Dave’s Football Blog

My interest in the NFL playoffs seems to have hit an all-time low.

I’m still paying attention, of course, but aside from being utterly transfixed by that shootout in Arizona, I haven’t actually been watching all that much. Saturday’s Wild Card playoffs were mostly background noise in my living room, while the Ravens’ win over the Patriots on Sunday seemed like a good time to go run errands.

And why not? I’m a Steelers fan. The Ravens and the Pats are the last two teams I want to see in a playoff game. If my team were playing one of them, that would be a different matter, but the Steelers’ season is over. I’m pretty sure most Washington Redskins fans weren’t so interested in watching that Cowboys-Eagles game on Saturday night, either. (Assuming Daniel Snyder hasn’t browbeaten their love of football out of them all together, of course.)

Football has always been tribal like this. This is our club, and these are our colors, and we will fight to beat your club and your colors. We love the Packers, screw the Vikings. We support Arsenal and want to kick Tottenham arse. Carlton rules, Collingwood drools. It’s a battle without a war, games in the place of guns, a fulfillment of primal urges that doesn’t leave massive scars upon civilization. This is why we express so much shock whenever real guns come into play, either by choice or by circumstance. We don’t want actual war to intrude on our tribal skirmishes.

It’s also why I was puzzled at some of the comments I read on blogs discussing the whole USL-NASL brouhaha.

It seems there’s at least a small contingent of people out there who think that there should be no other soccer league in America except Major League Soccer. Here are a few samples taken from MLS Talk and The Kartik Report:

“MLS is still trying to build itself into one of the top leagues in the world. We are getting there, but aren’t there yet. The NASL by invoking nostalgia for a failed league that bought big foreign players but left behind tons of debt threatens that. USL threatens that by signing MLS players to contracts that include free loaner cars and paid rent/apartments.

“MLS is the league we should all be following and investing our time and effort into. The investors that put money into USL or NASL are hurting MLS. Can you imagine if we could bring that money into MLS as well? It could be such a fantastic league.”

“MLS is our league and only by supporting the established brand does soccer get stronger. USL has always been an annoying little neighbor with fans who say “look at us, look at us.” but finally instead of continuing to dress up an ugly step sister, we are rejecting her entirely and sending away for good.

“I also call on CONCACAF to suspend all current and former USL clubs from the Champions League. We do not need a hard earned MLS spot being taken away again by an annoying Puerto Rico Islanders team that played 180 minutes of anti-football to defeat a superior TFC side.”

“Neither league ought to be in business and it would be good if those who have supported USL for years focused on MLS this year, with viewership and attending games. Together with one league we can move forward.”

Now, on some level, I suppose I can see this tribalism extending to leagues. It happens with college conferences in America — ACC v. Big East, Big Ten v. Pac-10, etc.

That said, I cram to understand why soccer fans in America are supporting leagues over clubs, or why these MLS fans feel so threatened by the existence of another league. Is the Premier League threatened by the existence of the Coca-Cola Championship? Hell, is the NFL threatened by the existence of the UFL? There are multiple football, baseball, basketball and hockey leagues all over this country. But no, MLS should be the be-all and end-all of soccer in America.

These people annoy me, because they’re basically saying that my local club, the Carolina Railhawks, doesn’t deserve to exist, and neither do any of the other pro soccer clubs in North America — unless they pony up $40 million and build a stadium to join MLS. They’re basically saying, “I support this specific corporate structure over yours,” oblivious to the fact that there’s plenty of room for both.

If the NFL suddenly went bankrupt tomorrow — I know, I know, work with me here — do you think its member clubs would just give up and go out of business? Of course not. The clubs themselves would reform and figure out a way to keep going, and their fans would continue to support those clubs. They wouldn’t say, “Oh, no, we support the NFL, and if you’re not in the NFL, you don’t deserve to exist.” Well, what happens if the NFL doesn’t exist anymore? Does pro football just die? Of course not. It remakes itself and moves forward, just as it always has.

I don’t care what league my team plays in. I’m going to support my team. The league itself is merely the structure that facilitates the tribes, not the tribe itself. That’s why I care about what’s happening in the lower divisions of American soccer, because that’s what impacts my club, and I want my club to succeed. The league in which they play is ultimately irrelevant. Why try to force people to be fans of a race in which they have no horse?

It’s also I’m not paying much attention the NFL playoffs this year. Maybe if I had an urge to gamble on games, I’d care more, and I’ll still watch the Super Bowl, but as it stands, my tribe’s season is over. I’m waiting till next year. So it goes.