Could a Rival League Work? (MLS edition)

[KevFu]

In the discussion of a new rival hockey league, I said the only thing I think could work would be soccer.

The "Big Four" leagues in USA/CAN have past the point where there's enough untapped markets for a rival league to utilize. The Big Four are like 125m to 175m people in their teams markets, unlike in the 1960s when it was more like 65m people, so you could build a rival league with markets of a different 65m people.


But MLS is more like the USFL or XFL: it's in a different season as the rest of world football; a supplement. Because 30 years ago, the US just didn't have enough interest in soccer to compete with the NFL, NBA, NHL and the MLB playoffs/opening month all at the same time. It's 30 years later, soccer is accepted as a sport even if MLS sucks.


I propose that you COULD build a rival league in soccer, one that is everything MLS isn't: The European experience of open league, PRO/REL, small charming hometown clubs where all the fans have a team. It would also be bad football, but so is MLS.

MLS is dwarfed in fan base because all the people NOT in cities with teams pick someone to follow. In MLB, NBA, NHL and NFL there's 30-32 teams to pick. In soccer, there's 29 MLS teams but HUNDREDS of BETTER CLUBS in England, Germany, France, Mexico, Italy, etc.


I'd say make one huge league for USA/Canada. Like 8 conferences by geography, 16 teams each. The conferences are regional:
Northwest, Southwest, North Central South Central (the "Western confederation), and Mideast, Midsouth, Northeast, Southeast (Eastern confederation).

You play 30 conference games in a season on the world calendar. T
here's no FA Cup or Champions League, so there's plenty of time to take an extended break in DEC/JAN when the weather is bad.
The 8 conference champions play a post-season tournament (by East/West, like the NHL/NBA playoffs).

You do that for THREE YEARS. And you keep a three-year table for team success. After three years, the top three of each conference will become the Premier League (24 teams).

The Premier League will have an East/West Conference, so it's 22 games vs conference, 12 vs other conference). Then playoffs.

The 8 conferences will keep going, but add three more teams each to replenish to 16.
And we start PRO/REL between the two: the two finalists in the conference playoffs replace the last place teams in the PL East and West Conferences.

You can also start a FA Cup then. (And in the summer, the American teams can enter the US Open Cup).


Now. The soccer is not going to be good. But neither is MLS. You're selling what MLS isn't: A domestic league like the rest of the world has. PRO/REL races and playoffs; The ability for "minor league cities" to have a Major League team.

And you're selling it to EVERYONE because you've got 144 teams. You also can be in MLS cities because you don't play the same schedules. 144 teams sound like a lot, but I'm saying we don't limit it to "Two Los Angeles" teams. You have Long Beach, Riverside, Irvine, Northridge in the same conference.


The "rival leagues" in the other sports in the 1960s/70s succeeded in the sense that they made the established leagues change: they merged (NFL) or expanded (MLB, NHL, NBA). This might show MLS they should be on the World Calendar. Maybe they say "Wait a minute, WE'RE the Premier League! You guys should play for 10 spots in a 40-team MLS and we start PRO/REL." That would be a victory. (Or it all goes down in flames).

Click to read more...

 

[GindyDraws]

USL: Am I chopped liver?

 

[KevFu]

USL: Am I chopped liver?

Heh. USL and MLS are under the same umbrella. I wouldn't call them a rival when their second division is basically the MLS Junior teams.

 

[Reaser]

Heh. USL and MLS are under the same umbrella. I wouldn't call them a rival when their second division is basically the MLS Junior teams.

I think you're a couple years behind.

MLS has MLS Next Pro.

It's essentially in direct competition with the USL for new markets.

 

[PCSPounder]

Never mind the Canadian Premier League.

USL got a game on CBS last month. Yes, the main network.

One of the interesting developments is on the women’s side. The new USL Super League kicks off in August. It got first division designation from US Soccer (and that makes me think a committee and not Cindy Parlow Cone made that decision, for reasons that demand its own thread). And, yes, I said August, meaning a league with a team in Spokane is going with a fall-to-spring schedule, in theory anyway.

But I want to emphasize that USL had proposed having a vote on going to pro/rel (given they already have League One and League Two for the men) back in December… then either didn’t publicize the vote or didn’t actually vote. Arguably, they actually used this pro/rel proposal as a tool to sell tickets over the winter. Which, as I’m watching Memphis 901 v Tampa Bay Rowdies right now, doesn’t translate to every city (Memphis has not been a good market for the league). But overall, getting on CBS means SOMETHING.

Thing is, considering how MLS is on Apple and Apple primarily wants subscribers, I can at least begin to see how MLS could be pressured into having Pro/Rel themselves. Not that it’s the way to bet.

Also, there is more than one effort to grow clubs “at the ground level.” So if you have organizations that figure out how to sell players on, this kind of thing can kind of grow “organically.”

 

[No Fun Shogun]

I doubt it. I do wonder if their might be an appetite for a smaller stadium futsal league, though.

 

[joelef]

A rebel league would be sanctioned by fifa

Never mind the Canadian Premier League.

USL got a game on CBS last month. Yes, the main network.

One of the interesting developments is on the women’s side. The new USL Super League kicks off in August. It got first division designation from US Soccer (and that makes me think a committee and not Cindy Parlow Cone made that decision, for reasons that demand its own thread). And, yes, I said August, meaning a league with a team in Spokane is going with a fall-to-spring schedule, in theory anyway.

But I want to emphasize that USL had proposed having a vote on going to pro/rel (given they already have League One and League Two for the men) back in December… then either didn’t publicize the vote or didn’t actually vote. Arguably, they actually used this pro/rel proposal as a tool to sell tickets over the winter. Which, as I’m watching Memphis 901 v Tampa Bay Rowdies right now, doesn’t translate to every city (Memphis has not been a good market for the league). But overall, getting on CBS means SOMETHING.

Thing is, considering how MLS is on Apple and Apple primarily wants subscribers, I can at least begin to see how MLS could be pressured into having Pro/Rel themselves. Not that it’s the way to bet.

Also, there is more than one effort to grow clubs “at the ground level.” So if you have organizations that figure out how to sell players on, this kind of thing can kind of grow “organically.”

It’s cbs sports nwtwork

 

[PCSPounder]

A rebel league would be sanctioned by fifa


It’s cbs sports nwtwork

FIFA is scared of US antitrust law, and for reasons.

CBSSN carries most of the games, but there was a game on the main network last month.

 

[Reaser]

FIFA is scared of US antitrust law, and for reasons.

CBSSN carries most of the games, but there was a game on the main network last month.

Yup, and got 362k avg viewership on CBS. Which beat MLS on FOX in primetime that same Saturday, and beat the MLS on FOX match on Sunday, too. Though of course, lost to every other sport on the Big 4 Networks that Saturday. Plus the MLS matches were also streaming on Apple -- though to be fair, MLS has a long history of finishing last on Big 4 Broadcast weekend sports viewership lists, even before the Apple deal, so that in itself wasn't/isn't a surprise.

Big 4 Broadcast (ABC/CBS/FOX/NBC) sports #'s April 6th:

-SATURDAY-
NBC: PGA Tour 1.588M
ABC: NHL 1.218M
ABC: UFL 908k (primetime)
ABC: NHL 883k
NBC: Women's Amateur Golf 854k
CBS: Cornhole 474k
CBS: SailGP 436k
--->CBS: USL 362k
FOX: MLS 211k (primetime)

 

[KevFu]

I think you're a couple years behind.

MLS has MLS Next Pro.

It's essentially in direct competition with the USL for new markets.

I'm probably/definitely years behind on USL because they change so freaking much it's hard to keep up.

The word "organically" was mentioned and to me, that's the key here. There's plenty of markets that have organically had good soccer support; and the big ones get invited to MLS (Orlando!) and the smaller ones just kinda keep on doing what they're doing, or wither away (Rochester, Richmond, Harrisburg, etc).


It's the path to having a domestic league (US & Canada) that's where we want our domestic league to be, "the same thing, but slotted in lower" with the "second tier European leagues. We won't be England, Germany, Spain, France, or Italy, but our customer base and economy could easily make the US domestic league be like "the 7th best league in the world." We just have to get there.

So it bugs me that we have celebrities seeing Welcome to Wrexham and investing in OTHER countries soccer leagues, or our women's league. (Which is great for the women's league, but it's creating another structure of a system that isn't part of the rest of the world!).

MLS adopted the academy system at the urging of US Soccer, we'd be a lot better off if our women's league was "Soccer clubs with Men's and Women's teams" than MLS and NWSL being totally different businesses. Then you need half as many owners and no one has to be renting grounds from someone else.


It's not so much that I WANT a "Rival League" it's that there's nothing forcing the soccer "powers that be" into making our soccer leagues what they should be.

 

[KevFu]

US professional soccer should be:
About 120 to 140 teams in the top two divisions.
A Premier League (that has East/West conferences).
PRO/REL (regionally done)
On the world calendar.

All with Academies, Men, Women and Youth teams. Just different tables/Premier League for the women.


I understand WHY MLS didn't start that way -- soccer itself didn't have the fan base to compete with NFL, NBA, NHL, NCAA Football and Basketball, MLB's World Series and start of next season.

But now the conditions are different enough that it would be possible to be on the world calendar. But the fact that MLS is closed instead of open is why MLS won't "FEEL READY" to make a true "domestic 'world football league'" anytime soon.

They view it as "We don't have the fanbase/loyalty/support or TV contracts compared to the other leagues in the US/CAN." And that's because in those other leagues all the people in the spaces BETWEEN "major league cities" just pick the closest team to root for (by TV), because those leagues are the best in the world.

I'm an Islanders fan from Rochester because the Islanders were on TV. I'm not watching Rochester Americans games because it's not the best league in the world. But for soccer, there's no difference between picking NYCFC seven hours away, or picking Manchester City across the ocean OTHER THAN THE QUALITY OF SOCCER. THAT'S the fan base MLS is missing.

 

[PCSPounder]

You’re missing one rather HUGE issue, Kev.

MLS is born within USSF. One of its tasks is to develop national team players. That is WAY too many teams by which to accomplish this task. The top league needs to be of quality.

Us fans want our clubs to win CONCACAF and compete in Club World Cups. Which, guess what, next year, HERE. It’s naive to think that current soccer fans aren’t watching other leagues and making comparisons, and that new fans would simply accept a lower status.

Now… if you want to argue that MLS hasn’t had a hand developing players lately, you’re kind of right. And also wrong. But in several cases, the academies sell players on. Of course, these days, there are USL clubs selling a few players to Europe. MLS has to take care that they don’t mess up a good thing… right now, they’re trying to mess that up.

However… these leagues do not exist to solve your problems, Kev. Frankly, the top two levels- as they operate- are proving that there’s enough stability for them to be nationwide, so that’s not a problem. The third level right now is more nationwide than the second level, and hasn’t lost too many clubs… THAT is where you want a ton more clubs in a regional format.

This eventually does need to be held together with pro/rel.

 

[varsaku]

I'm probably/definitely years behind on USL because they change so freaking much it's hard to keep up.

The word "organically" was mentioned and to me, that's the key here. There's plenty of markets that have organically had good soccer support; and the big ones get invited to MLS (Orlando!) and the smaller ones just kinda keep on doing what they're doing, or wither away (Rochester, Richmond, Harrisburg, etc).


It's the path to having a domestic league (US & Canada) that's where we want our domestic league to be, "the same thing, but slotted in lower" with the "second tier European leagues. We won't be England, Germany, Spain, France, or Italy, but our customer base and economy could easily make the US domestic league be like "the 7th best league in the world." We just have to get there.

So it bugs me that we have celebrities seeing Welcome to Wrexham and investing in OTHER countries soccer leagues, or our women's league. (Which is great for the women's league, but it's creating another structure of a system that isn't part of the rest of the world!).

MLS adopted the academy system at the urging of US Soccer, we'd be a lot better off if our women's league was "Soccer clubs with Men's and Women's teams" than MLS and NWSL being totally different businesses. Then you need half as many owners and no one has to be renting grounds from someone else.


It's not so much that I WANT a "Rival League" it's that there's nothing forcing the soccer "powers that be" into making our soccer leagues what they should be.

By multiple metrics attendance, revenue and others, MLS is already in the top 10 best soccer leagues in the world.

Attendance: Top 10 soccer leagues with best attendances
Revenue: List of professional sports leagues by revenue - Wikipedia

 

[KevFu]

You’re missing one rather HUGE issue, Kev.

MLS is born within USSF. One of its tasks is to develop national team players.

Now… if you want to argue that MLS hasn’t had a hand developing players lately, you’re kind of right. And also wrong.

And MLS had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the academy system, but bought in.

That's why it's "kinda right, but also wrong." We don't have MLS stars on the USMNT, which is a great thing for US Soccer. The US National Team players are TOO GOOD to be playing in MLS from their age 22-29 seasons. What US soccer sold MLS on with academies was that they can sell the top guys (the USMNT guys) to Europe for big profits, and the next tier down can be better players for MLS than what they had before. (And of course the 18-22 year olds not ready to "leave home" yet).

It’s naive to think that current soccer fans aren’t watching other leagues and making comparisons, and that new fans would simply accept a lower status.

I think this is the very argument for why MLS isn't more popular: Soccer fans are watching other (better) leagues. It's not linear like it is for the other Big Four, it's a bell curve where you have to like soccer ENOUGH to like MLS, but not too much that you're a snob about the football being really bad compared to Europe.

The idea behind a rival league is that you'd have teams in the same markets as MLS, AND you'd get the fans in the non-MLS markets. The fans "between" MLS cities are what MLS just cannot possibly win and why they're not getting TV money necessary to make the leap to a world calendar.

It's the same principle as the NHL going to Nashville and Raleigh: In a huge market with the other Big Four teams, the leagues with lesser popularity get lost. While the markets that have no or few other Big Four teams have been really strong fan bases. (Columbus, Orlando, now Austin. And BTW, Columbus' support of MLS got them USMNT games, which finally gave us our "Azteca" and was huge for US Soccer).

However… these leagues do not exist to solve your problems, Kev. Frankly, the top two levels- as they operate- are proving that there’s enough stability for them to be nationwide, so that’s not a problem. The third level right now is more nationwide than the second level, and hasn’t lost too many clubs… THAT is where you want a ton more clubs in a regional format.

This eventually does need to be held together with pro/rel.

And I think that's really feeding into my logic here; Like, I don't think we're "disagreeing" on much but looking at the same thing from completely different angles.

The fact that you have some long-tenured clubs in the second division and clubs who've self-relegated to the third division because they fit there better, and the sustainability of all of that without a "massive" investment like someone starting a major league...

SHOWS that our nations could do something like an European-model league, coast-to-coast, and that the fan support for the sport itself isn't a problem like it was in the 1990s.

The MLS formed like a USFL/XFL version of "world football" because the real thing just wouldn't work here yet. NOW? Could it? I think the amount of times PRO/REL has come up on a hockey page for Canadian and USA hockey fans, the ratings of Welcome to Wrexham, the amount of celebs investing in soccer teams around the world and abroad that AREN'T MLS...

I think that the American soccer customer base is CRAVING to be more like Europe. That's why we haven't had a new MLS team create team nicknamed like North American Big Four sports since 2005 at the latest depending on how you count (Sounders, Whitecaps and Timbers were pre-existing names).

By multiple metrics attendance, revenue and others, MLS is already in the top 10 best soccer leagues in the world.

This is the customer base that we have. If our "USFL/XFL" version of soccer can be Top 10 in revenue and attendance, imagine what we could be if we did it right.

We're 400m people strong. We've got a geography issue, but we can work around that by only having the top tier -- aka the richest with the TV money -- deal with it, and the lower tier not.


To me, it's less about a "rival league" and more about "What MLS / the domestic league of USA & Canada should be." And since MLS is bungling it, someone needs to force the issue. If I had Jeff Bezos money, I'd be shaking it up so they move.

 

[Voight]

MLS will never go to a remotion/relegation model. The way sports work in NA is inherently different than in Europe.

Imagine paying half a billion for an expansion team only to be relegated after your first season.

 

[KevFu]

MLS will never go to a remotion/relegation model. The way sports work in NA is inherently different than in Europe.

Imagine paying half a billion for an expansion team only to be relegated after your first season.

I agree. Hence the "rival league" aspect of it.

If a rival league based on the PRO/REL, "open" concept and being on the world calendar were formed, it would be a case of "how many American soccer fans embrace THAT more than the closed system of MLS?"

I think the open league could compete by virtue of having more total coverage of fandom with more markets. The interest in an individual game itself would be, on average, lower than MLS... But the total turnstile/eyeball count would be a lot higher because it would be 3 to 5 times as many teams.

When the "big four" faced rival leagues in the 60s and 70s, the established leagues won because they HAD the prestige of being the best league with the best players. But MLS just doesn't have that.


When talking about MLS trying to withdraw from the US Open Cup, I saw someone correctly state that "The romance of the Open Cup greatly exceeds the actual product." Which is 100% true. But the BACKLASH to MLS shows just how much fans of soccer CARE about the romance and the culture of the sport, even though most people just don't pay any attention to the Open Cup period.

A rival soccer league can SELL THE ROMANCE, because the demand for THAT is higher than the demand for pretty mediocre to bad soccer. The gap in talent between a MLS and a rival league just is not significant when compared to that. A rival soccer league with bad players is going against an MLS league with "better bad players." It's like 68 overalls vs 62 overalls.

 

[varsaku]

I agree. Hence the "rival league" aspect of it.

If a rival league based on the PRO/REL, "open" concept and being on the world calendar were formed, it would be a case of "how many American soccer fans embrace THAT more than the closed system of MLS?"

I think the open league could compete by virtue of having more total coverage of fandom with more markets. The interest in an individual game itself would be, on average, lower than MLS... But the total turnstile/eyeball count would be a lot higher because it would be 3 to 5 times as many teams.

When the "big four" faced rival leagues in the 60s and 70s, the established leagues won because they HAD the prestige of being the best league with the best players. But MLS just doesn't have that.


When talking about MLS trying to withdraw from the US Open Cup, I saw someone correctly state that "The romance of the Open Cup greatly exceeds the actual product." Which is 100% true. But the BACKLASH to MLS shows just how much fans of soccer CARE about the romance and the culture of the sport, even though most people just don't pay any attention to the Open Cup period.

A rival soccer league can SELL THE ROMANCE, because the demand for THAT is higher than the demand for pretty mediocre to bad soccer. The gap in talent between a MLS and a rival league just is not significant when compared to that. A rival soccer league with bad players is going against an MLS league with "better bad players." It's like 68 overalls vs 62 overalls.

I think you are only comparing MLS's quality to the big 5 soccer leagues. The level of play is fairly close or better than most teams from other leagues due to the parity from roster rules. The top end teams from most leagues might be better or equal to the best MLS teams but the mid to bottom tier teams are far worse than MLS teams. This was very evident in leagues cup matches with Liga MX.

If a new league is to do better than MLS and compete with the big 5 soccer leagues, they would have to drastically loosen current roster rules that is primarily focused on parity and prioritization of domestic players. They would also have to spend a lot to attract the talent required for that level of play. That would result in operational costs being closer to NHL teams which would also require similar revenue generation. This would be hard to quickly achieve, making it a heavy loss leader for years which many investors might not be willing to stomach while there is another league that is stable and growing.

 

[Reaser]

The top end teams from most leagues might be better or equal to the best MLS teams but the mid to bottom tier teams are far worse than MLS teams. This was very evident in leagues cup matches with Liga MX.

I don't necessarily disagree with the premise, but I do disagree with using the Leagues Cup as the evidence. That's not a serious competition. The Liga MX teams have a combined zero home matches. They had laughable scheduling/travel accommodations. The entire money-grab 'competition' is heavily tilted in MLS' favor. Also more MLS teams than Liga MX clubs involved so even if it was a honest and fair sporting competition it'd have simple 'chance' corrupting any data to be gained from mid-table to bottom of the table comparisons.

 

[KevFu]

If a new league is to do better than MLS and compete with the big 5 soccer leagues, they would have to drastically loosen current roster rules that is primarily focused on parity and prioritization of domestic players. They would also have to spend a lot to attract the talent required for that level of play. That would result in operational costs being closer to NHL teams which would also require similar revenue generation. This would be hard to quickly achieve, making it a heavy loss leader for years which many investors might not be willing to stomach while there is another league that is stable and growing.

I think the disconnect for me and the rest of the world (possibly with reality, hahaha) is the whole "for a new league to do better."

The MLS is definitely above the level of play in the USL, which is the kind of players a rival league would have and could get.

But I would NOT define "doing better" as the quality of play. The "doing better" part would be "capturing the interest of more TOTAL fans in the US than MLS does."

It's a volume game. The nature of a closed league is that if you don't have a team, you're less likely to care. The other Big Five Sports (not Big Five Soccer Leagues, not sure if there was a disconnect between us on that) GET fans from all the places BETWEEN their cities, because it's the best league in the world and the local team is "minor league." Winning in the minors doesn't get you anything, and a major league team literally owns your best players and can take them.

A rival league does "better" than MLS by:
If there's 125m people in MLS cities, and 10% are interested in the MLS team
There's 225m people in Rival League Cities, and 10% are interested in those teams.
And I think you can get a higher percentage of the markets that are definitely not "Major League cities." AND I think you can get people watching more than just their team with the spectacle of promotion.

The goal isn't to be the best league in the world. The goal is "an experiment on what the US soccer fans REALLY WANT. This kind of league, or what MLS is." Because I'm confident this kind of league would win. It might not be the one that prevails in the business world, but it would force MLS' hand. Which MLS desperately needs.


The fundamental premise of the league is that "You can all be Wrexham," because that's captivating people. It's also capturing investment. There's so many celebs becoming invested in soccer teams as a result. You get Ryan Reynolds as the spokesman when you're starting, like "We can't we have this HERE? Let's start it, together." And all their famous friends and all the other celeb investors back their hometown teams and compete with each other: "It's like fantasy football, but reality soccer."

Think of it this way: If there was a team in the rival soccer league, called the Reading Songbirds, owned by (Reading native) Taylor Swift; where would they rank in popularity and revenue compared to MLS teams? Kansas City Chiefs merchandise is up 400% and they were ALREADY a successful and popular NFL franchise before Swift starting dating their tight end.


Wrexham has showed that the quality of football is actually secondary. It's the culture, the fun and being part of something that people are attached to. It's the romance part of it, not the player rating part of it. We can't get the world's best players, but a rival league could have the romance part of it.... because MLS has decided NOT to engage with that aspect of the sport.