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Old 02-12-2014, 04:10 PM
 
358 posts, read 447,864 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Aldous9 View Post
Soccer is not basketball. In basketball College is a good place to learn the game. There are a lot of good coaches and the competition is very high.

The problem with the draft, as I stated earlier, is that for some players it is an unnecessary barrier to entry to get into the league. It's also not fair to the players who should be allowed to decide where they start their careers. Especially considering how low wages are (this isn't the NBA where a 1st round pick becomes a millionaire). Tell me how a player from Michigan enters MLS without first having to go to college and then entering the draft?
Well, that brings up another question. Why must MLS draft players out of college only? Why can't they draft high school players, like baseball does?

I know, I know... soccer is not baseball. But this would solve a lot of problems.

And now that USL Pro is becoming a farm league for MLS, they should just be able to draft high school players and have them play in USL Pro until they are ready.
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Old 02-14-2014, 01:02 AM
 
255 posts, read 400,580 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Pete. View Post
Well, that brings up another question. Why must MLS draft players out of college only? Why can't they draft high school players, like baseball does?

I know, I know... soccer is not baseball. But this would solve a lot of problems.

And now that USL Pro is becoming a farm league for MLS, they should just be able to draft high school players and have them play in USL Pro until they are ready.

They don't draft out of college only. Freddy Adu ring a bell? He was 14 when he was drafted by DC United.

The whole concept of the draft is just really stupid for soccer. It's stupid for any league where you aren't the only league in that sport. It works fine for the NFL because they are the only American football league on the planet. It works for the NBA because they have no competition from other leagues.

But you have rookies entering MLS making 40k. Is it really fair that you should be able to tell them where they can begin their career?

As far as I can tell the only reason the MLS draft exists in MLS is because other American sports have it.
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Old 02-15-2014, 09:01 AM
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I think I may have been a little exaggerative... the MLS has potential.
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Old 02-18-2014, 06:12 PM
 
28,896 posts, read 53,944,208 times
Reputation: 46662
Quote:
Originally Posted by Aldous9 View Post
How do you explain the very good ratings that the EPL is getting on NBC? Most of those games are on early in the morning here and they are still pulling good ratings.

The World Cup gets better TV ratings than the World Series.

The Euro championships get good ratings on ESPN. Same goes for the USNT games against Mexico. In fact, all USNT games are way up ratings wise.

The sport has grown leaps and bounds here.
The most recent EPL game I can immediately find ratings on earned a 0.8 share. Just for comparative purposes, that number was bested by the Beef O'Brady's bowl pitting Ohio and East Carolina.

In the World Cup, the numbers were juiced by the US playing England, but the numbers plunged after that. What's more, I'm thinking that we're talking about MLS here, not the World Cup where national pride is at stake in June when there's nothing else on television except the increasingly irrelevant NBA. Hold the World Cup in October, and you can pretty much bet that American viewership would be rock bottom.

And the game against Mexico? Well, this country has somewhere around 13 million Mexican immigrants. Of course they're going to watch.

If the sport were growing by leaps and bounds, then why was there more than a 7% drop in youth participation from 2008-12, as much as baseball?
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Old 02-18-2014, 06:13 PM
 
Location: yeah
5,717 posts, read 16,292,780 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by cpg35223 View Post
I guess what I'm suggesting is that no amount of re-engineering is going to make a difference. If soccer hasn't captured the imagination of Americans after decades and decades, it's never going to. I know that's an unpopular opinion, but that's pretty much the way things are.
So you're predicting the future and you expect us to believe in your clarvoyance? Your brand of armchair surveying has always been combatting slow growth of the game. It would take nothing short of your entire family loving the sport tomorrow morning for you to recognize any progress. I'd have loved to hear your views on pro football in 1950 or basketball in 1970.

And that lacrosse stat was just comical.
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Old 02-18-2014, 06:17 PM
 
28,896 posts, read 53,944,208 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by krudmonk View Post
So you're predicting the future and you expect us to believe in your clarvoyance? Your brand of armchair surveying has always been combatting slow growth of the game. It would take nothing short of your entire family loving the sport tomorrow morning for you to recognize any progress. I'd have loved to hear your views on pro football in 1950 or basketball in 1970.

And that lacrosse stat was just comical.
Watch it soar, man. In my region, soccer leagues are giving up having teams over the age of 10 because they've all migrated to lacrosse. Why? Because it's fast, physical, non-stop, and has a lot more scoring.

Actually, I had a son play for 14 years. I didn't prod him. He just played. And when he and the rest of his teammates don't watch professional soccer, that tells me a great deal.

So yeah. Forty years of browbeating over soccer with everyone from Beckham to Pele being imported over here to make it work, millions upon millions of kids playing the game over the past umpteen years, and EPL still can't beat the Beef O'Brady Bowl in the TV ratings. You tell me.
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Old 02-18-2014, 07:56 PM
 
Location: Under a bridge
2,420 posts, read 3,829,077 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BrianH View Post
Fans haven't totally tuned it out but two things happened this year 1) There couldn't have been two worse teams in the final 2) The playoffs were dragged out for so long I didn't even watch a game after the first round.

My assessment, playoffs are stupid and boring. There needs to be a league format, this playing one team 3 times and another 1 and ridiculous forced rivalry's are a bad idea. If you want to have a post season tournament fine, revamp the US Open where teams cant buy rounds and have the semi's after the MLS has done its season.
What do you mean there couldn't have been two worse teams in the final? These were the BEST two teams because they beat their opponents to get to the cup. If anything, I think ESPN has to take some of the blame. ESPN is mediocre at best in regards to their soccer presentation.

-Cheers.
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Old 02-18-2014, 08:09 PM
 
Location: Under a bridge
2,420 posts, read 3,829,077 times
Reputation: 2496
Quote:
Originally Posted by cpg35223 View Post
I don't hate soccer. I really don't. I'm not one of these knee-jerk critics of the game. But the MLS will have an uphill climb no matter how much tinkering you do. For while soccer is the primary sport in most of the world's countries, it doesn't even register a blip in the U.S. or Canada because it has to get in line behind football, baseball, basketball, hockey, golf, and auto racing. Even lacrosse is coming up fast on the horizon, with a 141% increase in participation over the past five years, while all other youth sports seem to be in decline.

It isn't a matter of exposure, given the sheer numbers of children who grew up playing soccer in their youth. It's not as if Americans don't know how the game is played, again given the sheer number of people who played or watched on the sidelines. It's just that soccer doesn't interest Americans the way other sports do. Every four years, we kind of get excited about the World Cup, then lose interest the moment we lose to Upper Volta or Oman or Trinidad.

I guess what I'm suggesting is that no amount of re-engineering is going to make a difference. If soccer hasn't captured the imagination of Americans after decades and decades, it's never going to. I know that's an unpopular opinion, but that's pretty much the way things are.
BINGO. Good post. Too many sports/leagues in front of MLS. With that being said put me in the group of fans that supports the MLS.

-Cheers.
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Old 02-19-2014, 10:30 AM
 
Location: yeah
5,717 posts, read 16,292,780 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by cpg35223 View Post
Watch it soar, man. In my region, soccer leagues are giving up having teams over the age of 10 because they've all migrated to lacrosse. Why? Because it's fast, physical, non-stop, and has a lot more scoring.

Actually, I had a son play for 14 years. I didn't prod him. He just played. And when he and the rest of his teammates don't watch professional soccer, that tells me a great deal.

So yeah. Forty years of browbeating over soccer with everyone from Beckham to Pele being imported over here to make it work, millions upon millions of kids playing the game over the past umpteen years, and EPL still can't beat the Beef O'Brady Bowl in the TV ratings. You tell me.
You are arguing on two disparate planes and then mashing it all together in the end. Soccer still loses to some TV event you picked out...while lacrosse is growing and rising compared to where it was before.

Now compare the participation, ratings, and cultural relevance of soccer directly to lacrosse. See how all that you said about soccer's uphill battle applies 100x over to lacrosse.
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Old 02-19-2014, 01:21 PM
 
Location: IL
2,987 posts, read 5,225,831 times
Reputation: 3111
Quote:
Originally Posted by cpg35223 View Post
The most recent EPL game I can immediately find ratings on earned a 0.8 share. Just for comparative purposes, that number was bested by the Beef O'Brady's bowl pitting Ohio and East Carolina.

In the World Cup, the numbers were juiced by the US playing England, but the numbers plunged after that. What's more, I'm thinking that we're talking about MLS here, not the World Cup where national pride is at stake in June when there's nothing else on television except the increasingly irrelevant NBA. Hold the World Cup in October, and you can pretty much bet that American viewership would be rock bottom.

And the game against Mexico? Well, this country has somewhere around 13 million Mexican immigrants. Of course they're going to watch.

If the sport were growing by leaps and bounds, then why was there more than a 7% drop in youth participation from 2008-12, as much as baseball?

1. Most watched EPL game in America happened on a Sunday in January 2014 (1.01 share), which was on at something like 8AM PST...primetime viewing...I was at church with the kids. I remember, because there were two boys in front of me one wearing the chelsea home jersey and the other had the away jersey on.
http://www.awfulannouncing.com/2014/january/nhl-epl-doing-well-for-nbc.html

2. MLS has a TV viewership problem, that is for sure. MLS is getting people to the stadium, but not on the TV.

3. About the participation decline in soccer, I gave my views on that. Short story: The general trend of kids not playing sports, increasing options, and the end of the participation boom and onto normalization. Lacrosse is a tiny sport, so seeing big increases is not surprising...and don't get me wrong, I am glad to see an increase in that sport, and I think participation will grow in the future. Football participation did decline also in the same period, but that seems slightly popular.
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