Sepp Targets MLS

Sepp Blatter is a man full of unsolicited opinions, and this week he tossed some advice towards Major League Soccer: Bring your March-to-November season in line with the international calendar and you “can have success.”  If you don’t adjust to the international calendar, “you will not attract star players from Europe to play six or seven months.”

Even Beck's has found time to enjoy himself

Blatter‘s criticism seems justified.  MLS runs right through the middle of the summer, when European stars (and CONCACAF stars, as well) are shifting gears to international competition. MLS has mulled the idea of a “summer break” to let its most popular players leave for tournaments like the Confederations Cup, the CONCACAF Gold Cup, and the World Cup without draining the league of its money-makers. But alas, MLS has not yet instituted this idea.  As a result, the closest thing the league has to international superstars – players like Landon Donovan from the U.S., as well as Jamie Moreno of Bolivia, Amado Guevara of Honduras, and Mexico’s Cuauhtemoc Blanco – have been and will continue to be consistently at risk of missing major chunks of the summer season due to national team commitments. And as MLS continues to attract a younger talent base from CONCACAF and South America, this issue will continue to become more problematic, with the league’s younger stars like Sacha Kljestan and Jonathan Bornstein of the U.S. and Freddy Montero from Colombia also missing in action.

So switching to the international calendar sounds like a no-brainer, right?  Not so fast.  Don’t forget that MLS was designed economically to survive the long haul, due to the fact that ineffective financial management had squashed earlier attempts in the 70′s and 80′s at maintaining a top professional league in the States.  So here’s the major problem with Blatter’s idea: WEATHER.  England and Scotland are able to maintain attendance at matches during the cold, gray days of winter partly because they have a long tradition of doing so. M.L.S. fans, in general, haven’t developed the same level of devotion.  In most M.L.S cities, games are seen as an opportunity to spend a nice day out at the park, with maybe a couple of hours barbequing and drinking in the parking lot beforehand.

Could M.L.S. maintain winter attendance levels in cold weather cities such as Toronto , Boston , New York and Seattle ?  Maybe.  But it’s a huge risk for the league. The league maintains a salary cap that has only recently been significantly altered to allow each team to sign one Designated Player (also known as “The Beckham Rule”) at no restriction to salary. This rule has worked splendidly for the league in attracting the likes of Beckham, Blanco, Juan Pablo Angel, and Guillermo Barros Schelotto, but it has also backfired with the signings of Marcelo Gallardo and Denilson.

Blatter's MLS comments, another mis-kick?

The important point here is that M.L.S. is still struggling to maintain attendance in places like Kansas City and Salt Lake . It’s not warm there at all during the winter. Moving away from a summer schedule could spell their extinction.  Maybe that’s not a bad thing, as long as recent expansion teams continue to flourish in terms of attendance. Just this Wednesday, the Seattle Sounders drew more than 29,000 fans for a mid-week fixture versus DC United – a number unheard of in MLS for a weeknight match. And that leaves MLS with the tough decision between attracting top talent from Europe by switching to the international calendar versus potentially leaving a large portion of its fan base, quite literally, out in the cold.

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We at Footy Factor would like to thank Andy Taylor from Washington DC for submitting this article.