David Beckham: I don't get it (1 Viewer)

[Andy_Bu]

Adult soccer leagues (both indoor and outdoor) are quite large and growing all over the states. In my area(Boston) there are more adult soccer leagues than you could imagine ranging all the way up to 50 years and over leagues.

I would bet its similar in many areas of the country but YMMV.

Goodle "adult soccer league" just for a small glimpse of the offerings from all over the country, its quite a bit more than I think you realize (although I am still trying to gudge whether you are just a basher or are actually interested in picking up some knowledge so it might not matter to you).

Andy

 

[MarkHastings]

Andy, I've said before that my family was into soccer (my dad was a coach and my mom was part of the state league). My brother played from a kid through his late 20's. We lived and breathed soccer every day - There's an indoor league in the next town over from me and it is VERY popular. I worked for a man who LOVED soccer and would close the company down so we could all play indoor soccer at the same facility I mentioned before. My best friend played soccer all his life and I used to go with him to the games at the Meadowlands.

With ALL of that going on around me, I still don't think it's as popular as the other major sports.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

I thought of Daly, too, but he's one of the most popular players on the tour, so even his personal problems have not translated into creating a "bad boy" image.

There was a very nice story about Daly that came out last year. When he came out of nowhere to win the PGA Championship (in 1991, I believe), a fan was killed by a lightening strike during the tournament. Daly set up college scholarship funds for the spectator's two daughters with the proceeds from winning the tournament (and Daly had no money at that time). Last year, one of the daughters graduated from med school and reached out to Daly to thank him -- Daly had wanted to keep his generous act completely out of the media, and had succeeded for 15 years.

So, even Daly, with all his personal problems, really has a very good heart, which probably helps explain his popularity.

 

[Andy_Bu]

And as a soccer nut myself, I would completely agree with you.

It is no where near (and likely never will be near in my lifetime) basketball, football or baseball.

I do think though that the sport (and MLS specifically) has a chance to grow over time to get to the level of the NHL (some because of soccer growth and some because of the continual decline of hockey in America).

MLS needs to figure out a way to get all soccer fans in the US to watch it. It is fighting a hard battle where it is coming in 3rd behind the amount of people who watch MFL (the mexican league) and behind the combined group that watches Euro/South American soccer.

The # of soccer fans are small to begin with in the US, but once they splinter, it gets even more difficult to be successful. The World Cup is the one item that joins soccer fans in the US (along with some non soccer, sports fans) to create good ratings.

But MLS seems to have laid some solid ground work with which to grow. Whether they will or not won't be known for almost 8 years.

Andy

 

[Scott Merryfield]

BTW, Andy, I'm not a soccer basher. As I pointed out, I played the sport in high school and was a certified referee. I also attended numerous NASL soccer matches at the Silverdome (I even officiated a youth game there before one of the Detroit Express games), and even attended the championship game of an NASL-successor league -- the ASL. I also went to a couple of World Cup games in '94 when the U.S. hosted the event.

I just do not believe that signing one big name player is going to have a long term affect on the popularity of the sport here. There may be a short term surge in ticket sales and TV ratings, just as there was in the 1970's when Pele, Beckenbauer and company came to play here. The sport could not sustain enough interest then, and I just do not see it happening now.

 

[Blu]

I really think a lot of the problem with soccer in the US is that Americans don't really like a sport that can end in a tie.

Look at what happened to college football and how the rules were changed allowing overtime to determine a clear cut winner.

When you are getting emotionally invested into a game and the ending score is 0-0....well that just sucks, it is like the game had no effect at all.

Yeah I know about the tables and how points are issued for the standings.

 

[Andy_Bu]

Fair point.

Hopefully you will recognize that the difference between the 1970's and today is enormous. I will delineate some of the differences below:

TV Coverage: Due to the lack of channels, the NASL had near zero tv presence. Via the new TV contracts with ESPN, Univision, HDNet and Fox, along with local coverage, MLS will broadcast 100% of its games in 2007. MLS also gets paid a nice chunk of change from the various broadcasters for their games.

Infrastructure: The NASL shares baseball diamonds or high school stadiums for the most part. MLS has and is building state of the art, gorgeous soccer cathedrals all over the country. Once the NY one is finished, there will be 7 soccer stadiums built specifically for MLS teams

US National Team: For intents and purposes the national team did not even exist during the NASL. Today the national team is extremely well followed and can be a force to be reckoned with at times (quarterfinalist in 2002). The exposure of the national team directly links to more exposure for MLS and the sport in general.

Demographics: The demographics of the country have changed significantly since the NASL days. Hispanics love the sport and support it in great numbers (the MFL ratings on Univsion BLOW the NHL ratings out of the water). This is an untapped source for MLS.

Ownership: Outside of Warner Communications (owners of the Cosmos) and Lamar Hunt, the NASL owners were completely out of their depth. Some were not more than glorified restaraunt owners. Once Warner stepped up the money, the other teams tried to keep pace and eventually sunk the league. MLS on the other hand is LOADED with billionaire owners, many of which have just recently purchased into the league.

Sponsorship: MLS has a sponsorship group that the NASL could only dream of. With MLS having control of the stadiums, and the TV contract, they have recently signed deals like the $150M deal with Adidas.


One bit of trivia: I wonder how many people even realize that the highest NASL attendance was equivalent to the lowest MLS has ever averaged?


I also think people confuse MLS and soccer in general at times for America as with the incredible splintering of the base of fans, people don't fully realize how many there are until something like the World Cup unites them to watch a single product.

Soccer America (oldest soccer magazine in the US), performed a detailed study of the World Cup ratings this summer and found that they equaled the number of fans watching MLS, MFL, Euro League etc plus 18%. From that they theorized that while the World Cup did pick up casual viewers, that the vast majority of the viewers were soccer fans. They also provided some detailed demographics to support the theory.

Andy

 

[Scott Merryfield]

One other big difference between the '70's and today -- and this one is not in the MLS's favor -- is that there is a lot more competition in the sports entertainment world for the sport to compete with. All those other channels means there's a lot more competing for the public's viewing time, not to mention home entertainment items such as video games, DVD's and the Internet.


My memory is not that good for all the teams, but I do remember that the Cosmos played in Giants Stadium, and as I mentioned before the Detroit Express played in the Silverdome (an 80,000 seat stadium). I thought the Boston area team played in Foxboro stadium, too, but I may be wrong there. That's a far cry from high school stadiums.

 

[Andy_Bu]

absolutely true. All sports have to deal with this added competition.

It is analogous to why the most popular TV shows today get significantly smaller ratings than the most popular tv shows of 20-30 years ago.

Andy

 

[Scott Merryfield]

Andy, you whet my curiousity on the NASL a little, so I did a little googling and found this link with brief history of the NASL and a list of all the franchises to play in the league.

The NASL did play in a lot of major stadiums. A few I found quickly:

Cosmos - Giants Stadium
New England - Foxboro Stadium
Detroit Express - Silverdome
Jacksonville - Gator Bowl
Seattle - Kingdome
Houston - Astrodome
Oakland - Oakland-Alameda Coliseum

This was mostly in the late '70's. Teams that played when the league was originally formed in 1968 may have played in smaller venues -- although it was interesting to read that the Detroit Cougars played in Tiger Stadium in 1968. I did not know that.

 

[MarkHastings]

I remember going to see the Cosmos play in Giant Staduim! We also had a team (indoor) that played in the Hartford Civic Center. What was thier name? They had like a flame in their logo. I remember Shep Messing (sp?) was their goalie and everytime he'd make a save, we'd all yell "SHEP, SAVE!!"

EDIT: I just searched and saw that he was on the Cosmos:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shep_Messing

Now to figure out what that team was in Hartford?


p.s. and speaking of David Beckham, how appropriate is this quote from Shep's info:

 

[Andy_Bu]

Hi Scott,

If you are ever interested in reading more, the Colin Jose book on the NASL is the best book ever written on the league

http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Recor...e=UTF8&s=books

As for online, the best source of NASL information (and basically all US soccer history) is here

http://www.sover.net/~spectrum/


As for the stadiums, the NASL had the exact same problems as MLS does when they share NFL stadiums.

1) No control of schedule. This is critical to supplying the best times for fans. When you only have 2nd or 3rd choice for scheduling in a stadium, its very hard to build an audiance based off of non optimum times.

2) Control of revenue: The NASL, much like MLS in say Giants stadium, control almost none of the revenue (concessions, parking etc)

3) Expenses: The NASL, and some MLS teams were paying through the nose to rent stadiums, which kills the balance sheet and doesn't allow for the proper investing.

With MLS building its own stadiums, they have fixed all three of these issues. The goal is to eventually get one stadium in every city (not necc one per team because some teams in the same city can share like in LA now with the Galaxy and Chivas).

Have both expense control and control of revenues allows MLS to now start to concentrate on the player quality on the field(both in terms of noteriety and skill), of which Becks was just the first.

Many expect Ronaldo to be the next big name to be signed in NY.

Andy

 

[Andy_Bu]

You might be thinking of the Hartford Hellions, who played in Hartford between 1978 and 1981 in the MISL.

There was also a brief NASL team in Hartford called the Bicentennials I think.

Andy

 

[Blu]

Probably until there is an American raised Michael Jordan or Tiger Woods type of soccer player who just redefines the sport on these shores, I don't see how signing foreign talent will vault the sport into the mainstream of the American conscious.

 

[Andy_Bu]

I agree with this.

There was some hope that Freddy Adu would be this type of player, but its looking more and more like he will just be a good to very good player, and not a player of the ages type of guy.

Andy

 

[BrianB]

Andrew, you of all people should know the difference between Brits & English.

 

[MarkHastings]

That was them! They had the flame logo.

 

[andrew markworthy]

The 'why hasn't soccer caught on in the USA?' is something that has been a relatively frequent talking point in the UK as well. The game is faster-paced than American football, and given the spending power of the USA, you guys could buy dream teams without batting an eyelid.

One theory common over in the UK is that it's because the game isn't amenable to commercial TV. The action is reasonably continuous in soccer, so you can't cut away to commercial breaks every few minutes without breaking up the flow of the game (when commercial channels broadcast matches in the UK, they only show adverts at half and full time). On the other hand, in baseball and American football there are enough natural gaps to allow adverts to be shown.

Generally the Welsh and Northern Irish are happy to support England if their teams aren't playing (not so the Scots, but that's another matter). Therefore the original statement wasn't wide of the mark. And it's got to be said that outside Argentina the 'hand of God' incident offended a lot of otherwise impartial soccer fans.

 

[andrew markworthy]

I don't want to sidetrack this thread, but can someone give a quick answer to the following question, please? In the UK there are a lot of amateur soccer sides for kids and adults. Are there a lot of amateur American football sides, or is it a game confined to schools, universities and professional leagues?

And on the subject of professional soccer players, I've just remembered a piece of trivia that you guys may (or may not) find interesting. My great grand-uncle was on the board of directors of Darwen Football Club. This is unremarkable, except that this was the first club (some authorities say the second) to pay a footballer a wage (and as gg-uncle was treasurer I assume he had some say in this). Previously, the game had been amateur only, with only expenses being paid. I suppose in a very minor way, the path to Beckham's millions starts with one of my relatives. Not sure I'm happy about this.

 

[Jon Martin]

I'm another who played soccer in the 70's and early 80's, and have always been surprised it hasn't caught on. Even today, more kids play it than baseball and football, yet most people didn't even know LA had a team before this.

(And I lived near Hartford in the time of the Hellions and didn't even know about them, so I am to blame for that I guess).

But I will say, celebrity wise, I don't know if this is a good move for Beckham. He could walk down the street with his wife, and I think I would know what Posh looks like more than he does. Plus, she was the least talented of the Spice Girls (who I actually saw in concert in Hartford, but that is a whole other story).

If the papparazi does go crazy for him in L.A., it will only be to sell the photos overseas since I don't think the U.S. public really cares about him.