Don't Believe MLS Is In Trouble?: Ask Don "The Franchise" Garber

April 23, 2009. Dan Garber in The New York Times:

"Soccer fans in this country are increasingly sophisticated, and M.L.S. has not been able to keep pace with their demands."

The MLS is in season fourteen, all is not well, and Commissioner Don Garber has identified the problem.

Step two is remedying it, but never, ever by acknowledging the elephant in the room:  The MLS is the only first division in the world that is committed to the franchise model that works so well for our insulated, domestic and unique other sports—but has failed American soccer scores of times since it was first tried in 1894.

Garber's media analysts must be noticing the unrealized potential of the league that anyone can see in the following statistics:

Last weeks Gold Cup final, in which a team of MLS players that comprised the USMNT B team were dismantled by Mexico 5-0, was viewed in over 7 million households—The largest audience for a MLS Cup was less than 1 million households. 

Chelsea and Inter sell out the Rose Bowl for a meaningless pre season friendly (Imagine the Cubs and Astros selling out a spring training game in Wembley)— The 80,000 tickets sold are more than double the average MLS Cup turnout.

The record average attendance for MLS was set in 1996— Despite the dramatic success of the pseudo promotion of the Seattle Sounders, MLS average attendance was down over 8% as of June.

Here's where MLS supporters will hastily rush to the League's defense.

They will tell you how young the league is, how we just need to support it as a patriotic duty, while they scramble for ways to jam the beautiful game into the same business model that TGI Fridays, Chilis, Applebees, and Subway use.

Parity Parity Parity, they say, will save us: Who wants a Man U, Chelsea, Arsenal, and Liverpool every year?  MLS, by controlling virtually every aspect of the game, almost down to the level of issueing bathroom passes, is going to give us that crazy unpredictable world in which anyone can be a champion.  

Yes, I agree...Champion of a very minor exhibition league.

The CONCACAF Champions Cup has shown us the slide.

Since DC United and the LA Galaxy won it back in the late nineties only two USL clubs advanced further than our glorious first division MLS clubs last year; and the early phases of this years competition don't show much improvement.

All the while MLS clings to the franchise model as a glowing cultural beacon. 

They argue that Americans don't understand open leagues and autonomous clubs. They are fine with our clubs as product lines of a larger corporation.  Same chassis, same engine, different plastic trim. 

Promotion and Relegation?— "What, are you speaking Japanese?! What would cause more instability than that? Our investors will run for the hills!"

So be it, I say.  I have this hunch that clubs with history and supporters like the Sounders, Timbers, Rhinos, Kickers will adapt as they always have, that investors may understand the following vague paradox of the open league, if you give them five minutes:

".....Hmmm, you mean I can make a small investment in a third division club, and move it up through the Leagues through 'promotion' and in a couple of years, could own a stake in a top division club?"—Yes.

Maybe the franchise works when you have the recognized top league in your sport on the planet.   Maybe there is room to tweak around the edges in the name of parity and to control player costs, without jeopardizing the standing of the league.

Not so in soccer, guys.  

You're hoping, like GM, Chrysler and Ford did for decades, that soccer supporters will flock to your franchise out of patriotism, or maybe just aren't bright enough to see that there are other, more exciting leauges out there.

Notice I don't say better. Open leagues, like reality TV, are just more exciting.  Just like when you can get kicked off the island, or Simon Cowell disses you out of Idol, you can get bounced out of the league for a bad season.  It's real like that.

Don't expect Don to ever acquiesce.  He's an NFL franchise guy—through and through.  He cut his teeth on the World League of American Football.   Remember the Scottish Claymores? Yup, that franchise league went down in a Rhine Fire of Glory.

So, Don's out there cultivating that group of American sports moguls that can't comprehend anything outside of the franchise coccoon, and has promised them immunity from crazy promotion and relegation in order to extract multi-million dollar franchise fees.  How in the world can he go back on his word?—Drew Carey and Bill Gates will have him for breakfast, right?

Yes, it's gonna be a tough transition.  It's going to have to come from the little people—not only us weirdo American soccer supporters, but the weirdest ones of all:  The ones who believe that autonomous clubs in an open league featuring promotion and relegation will finally allow the sport to fulfil it's promise.  

To pry it out of the franchise, once and for all, the same kinda people who understand the vagaries of college tournaments are gonna have to speak up.  Yes, the same teams tend to vie for the NCAA basketball crown every year, but we relish the Gonzagas and the GW stories too.

It's not only about who wins the playoffs for us crazy nuts.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot, Japan did this over a decade ago. They moved to an open league for soccer, but left their baseball in a franchise. Worked out great for them—The popularity of the soccer skyrocketed. 

Remember when Toyota, Nissan and Honda sales skyrocketed here in the US when GM, Ford, and Chrysler stuck to theep ir old ways, until we had to bail 'em out?...Twice?   

—Something tells me there is no bail out in store for MLS, though....

For the full Don Garber story:

http://goal.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/23/us-soccer-fans-outpacing-mls/?scp=9&sq=don%20garber&st=cse