Stars and MLS
By: Tom | June 5th, 2007There was an interesting exchange in this interview over at This Is American Soccer with the New York Times’ Jack Bell, when asked about MLS and its marketing.
I don’t think they are very good at promoting. They don’t want to promote individual players for obvious reasons. Because it’s a single entity and if you promote individuals they are going to ask for more money. They are in this conundrum. Sports, everything, is about personality these days. You have to have it. And you get that with Beckham, but then what? After him, who, what?
Well, obviously, Blanco, for the Fire. But here’s the rub; of course, he is – like Beckham – a foreigner making a lot of money, so the Fire sure as hell had better market him to death. But what beyond them? How about the young Americans with talent? American culture is now built, like it or not, around stars. And homegrown stars will undoubtedly have a bigger impact in the long-run.
When I was walking to the game the other day, I got chatting to a couple of obviously new fans, and they asked who the Fire’s biggest star was. Right now (given Blanco does not join the team until next month), it’s Justin Mapp or Chris Rolfe, young Americans with flair capable of playing in an elite European league some day. Yet they are barely known outside of soccer aficionados.
Whilst the Adu-experiment has not exactly gone well, in terms of a young American being over-hyped, Jose Altidore has Adidas commercials and garnered a mention in Sports Illustrated’s list of the highest future earning sports stars (remarkably for a mainstream publication, he’s listed above Greg Oden). If promoted, young Americans can garner attention in general sports culture.
But if, as Bell suggests, MLS teams are deliberately not marketing these non-Designated Players because of the financial structure of the league, how will soccer here ever break out of the Beckham-Blanco model, and have real homegrown appeal? When will the general Chicago sports fan have even the faintest inkling that two of America’s best young soccer players ply their trade here, both with international class potential? What is the way out of this conundrum?
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i think it pretty much does depend on homegrown heroes, someone who both excites true fans and interests nonfans. if there were more homegrown heroes in mls, i think more people would turn out for matches – folks who went to high school or college with them, are from their hometown, etc., and who will grow to care about how the team is faring because they care about a player. to some extent i also thinks this means offering more money to young players to make them think a career in mls is a viable option…
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I think they should go the route of the White Sox (pre-World Series) and the Bulls. Promote 4-5 players at a time, and promote the Fire as it is, and what soccer is. A team sport. That way when you have 4-5 players on the Kennedy Billboards, the players will have to keep their ego in check, and on tv, new fans can get a base of who’s who for the Fire, and hopefully the rest should fall inline. Hopefully.
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This is an interesting subject. In other American sports the players rule the game. In MLS that is clearly not the case. Unlike basketball or baseball, the best players in this country will inevitably head overseas. Does the league want to invest money in marketing Clint Dempsey when they know he is going to try to play in another league in a year or two? Tough call. I think everyone is waiting for the magic bullet, a homegrown player who is both marketable and good. That player would have to score goals as I can’t see much hype involving a holding midfielder or a fullback.
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It all comes back to money, I suppose. MLS needs to keep its best players to market it as an elite league, but can’t afford to do so with the salary cap, and without the salary cap, it risks being another NASL…
I would like to see more elite, younger Americans kept in the U.S. as designated players and marketed heavily. The question is whether it makes economic sense to do so, and the answer right now seems to be no.
But I suppose it’s a similar situation in other countries outside of England, Spain, Italy. The problem in America is the lack of depth behind the top dozen or so good international players, Brazil or Argentina always find new elite talent right away.
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How many MLS teams actually have star power, though? As much as I like Mapp and Rolfe, they’re not stars. Yet, anyway. Jozy Altidore is quickly looking like a star, and I’d be hard-pressed to say he’s not being promoted. Guys like Beasley and Bocanegra, when they were here, I thought were promoted as stars. If being on the sides of buses counts, anyway. McBride was in Columbus, for sure. Donovan is in every single MLS commercial everywhere, as is Pablo Mastroeni.
So I’m not sure I agree with the premise here. The fine line is whether you promote guys to the current fan base, where there’s a lower threshold for stardom, or whether you try to break someone across into the more mainstream consciousness. In the latter case, doing it before they’re ready might even do more harm than good. See Adu, Freddy.
And at the end of the day, MLS doesn’t put enough money into marketing pretty much anything. Who they’re not putting marketing into becomes sort of moot at that point.
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The problem I see is that even people that follow world soccer avidly and live in Chicago often have very little clue about who the stars of MLS are (I know, I was one of them). Of course, that’s also down to local media coverage, which outside of Luis, sucks.
I don’t know much about MLS marketing so I can’t say whether or not Jack Bell’s premise is correct or not. But if it’s true the reason players are not marketed is due to potential salary demands, that strikes me as a problem.
I’m also not sure Rolfe and Mapp don’t meet the definition of MLS stars – how many exciting young American attackers are there in the league that you’d rate above them? Aren’t they the kind of players to promote? Unlike Adu, they’ve already shown themselves able to dominate games in MLS. (Given, it doesn’t help they’re often injured or on int. duty – those things are beyond team control)
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Renya is a great example for the US players, so is Donovan (who I imagine one day will require a DP). There is a reason to stay if they can hit that DP jackpot.
If the league were to go from 13 to maybe 20 DP, with no more than 2 per team, we would see some interesting things happen. Of course, the more DPs we add the further away from a hard cap we get and that’s not necessarily a good thing.
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I like Anthony’s idea. I think the Fire sorta had that going in the early years as well.
My extremely generalized take on it is this.
You have a good amount of American all around sports fans who won’t watch soccer outside the World Cup or a big Champions League final, involving a Liverpool or Manchester United. They may not like soccer but their love of sport requires them to watch once and a while. They only know the Beckhams, Zidanes, Ronaldos, etc.
Then you have the thorne in your side fans who are American, but don’t like American soccer. These paradoxical creatures know plenty of players and usually bother to get to the American players only so they can say how inferior they are to their “own” clubs.
These two groups of fans, when presented with an Adu, or Altidore, or Donovan, or whomever, will automatically dismiss them in favor of a Zidane, Beckham, Henry or various up and comers who will be playing in Europe. These groups will only start coming en masse once they begin to believe that the American talent is on par with the rest of the world. I know so many fans who fall into this category. ‘I’d watch MLS but I know all the guys suck compared to the rest of the World, it must be a joke….hey when does the next World Cup start???”
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No less than Armas said recently he wishes he was just starting out now instead of retiring from the MLS. He sees the potential of the league the way I do. It was a major MLS coup to get Beckham over here. A lot of the older foreign players with talent left are seriously considering making moves to come here. This can only help with the quality of play and add more respectablity worldwide. Now if we can get more media coverage of the games it will mushroom the popularity. Cable TV is a revenue stream, I understand, but the MLS needs more Network TV coverage to get the average sports fan to become interested. The recent NHL playoffs were a ratings flop on NBC and anything the MLS can put together would be worth a try. And how many Yankee/Red Sox games can be shown nationally per year. (yawn)
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Bell’s economic premise is false. Since their is a cap, the up side of creating a star would far outweigh the marginal negative impact of giving the stars more money. Since their is a cap, the League would merely be moving money around if they had to pay star player A more money. This would mean paying non-star players B, C and D less money, but it’s not going to change the total amount of money the League spends on players one cent.
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Thanks for clarifying Peter. I should know better than to listen to a NYT writer by now!
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