By Jason Davis
Consistency, as a concept or policy, does not hold much sway over Major League Soccer. Since its inception in 1996, the league has been marked by an incessant need to shift and change as conditions dictate; when you’re running a soccer league in a country not known for its appreciation of the sport, the ability to alter at will is an asset. Survival, long the league’s primary focus, meant consistency—on everything from the format of its competition to the rules governing player signings—was a luxury it could not afford. The lack of a consistent policy on a wide range of issues—both competitive and commercial—left league leadership able to reverse a previous tack without causing many waves in the growing fan base.
These days, MLS is consistent on at least one issue: expansion. For the better part of the last year, MLS and its various mouthpieces have been unwavering in their commitment to expansion in one particular place. Commissioner Don Garber makes no apologies about it, and is adamant in the wisdom of the pursuit. MLS VP of Communications Dan Courtemanche repeats the party line to anyone who asks, echoing Garber, almost verbatim, at every turn. The refrain is so consistent it’s propagandistic. There’s only one message, and there will be no deviation. MLS knows what it wants on the expansion front, and they working hard to make it happen.
Expansion, as a modern function of professional sports, typically goes like this: potential ownership groups with money and a plan submit bids to the league, who then pick from among the interested bidders (and taking into account things like market strength, existing fan base, TV penetration, etc.), giving birth to a new franchise. That’s the way MLS has done it since beginning the expansion era in 2005, and it would be reasonable to expect the league to go about awarding team number twenty in the same way. Except they’re not, at least when it comes to one particular market: New York City.
MLS has turned the franchising process on its head, and they have no qualms about telling anyone who will listen. While the Miamis, Atlantas, San Antonios, et al, of the world (or at least fans acting on behalf of those cities’ candidacies) are playing by the old set of rules, a second New York franchise is getting all the help MLS itself can offer. This is proactive, opportunistic franchising, complete with a dedicated staff at MLS headquarters in Manhattan actively working to find a suitable place to build a soccer stadium before an ownership group has been identified, or a franchise fee negotiated. For this one special case, MLS has reversed the usual dynamic.
“For the first time the league is taking the lead to develop the stadium plan; the architects, the environmental consultants, economic consultants will all work for the league,’’ Garber told the media in March.
“That’s how important a second team in New York is. … We’ve looked at 19 different sites in the last 18 months. We’re narrowing it down, getting focused in handful of locations.’’
The latest news in the league’s bid to get their teeth around the Big Apple is the refinement of that focus, in the identification of a plot of land in Queens that is just the right size for a small MLS-style soccer stadium. The news broke through the Wall Street Journal, in a story covered with a shiny layer of PR gilding, and it was via the aforementioned Dan Courtemanche’s Twitter account that the American soccer community become aware of the development. MLS is not only consistent in their desire to place team within the city limits of New York, they’re anxious for the world at least to see their progress.
Queens isn’t Manhattan, but it ticks off several of the league’s must-have boxes: urban setting, ample public transportation, and an address that reads “New York, New York.” Part of the New York expansion message it the belief that ownership groups will line up to pay MLS for the rights to run a New York franchise. From the outside, it looks like a case of putting the cart before the horse. Then again, it’s hard to imagine they would go through all of this effort if they didn’t have a strong reason to believe a serious investor exists.
Why MLS is so intent on planting roots inside the limits of the country’s biggest market is less clear than their intention to do so. Most of the words used to this point refer to the stadium-building process, the full, untapped potential of the New York market, or the fee the league expects to receive for a team in New York ($100 million, per the commissioner himself, which is more than double the biggest expansion few paid to date, but doesn’t explain the desire for a NYC team by itself). None of the talk speaks directly to the motivations for adding another team to a metropolitan market which already has one just across the river in New Jersey. The rhetoric has been entirely about making it happen, not specifically why it should.
New Jersey is not New York, as anyone from that very crowded part of the world will tell you. The Red Bulls have struggled to capture the imaginations of New York’s soccer fans, meaning that the idea a second New York team would cannibalize the Jersey club’s base is only partially true, and is certainly not something MLS sees as a problem. The theory goes that New York has millions of soccer fans who don’t make the trip to Red Bull Arena because the trek is too far, the transportation too difficult, the team too inaccessible. It’s probably true that a second New York team would draw from a substantial group of fans that don’t currently identify as Red Bulls fans, and it’s probably true that nothing the Red Bulls can do would fully capture New York. MLS may just see a second team, placed within the city itself, as a way to get the country’s largest city on board with the league.
It’s difficult however not to see this effort as one tied directly to the last frontier of MLS success: television ratings. The league’s ratings are stagnant, its current TV rights deals miniscule. New York drives national network interest, and because the Red Bulls (due to their location perhaps, or because they spent too many years playing in an oversized turf-line NFL stadium) don’t have have much pull within the city, MLS could view a team in Queens as a way to juice their TV prospects.
The league’s survival is no longer in question. Attendance is respectable. Dedicated purpose-built stadiums with MLS teams as primary tenants provide a permanence few thought possible 15 years ago. The only thing missing is a truly national TV presence that brings the big, transformative money through the door. That money will mean the difference between MLS remaining a peripheral player on the American sports scene and within international soccer circles and MLS evolving into a competition that can compete with the non-NFL domestic sports and a upper tier soccer leagues. In other words, with everything else going so well, and most of the old problems checked off the to-do list, TV success is the most pressing issue facing Garber and MLS.
As the song goes, if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere. When it comes to the “anywhere”, MLS isn’t doing too badly. But the league has yet to truly make it “there”, and they’re not going to stop until they do.
On that front, MLS is consistent.
I think this does a great job articulating the league’s desire for a NY team so it can earn big TV$.
Here’s the problem I see: regardess of where the team is located, the quality of the product isn’t up to snuff enough to draw a large TV audience. There are guys earning 40k per year passing it to David Beckham out wide… it’s absolutely ridiculous.
As much as MLS would like to turn the game into a dog and pony show featuring a few players, soccer is a game of 11 a side and until there are 11 quality parts on the field consistently, quality will be an issue and TV ratings will be dampened compared to their potential.
It’s beyond ridiculous. Red Bull Arena is accessible by PATH, which is a 24-hr a day subway that is accessible from virtually anywhere in Lower Manhattan, and therefore the stadium is a train connection away from any part of NYC. Further, you could also take NJ Transit and arrive at the station in five minutes from Penn Stn. People who want to watch MLS don’t give a damn about going to Jersey (unless NYRB is doing a GOD-awful job of promoting the fact that they are literally right across the river and not an hour into NJ). Non-NFL teams in NJ fail (Nets, Devils) because they have the massive competition across the Hudson. If MLS puts another team in NYC, they will very well be sending two awful messages:
1) Yes, we treat our best, richest, most committed owner who just built the most expensive soccer-specific stadium in America like this; and
2) We are beyond stupid.
THAT will attract all the world-class talent. Fo sho.
New York is a fickle place that will not watch anything that’s not top tier. MLS has succeeded in Toronto, Portland, and Seattle by tapping into hipster culture. This has enabled them to be considered cool without being top tier. That’s unlikely to work in New York. Being top tier is the only way to succeed.
It’s sad that you consider MLSE totally running a brand new franchise into the ground (as they have done with EVERY franchise they run) as “succeeding”.
Also, not sure if you’re aware, but the term “hipster” was birthed, nurtured and perfected by people in Brooklyn, which, if you pull out your 3rd grade atlas, is a borough of New York City.
We’re talking about success in the context of business, since that’s what the story was about remember?. I’m sure you don’t need a 3rd grade dictionary to find out what context means
So, the business model for three soccer teams was “find the hipsters!”?
Seattle and Portland both had a history with professional soccer, thus the success. TFC has a very, very large European/South American base to build off, and although I haven’t been to a game in five years because they’re pathetic, most of the truly hardcore fans I knew either played the sport growing up, or had British accents.
And, this also goes back to your “context of a business”. In this case, MLS is going to hipster heaven and should build a 100,000 seat stadium in Williamsburg and they will be selling tickets for $500 a pop. Success!
In a country where College and High School sports are so big, I don’t understand why it’s so concerned about having all the top talent in MLS.
Anyways, another reason for New York is that it could draw more quality players to the league. European players seem to only want to play for New York or LA. They don’t care much about living in Colorado, Houston, Columbus, etc. Having a second New York team means all of a sudden you have 9 available big star DP slots instead of just 6 across the league.
But does MLS have the redeeming qualities that High School Sports and NCAA sports have? I’d be careful with that analysis.
It’s also worth noting that if you look at the big money aspects of those areas, they are infact very high quality product.
Exactly. High school/College athletes turn into professionals, very capable of becoming stars. How many true “stars” has MLS created in nearly two decades?
I know it’s not a perfect comparison, but it just goes to show that it’s not strictly true that Americans only want to watch the best.
Some of the appeal of MLS for me is the opportunity to see it grow into a much bigger/better league and hopefully grow the sport more in Canada.
How many “stars” did any league in the world create in their first 17 years of existence?
I think it all boils down to “put your money where your mouth is”. And I don’t mean that in a sense that MLS should be trotting the globe competing for world class talent.
What they need to do is heavily invest in infrastructure that will create local talents. They are not going far enough as it stands. There too few Landon Donovans and too many Brian Mullens.
I think until that happens, they can have success at the gate but not on TV. You need the local athletes to sell the game, but the local athletes don’t exist because the full scale investment isn’t there.
You want the TV contract, you have to do the ground work. It hasn’t happened yet.
RBNY’s problems have little to do with geography.
1.) The entire name and brand is an advertisement for a product outside of football. It gives everything a plastic minor league feel . MagicJack, Sonic, Red Bulls. Do you ever see an adult wear a RedBulls shirt without looking like a complete asshole?
2.) This “club” buys expensive players yet refuses to spend one penny advertising. How many new yorkers even know they exist? They haven’t even tried. We all saw what six months of Cosmos / Kemsley / Anomaly money could do. Why not spend some Flügtag dough? Advertising integrates you into the sports market. Failure to advertise makes you look like box lacrosse
3.) I doubt Garber cares about screwing RBNY with a second team. If he can pave over a shitty owner who’s wasting up the most important market he will. If only there were some way to replce Kraft and Vergara