Banging Your Head Against The Wall For 115 Years Hurts

A close examination of American soccer history shows that club supporters in 1894 faced the same basic predicament we face today – the inability of the American closed league pro sports model to realize the unlimited potential of the beautiful game.

For the first one hundred years, despite remarkable team successes, notable international accomplishments, record-breaking individual performances, storied clubs, remarkable popular sentiment, unprecedented youth participation, and fantastic global growth, every credible attempt at a top-flight American professional club soccer league ultimately failed.

1994 marked the beginning of the second century of professional US club soccer, but the adherence to the closed league model remained strong.  While we hosted the most successful World Cup Final in history, the open league model featuring autonomous clubs and promotion/relegation had delivered professional club soccer to unassailable global dominance, and US club soccer continued to cling to the closed, tried and failed model in the form of the highly anticipated new top league, Major League Soccer.

Today, the USMNT progresses deeper into international competitions than ever before.  European club friendlies draw enormous crowds in American cities.  Three channels of predominantly soccer programming play to American cable and satellite TV audiences.  Youth participation in soccer is enjoying a third consecutive decade of national dominance. Despite all of the burgeoning promise of the game, and the remarkable success of a reincarnated NASL franchise in Seattle, the MLS lags far behind these indicators. Our top domestic league has experienced a precipitous drop in average attendance this year. TV ratings for MLS matches lag far behind their NASL predecessors and even some European international matches.

Here in the twenty-first century, American club soccer enjoys the highest potential in its storied history.   Unfortunately, it continues to suffer the same inability of our nineteenth century closed pro-sport franchise model to realize it.

So take a trip through the web of intrigue, infighting, limitations, and failures of a century of failed closed leagues.  Where the new boss is, indeed, just like the old boss.  Through ups, downs, takeovers, bankruptcies, mergers, acquisitions.  Through the thrilling accomplishments and dubious underachievements the beautiful game under our closed franchise model.

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