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New look MLS has fresh faces, different alignment, high hopes
Posted: Wednesday March 15, 2000 10:17 PM
By Michael Lewis, CNNSI.com Every year is an important year for Major League Soccer. It just depends on which challenges the league is facing. This year's challenges include getting the league back on track; increasing attendance, fan awareness and TV ratings; and finding soccer-specific stadiums. As MLS enters its fifth season this Saturday, commissioner Don Garber offers no quick-fix solutions. Garber, who enters his first full year as commissioner, didn't make any bold predictions, such as saying that attendance must rise to 16,000 or the season would be considered a major disappointment. "The goal for the year is to have a breakout year," he said, "not explode out or not to go in reverse. ... Our goals is to strive for some improvement from last year. We're not setting our sights too high. We would like to see increased attendance, increased TV ratings and increased excitement." But there are many questions that need to be answered if MLS wants to continue to survive and perhaps someday thrive. Can Garber turn things around in his first season? Will the rule changes help? Will fans return? Will the new, high-profile foreign signings help attendance? Can TV rating increase? Will any team add any soccer-specific stadiums? Can the New York/New Jersey MetroStars be revived? And can MLS find owners for the league-run franchises in Tampa and Dallas? Like it or not, there are many more question marks than exclamation points. Perhaps by MLS Cup 2000 -- which will be played at RFK Stadium in Washington on Oct. 15 -- some of those question marks will be erased. Here are some of the issues that the league faces this season: The basicsThe regular season kicks off on Saturday, March 18 and winds down on Sept. 10. The playoffs begin on Sept. 15.Instead of two, six-team conferences, the 12 teams will be broken into three four-team divisions. Three-time champion D.C. United, New York/New Jersey MetroStars, New England Revolution and Miami Fusion form the Eastern Division. The Chicago Fire, Dallas Burn, Tampa Bay Mutiny and Columbus Crew comprise the Central Division. And the Los Angeles Galaxy, Colorado Rapids, Kansas City Wizards and San Jose Earthquakes make up the Western Division. Each team will play 32 regular-season games with the top eight clubs reaching the playoffs. Teams will earn three points for a win, one point for a tie, and of course, none for a loss. Each of the three divisional winners will qualify with the next five teams with the best records. In other words, it is possible to finish in second place and not qualify for the postseason. It is also possible to finish in fourth -- and last place -- and make the playoffs. The exact playoff structure has not been determined. The rule changesUnless you have been living in a cave, you already know that the controversial shootout met a well-deserved, timely demise in the offseason.Games won't be artificially determined. They will be decided in regulation. If the teams are tied, two five-minute sudden-death overtimes will be used. First team to score wins. The change has met with near unanimous approval by players, coaches and fans alike. "Any time we can move closer to the way the game is played in the rest of the world, we can compare our players better to the rest of the world," Colorado Rapids coach Glenn Myernick said. "Then we bring better credibility to the sport and how we are perceived by the rest of the world." He received no argument from Chicago Fire midfielder Chris Armas, who wasn't sad to see the shootout thrown onto the scrap heap. "It's more realistic," he said. "It's a good to reward a team with a tie and put more pressure on teams to win. ... At the end of a tied basketball game, do they send the best free throw shooters to the line to determine it? Why play the game?" Interestingly, the only dissenter on the issue of overtime was San Jose Earthquakes coach Lothar Osiander. "All you get is an extra 10 minutes," he said. "It doesn't make the game any better. How does this make the game any better? Nobody else does it. Why should we? The extra 10 minutes is not going to change the world." Other rule changes: official time will be kept by the referee; the game clock will count up, instead of down; and stoppage time will be added at the end of the first half, regulation and overtimes. The stadium issueThe ultimate goal is to have every team playing in a soccer-specific stadium. To date, only the Columbus Crew have built a new one, while the Miami Fusion play in a soccer-specific stadium that has seen better days.Another team might be added to the club as early as Wednesday. The league is expected to announce that the Los Angeles Galaxy will unveil definite plans for a new soccer-specific stadium in southern California, according to reliable league-wide sources, at the MLS First Kick 2000 press conference in New York City. Soccer-specific stadiums are needed for the ultimate survival of this league, so teams can set their own playing dates, ticket prices and avoid the embarrassment of playing important matches with football lines on the field. "The biggest challenge for us and one of the biggest obstacles in soccer is soccer-specific stadiums," Garber said. "We are taking a pro-active approach." Remember MLS Cup '99, with the football lines at Foxboro Stadium? And remember that Tampa was not awarded MLS Cup 2000 because a college football game was scheduled too close to the game. MLS did not want to repeat history. The MetroStars have been searching for a new home for three years, and talks with the owners of the New York Yankees and New Jersey Nets to continue about building a sports complex in Newark. Phil Anschutz, owner of the Chicago Fire, Colorado Rapids and Galaxy has been pursuing stadiums for all three of his teams. AttendanceContrary to popular belief and reports, MLS attendance hasn't decreased in the past couple of seasons, it has stagnated. That's a big difference.Subtract the first six dates of the 1996 season, and attendance has stayed virtually the same. You can look it up: The league averaged 17,406 in 1996, then has practically flat-lined since: 14,619 in 1997, 14,312 in 1998 and 14,282 in 1999. The challenge for Garber and the 12 teams is to find a way to increase attendance and get that initial buzz and excitement back. While the Columbus Crew must be commended for leading the league in attendance at 17,696, teams such huge markets as New York (14,706 last year) and Los Angeles (17,632) should be leading the pack with average attendances exceeding 20,000 a game. "We've got to continue to show progress in ticket sales," said Kevin Payne, general manager and president of three-time champion D.C. United. "We've got to show progress in Los Angeles and New York. I'm confident New York will turn around. They've got some star power in New York. They have fans who are dying to support that team." Much of the Los Angeles Galaxy's success at the gate many times has been left up to the whims of the local Hispanic community, which doesn't decide to attend a match until game day. If the Galaxy is playing well, there is a huge walk-up crowd. If it isn't, attendance suffers. "I don't think there's a magic number," Payne said. "I would like to see us make some specific progress and show viability." Season ticket sales are lagging behind last year's totals, but they cannot be evaluated until May 1, when teams have played at least two home games apiece. As of March 8, the top four teams in season tickets were Columbus at 7,765, United at 4,758, New England at 3,938 and New York/New Jersey at 3,130. TVFor the first time, the league has a definitive destination day or night-Saturday. Some Saturdays will be filled with as many as two or three matches in two languages on three different networks. ABC will televise 12 matches, while ESPN and espn2 picking up the rest of the English-language schedule. Telemundo has been awarded the Spanish-language rights after Univision owned them for four seasons. Telemundo, however, doesn't have the same the drawing power of Univision."Now we have some continuity, it's important to see some growth in our television ratings," Payne said. "In two of our partners that had games on at the same times last season, espn2 and Univision, we saw some pretty good growth. I'm hopeful with a more consistent schedule we'll see growth in all four networks." By the way, here's a great early-season match-up on ABC on March 25: defending champion United vs. the Los Angeles Galaxy in a rematch of MLS Cup 2000. The product
Slowly, but surely, the on-field product has improved. The league has allowed the promising and average and marginal American player to play and improve. In all deference to the United Soccer Leagues, do you think Chicago Fire defensive midfielder Chris Armas would have blossomed into a U.S. national team player in the A-League or D3 Pro League? "The game is getting better," San Jose Earthquakes coach Lothar Osiander said. "From the first year it's a definite improvement. The league is doing a decent job of fulfilling a lot of promises and expectations. What we need is a few more spectators." Those new, young, exciting Americans might make some headlines this season. United has two of them in Bobby Convey, who, at 16, is the youngest player signed by the league, and Chris Albright, who is expected to become a regular goalscorer. The Fire boasts forward DaMarcus Beasley, who captured the Silver Ball honors as the second best player at the Under-17 world championships last year. In the first several years, teams opted for big names as coaches, regardless if they were American or not. Now, each of the 12 head coaches were either born in the United States or have solid American backgrounds. "The coaches are more suited for their roles today than the original coaches," Chicago Fire general manager Peter Wilt said. "Teams need to hire coaches who are familiar with the American soccer player and familiar with how Major League Soccer works. That leads to a better product on the field." Let's face it. World soccer economics will not allow MLS to bring in a Rivaldo or Ronaldo. The league will settle for well-known players who are on the other side of 30. Ironically, that goes against the league's original concept of bringing in older players. The league wanted to position itself as far is it could from the NASL, which brought in many foreign players over 30. Some were still in their prime or just past it, while others were over the hill. As long as MLS doesn't stock its roster only with over-30 foreign players and bring in some promising youngsters, such as Chicago's exciting forward Junior Agogo, this mix could work. This year's class of foreign players is the best since 1996, which includes German defender Lothar Matthaeus (New York/New Jersey MetroStars), Colombian forward Adolfo Valencia (MetroStars), Iranian forward Khodadad Azizi (San Jose Earthquakes) and Bulgaria World Cup star Hristo Stoichkov. And according to sources, the league is not finished signing foreign players. The MetroStarsIs it fair to single out one team to tie to the survival of the league? In this case it is, especially if it's the team from the No. 1 media market in the world. The MetroStars have woefully underachieved in their first four seasons, punctuating it with an all-time league worst abysmal 7-25 season in 1999.How important is the success of a team in the New York market? "Critical, vital or any other adjective of that sort you want to use," MetroStars general manager Nick Sakiewicz said. "This has to be the most fertile market for soccer there is. In Tampa I was part general manager, part evangelist. Here, they (the fans) know the game, they are passionate about the game and they want to participate with us. It's a very responsive market." Especially when a New York team wins. If the MetroStars become competitive and successful, it could go a long way in helping the league stay afloat. If they continue their malaise, it very well could bring down the league. The MetroStars cleaned house during the offseason. They replaced general manager Charlie Stillitano with Sakiewicz, the 1999 MLS executive of the year with the Tampa Bay Mutiny, and the enigmatic Bora Milutinovic with Octavio Zambrano as coach. Zambrano, who enters the season with the best winning percentage (.684) in league history has used that same broom to restructure the team with three new foreigners, including Matthaeus and Valencia. "The days of stepping on New York is over," Sakiewicz said. Added Garber: "I feel very, very good where we are with the MetroStars. We've got the best young general manager in the league." While the pieces are in place for the MetroStars to make a dramatic rise in the standings and attendance, there are other question marks in the league. The Kansas City Wizards still lagged behind the rest of the pack in average attendance at 8,183. The Fusion, which has refused to rename itself the South Florida Fusion despite the fact in plays in Fort Lauderdale and not Miami, struggled at 8,689. No buyer has been found for three-time MLS champion D.C. United. The asking price is a reported $25 million. And, the Dallas Burn and Tampa Bay, two league-operated teams since the MLS's inception since 1996, are still looking for investor-owners to run the show. The lawsuitFiled in 1997, the lawsuit by the MLS Players Association finally goes to trial in U.S. District Court in Boston on Sept. 18. The suit challenges the single-entity concept from which MLS operates. The judge is expected to rule very soon on the single entity motion brought by the players.
"We're extremely hopeful," Semioli added. "But to be honest from what we gathered already from the delay that the judge has not ruled on in a couple of years, it makes you believe that he doesn't want to rule on this one way or another right now. He's probably going to put out an opinion. It's not going to be a decision, but it probably will be a let it go to trial type idea. If it goes our way, it will give us great leverage with the league, which they may want to come down and talk to us about the stuff." No executives or owners wanted to talk on the record about it. Garber's response: "We would like to paying our players, not our lawyers. We hope some logic will come out of this." ExpansionThe league hopes to add two teams by 2002, although it could add one for the 2001 season and another for the next year. An expansion site could be announced at Wednesday's gathering, sources said. One strong possibility would be a second team in the New York market, sources said. Even though the MetroStars have struggled in New Jersey, Garber is bullish on a team in New York City. MetroStars owners Stuart Subotnick and John Kluge are expected to pick up the option of operating a New York City expansion team. "It's a damn big city," Garber said. "It's the media capital of the world. I think it would work." Earlier this week, Garber was in Atlanta, meeting with several soccer community forces such as former North American Soccer League commissioner Phil Woosnam, to discuss the possibility of a team in that city. Garber used Atlanta as an example of a perfect candidate because it fits the criteria for expansion: It has committed to build a soccer specific stadium, has the support of the soccer community (80,000 registered players) and is committed to local ownership. Among the cities and areas being considered for expansion, according to Garber: Houston, Philadelphia, the Pacific northwest (Seattle or Portland), Raleigh, N.C., Sacramento, Calif., and Rochester, N.Y., which has become a soccer hotbed, thanks to perennial A-league power Rochester Raging Rhinos.
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