike

    PSCFlounder, greaaat. Run for the hills! Soccer fans are coming for your job and for your government benefits!

    BTW, your link alleges NASCAR is most popular in terms of “Live spectators…NASCAR, no contest.” It cites “17 of the top 20 attended sporting events in the U.S.” and over 1,500 sanctioned races.

    MLB drew 73,000,000 in the 2009 regular season. I doubt NASCAR averages 50,000 over 1500 races. The major events are huuuge, but a lot of those 1500 races must be regional events that draw well under < 10,000.

  • Tom

    For all you baseball lovers out there if you havent realized that baseball is the world most BORING game and is hiddious to watch! Plus they all cheat!! PSCfagoot you are an idiot and should be shot

  • John

    PSCFlounder wrote: “Yes 47 million latinos and most of them are illegal aliens.”

    There are 47 million Latinos living in the U.S. And there are about 11.9 million unauthorized immigrants living in the United States. Moreover, about 76 percent of all of the unauthorized immigrants living in the U.S. are Latino. Here is a link:

    http://pewhispanic.org/files/reports/107.pdf

    Moreover, 76 percent of 11.9 million is about 9 million. Thus, about 9 million of the Latinos living in the U.S. are unauthorized immigrants. And 9 million is only about 19 percent of 47 million. Thus, only about 19 percent of the Latinos living in the U.S. are unauthorized immigrants.

  • PSCFlounder

    So that is why MLS (minor league in the US) has problems.

  • PSCFlounder
  • http://soccerorassociationfootball.blogspot.com Bob

    One problem I see is that MLS is still operating under the single-entity system that it has used since the beginning. I think the teams should all be independently owned and operated and that the players’ contracts should be with the individual clubs, not the league.

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