To strike or not to strike: that is the question. Or so it was, until this week, when MLS players, did in fact, vote to at least take that posture.
MLS’ regular season is slated to kick off in less than two weeks, and there’s so much brow-beating and discussion of the Collective Bargaining mess that it’s reached the point of nausea. A back-and-forth, will-they or won’t-they, stretch has whittled down the days, and for many fans it’s an anxious time.
Several Philadelphia Union fans, for one, are supposed to fly to Seattle and take in the glorious moment when they’ll finally have a professional soccer franchise. How will fans react when they arrive at Qwest and there’s no game? All that money will be for naught. A franchise that had all the momentum will be sucked dry of it right away.
Predicting what’s next for MLS is like seeing through the haze in Mexico City.
MLS needs to spend more money, and that much is clear. If it wants to be taken seriously, purse strings must be loosened.
Look no further than this weekend — every single game in the English Premier League is going to be available in the U.S. That’s a rather dramatic development, and it’s guaranteed that the Premier League will only continue to make inroads in the States. MLS, who can’t catch up over night, has to at least recognize this, and open things up.
Season tickets to an MLS club are rather inexpensive. But what about the Arsenal fan who ignores the game in his backyard and chooses to save that money on a trip to London for a match at the Emirates?
To go with that, far too many players jump ship to diminutive leagues Scandinavia, and it’s going to cost the league in the long run.
A NASL-like collapse seems unlikely, and giving up the single entity is something MLS will have to do eventually. Right?
Increasing spending now will help keep talented Americans here, raise the level of play, and perhaps persuade that hypothetical Arsenal fan to pick up season tickets and save their beloved London club for a morning at the pub across the street.
What’s wrong with taking a small step or two now? Arguments about this have been tossed about and are as rampant as the rain striking the sidewalk outside, but that doesn’t mean the owners are entitled to walk all over the players and maintain the status quo.
So what is really going on in negotiations? How much is each owner really losing? What is actually holding things up?
Picking a side when both are throwing out their fair share of smoke-and-mirror tactics is an impossible task.
Yes, players who don’t have guaranteed contracts and can’t switch clubs easily are obviously hampered and unfairly treated. They are easy to sympathize with. However, they have jobs, and in a competitive one at that. In a time when many are without, sympathy can only extend so far.
A strike at this point — a short one, at that — wouldn’t damage the league irreparably. It would piss off a number of Philadelphia supporters, and fans around the league obviously get the short end of the stick.
Union fans have spent hundreds to get to Seattle. Owners have lost and/or gained millions. Players just want some respect.
So who blinks first?
I still think the league’s future is a bit more delicate than you apparently do. The fact of the matter is that over the course of its history, MLS has never been profitable, and only in the last couple of years has it taken steps in that direction. The addition of Toronto and Seattle have helped greatly, as has the construction of new soccer-specific stadiums, and the Beckham Effect, while not transformative, has helped.
But it’s still not a widely popular sport in the United States. Television ratings are abysmal, and up until very recently MLS had to pay to even get its games on the air. I’ve yet to see any substantial discussion of MLS goings-on on sports talk radio or PTI, and it’s not water cooler conversation for general sports fans. MLS’s fanbase is still a small group of relatively hardcore fans that actually attend the matches.
So while I think some concessions should and will be made, I generally side with the ownership. I think they’re right in that the league still can’t afford to loosen the pursestrings, they’ve got to keep a tight watch on things to avoid an NASL scenario.
But I certainly agree that a work stoppage would be pretty catastrophic for the league. The new team in Philly, the new stadium in New York, and the enthusiasm of relatively recent additions like Seattle and Toronto present opportunities to grow the league that cannot be squandered.
One more thing to think about is that the NBA and NFL both seem to be careening towards work stoppages of their own, which will present MLS with a real opportunity to capture the attentions and affections of fans which would otherwise be watching those leagues.