Nashville hired Ian Ayre to run the club...welp, I guess that puts an early end to my third attempt to drum up legitimate personal investment in the MLS. US football remains firmly within the exploitative grasp of “useless cunts with accents”.
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Sadly foreign legitimacy rulesNashville hired Ian Ayre to run the club...welp, I guess that puts an early end to my third attempt to drum up legitimate personal investment in the MLS. US football remains firmly within the exploitative grasp of “useless cunts with accents”.
I don't think so. If you read the history of how the game evolved, promotion/relegation was accidental, and a holdover from the amateur era. I don't see it as required for football, however much we enjoy that aspect.The problems that will always impact the MSL versus most other US sports is that it can't be controlled through salary caps, regulation, or by the US media ....
Football is a world sport, no one country (or even national organisation) can set all the rules ... feck in 50 years they still can't all agree on the standard pitch size ...
The reason there are no salary caps, that there are promotion and relegation, that there are independent national leagues is that players are not 'owned' by clubs the same way they are in the NFL or NBA, they are fully covered by standard employment legislation and freedom of movement ...
If the EPL places a hard salary cap on it's clubs all the best players would immediately tear up their contracts and feck off to a country that pays more, nothing the owners could do ... this scares the shite out of the US owners ... not being able to control your players as personal property (I will avoid the 's' word) means you're taking a huge risk ... buy an NFL or NBA franchise and you are guaranteed to make money ... that just doesn't apply to MLS ...
The USA is the only country in the crazy world of NFL / NBA ... but in Football (soccer) it's just a small player ... if it wants to compete, and it does, it has no choice but to follow what the rest of the football world does ... you can't have a 'single tier' league and hope to be competitive ... there's a reason no other country does this ... football needs grass roots, it needs a National Team, those successes are vital, feck England still harp on about 1966 because that victory took English football to a whole new level ... the USA needs more 'grass roots' football, it needs more International success, they have the players they just need a break ...
That all sounds a bit negative but it really isn't, previous 'failed' attempts with single tier soccer attempting to mimic other US sports have always gone a bit wrong, not failed but not quite taken off ... now that there are clear signs of 'league' structures growing beneath the MLS things will improve ... that is the future and it will happen ...
I don't think so. If you read the history of how the game evolved, promotion/relegation was accidental, and a holdover from the amateur era. I don't see it as required for football, however much we enjoy that aspect.
The desire by owners for a closed European super league pre-dates the formation of the Premier League, the idea has just never been popular enough among fans and far too complicated to set up. This is just the same bullshit by people involved in the sport to make money that has been peddled for decades.Seems like typical American arrogance to do it their own way ! Ridiculous to have a closed league.
Seems like typical American arrogance to do it their own way ! Ridiculous to have a closed league.
Your initial comparison is a bit apples and oranges though - you’re comparing the global number of players in a sport that’s by far the most popular in the world to the number of players from a single league in a single country in sport that’s far less globally popular.It's not required but it's what makes 55,000 players play pro football compared to just 1,700 playing NFL ... it's why football is regularly watched by 700 million people a week with 4 billion watching the last world cup finals ... meanwhile NFL is somewhere near 100m and dropping fast ...
Why? ... because Football is inspirational, as a fan my team whoever I support could one day become league champions, win the FA Cup, play in International competitions, sure it's not likely but it's possible, it's also aspirational as a player, a player could play lower league football for years before making that leap to the top tier ... Ian Wright, Vardy, etc
If you take away the opportunity to 'climb the ladder' then everything below tier one just withers and dies ... for example just how many pro American Football teams are there in the US outside of the NFL?
In NFL you can pick the this years Superbowl winners from 32 teams and next years, next decades etc. ... even worse as a player if you don't make the grade in college you will 99.9% never be a pro-player ...
Take away the inspiration and take away the aspiration and you're left with not much more than a bunch of overpaid 'we were stars once' and underpaid 'not quite good enough' footballers playing in a league that's been going nowhere for years ...
If you don't believe that the just look how 'soccer' has done in it's various incarnations in the US over the last 50 years ... a first world country with 330m people that can't produce 11 players to beat countries a tenth of their size? clearly something ain't working ...
Really enjoy watching Atlanta play when I get the chance. Martinez looks a player
We had Walkes over there on loan last season as well and he spoke very warmly about his experience.Ezequel Barco is was highly rated too before he moved to Atlanta. Good to see an MLS team investing in young players rather than the Rooneys and Beckhams.
The difference between the MLS and 2nd tier Euro leagues will always be the Champions League and endorsements. The profile playing for AC Milan brings will be higher for the foreseeable future, regardless of attendances or wages.I dont think the MLS is far away from being a top league TBH.
Firstly the point of relegation and promotion. The point the MLS makes is its hard to attract investors when there is the risk that the club goes down after all the investment. I think when the league is in its infancy it needs investment, and if that attracts more investment, then so be it. Once the clubs and fan bases are established then you can add promotion relegation. The fans are already hooked and wont switch allegiance, stop coming.
Secondly the point about competition from NFL, NHL, NBA and MLB. Soccer only needs to be a niche sport in a country as rich and as populous as the USA to be better than Ligue 1 or Serie A IMO. MLS attendences are already better than Ligue 1 and close to Serie A. Only difference is the TV deal.
The only thing stopping the MLS really taking off is the salary cap. For the moment the owners are raking it in rather than the players. Atlanta has a 13m dollar payroll yet averaging 50k a game. Maybe 3-5m a game in revenue.
I think the game in the USA will take time to grow slowly and then just explode in a matter of 5 or 6 years as TV money increases, better players move there and tv money increases more.
At the end, no one buys a ticket for Eynesbury Rovers because they think the club could one day be in the PL.
Get the mls package and never miss a game!!!!!!! LolUntil MLS gets their shit together with games being aired on t.v. then they'll never compete with the other top sports in America