Roger Bennett has written a follow up post to Alexei Lalas’ provocative Tweet from January:
Last night this was discussed: If you live in the U.S., can you call yourself a “soccer fan” even if you don’t support @mls?
— Alexi Lalas (@AlexiLalas) January 29, 2013
Bennett explains how Lalas came to write this Tweet:
…once he posted the above statement the following morning, he was instantly exposed to an avalanche of heartfelt arguments from Euro snobs obsessed with the Premier League, La Liga and Bundesliga, as well as MLS stalwarts.
“Some people were insulted that I could possibly doubt their standing as soccer fans just because they did not follow MLS,” Lalas said. “Others heartfeltly agreed there is a patriotic responsibility to be an ambassador because MLS needs you.”
First of all repeatedly chastising your target audience with the epithet “Euro snob” doesn’t seem to me to be a winning strategy for getting these viewers in the fold. And patriotism and guilt don’t tend to drive TV ratings, which is what MLS desperately needs to shore up its on-field product.
I have my own theory as to what MLS should do. Target younger stars currently languishing on over-stocked Big Club sides as potential DPs, maybe. But more importantly, use the United States best sporting intelligence—which includes sports science and analytics—to make Major League Soccer a major global development league.
The lack of relegation provides should push teams to experiment with young players and in-depth, cutting edge scouting strategies. Instead, some of the less impressive sides don’t employ an analyst and used the head scout role as a patronage appointment to an old ally (which club is he talking about, folks?).
Garber could lead on this rather than hammer home the notion that MLS will somehow catch up with Europe because you know, yeah. And MLS’ boosters might look for ways the league could stand out in an increasingly competitive global field.
I have friends and family in England who find it funny that people in Canada are really into European football but don’t follow their own domestic league. Although they don’t refer to these people as “euro snobs”, just as “plastics”.
Surely there are asking all Toronto sports fans to be even more masochistic than they are already…stop it, a man can only take so much pain from sports teams.
Do they give due credit to Mean Girls for the popularization of that term?
other way round dude. that’s been slang for ever o’r the pond
Plastic in the same way that some Britons criticized the “ethnics” on their Olympic team until those UK citizens actually started winning? Would those of us who live outside MLS cities be allowed (pretty please) to follow any damned league we choose?
The MLS occupies a very unique place in the world of soccer. It’s trying to become popular in a place full of immigrants and the children of immigrants. It’s trying to become popular in a place where all the other sports leagues have all of the world’s best players in their respective sports. It’s trying to build and consolidate tradition in a place where soccer tradition is spotty at best. But that’s really where tweets like Lalas’ really aren’t helpful, because they build the wrong kind of sentiment into the growing tradition. Regrettably, MLS has a project on its hands that will take generations, rather than years or decades, to realize. It takes a lot of patience and a focus on just having some fun. Lalas’ statement there isn’t much fun.
I think it’s easy to say support your local league when you yourself live in a country where they are already elite. But I would definitely say that supporting your local league will only help to raise the exposure and talent. You can love ‘euro’, but totally ignoring MLS as a local is sorta close minded. If you love the sport, wouldn’t you want it to flourish in your country?
The people saying “Support your local club” are not very often supporters of elite level teams. They could support PNE, Oldham, or even Liverpool.
Totally agree that MLS clubs should try and sign younger reserve players from Europe’s bigger clubs. Would it be possible to use a DP slot on a player that was being loaned to you?
MLS needs to make the wage cap a lot higher. If you want to attract better players you have to spend more, especially if you’re asking them to play in a mediocre league which MLS is. The product on the field is terrible. If you raise the cap you bring in more quality talent and then your product on the field will be better. having 3 DP’s on your team does not raise your quality that much higher since they’re usually players trying to relive their past glory days from a premier league. It usually works because the majority of players couldn’t even make a league 2 team in England.
I like the slow growth much better than the nasl approach, it didnt work then and I see no reason to believe it would work now.
Relying totally on buying talent is very expensive. The league is trying to grow it’s own talent, which if it can succeed at that, then it will be much cheaper for the league to get the same talent level, plus they’ll be able to make money on selling players. It will take a bit longer but it will be much more sustainable.
yeah i gotta say that when ive encountered people that love the sport they watch it in all forms, teams/leagues back home and here and basically the sport in any form at any time whereas those that like a team/event tend to only care about the sport in a fleeting manner.
People are confusing ‘support’ for ‘enjoy watching’ here. Yes I support TFC, more so the White Caps because a) I followed them before the MLS, and b) because I hate TMLSE. The support is there but it is not an enjoyable league to watch, the skill just isn’t there, simple as that.
Yes, I agree there is a certain element to MLS that is grin and chad barrett.
Anyway, the whole premise of this argument is somewhat immature. I will not begrudge anyone who wants to stick to watching a league somewhere else in the world. Somehow, MLS has become the primary league that I watch. Which even I find extremely odd, but there’s something about the local content and the connection to the local team that’s sticky.
I’d just tell people to be open to it, and “check in” on how the league is doing, because it’s improving all the time.
Soccer flooded usa phys ed classes in the late 1970s just like the metric system WONT TAKE EVER.. In General amercians are so brainwashed soccer has little chance.
It is slowly gaining ground. Besides, this article isn’t about non-fans becoming fans, so your point isn’t relevant to the article. This article is about fans that watch foreign leagues and not their domestic league.
Maybe you can’t call yourself a “soccer fan”.
But can you call yourself a footie fan?
and thus the philosophical question of the day has been posed.
If you don’t identify with a local team and instead just support a team you have no physical proximity to then so be it. might be because of family connections or what ever reason. There is no need to coerce people to support local in order to be allowed to support from afar.
Supporting!! Group of 8 travelling to see TFC and Impact on March 16th at the Big O!
As one of the many Canadians who is not lucky enough to have a local MLS team I have to ask why I would ever follow the MLS? I was lucky enough to live in France for a year a while back and went to all my local clubs games despite having no previous interest in Ligue 2, I was just up for the day out and some decent football. The problem in Canada (and to a certain extent the US) without multiple divisions feeding the MLS most people don’t have a local club to go and watch, and if the only way your gonna see football is on the tube anyway, why not watch higher calibre European football?
That’s why I really like the idea of going after reserve/academy sides. Hell, even Bebe playing for TFC might generate some casual interest from United fans in Canada. Just an example.
Seriously, I live in Halifax. What the fuck am I suppose to do?
Totally agree with this.
I’m not surprised MLS struggles on TV. The product quality is just not there yet. Unless you’ve developed the connection to the team from watching it live it’s hard to attach yourself to.
I’m local to a team so i’m on the opposite side of the fence. But I can totally get why people can’t get up for it simply by watching tV.
Exactly. And I mean, I’m a football fan first and foremost so I will really watch whatever match is on – regardless of the team/league, so I’ve caught a couple of MLS games when I’ve been flipping through the tv, and it’s nice to watch. It’s football. But honestly, I don’t know how I am suppose to attach myself to a team if I live so far away and can’t watch them play live. That is the point of supporting a local team, isn’t it? What is the difference between me supporting Man United or TFC? There’s about as much chance of seeing either of them play during the regular season so it defeats the purpose of having a local team.
I agree Lana. I was a Man Utd fan first and then became a TFC fan when they were formed. I wanted to follow the MLS in the early days of the league but there just weren’t games on TV and the coverage of the league in general was next to non-existant. In that way, Manchester United were more my local club (because there was coverage where I lived) than any team in the MLS was. It’s just a more modern type of local.
For someone in Halifax or some other North American location that is far from any MLS teams, the only reason to support MLS at all would be for the long term vision of your national team. I can understand if people want to watch the best soccer and then be woken up at the World Cup if their country is in it.
Is it because the MLS is the only “soccer” league? Everyone, but everyone else on the whole planet calls it football…
No, many call it both. This is…so very tired.
Yes, it’s very very tired and completely inconsequential. The English nations outside of the UK that I can think of are Canada, USA, Australia, New Zealand and they call it soccer. Even Ireland often calls it soccer so that it’s not confused with Gaelic Football.