US SOCCER

[CAA Flagship]

No chance. The US will continue to care once every four years. The WC is exactly like the Olympics. Do they even televise swimming outside of the summer games? Yet millions of Americans tuned in to watch Phelps swim.

BTW Flaggy, that was a LONG wrong answer.

True about wrong answer for Flaggy. Though more people do watch soccer than swimming outside of that time in the US. Premier League got 440,000 viewers per game and MLS gets 150,000 or so (I think was the number) on NBCSN.

For Gannon, the soccer league viewership is still less than hockey so it is below all 4.

I disagree with Flaggy that the money is there to get enough good players. The top soccer leagues have payrolls of $100 million on the low end teams payrolls and up to $300 million on the high end and this is before paying transfer fees which can be huge. At $6.6 million (including his bonus), Clint Dempsey is making more than the entire payroll of 15 of the 19 MLS teams. Donovan at $4.4 million is making more than the entire payroll of 12 of the 19 MLS teams. The entire league barely has a $100,000,000 payroll (I think) and that would pay for a horrible team in the Premier League with 5 or 6 guys getting 25-30% of all salaries and none making anywhere close to what it would take to get a big name guy to be here.

The best players (in their top forms) will not come over until the money is there. The money won't be there until the players are here which will attract more of an audience. Chicken or the Egg argument

Just for clarification, I said the money CAN be there, not IS there. It comes down to wether or not it can be marketed properly. There is so much entertainment spending in the US. Soccer can get a much bigger piece of the pie than it does now with ESPN type marketing. NASCAR blew up in about a ten year period well after having races like Daytona and Talledega on Wide World of Sports in the 70's. ESPN led the charge. ESPN saved hockey. ESPN also is responsible for the popularity of men's and women's college basketball. It's not just airing the games that matters. It's SportsCenter highlights, pregame buildups, and personalities like Dick Vitale and Barry Melrose that are part of the formula.

[CAA Flagship]

No chance. The US will continue to care once every four years. The WC is exactly like the Olympics. Do they even televise swimming outside of the summer games? Yet millions of Americans tuned in to watch Phelps swim.

BTW Flaggy, that was a LONG wrong answer.

NBC shows damn near every EPL game, and Fox is going to start broadcasting Bundesliga games next season. Networks don't do that unless they're going to make money off of it.

YOU may know those leagues, but the casual fan has no clue. You can't just air games without hype and hope it explodes. Slow growth at best, and I'm guessing you are seeing that. But it's the explosion that soccer needs.

[CAA Flagship]

BTW, did the Galaxy lose money on Beckham? (It was the Galaxy, right?)

[Skjellyfetti]

They were one of the most profitable teams in MLS. It's impossible to quantify really, though.

And on your previous point, I don't think US audiences will flock to MLS. But, American audiences will watch european club soccer even more next year and that will continue to grow.

[tribe_pride]

BTW, did the Galaxy lose money on Beckham? (It was the Galaxy, right?)

His contract was for money from many sources including endorsement deals. He made $255 million over 6 years. Base salary was $6.5 million per year and including the revenue % he received of Galaxy revenue, he got $50 million over the 5 first years (original contract) from the Galaxy. The other $205 million came from other sources (though some of it was the salary for his 6th year (second contract).

[clenz]

They were one of the most profitable teams in MLS. It's impossible to quantify really, though.

And on your previous point, I don't think US audiences will flock to MLS. But, American audiences will watch european club soccer even more next year and that will continue to grow.

This.

The EPL is on at 7am central and average 300k more viewers than the mls in prime

The average us fan knows more about the EPL than the MLS

That number is only going to grow

[tribe_pride]

True about wrong answer for Flaggy. Though more people do watch soccer than swimming outside of that time in the US. Premier League got 440,000 viewers per game and MLS gets 150,000 or so (I think was the number) on NBCSN.

For Gannon, the soccer league viewership is still less than hockey so it is below all 4.

I disagree with Flaggy that the money is there to get enough good players. The top soccer leagues have payrolls of $100 million on the low end teams payrolls and up to $300 million on the high end and this is before paying transfer fees which can be huge. At $6.6 million (including his bonus), Clint Dempsey is making more than the entire payroll of 15 of the 19 MLS teams. Donovan at $4.4 million is making more than the entire payroll of 12 of the 19 MLS teams. The entire league barely has a $100,000,000 payroll (I think) and that would pay for a horrible team in the Premier League with 5 or 6 guys getting 25-30% of all salaries and none making anywhere close to what it would take to get a big name guy to be here.

The best players (in their top forms) will not come over until the money is there. The money won't be there until the players are here which will attract more of an audience. Chicken or the Egg argument

Just for clarification, I said the money CAN be there, not IS there. It comes down to wether or not it can be marketed properly. There is so much entertainment spending in the US. Soccer can get a much bigger piece of the pie than it does now with ESPN type marketing. NASCAR blew up in about a ten year period well after having races like Daytona and Talledega on Wide World of Sports in the 70's. ESPN led the charge. ESPN saved hockey. ESPN also is responsible for the popularity of men's and women's college basketball. It's not just airing the games that matters. It's SportsCenter highlights, pregame buildups, and personalities like Dick Vitale and Barry Melrose that are part of the formula.

It can be there, but whoever put the money in would have to lose lots of money over many years and I don't know that it would be worth it.

The disparity in salaries and competition is huge between the US and European leagues. The NHL and NASCAR (just like NBA, MLB, and NFL) did not have the competition from other countries. Soccer's best players are already across the ocean in the best leagues earning the best money. Try to convince the best European players to leave their countries for worse competition for equal pay is not really going to happen with few exceptions. If trying to do higher pay, MLS teams would need to pay more than the Yankees or Angels currently pay their teams. The numbers don't add up even if soccer got a lot more popular.

[clenz]

Players in Europe are making 300k£ per week....Or half a million.

MLS clubs aren't going to pay 1/4 that

[clenz]

For reference...




Meanwhile the AVERAGE EPL player gets paid 3 million per year (https://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/news/pre ... 22362.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;)


Yep, the average EPL player would be the 8th highest paid player in ALL of MLS.

The MLS will never be even close to any top level European leagues. The best the the MLS can hope for is to be equal to Football League 1...maybe League 2 in England (the 3rd of 4th level)

[BDKJMU]

My question to you though is do you think that soccer has the ability to get to join the Big 4 sports in popularity in the US? If not, I don't think the US will really become the big market to focus on. The big thing the other sports have going for them is that the best players in the world come here to play. That isn't true in soccer and I don't think will ever be true in soccer because we can't afford to pay those salaries. The last US soccer league that tried that became bankrupt.

ManU (who won) had a payroll of about $250 million in 2012-2013. ManCity (who was 2nd) had a payroll of about $300 million. Liverpool (who finished 7th) was about $180 million. Aston Villa (who finished 15th) was about $110 million the same year. Tottenham (who finished 5th) was at $135 million. We can't compete for those players so we won't get the players which does not allow the sport to grow as much here as otherwise.

I would actually argue that soccer has already surpassed hockey as the 4th major sport in the US (which isn't all that hard to do, considering the Big 3 - baseball, basketball, and football, are significantly ahead of the 4th anyway). And it's going to continue to be that way. Like it or not, the "browning" of America isn't going to stop, and there's going to be more and more of a Latin component to America, and with that comes soccer. Just look at the ratings for the World Cup - ESPN is doing great with the numbers, getting 3-5 million for the bigger name games, and for those same games, Univision (spanish speaking network) is getting 5-7 million. That's still 8-12 million Americans watching it (and that doesn't count the mobile app watching which adds another million or so). Hockey would die to get numbers like that. Heck the LA/NYR Stanley Cup Finals didn't come close to those numbers and those are the two biggest markets in America. I'd say it's passed hockey.

But I think that's where it stays. Football isn't going to decline anytime soon and is better for tv than soccer, basketball has the pro and college angles to it so it's pretty strong, and baseball is a way of living almost and it also appeals to the increasing Latin culture so it's going nowhere.

Yeah, but you're comparing once in 4 years World Cup with the US national team to (non national) NHL teams.

I think more apt comparisons would be:

I. US WC games (once every 4 years) to US medal round Olympic Hockey games (once every 4 years). (I'm too lazy to look up the ratings, have no idea how they compare).

II. Comparing NHL ratings to MSL ratings. For example certainly in Philly the Flyers get FAR better ratings than the Union...

[BDKJMU]

No chance. The US will continue to care once every four years. The WC is exactly like the Olympics. Do they even televise swimming outside of the summer games? Yet millions of Americans tuned in to watch Phelps swim.

BTW Flaggy, that was a LONG wrong answer.

Seriously, what are you and flaggy talking about? It's like you picked up posts you made 10 years ago and are trying to recycle it now. 25 million people in America watched the US/Portugal game, and that was in a group stage. More than 10 million people in America watched individual soccer games that didn't include the US or Mexico since the WC began. It already is the 4th sport in America and it's not even close. And it's only going to keep growing. It will never trump football or baseball, but it's not going away, it's not some fad. EPL broadcast rights in America are a hot property, and that's with games that air on Saturday and Sunday mornings. Now we can even start watching the Bundisliga. And our domestic league, which is still several steps below the best leagues in the world, has been going strong for 21 years now and is still growing and filling stadiums. And again, don't underestimate the fact that Latinos continue to be a bigger and bigger part of the American population.

And all of this is without changing the offsides rule or increasing scoring or anything else to dramitically make the game different than it is today. You guys may think that soccer is a deadend street in America, but the rest of America is passing you by while they watch and play soccer. Again, it won't ever be baseball or football, but it doesn't have to be either.

I believe NHL still has far superior ratings to MSL and to the foreign leagues for that matter.

[BDKJMU]

No chance. The US will continue to care once every four years. The WC is exactly like the Olympics. Do they even televise swimming outside of the summer games? Yet millions of Americans tuned in to watch Phelps swim.

BTW Flaggy, that was a LONG wrong answer.

True about wrong answer for Flaggy. Though more people do watch soccer than swimming outside of that time in the US. Premier League got 440,000 viewers per game and MLS gets 150,000 or so (I think was the number) on NBCSN.

For Gannon, the soccer league viewership is still less than hockey so it is below all 4.

I disagree with Flaggy that the money is there to get enough good players. The top soccer leagues have payrolls of $100 million on the low end teams payrolls and up to $300 million on the high end and this is before paying transfer fees which can be huge. At $6.6 million (including his bonus), Clint Dempsey is making more than the entire payroll of 15 of the 19 MLS teams. Donovan at $4.4 million is making more than the entire payroll of 12 of the 19 MLS teams. The entire league barely has a $100,000,000 payroll (I think) and that would pay for a horrible team in the Premier League with 5 or 6 guys getting 25-30% of all salaries and none making anywhere close to what it would take to get a big name guy to be here.

The best players (in their top forms) will not come over until the money is there. The money won't be there until the players are here which will attract more of an audience. Chicken or the Egg argument

Ok, I should have read on before responding to GF. Soccer is still 5th in the US behind NFL, MLB, NBA, and NHL.

[BDKJMU]

In how many of the other 31 WC team countries is soccer not the #1 team sport?

I was thinking hockey might be #1 in Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Canada, and maybe soccer 2nd or further behind some winter sports. But I see none of those countries in the WC.

Is baseball #1 in Japan? And I ssee that have 2 losses and a tie and are done.
I know hockey and basketball are big in Russia. So soccer, if not #1, is probably no lower than #3.

Bottom line is almost all of those other countries in the WC soccer is #1. Yet in the US its not #2, or #3, or even #4. But the 5th biggest pro team sport. And yet here the US is ranked #13 or whatever and doing pretty well. Pretty amazing.

[MSUDuo]

You do realize that MLS out draws the NBA and NHL in the stands, right?

And that the NBA and NHL have been around since, what, the 1920s and 1960s? MLS is still a teenager.

You mentioned a couple of post back about comparing apples and oranges. Now that MLS has a TV contract that can rival the NHL and NBA, it'll at least be apples to apples.

[89Hen]

No chance. The US will continue to care once every four years. The WC is exactly like the Olympics. Do they even televise swimming outside of the summer games? Yet millions of Americans tuned in to watch Phelps swim.

BTW Flaggy, that was a LONG wrong answer.

Seriously, what are you and flaggy talking about? It's like you picked up posts you made 10 years ago and are trying to recycle it now. 25 million people in America watched the US/Portugal game, and that was in a group stage. More than 10 million people in America watched individual soccer games that didn't include the US or Mexico since the WC began. It already is the 4th sport in America and it's not even close. And it's only going to keep growing. It will never trump football or baseball, but it's not going away, it's not some fad. EPL broadcast rights in America are a hot property, and that's with games that air on Saturday and Sunday mornings. Now we can even start watching the Bundisliga. And our domestic league, which is still several steps below the best leagues in the world, has been going strong for 21 years now and is still growing and filling stadiums. And again, don't underestimate the fact that Latinos continue to be a bigger and bigger part of the American population.

And all of this is without changing the offsides rule or increasing scoring or anything else to dramitically make the game different than it is today. You guys may think that soccer is a deadend street in America, but the rest of America is passing you by while they watch and play soccer. Again, it won't ever be baseball or football, but it doesn't have to be either.

First, I never said it was going away or a deadend street, nice try at putting words in my mouth. There is still room for growth and that probably will happen. I wouldn't say it is a fad, but I've seen other "sports" like NASCAR, poker and MMA reach their peak on TV and popularity and decline almost as fast.

Soccer should have a lot more staying power than those examples, but I wouldn't be surprised to see MLS attendance drop. It already is in quite a few places. MLS is nowhere near NHL or NBA for attendance unless you only go by per game. 17 games vs 41 makes it easier to keep the per game up. Attendance is slightly up, but it's only filling stadiums in places that are starving for Big 4 sports and are lower on the totem poll as far as market size. Your hottest MLS markets are Toronto, Vancouver, Seattle, Portland... There are plenty of markets that have seen a decline in attendance recently: Colorado, Columbus, LA, New York, San Jose, DC... that should be troubling to anyone who is an MLS fan.

"EPL broadcast rights in America are a hot property, and that's with games that air on Saturday and Sunday mornings.".... not surpising when you're going up against Saturday morning cartoons and Joel Osteen and you do have soccer fans that have a pent up hunger for games. I read that February was the highest ratings ever for EPL in the US. NBC averaged 609,000 viewers per game which was almost double the previous record. That's a pretty good number, but the article also attributed the increase partly to Olympic coverage the same month.

[CAA Flagship]

In how many of the other 31 WC team countries is soccer not the #1 team sport?

I was thinking hockey might be #1 in Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Canada, and maybe soccer 2nd or further behind some winter sports. But I see none of those countries in the WC.

Is baseball #1 in Japan? And I ssee that have 2 losses and a tie and are done.
I know hockey and basketball are big in Russia. So soccer, if not #1, is probably no lower than #3.

Bottom line is almost all of those other countries in the WC soccer is #1. Yet in the US its not #2, or #3, or even #4. But the 5th biggest pro team sport. And yet here the US is ranked #13 or whatever and doing pretty well. Pretty amazing.

Not sure if that is relative enough. How many athletes does America have playing organized soccer between the ages of 15 and 22? Compare that to these other countries. If the numbers are close, or if the US is trailing in that number, then I would say that is pretty amazing. Granted, there are a significant number of top athletes that play other sports in this country, but I think you still have to look at the size of the pool to see the whole picture.

[89Hen]

You do realize that MLS out draws the NBA and NHL in the stands, right?

And that the NBA and NHL have been around since, what, the 1920s and 1960s? MLS is still a teenager.

You mentioned a couple of post back about comparing apples and oranges. Now that MLS has a TV contract that can rival the NHL and NBA, it'll at least be apples to apples.

Very deceiving post Duo, so well done. MLS only outdraws on a per game basis and part of that is thanks to one team. Seattle by itself is over 12% of the league's total attendance. The NHL and NBA per game attendance is watered down because they probably over-expanded. A mistake that MLS will probably duplicate in the near future too.

[bandl]

"EPL broadcast rights in America are a hot property, and that's with games that air on Saturday and Sunday mornings.".... not surpising when you're going up against Saturday morning cartoons and Joel Osteen and you do have soccer fans that have a pent up hunger for games. I read that February was the highest ratings ever for EPL in the US. NBC averaged 609,000 viewers per game which was almost double the previous record. That's a pretty good number, but the article also attributed the increase partly to Olympic coverage the same month.

[GannonFan]

Soccer should have a lot more staying power than those examples, but I wouldn't be surprised to see MLS attendance drop. It already is in quite a few places. MLS is nowhere near NHL or NBA for attendance unless you only go by per game. 17 games vs 41 makes it easier to keep the per game up. Attendance is slightly up, but it's only filling stadiums in places that are starving for Big 4 sports and are lower on the totem poll as far as market size. Your hottest MLS markets are Toronto, Vancouver, Seattle, Portland... There are plenty of markets that have seen a decline in attendance recently: Colorado, Columbus, LA, New York, San Jose, DC... that should be troubling to anyone who is an MLS fan.

How else would you measure attendance other than per game? Have to use the numbers that are available. Attendance averaged over 15k at 15 of the 19 MLS franchises last year alone, and you figure that will be better this year with the World Cup (heck, DC United, in your own backyard, is already significantly up on last year and was one of the 4 that averaged under 15k.

And there are plenty of markets where there are the Big 4 sports and you still see stadiums fill up. Heck, the LA Galaxy outdraw the LA Kings even with the Kings winning two of the last three Stanley Cups. The Union fill their stadium in sports rabid Philadelphia. FC Dallas outdraws the Stars in Dallas. Same with the Crew outdrawing the Blue Jackets in Columbus. I know it's a function of the stadium size, but MLS had last year (in a non-World Cup year) 5 teams average 20k or more (and that doesn't include Houston which had 19.9 or KC which had 19.7). In an Olympic year last year, when hockey interest is stoked, the NHL had 3 teams (Detroit, Chicago, and Montreal) average 20k or more. And other than Philly not a lot were knocking on the door to join them.

[CAA Flagship]

Soccer should have a lot more staying power than those examples, but I wouldn't be surprised to see MLS attendance drop. It already is in quite a few places. MLS is nowhere near NHL or NBA for attendance unless you only go by per game. 17 games vs 41 makes it easier to keep the per game up. Attendance is slightly up, but it's only filling stadiums in places that are starving for Big 4 sports and are lower on the totem poll as far as market size. Your hottest MLS markets are Toronto, Vancouver, Seattle, Portland... There are plenty of markets that have seen a decline in attendance recently: Colorado, Columbus, LA, New York, San Jose, DC... that should be troubling to anyone who is an MLS fan.

How else would you measure attendance other than per game? Have to use the numbers that are available. Attendance averaged over 15k at 15 of the 19 MLS franchises last year alone, and you figure that will be better this year with the World Cup (heck, DC United, in your own backyard, is already significantly up on last year and was one of the 4 that averaged under 15k.

And there are plenty of markets where there are the Big 4 sports and you still see stadiums fill up. Heck, the LA Galaxy outdraw the LA Kings even with the Kings winning two of the last three Stanley Cups. The Union fill their stadium in sports rabid Philadelphia. FC Dallas outdraws the Stars in Dallas. Same with the Crew outdrawing the Blue Jackets in Columbus. I know it's a function of the stadium size, but MLS had last year (in a non-World Cup year) 5 teams average 20k or more (and that doesn't include Houston which had 19.9 or KC which had 19.7). In an Olympic year last year, when hockey interest is stoked, the NHL had 3 teams (Detroit, Chicago, and Montreal) average 20k or more. And other than Philly not a lot were knocking on the door to join them.

Number of games per season matter, however, I'm not sure how to factor that in to get apples-to-apples.
Price per ticket matters too. Kids don't get into hockey games by the bus load for free. Ticket revenue is an important statistic to factor in. I would be interested to see the ticket revenue of 20,000 hockey fans vs. 20,000 soccer fans.

[MSUDuo]

You do realize that MLS out draws the NBA and NHL in the stands, right?

And that the NBA and NHL have been around since, what, the 1920s and 1960s? MLS is still a teenager.

You mentioned a couple of post back about comparing apples and oranges. Now that MLS has a TV contract that can rival the NHL and NBA, it'll at least be apples to apples.

Very deceiving post Duo, so well done. MLS only outdraws on a per game basis and part of that is thanks to one team. Seattle by itself is over 12% of the league's total attendance. The NHL and NBA per game attendance is watered down because they probably over-expanded. A mistake that MLS will probably duplicate in the near future too.

Well, you can't compare 81 game totals and 40 game totals. That's just stupid.

So what if it's one team? Those are still people coming out for the games.


That's the point of averages.

I guess we can say MLB outdraws the NFL then. 74 million to 17 million. And no one would.

[89Hen]

Soccer should have a lot more staying power than those examples, but I wouldn't be surprised to see MLS attendance drop. It already is in quite a few places. MLS is nowhere near NHL or NBA for attendance unless you only go by per game. 17 games vs 41 makes it easier to keep the per game up. Attendance is slightly up, but it's only filling stadiums in places that are starving for Big 4 sports and are lower on the totem poll as far as market size. Your hottest MLS markets are Toronto, Vancouver, Seattle, Portland... There are plenty of markets that have seen a decline in attendance recently: Colorado, Columbus, LA, New York, San Jose, DC... that should be troubling to anyone who is an MLS fan.

How else would you measure attendance other than per game? Have to use the numbers that are available. Attendance averaged over 15k at 15 of the 19 MLS franchises last year alone, and you figure that will be better this year with the World Cup (heck, DC United, in your own backyard, is already significantly up on last year and was one of the 4 that averaged under 15k.

And there are plenty of markets where there are the Big 4 sports and you still see stadiums fill up. Heck, the LA Galaxy outdraw the LA Kings even with the Kings winning two of the last three Stanley Cups. The Union fill their stadium in sports rabid Philadelphia. FC Dallas outdraws the Stars in Dallas. Same with the Crew outdrawing the Blue Jackets in Columbus. I know it's a function of the stadium size, but MLS had last year (in a non-World Cup year) 5 teams average 20k or more (and that doesn't include Houston which had 19.9 or KC which had 19.7). In an Olympic year last year, when hockey interest is stoked, the NHL had 3 teams (Detroit, Chicago, and Montreal) average 20k or more. And other than Philly not a lot were knocking on the door to join them.

GF, you're better than this. The NHL only has TWO arenas with a capacity of 20k+. Talk about a red herring.

The NHL had 14 teams at 99.9% or higher capacity and 23 above 90%. You point to the Galaxy, but overlook Chivas? They make my point about once MLS expands further and if they were to double number of games, there is no way in hell they would have the per game attendance.

[clenz]

The struggles with Chivas are long and well documented

[89Hen]

Number of games per season matter, however, I'm not sure how to factor that in to get apples-to-apples.
Price per ticket matters too. Kids don't get into hockey games by the bus load for free. Ticket revenue is an important statistic to factor in. I would be interested to see the ticket revenue of 20,000 hockey fans vs. 20,000 soccer fans.

No shit. I think face value on my Caps season tickets is $175-200 per seat per game. Most expensive ticket for United is $50-60. That's upper deck for hockey.

[93henfan]

If we're going back to per-game attendance then, like the soccer fans want, NASCAR, FBS College Football, and NFL are king then.