Does anyone really know what American club soccer is going to look like in 2010? Because after the news of the last two weeks, I’m starting to wonder.
For starters, we’re on the verge of having two competing 2nd-division leagues in this country next season. The Team Owners Association, a group of former USL clubs disgruntled with the structure of USL, made their big announcement on Tuesday that they were forming a breakaway league. The new league, which remains nameless for the time being, is slated to have seven clubs — Atlanta Silverbacks, Carolina Railhawks, Miami FC, Minnesota Thunder, Montreal Impact, Vancouver Whitecaps and St. Louis Soccer United.
Conspicuous by their absence: the Tampa Bay Rowdies. They had been siding with the TOA all through this saga, but they’re committed to USL for 2010 — probably because they had already signed contracts with and paid their expansion fee to USL and couldn’t afford to break the deal.
USL’s response to this new league? Well, it was awfully snippy. Down to 8 clubs in USL-1 and 8 in USL-2, USL seems a little eager to throw roadblocks at the TOA’s attempt to get the new league sanctioned by the U.S. Soccer Federation and Canadian Soccer Association. The league also puffed out its chest and talked about expansion in new markets, even though that talk has the stench of the National Indoor Football League about it.
Meanwhile, there’s already a monkey wrench in the TOA’s breakaway plans. Joey Saputo, the Montreal Impact owner who was named Chairman of the Board of Governors of this new unnamed league, insisted that the Impact was still in negotiations with USL over the 2010 season. Why would he even say this publicly? All this did was undermine the TOA’s position and made it more difficult for them to attract the 8th club they might need to get sanctioning — or to lure clubs to their side in 2011, which could be the real battle between USL and the TOA.
The only good thing about this breakaway league? It won’t be a winter league. All the talk about American soccer adopting the FIFA calendar is still a non-starter — especially with a league that’s never played before. We have our own soccer calendar. So does Russia, and they’re doing just fine playing in the summer.
But this is all in the lower divisions, right? We’ll still have our Major League Soccer in 2010, won’t we?
Maybe.
The MLS Collective Bargaining Agreement expires on January 31, and the Players Association, upset with the current minimum salaries and lack of guaranteed contracts, is threatening to strike. Both sides are at the negotiating table now, but MLS has already rejected the players’ first proposal and seems ready to dig in its heels and keep things just as they are, thank you very much.
I wonder if these negotiations will end up being a referendum on the structure of MLS itself. Players contracts are owned by the league and not the clubs, who still don’t control their own destiny within MLS’ arcane regulations, and these negotiations don’t look like they’re going to change that.
Even worse, though, is whether the public will even care if MLS doesn’t return next March. Outside of the clubs’ hardcore supporters, few seem aware that the MLS playoffs are happening right now, and that the league’s three most marketable names — Beckham, Blanco and Donovan — are in the thick of it. SportsCenter has made no mention of the MLS playoffs at all this morning.
In light of that, is it really a good idea for MLS to allow a strike to happen? It’s not like there’s no competition. Premier League ratings don’t suck for ESPN or Fox Soccer Channel right now, and the level of play remains much higher in Europe than it is here. Wouldn’t most soccer fans in this country just focus on the national team and the European leagues and forget about MLS if it’s not there?
The next four months or so could go a long way toward determining the future of American club soccer, and it would only take a few missteps for the whole thing to come crashing down, leaving this country back at square one, which would be a disaster. Let’s just hope the folks running the shows here do the right thing. We won’t be any better off if our clubs don’t play next year.
4 responses so far ↓
1 a different Dave // Nov 13, 2009 at 11:44 pm
Dave, a “winter” schedule and following the FIFA calendar are two entirely different issues.
Russia is a so-called “summer” league, but it follows the FIFA calendar – which means their schedule actually extends a bit into both ends of winter/cold weather, to leave dates open for the FIFA calendar.
They have a 16 team league, home and away, single table, no playoff setup, from March to November, which means they have 30 rounds to play over 9 months – plenty of time to stop play for the World Cup and other FIFA dates (World Cup qualifying, Euro Cup, etc). If MLS or USL or TOA wanted to follow the FIFA calendar, the Russian example supports this change, it doesn’t undermine it in the least.
The Russian Premier League is a prime example of why Garber is full of it when he weasels out of questions about why MLS can’t follow the FIFA calendar. In his defense, up until recently most MLS teams didn’t control their own SSS and thus had no real control over their own calendar, so it was difficult to take time off to match FIFA dates. Now that most MLS clubs have their own SSS or are expected to have one within the next few years, scheduling should become less of an issue.
Also playing soccer in winter isn’t as big a deal as you think. It’s mostly a matter of perception and mindset; the old ASL of the 1920s played straight through winter, in New England, New York, Pennsylvania, etc., and attendance itself wasn’t the problem for the old ASL (stupid infighting, factionalism, schisms, rival leagues, and the Great Depression were the problem). Of course back then soccer was a working class man’s sport; people didn’t mind standing out in the snow and rain in the cold to watch a match. Today’s wussified “soccer mom” crowd is another matter, of course.
2 a different Dave // Nov 14, 2009 at 12:16 am
As for the CBA I can’t imagine a strike would happen; it would be the permanent end of MLS. Some American players might find jobs overseas (few would make much money), but the vast majority of American players would either be out of a job or earning even less money playing for whatever clubs survived in lesser leagues. It isn’t in the interests of either players or owners to have a strike; I expect a lot of posturing, followed by modest increases in the salary cap. Of course idiots being idiots, anything can happen.
3 a different Dave // Nov 14, 2009 at 2:06 am
I wish MLS would step in and support TOA, and allow TOA to use the MLS name (ie MLS2) for marketing purposes. MLS wouldn’t have to spend a dime, and they could have a ready-to-hand reserve league/farm league that would also be a “holding area” for clubs/markets that wished to eventually move up to MLS if the right ownership group/SSS deal came about (ie, Montreal, Tampa Bay, Miami, Atlanta, Carolina, St. Louis, etc).
In other words, it wouldn’t be the impractical “promotion/relegation” setup that purists want, but it would be a practical setup for future MLS expansion (ie, following the Seattle/Vancouver/Portland example). New owners wouldn’t need to have a club in MLS2 to win an expansion bid for MLS, but it wouldn’t hurt and would give the MLS owners a chance to watch a potential new owner actually running a club for a few years in MLS2 before making a decision for or against allowing the new ownership into MLS.
Having the MLS2 name would also give the TOA a lot more credibility and give them more marketing opportunities than the TOA could ever expect to earn on their own. Right now the TOA breakaway league doesn’t look very stable or credible. They need some help.
I suppose MLS doesn’t do this for the same reason they don’t do it with USL: too many conflicting agendas. Both USL and TOA occasionally make noises about going “big league” which doesn’t jibe with being a permanent junior partner to MLS. Realistically though USL and even most TOA owners must know they don’t have the deep pockets for MLS (with the exception of Montreal and maybe St. Louis) and would need larger investors to compete with MLS – larger investors who probably would rather invest in MLS if given the chance.
4 a different Dave // Nov 14, 2009 at 2:15 am
One more thing about an MLS strike: MLS could hire new players, easily, for the duration of a strike. MLS single entity structure means that they are immune from antitrust charges, as has already been recognized in the courts. MLS is a single entity and therefore cannot be charged with “colluding with itself” to fix wages.
MLS players really are not holding any of the cards, here. The only thing pushing MLS to increase wages is the desire to improve the quality of the league.