MLS will be a Top league by 2022

[Cena]

I think we'll be bigger and better by 2022 with more Americans watching the domestic league but in comparison to England, Spain, Italy, & Germany, there will still be a huge gap there, mainly due to the money.

If Garber's prediction comes true, it means that the individual clubs (not the MLS) will be able to buy and sell players and that they'll actually be able to compete for top players in the transfer market. Sadly, I just don't see it happening.

Could you see someone like Angel di Maria saying "You know, Real Madrid is offering me top dollar but so is the Houston Dynamo and I've always wanted to live in America..." Right, neither could I.

I think we may catch up to leagues like Holland, Portugal, etc... but even that's a long way off and again, we don't have the resources that those leagues have.

But I don't ever see MLS being on par with the big four leagues. Ever.

Agree to a point. Isn't soccer the fastest growing sport in the States? I honestly believe by 2030 the USA would have won a World Cup. When i did coaching out there the enthusiasm was incredible and i think this could be the beginning of America embracing football. It helps when your national team is doing well also which it is to a point. You have some good youth coming through, the infrastructure is fabulous, you have great facilities.

This can only help the MLS and i think if it continues to develop it will certainly become a great league. It may never reach the heights of the European Leagues but it definatly has the potential of being the best league outside of Europe

 

[TX Bill]

Agree to a point. Isn't soccer the fastest growing sport in the States? I honestly believe by 2030 the USA would have won a World Cup. When i did coaching out there the enthusiasm was incredible and i think this could be the beginning of America embracing football. It helps when your national team is doing well also which it is to a point. You have some good youth coming through, the infrastructure is fabulous, you have great facilities.

This can only help the MLS and i think if it continues to develop it will certainly become a great league. It may never reach the heights of the European Leagues but it definatly has the potential of being the best league outside of Europe

I would agree with this.

 

[Rogue]

Agree to a point. Isn't soccer the fastest growing sport in the States? I honestly believe by 2030 the USA would have won a World Cup. When i did coaching out there the enthusiasm was incredible and i think this could be the beginning of America embracing football. It helps when your national team is doing well also which it is to a point. You have some good youth coming through, the infrastructure is fabulous, you have great facilities.

This can only help the MLS and i think if it continues to develop it will certainly become a great league. It may never reach the heights of the European Leagues but it definatly has the potential of being the best league outside of Europe

The big thing about foot-occer in the States, from my perspective as a long time youth coach, is that it reflects the changing demographics of the nation itself. I currently live and coach in the Deep South. My league winning/cup winning U16 boys team does NOT reflect the Old School White Anglo Saxon Southern face of the South - it reflects the New Face: mostly Mexican and El Salvadoran, with a good mixture of Asians (Hmong, mainly - a wonderfully mean, warrior culture from Laos) and African, plus the Non-Anglo White boys: Italians, etc. America is, as always, in dynamic flux and the face of our nation is increasingly NOT white, Anglo Saxon. Not even in the Deep South.

 

[pfim]

Soccer has been the fastest growing sport in the US for about 30 years...

I think the issue is that most top athletes 1. don't see enough top level soccer to have an interest in making it a profession and 2. most top athletes don't see it as a viable source of making a living.

The two are related, and it would be great if the MLS could get the following to where more kids are choosing to focus on soccer over am. football, baseball etc...but I still think we're a bit far from that nationally (soccer does very well in certain areas).

 

[wscottl]

Everyone plays soccer in the US, then they turn 12 and play other sports.

I work with someone whose son is on the U20 US team. Like most young talented athletes, he plays many sports but decided to focus on soccer. There are dozens of football, baseball and basketball camp/clubs/clinics to attend in our area, probably 2-3 soccer clubs. He does a lot of traveling outside the area to train on his dime.

 

[Tubey]

Soccer has been the fastest growing sport in the US for about 30 years...

Yes, but let's say we use a numerical scale - when you're starting from a base of 1 and adding +1 every year, it'll take a while to catch the 5'000 Baseball, Football, Basketball and Hockey have!

It may be the "fastest growing" but that's because the space the other sports have left to grow into is minimal in the USA, for example they have a "World Series" in Baseball that just involves one country ^^ Always made me laugh that!

American Football is actually one of the fastest growing sports in the UK too, but it's still completely non-existent in the scheme of things.

 

[Nordecke]

Yes, but let's say we use a numerical scale - when you're starting from a base of 1 and adding +1 every year, it'll take a while to catch the 5'000 Baseball, Football, Basketball and Hockey have!

It may be the "fastest growing" but that's because the space the other sports have left to grow into is minimal in the USA, for example they have a "World Series" in Baseball that just involves one country ^^ Always made me laugh that!

American Football is actually one of the fastest growing sports in the UK too, but it's still completely non-existent in the scheme of things.

two countries.. But, I catch your drift.

 

[Rogue]

If I have my stats correct: "soccer" has more youth involvement than any other sport in the US so that means a lot. The problem has always been - and I say this as a dedicated youth coach - keeping them in the sport. I constantly lose them to basketball and grid-iron hand-egg pointy ball. Never to baseball, though, curiously.

 

[johnnydawg68]

As Cena alluded, becoming the top league outside Europe should be the goal and it's reasonable. The MLS will never be on par with Europe for a few reasons.

1) You can only have so many teams in the league, and you're going to have a huge # of major cities without a pro team (especially considering they've already allocated 3 to Canada). No pro team, no exposure. I live in the spiritual home of soccer in the US (St. Louis) and we can't even get a team.
2) You become a top league by attracting the best players and that means money, which means TV contracts. Unless you can buy the top players in the world, in their prime, the MLS will never even come close to the top. It's a chicken and egg thing. You need money to buy the players, and you need players to get the TV contracts, and the money comes from TV contracts.
3) Soccer will never be more popular than football, baseball, basketball in this country. NEVER. You can't undo a 100+ year head start in the psyche of the American fan. Yes every kid plays soccer, and yes few of them turn into superfans.

Best case scenario is to develop strong academy systems, ID the kids most likely to be pros, develop them within the clubs, and strive for a World Cup champion USMNT. The USMNT wags the tail that is MLS, not the other way around. A run in the World Cup does more for the visibility of the sport in this country than all the Beckhams ever will.

 

[MapleLeafEvertonian]

If I have my stats correct: "soccer" has more youth involvement than any other sport in the US so that means a lot. The problem has always been - and I say this as a dedicated youth coach - keeping them in the sport. I constantly lose them to basketball and grid-iron hand-egg pointy ball. Never to baseball, though, curiously.

Kinda in decline that sport? Especially with youth.

 

[Rogue]

Holding out but slowly declining, I would think. Too slow for most kids.

 

[Kay20]

I'm with the folks that think it will become the best league outside of the top ones in Europe. It'll improve until we get there - Don (as much as I complain) has made some smart choices. Eventually the league will have enough money to attract more and more talent (older stars, younger up and comers). It will feed the top leagues, and still be a learning point where older stars teach the young ones. I have no problem with that. That's what I think it'll be 2022. Better than today, but still not elite.

 

[ToxtethBlue]

I think it all comes down the the level of coaching and the philosophy of American (USA) football. Countries like Argentina and Brasil regularly develop highly technical, exciting footballers. The best will eventually move to Europe, granted, but it's like comparing an average player in Spain to an average player in England, they are quite different, and the Spaniard will usually have a bit of ability with the ball at his feet.

I don't see that with the MLS or the USA national team, I see alot of honest, hardworking pros and good athletes, but the level of natural ability is pretty average really. There's only so much you can attract outside of Europe, there needs to be a good batch of local players coming through to balance things out, and they have to have something about them. Maybe that will be the case in the next few years, I'm no expert on the MLS.

I watched a few games in Mexico and the Primera Division impressed me more than the MLS, and I didn't know any of the players I was watching. That's a stylistic thing though, it all comes down to what your into I suppose.

 

[johnnydawg68]

I think it all comes down the the level of coaching and the philosophy of American (USA) football. Countries like Argentina and Brasil regularly develop highly technical, exciting footballers. The best will eventually move to Europe, granted, but it's like comparing an average player in Spain to an average player in England, they are quite different, and the Spaniard will usually have a bit of ability with the ball at his feet.

I don't see that with the MLS or the USA national team, I see alot of honest, hardworking pros and good athletes, but the level of natural ability is pretty average really. There's only so much you can attract outside of Europe, there needs to be a good batch of local players coming through to balance things out, and they have to have something about them. Maybe that will be the case in the next few years, I'm no expert on the MLS.

I watched a few games in Mexico and the Primera Division impressed me more than the MLS, and I didn't know any of the players I was watching. That's a stylistic thing though, it all comes down to what your into I suppose.

Disagree that the natural ability isn't there, I think it's there in spades. The biggest problem is that Football (soccer) has traditionally been a white, middle class sport in the US for boys. No one in the inner cities plays soccer. The second biggest problem (which you pointed out) is the coaching. Yes there are millions of kids in the US who grow up playing soccer. Problem is they're being coached by parents how know nothing about soccer. That probably is and will continue to change as more and more soccer kids grow up to have children who play.

The MLS isn't bad though. I do think's it's actually underrated. Full disclosure though, I'm no expert on the MLS either. I have no team to follow, so I don't pay as close attention as others on here.

 

[ToxtethBlue]

What about Americans of Central and South American heritage, do they not take an interest?