At the end of last week Don Garber went to jolly ole’ London and told leaders like him, the leader of MLS, at Leaders Week 2024 that “soccer leagues around the world would be ‘in much, much better shape’ if more of them operated as single entities akin to MLS.”
The merits of his statement can be discussed by those who understand business better than I do. I am far more concerned about… the rest of the world cringing at MLS and thus America and thus us and thus me.
Don’s done a great job with MLS. He figured out that to make money the league had to say it had no money (10 years ago) and then start SUM to make money off of marketing the US and Mexico national teams to be attractive to owners.
It worked! It also worked that as a single entity when a new team bought into the league for hundreds of millions of dollars that money went to all of the owners so everyone won. It’s not a Ponzi scheme, it’s business!
This is good, it’s good in the way that this is good:
Everyone is also noticing MLS. Checking headlines around the world today there was a lot of coverage on MLS’ decision day. Here’s what the Guardian had to say about Atlanta United making the Play-In round of the MLS Playoffs.
Meanwhile on any weekend morning like 2.1 million people in America will watch Man City play Bidmow Under Ncheyork Wednesday despite the kickoff being at 4am on the West Coast. Lifelong Ipswich supporters since 2019 in Walla Walla, Washington will wake up at 4am to watch soccer. MLS doesn’t quite have that, though don’t knock staying up until 12:15am to watch the end of Vancouver Whitecaps vs. Orlando City.
Garber also mentioned that, “‘If you were to ask the people that are running some of the big European leagues, they’d say, ‘Boy, MLS has got it right.”’ They might say that, they might also say – who are you America’s soccer dad? The guy that takes the team out for pizza after the game and explains to the coach that they should score more goals to win?
If one day Mauricio Pochettino showed up and just started hanging out with you (or us… or me… or, you know, America), the last thing you would want would be your dad to suddenly show up and get really excited to have his Tesla auto-drive itself from its parking spot to pick you up while you waited in the parking lot. Dad’s really proud of the Tesla and so stoked, you and Poch look at each other a little awkwardly. The Tesla lurches out of its spot, turns a little, lurches more, goes forward a bit, kinda gets confused, starts turning and generally acts like a Roomba that encounters a minor obstacle like a paperclip that it can’t overcome before stopping in the middle of the parking lot until you walk over.
Poch is happy because he got some free pizza out of the deal but he’s definitely going to tell the other countries that you have to endure your dad’s pride in a weird gimmick that he thinks everyone has to have in order for something to have value. It’s concerning because in a few years everyone is going to come over for the World Cup and you just don’t want him saying something that makes the countries that dress cool and do awesome tricks say Big Yikes, That’s a Big L.
A big – or, well… something he said he’d do if he was King of Football was: “Get the leagues to have more power, to have more of a say. That’s the way we’ll ultimately deliver to the fan and deliver to the community.” These are big ideas, they’re as big as credibly target next-generation content to efficiently seize cloud-ready relationships. Let’s just hope the world is ready for them so it can be a lot more like the MLS.
